December 28, 2016

Your Favourite Band Sucks



Blog resurgence Post #2. A lot of people have been posting their favourite albums from 2016 this entire month. Though a lot of these lists come from people that only listen to 1-to-3 styles of music, I find value in them anyways. Few break that mold and list bands outside the punk / skatepunk / melodic hardcore / hardcore genres. Really, it's a damn' shame I haven't listened to more of Signal Hill. And I am only learning about Australian instrumental group We Lost The Sea because of one of these lists. So without further ado, here's my list of top 30 releases from the past year, and a little mention of releases from 2015 when this blog was lying dormant. 


Check out   WE LOST THE SEA ⇦ before proceeding




My Third 10 Favourite Albums from 2016:
*30) Rihanna  - Anti 
29) Young the Giant - Home of the Strange
28) Venerea - Last Call for Adderall
27) Implants - The Golden Age EP
26) Masked Intruder - Love and Other Crimes EP
25) Bouncing Souls - Simplicity 
24) G.L.O.S.S.  - Trans Day of Revenge EP
23) Lightspeedgo - Just A Memory EP
22) Suicidal Tendencies - World Gone Mad
21) Last One Standing - Nothing Left to Lose

My Second 10 Faves:
20) Against Me! - Shapeshift With Me
19) Descendents - Hypercaffium Spazzinate
18) Alien Boys - S/T
17) Nofx - First Ditch Effort
16) Skipjack - A Soundtrack to A Eulogy
15) PUP - The Dream Is Over
14) Pulley - No Change In The Weather
13) Thrice - To Be Everywhere Is To Be Nowhere
12) Brutal Youth - Sanguine
11) Off With Their Heads - Won't Be Missed 

and last but not least...

My ULTIMATE TOP 10 for 2016 releases:
10) Ignite - Peace In Our Time
9) Belvedere - Revenge of the Fifth 
8) Useless ID - State Is Burning
7) Death By Stereo - Just Like You'd Leave Us, We've Left You For Dead EP
6) Mandible Klaw - S/T
5) Rebels Sing - The Rebel Spell Tribute Compilation
4) Face To Face - Protection
3) Mute - Remember Death
2)  Kill Corporations - 432 Hz
1) Pears - Green Star


I almost listed Millencolin's True Brew and the solo record by Useless ID's Yotam Ben-Horin "Californa Sound" but they were 2015 releases. 2015 also saw the 1st release from Good Riddance and Strung Out in a few years. They were both excellent. Agnostic Front released The American Dream Died. Santa brought it for me a year later and I've only played it through once. 2015 saw the departure of The Rebel Spell's Todd Serious from this mortal coil due to a tragic rock climbing accident. That hit a huge number of Canadian punk rockers hard.  The previous year were breakthrough years for Youth Decay, War On Women, Badcop/Badcop, Edmonton's Fire Next Time, and likely a handful of others. But that was then and this is now...

So 2016. I must say that I don't really care about the new Brian Fallon Painkillers record. There's a time and place for Fallon records I suppose, and I'm not in that time or place right now. Other bands I've come to be disappointed in are Get Dead and Direct Hit. I don't really get all the hype. The new Brutal Youth record will probably work its way higher up the list but I have only listened to it through about 3 & a half times, aside from their Rebel Spell cover of Bring 'Em In. I also abandoned checking out new Tiger Army. I have Iggy Pop's new album too but haven't cared enough to listen to it. Same with Nick Cave. Nick Cave seldomly misses the mark though. I would probably list KsE if I were more into metal like the olden days. Same goes for Deftones' GORE. Did Anthrax release an album too??  I did happen to like the 1st Green Day single but that's all I've wasted my time on. Truly though, I would be more likely to be caught listening to indie bands Young the Giant, Bastille, or Fitz & the Tantrums with my boo on the local radio station.

2016 was a great year for concerts. It started with about my 8th Propgandhi show in February and The Offspring in March. I also saw Anti-Flag tour on their American Spring album. I saw Black Mountain and The Tea Party with Jesse. Choke and The Flatliners played 2 shows here as well. Millencolin played here for the 1st time since 2002 at the Starlite Room. Definitely a highlight of the year. PEARS came through twice, the 2nd time being with Useless ID and NOFX. Although I missed the 1st PEARS show, it was fun seeing the pre-show acoustic sets of Zach Quinn and Yotam Ben-Horin at The Buck on Whyte.  The Renegade Kid, Seth Anderson, released his 3rd solo project in 2016 thanks to the help of Joey Cape and One Week Records. No festivals like Amnesia RockFest 2014 and Punk Rock Bowling 2015, but I have already purchased tickets for my stag party for Punk Rock Bowling 2017. 2 of my best buds are planning on coming down there with me for that as well.  The notable headliners so far are  Pennywise & The Bouncing Souls, amongst a handful of lessers like Discharge and Cock Sparrer.  I went to my last  The Anatomy Cats show in 2016. They have been inspirational to me the past 7 or so years as well. Sucks that they're done. I missed a couple biggies f'rshur too. Off the top of my head: Fire Next Time with Fred Penner. A Wilhelm Scream.

Lastly, I would like to consider the non-2016 releases that made more playtime than ever before. Off the top of my head, these bands would include many that were introduced to me thanks to the Anxious and Angry podcast and others from pretty great friends both near and far. Thanks, friends!

15) Worst Days Down
14) Noisefight
13) Strike Twelve
12) Fire Next Time
11) The Dirty Hits
10) Lucero
9) Drag the River
8) Civil War Rust
7) Samiam
6) The Slow Death
5) 88 Fingers Louie (since PRB2015)
4) Dearly Divided
3) Moral Decline
2) I Am Heresy
1) Avail

And that's all I have to say about that.




oh. almost lost my thumb in 2016 too. close call. Not as bad as the time I did it in 2011...


                                                                                             

*actually, I couldn't think of a 30th band but I definitley have this album thanks to the library.

December 27, 2016

2016: #worstyearever or whatever

Fuck it, I'm re-starting my blog. And heaven knows how long it will last for this time. Before taking a  year  and a half off, I published 137 blogs over a period of 7 or so years and started writing a handful more.

My decision to start blogging again came out of many things. One being my fiancĂ©, who has been encouraging me to start writing again. Another is my motivation from all things in this world as of late: namely 2016: the worst year ever. I personally didn't think so. To me, that was probably the last half of 2013 and first half of 2014 where I saw my Mom slip away from cancer after 3 years of responding to treatment. Out of the 42 months she lived with the disease, that final 12 and final 6 and final 2 months were the absolute hardest... but the way technology and social media are nowadays, I have noticed a trend towards that viral theme: 2016: #worstyearever. What - because Prince died? Or Princess Leia? No. it's more likely because the electoral college made Donald Trump POTUS this past November. That's what's got many Americans, Canadians, and Planet Earthians all upset.  I am also restarting this blog to help me organize dizzying thoughts - as I had done before - to help me make sense out of - how does it go? "All the wonders and atrocities of the world". There's a million exciting things about 2016 and my life as it is today and the people in it. I've tried harder to embrace my friends and I've even reached out to family. Other family have shut me out, despite the fact that they told my dying Mom they would always be there to watch out for her only son. But I digress! Besides: I got a new family now. Well, almost.  My fiancĂ© and I have set a date and the invitations are ready to be sent. Before then, I hope to do a little traveling, a little skiing, and if things work out the way I pray they will - a little working.

What else do I hope to achieve in this 2017 Blog Resurgence? Hopefully write enough to kick my butt into remembering perspective and priorities and values -- all that boring old shit that I tried to incorporate in the olden days of doing this. I would like to finish off the blog posts that I started but never published and add new ones about my thoughts on the environment and my Top 50 favourite movies and how I have all but completely abandoned listening to that CBC hippy music shit and  returned to listening to only the best of hardcore and melodic punk rock that isn't even necessarily 25 years old. I want to write about how netflix is dumb and Stranger Things and Gavin & Stacey and The IT Crowd and James Corden is awesome and how 193 pounds is ridicoulous and how the Oilers are winning but I can't watch them because Telus price-gouges for internet and TV and how Milo is a maniac and how instagram's for cats and spinning vinyl and how these pretzels are making me thirsty.


As you can see, this is all very scatterbrained and chaotic. But I suppose, that's the point: I can use this as a tool to help me focus. Until I get bored. Until Big Bang Theory comes on. Big Bang Theory is on...