Hookie sound alot like early blink 182

Lots of bands try to sound like blink-182. Some unintentionally sound more like blink than they mean to. And somewhere in between is Hookie!

Holy Tom Delonge, Batman! The guys from Hamden, Connecticut say they are influenced by MxPx, Home Grown, Inspection 12 and NOFX, but it is impossible not to hear strains of blink in this. In fact, if someone told me this was a b-side from Cheshire Cat, I'd believe them!

While the band, who are still in their teens, are trying to distance themselves from blink, I wouldn't be so hasty. blink have gone from pariahs to godfathers of the melodic punk world, whether that one GG Allin fan on your street likes it or not!

And also, they don't actually suck, at least  not as much as they'd like you to believe they do. Sure, the recording is crude at best and it sounds like they're using instruments from WalMart, but it's a catchy song underneath all of that and lots of people do like this stuff. What set blink-182 apart was the desire to grow as songwriters. Sure, they maintained the 'loveable loser with ADHD' persona, but their output got steadily better over the years.* If Hookie can expand their MP3 collection, stick to demos for a while, and invest some time and money into their band, who knows where they could end up.

*Until the self-titled album, that was a small dip..
*Also, finding Travis Barker was like winning a musical lottery. Like seriously, that man is ridiculous at taking some shitty riffs and making it a song. A song that can be played on the radio!

New Tunes: Cliffhanger

Cliffhanger are a pretty slick pop punk band from Chicago, who have no qualms about bringing the pop, but are also old enough to remember when punk was on film and game soundtracks in the nineties. They blend new, shiny pop punk, with 'Epifat' melodic punk and for the most part this works really well.

The excessively titled They Used to Call Me "Anal Girl" is the best offering on their three track EP, 'Ignite'.





Songs that have a catchy pre-chorus and chorus = $$$. Plus I've had the 'You used to say' part stuck in my head all week. Thanks, guys.

Their preferred choice of song, City Skyline, was a slight let down to me as it started with Alkaline Trio type vibes, however I get the feeling the singer gets uncomfortable at the thought of his friends smoking, and he only drinks on special occasions and always in moderation. What I'm getting at is that they sound very polished, in that 'might actually get some airplay and female fans' way. So while skate punks in their late 20s like myself might want something with a bit more bite, the people who matter when it comes to merch/music sales, ie. young teen girls, will probably lose their tiny minds over this.

Plus, the fuckers sneak in a breakdown towards the end so the dudes at their shows feel more macho.

'Just Ignite' is a none-too-subtle subtle reference to a band on the brink of going places in terms of music and success, and I hope they follow through on their potential.

As they have their shit together, you can check them out on Soundcloud or any other form of social media there is out there. Get to it, so you can say you knew them before they got big!

Good Songs to Skateboard to (from Yahoo Answers)

Sumo skaters fall over a lot, I'd imagine.

After being re-immersed in early 00s skate punk nostalgia through Aggressive Inline, I went snooping about on the Google machine to see if I could find some other gems I had overlooked or forgotten. There I found the lolfactory that is Yahoo Answers and a question dedicated to skate songs, posed in 2006.

Some of the answers are standard, some are a little out of left field, some are questionable and some are just plain baffling.

This is the top answer. The answer the questioner was most pleased with. While I would include some SOAD in my desert mp3s, 'Pizza Pie' or Chic 'n' Stu as it's actually named, would not be one of them. Personal preferences aside, who the hell would skate to this schizophrenic clusterfudge??

Then there’s some Placebo, a great band to skate to. If by ‘skate’ you mean ‘drink yourself to sleep in the dark’.

The ‘source’ is also adorable. But let's move on.

Drunken Lullabies is a bit more like it. A steady, upbeat rhythm and a pace that gets the heart pumping and you legs push and kicking! Of course, there is a skateboarder in the video, so it’s not the most imaginative, but it’s on the right track, at least.

I don't listen to classic rock so I don't really know much of Suicidal Tendencies, but I see how the song could work for skating. If course it does have the fucking word 'skate' in the title, so give yourself a round of applause Rachel C, you really excelled yourself with this one! This video is interesting as it shows metal and punk bands exploited impressionable teenagers in the 80s too. UGH DAD I HATE DOING HOMEWORK.

This cautionary tale is the story of a kid 30 year old man who had a future until he got a skateboard, and now he likes to skateboard. So, let that be a lesson to you.

Just when you think Yahoo users have redeemed themselves slightly, *record scratch* Whaaaaat? ‘Lincoln Park’?! And while we're here, I was into Hybrid Theory as much as the next teenager, but I really don’t get how they are a skate band. I mean, I know they were totes angry and anti-conformity, just like skateboarding is (screw you, mom and dad!) but they are terrible skate music. Plus, this is 2006, five years after Hybrid Theory. 

Well for whatever reason, Linkin Park were linked with skateboarding, something that I find baffling, but vital knowledge all the same. 

The 'nothing extreme' footnote kills me.

So unfortunately, I don't think I've found an untapped resource of songs to skate to. If you know any, holla at me!

A Nu Kind of TutoR

Top 10 Teenage Tunes: Aidan from Murdock

New Feature Time! I was going to call this nostalgiacore but I'm pretty sure that's what Title Fight are doing, hence the awkwardly long, alliteration-heavy name. Anyway, seeing as I know lots of folks who also have opinions on music, I figure once in a while I should ask them about the songs they loved when they were dealing with hormones and whatnot. 


I think I want to be Aidan from Murdock when I grow up. For those of you that don't know, he is singer/guitarist in Irish metal/hardcore punk/noisecore nice guys, Murdock. (We're not big on sticking to one genre in Ireland, thank goth). Not only this, but he also runs his own studio, The Forbidden Zone. And his day job? Oh yes, he only goes and teaches sound recording! - Alanso


Nostalgia you say? Any of my friends will tell you that I am a very nostalgic guy, sometimes too much so! To me, all great memories are safe and cannot be changed, they are good times locked up in the bank of nostalgia, to be called upon whenever needed. They are mine, and YOU can't have them! Why, did you want them?

So I will do this in some what of a chronological order of me getting older. These are not my favourite songs by any means, they are the soundtrack to memories that stick in my head and make me happy.

Stereophonics - Bartender and the Thief



This song was the first I ever heard that made me realise how loud gutiars could be, and Im pretty sure It is the reason I bought my first electric guitar. At the time I was about 12, I was getting lessons on acoustic guitar playing 'she'll be coming round the mountain' and that was boring me. I heard this song I and thought 'THATS WHAT I WANT TO DO'


Nirvana - Mr Moustache



So I started playing electric guitar, and I thought I was so awesome. I had braces, too much gel in my hair, a navy sweatshirt and beige trousers with white runners, I couldn't talk to girls, and my voice was at the squeeky head wrecking 'pre-drop' stage. Did I give a fuck? NO! Cos I had an electric guitar. I first got into Nirvana from the Nevermind album, which I LOVED, and I remember saving up to get some more of their stuff. I got the album bleach and could not get over how much better it sounded, it was darker, dirtier, and much less polished and I loved that. Im still convinced to this day, that the Bleach album is responsible for getting me into darker, weirder, noisier, music and it is the reason that my band Murdock sounds like it does today. We don't sound anything like Nirvana, but it is in there somewhere.

Less Than Jake - Gainsville Rock City



So as far as I knew, the only bands out there were Green Day, Nirvana, Blink 182 and Korn. And that was all I needed, or so I thought.
One day I came home from school, it was just coming into the summer, and my dad had bought Sky Tv for the house, which had Kerrang, Scuzz and P-Rock TV showing music videos around the clock and my mind was blown away. So many new bands, so many cool videos and all summer long to watch them all and learn them all on guitar.
This was the first song I saw on Kerrang TV and it always reminds me of how good that summer felt.

Alien Ant Farm - Movies



Following on into the next Christmas after I got Sky TV, I must be 14 by now? All I wanted was the guitar from this video! I nagged my parents and ended up getting a guitar which I thought was this guitar, but it actually wasn't, BUT it was an awesome guitar which I still have. That Christmas the house was snowed in, so it was me, my guitar and all the songs that I could learn from Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3. A game I still play every Christmas to this day!


Blink 182 - Anthem Part II



So the next summer I got a part time Job. For the first time I had some money to spend. There was a bass in the local music store on special offer and all I could think of, waking up in the morning, going to sleep at night was THAT BASS. I ended up not buying it, but this song reminds me of that summer. I also vividly remember my friends calling over to get me to go to a youth disco to hang with some girls, and I wouldn't because I was too busy learning the new Blink album on guitar. I have no idea how I have a girlfriend today.

Korn - Clown



So around this time, Nu-Metal was everywhere, and I loved it. I still throw some of it on every now and then. My part time job was cleaning cars. They were all older used cars, and they all cassette decks in them. Every morning going to work, I made sure that in my top right pocket of my overall's, I had Korn's first album on tape in there. The album is about 40 minutes long, and I listened to it ALL DAY, EVERY DAY! And I never tired of it

Every Time I Die - Ebolorama



2003 hit and everything changed for me musically. MTV 2 started showing 'headbangers ball'. All of a sudden things got, heavier and faster and louder. Hatebreed, Converge, Every Time I Die, Poison The Well, As I Lay Dying, Killswitch Engage, The Black Dahlia Murder were regularly on. Late one Tuesday night, Ebolarama by Every Time I Die came on and I could not believe what I was hearing. It was rock and roll but it was insane!
One of the coolest moments of my life happened last year, where my band played a few shows with Every Time I Die. They were playing the song, while a couple of them were wearing my band Murdock's tee shirts, and I couldn't help but smile like the biggest weirdo in the venue, thinking back to 2003 and falling in love with this song/band. (That is me being nostalgic about being nostalgic, cos that gig was Oct 2012, That is like inception shit!)

Between the Buried and Me - Mordecai



One night me and all my guys (2 of which would start Murdock with me), were hanging out in the car park in a retail park. Driving around bollards, skateboarding. I don't remeber much of the details but I remember that this song was blaring thought it.
Also one of the guys jumped in though the window of the moving car and landed perfectly on the passenger seat. It was great!

Moden Life Is War - D.E.A.D.R.A.M.O.N.E.S



This song is probably the reason that I play music and drive around in a smelly van, with smelly guys playing smelly venues.
This song is from 2005 and at this stage we were playing music for fun, with out biggest goal being to get a gig at a local venue.
The song made me dream of playing a million miles away from home and being so tired you cant even breathe. If any song resonates inside me, with any sort of a creed or anthem, then this is it

Posion The Well - Ghostchant



The opening guitar riff and snare roll of this song, actually bring me back in time to 2003. No TARDIS or Flux Capacitor needed.
I remember reading a review of this album in Kerrang magazine, before I had ever heard of this band. And from the reviewers words alone, I knew it was going to be the best thing in the world. I still have the magazine in an old drawer somewhere, I dont think I have ever had music make me shiver as much as this song does when the chorus kicks in.

Twitter-sized reviews: Chronicle

Chronicle: A film-length interpretation of a Korn song, with telekinesis and hand-held cameras. Pretty sweet! 8/10

y ppl no liek me??!