Where Were You When It Mattered...?!

Enough with the schmaltz, already. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get back to rock. And to do that, I’ve pulled some California-based punk from a compilation album titled Stagediving to the Oldies. (I also pulled its subtitle, “Where were you when it mattered,” for the title of this post.)

I was a teenager when this scene was breaking in SoCal. Unfortunately, I lived about three hours from Los Angeles, so for the most part I could only experience the music through vinyl. My parents didn’t trust me to take the family car “down south” to a punk rock show. As a result, I may have went to one show. But the music had a decided impact on me.

Punk was burgeoning at the same time as disco, and, at least where I lived and attended high school, it served to not-so-neatly create two separate communities. Punks and skateboarders on one side; disco bunnies on the other. The lines were drawn. I remember reading about attacks on roller skaters by skate punks who didn’t want to share their pools.

With the DIY ethic, my buddies and I even started our own, very short-lived punk band. We never played any actual shows though, and come to think of it, we may have disbanded after a couple of aborted practice sessions. Which was probably a good idea, because I think only one of us (and it wasn’t me) could actually play their instrument with anything approaching skill.

Anyway, that’s what today’s post is all about. As the liner notes to “Stagediving” say, “Everything was pretty much invented while it was happening.” These songs are fairly representative of what the SoCal scene was doing in the late 70s and early 80s. I think one of the songs, “Bloodstains,” I may have posted before. If so, it was on a different host and is no longer available for your listening pleasure.

Bloodstains.mp3 Agent Orange
(Illa Zilla) Ladykiller.mp3 The Vandals
Sink With California.mp3 Youth Brigade
Young and Bored.mp3 Wasted Youth

posted by aikin @ 10:23 AM