Top 5 punk-ish bands of 2013

I don't usually do 'end of year' lists, but here is the Good Days And Cliches Top 5 punk or punk-related bands of 2013, based on my last.fm play count. Surprisingly, all but one have had an album out in 2013, so it's actually vaguely relevant. You won't find any tumblr bands here..as much as I want to keep up with modern pop punk, I think I'm slightly stuck in the Epifat, skate punk years!

1. Alkaline Trio



Every time I'm drinking with my punk rock friends, drunk, feeling nostalgic, feeling bitter, feeling trapped, or a mixture of all the above, I listen to Alkaline Trio. Even if they hadn't released the decent offering of My Shame Is True they would still be in my top 5 list, based on play count.

 2. A Day To Remember



ADTR are one of the newer/younger bands on my list, but they've been stapling breakdowns to pop punk songs for ten years now! I got to see them this year, so I was listening to them a lot even before they dropped their latest album, Common Courtesy, which is getting better with each play.

3. Bad Religion



Bad Religion released a new album this year and I was also lucky enough to see them for the first in 2013. Though I haven't listened in a while, True North was on regular rotation for me when it came out first. I took a short break from listening to them after seeing them live, but they are never far from my speakers.

4. Nofx



The only band in my top 5 not too release an album this year or play a show nearby. Nofx make the list through the sheer volume of their back catalogue, which is stuffed full of classics.

5. Chunk! No, Captain Chunk!



Scraping in at number 5 are the French easycore specialists. Pardon My French was one of the best albums of 2013, even if it did veer away slightly from pop punk.

Honourable mentions go to Less Than Jake and Streetlight Manifesto, who both released good albums this year!

Punktual Playlist: Streetlight Manifesto - Linoleum (NOFX cover)

Reggae and ska covers of songs can be brilliant or brutal (that means bad, folks). When they are covers of punk songs though, they usually work. Of course when Streetlight Manifesto are involved quality is assured and as this is a NOFX to boot, well... it's a shoe in to the Punktual playlist.

Top 10 Teenage Tunes: Mike from Flagpolers

Mike is the bass player and occasional vocalist of the predominantly Irish expat band Flagpolers. Not only that, but he is a mean vegan cook and the owner of five denim vests (but don't let that put you off him). He has also been a classmate, roommate and bandmate to myself, and introduced me to some of the best (and worst) punk I've heard, over the year!

Flagpolers have just released a new video, which captures their zany tour antics in the underground punk scene. - Alanso



I love nostalia shit! I’ll try to rip off Aidan’s list by keeping it in somewhat of an order of how I went along and became even more Punk.

Blink 182 - Adam's Song



I know if it wasn’t for this band I would never have gotten into punk and never started playing bass. I first got into them when I was maybe 11 or 12.  My older brother Brian bought the CD and I’d listen to it on repeat thinking I was the punkest thing in town. Adam’s song was always my favorite, I loved the funny songs and love songs, but this one always gave me goose bumps, I’ll always love Blink.

NOFX- Frano Un American



Haven’t listened to this song in a long time and actually am not into NOFX anymore, mostly because watching footage of NOFX made me angry watching Fat Mike talk to his fans like they're shit. But this was the first song I ever heard that had animal rights lyrics,  I was maybe 14 or 15 when I got into them but when this song came out I instantly started thinking about going Veg, I lived in a small village in rural Ireland and knew nothing of animal rights and thought of all vegetarians as hippies until this. I later went veg at 16 which then lead onto me becoming vegan which were the best choices I ever made. Although Fat Mike eats meat now anyways, at the time these lyrics opened my mind a lot.

Rancid- Old Friend



Still my favorite song of all time. Just recently got “Good morning Heartache“ tattooed on me actually after listening to this jammer for over a decade. I saw Rancid 10 years ago and then again last month and still to me they wrote the best songs ever written. I always loved the simplicity of the lyrics in Old Friend.

Minor Threat- Straight Edge



Up until Minor Threat I thought you were meant to start drinking at 15. Even though I never had any interest I assumed it was some sort of milestone that everyone had to do. Especially living in Dunmore, Ireland. Which is what anyone underage only seemed to do in shitty little youth discos.  As I had no money I used to just download Minor Threat’s complete discography through my old dial up internet which took about 2 hours for a 1 minute song!  After hearing this song I claimed Edge pretty much right after, People have a lot of views about Straight Edge and most of them are completely wrong. So fuck them this song rules and changed my life.


Oxymoron-  Run From Reality



Around 16 I started getting into more Street and Oi! Stuff because I preferred the simplicity of the music and lyrics. The attitude that I didn’t find in a lot of punk I was listening to at the time. I still love the 'Fuck The Cops' and 'Be a Punk' mentality that I found in bands in Oxymoron. I bought all their CDs and listened to them on repeat and still do. Classic band.

The Rebel Spell- I See Fire



I got a compilation CD in Razorcake when I was maybe 17, It was pretty good but The Rebel Spell were by far the best band on it. So I went home and with my chubby little fingers I ordered the cheapest Rebel Spell I could find on Interpunk. I thought Todd’s lyrics were amazing and still do, The fact he could sing so fast and still never fuck up, he's a lyrical genius. I used to e-mail them all the time when I was younger and didn’t know much about doing shows, asking them to come play Ireland. Then years later I was living in Galway and setting up shows with my bud Dan in Us Vs Them and they e-mailed me asking to help them with an Irish tour. It was one of the best days ever! I booked them the tour and they came and slept on my floor for 3 nights and it still blows me away how great DIY is. I now live in the same city as them and they’ve became my great friends. If only my 16 yearr old self knew! Love this song and band so much.

Only Fumes and Corpses- Resolution



Possibly the biggest influence on me when it comes to being involved with DIY Punk. I love this band so much and was blessed that we’re from the same city so I got to see them more than anyone else. I always felt like a member of the band and I shared a jam space with them and many of shows. When you’re younger you imagine all the best shows are played elsewhere but when I moved up to Galway it blew my mind that the best gigs you’ll ever go to are in the back of a small pub in your own city. Those shows were my everything when I first moved up to the city, My favorite memories of Galway were Only Fumes & Corpses shows. It makes me sad thinking about it now, they’ve recently ended and it’s a great loss to Ireland.

Foreveraftermath - Ok The Night



There wasn’t much footage of Foreveraftermath on the ol' Youtube so I found the best I could. They were from Ballina, which is like an hour and a half from Galway but I got to see all their Galway shows when they came. Their record was one of the best albums ever made. The first band I was ever in was meant to be a complete rip off of this band just because we all loved them so much. My bros and I even traveled up to Ballina to see their last show and where all the lyrics were written about. Everyone in this band went on to make other amazing bands but Foreveraftermath were my first. And ya never forget your first filthy shag.

The Lobotomies- Don’t Look Back



I think I was maybe 17 when I first heard the Lobotomies, Up until then I only listened to bands who were from elsewhere because living in the middle of nowhere in Dunmore you expect that all the best bands are from elsewhere. So when I first saw The Lobotomies I thought they were the best thing ever and still do. They all looked and acted like they didn’t give a fuck but were the nicest people I’ve ever known. The first night they played they stayed in my living room, They were the first of many dirty punks to sleep on my floor and it completely since then changed how I view music. Your best friends could be your favorite band. I’ve toured with these handsome boys and played some of my favorite shows with them, I love them all so much and every band they’ve done after.


Bob Seger - Night Moves



Not punk but one of my favorite songs ever, Probably because my Dad who’s the best man and biggest punk ever used to play in on repeat since I was a baby. I love this song so much I even got it tattooed across my toes and want to get a second tat in honor of it. I love all of Bob Segers stuff, He has a genius way of making every song sound nostalgic and I’m a big fan of nostalgia. He hails from where I lived as a child in Michigan so I find a certain closeness to him singing about driving through cornfields and Michigan summertime. When Flagpolers were playing shows up north I met this great old dude playing this song on the beach and we sang it together, it really made me smile like a fat child again.

The new NOFX is pretty good

If you are reading this, chances are you already know who NOFX are, so no introduction is really necessary. Well actually, if you are reading this, it's more likely that you were trying to find a zip or rar of the new album. There is none here I'm afraid. Just me rambling on despite planning on keeping this intro short.

'nofx self-entitled blogspot mediafire rar zip download leak' you say?

There aren't many NOFX albums I don't love. Some of their early stuff is a bit too raw for me in parts, but everything that came after that is gold. Even 45 or 46..., their b-sides album is one of my favourites. Punk In Drublic is probably my most played, The Decline is a punk epic and choosing between the rest is like choosing between your kids. If your kids have inexplicably become successful, relatively well-off men-children.

Self Entitled is the first album since Coaster, which is probably my least favourite NOFX album in decades. I really like War On Errorism and Wolves.. but Coaster was just a bleak affair, without the memorable songs that we are accustomed to. Not that Fat Mike and Co give a Valium what I think, or anyone else really (at least that's how they like to portray themselves), but Self Entitled is a different animal.

I'm not sure if the band still have their finger on the pulse of society and politics, but they certainly brandish a  needle to irritate the skin of America. Releasing their album on September 11, writing songs about solving terrorism with hookers and still feeling the need to write anti-christian songs, they have lost little of the political and social commentary barbed with "oh no he di'nt" satire they are famous for. I still think they have lost their way slightly. I can't imagine why Fat Mike is so annoyed about religion when he can just avoid it like the rest of us for the most part, and songs about Reagan and Thatcher (Ronnie and Mags) are well, clearly outdated. (You can sort of blame them for the recession, I guess. Maybe.)

Elsewhere though, it's par for the course for NOFX as one good song follows another with little or no filler. She Didn't Lose Her Baby combines the gritty lyrics of The Irrationality of Rationality, without staggering into the sermon territory that You're Wrong dwelled in.

It is a classic NOFX song in many respects, sticking rigidly to the 'fast drum beat + catchy chord progressions + melodic vocals teetering just on the edge of vocal range' that we have come to love.

Meanwhile, Cell Out seems to be the story of Fat Mike being told by a girl that he's a poser. Presumably the song is his way of pointing out the irony of the situation or something. It's hard to take a sarcastic drug addict at his word but I'd like to think the stories in his songs actually happened and that writing this song, he's over the traumatic experience. Either way it's a fun song that uses a tiny bit of synth to good effect.

My Sycophant is a high-energy affair that harks back to a simpler time for the band, where a chorus could be one line and Melvin was allowed shout/sing over the end of the song. Better still, this is mixed with their improved song writing skills and it's a real grower of a song.

Then there's 'I've Got One Jealous Again, Again', which is an odd mix of depressing, catchy, self deprecating and uplifting. Fans of the band will get the reference, I'm giving this post about 60% at this stage, I'm sleepy.

The most important thing is that most of the songs are FAST, BITING and FUN.

New Music Crush: Symphony of Distraction

Even though skate punk is probably my favourite of all genres (I've been listening to it for 10+ years now :/) I find it hard to keep up with new bands or get properly excited about new releases. Maybe it's because I've heard alot of it before, maybe it's because, paradoxically, I want it to also keep to the same formula, but most of the newer bands pass me by for one reason or another.

Luckily though the good folks at skatepunkers.net are there to kick me up the arse every now and then, giving me access to the most crucial of knowledge, with a kind of collective, manic grin borne out of the joy of sharing music and their exasperation that I haven't heard so many great bands!

The latest find for me from there has been Symphony of Distraction. Ever wished NOFX had a better singer?  Ever wish melodic punk bands could be faster? Ever wish Pennywise had a sense of humour? Well then Symphony of Distraction are the band for you! Their EP Pudwack was released in 2010 and it's fast and melodic, sure what more could you want?

• Really nice production, clear and heavy but not over-produced
• A drummer that plays as if he wants ppl to circle pit rabidly the entire time
• Lyrics that have just the right amount of humour, anger, satire and self deprecation
• Occasional forays into sweet guitar riffs
• Samples that are used sparingly
• Melodic vocals and harmonies

It's hard enough to track them down on youtube...this currently be my favourite song:

• Samples = always fun
• Breakneck speeed
• The vocal melodies are so good
• 00.53: The guest (I'm presuming..) vox and the 'oooohhhs' in the background <3 <3
• 1.30: Samples are still always fun (when not over done obvs)
• There's some of that occasional riffage in the outro, mmm.
   

• Harmonies!
• Uncoventional timing for the vocals <3
• Lyrics that pit resignation to being an alcoholic against a dark sense of humour, always good
• It's just good skate punk, no over-analysis on my part can explain it!

So yes, I've just ordered their new album 'Call It Off John' (which I'm sure is another hilarious in-joke that I'm not privy to) and you can do the same here. I'm sure to be rambling on about the album when I get it from the wonderful playground that is Japan. They also use the facebooked and have criminally few likes so go there and set that right and ask them to get in here and explain some damn in-jokes to me.