Back In The Good Old Days

C Dot here. I'm posting on a Thursday since its moving weekend. I'm moving into my own place and starting a real job... fuck. I kinda wish I was still in high school. I had a great time in high school. Never really did any work. Ran a lot of track. Played a lot of volleyball. Listened to a lot of punk rock and hung out with my friends. Life was good.

My first punk album (aside from every Blink 182 album) was So Long and Thanks For All the Shoes by NOFX. Pretty solid album. It contains, to this day, my favourite NOFX song, "All His Suits Are Torn". This album also has gems such as "Murder the Government", "Monosyllabic Girl", "Flossing a Dead Horse", and "Kids of the K-Hole" to name a few. It also had this song on it, which like most punk rock songs, is all about punk rock. Punk rock songs about punk rock. Fucking genius. 

The next big album in high school was Land of the Free by Pennywise. What a fucking bombshell of an album this was! It's definitely in my top 5 five albums of all time. The sad part about albums like that are that anything released after them can't live up to the standard. Pennywise has put out some pretty good albums since Land of the Free, but nothing near as powerful. My favourite songs on Land of the Free are "My God", "Devine Intervention", and "Time Marches On". It also has the punk rock anthem "Fuck Authority". The whole album is through the roof though (they cranked the volume to 11 for sure). 

Now onto the greatest punk rock album ever made. EVER. This album was written, rehearsed, and recorded in two days over the weekend. There are 15 songs on it and the entire album has a total play length of 22 minutes. It's none stop awesomeness from start to finish. It is of course Suffer by Bad Religion. Suffer was released in 1988 (I was just over a year old). I first heard it in 2004 and, like it did back in 1988, "it changed everything". Every song is unbelievably amazing. If you listen to punk rock and you don't have this album then you don't listen to punk rock. I would listen to this album on repeat for days. I still love just sitting down and listening to it front to back. I think my favourite song off of Suffer is "What Can You Do?". 

Dammit, I still have so many more songs I want to share today... alright, I'm going streamline with my explanations. This one I first heard on The Punk Show in high school. I would force myself to stay awake every Saturday night just to watch George Stroumboulopoulos and the Punk Show. This is still one of my favourite Black Flag songs. The video is just hilarious.

Ok, moving on. These guys were together for 2 years (87-89) and released only 1 full length album but it fucking rocked. It was probably the first big ska punk album (I think, I could just be making this shit up but who cares). And if you're sad they only lasted 2 years, never fear, one of the guitarists and singers, known as Tim Armstrong, went on to form another band, known as Rancid... as well as The Transplants, a pretty good solo career, and an entire record label. I am of course talking about Operation Ivy. 

Ok, last song. Kind of a bonus song just because I love Bad Religion so much. This is "Part III" off of How Could Hell Be Any Worse (the first BR album). This song is incredible. Driving guitar. Jumping bass. Crazy drums. And a kick ass guitar solo. Plus Greg Graffin's one of a kind voice. Can't beat it.

I'm out. Later days people.