Don't You Talk to Billy Idol That Way

Before Billy Idol became the sneering poster boy for punk rock kids who weren't really punk, he actually played in a real live punk band, Generation X. They were pretty entrenched in the poppier side of punk, but they definitely had a fun sound. Check out

"One Hundred Punks" by Generation X

and this song, that graced more late middle school to early high school mixtapes than I could count,

"Ready, Steady, Go" by Generation X

So on a sort of related topic, there's this other band that was really awesome, Reagan Youth.

If you're not familiar with them, there's a good bio here. Since they used a lot of extreme right wing imagery in a tongue in cheek fashion, they were at times taken to be extremely conservative, which was not at all the case. Given the chorus of "Reagan Youth, Ziek Heil" on this track though, I could see how one might make the mistake.

"Reagan Youth" by Reagan Youth

What I'm getting at here though, is that when the movie Airheads was made, they used a Reagan Youth song as the Lone Rangers big breakout hit.

"Degenerated" by Reagan Youth

In the early 90s, a band came about in NYC by the name of DGeneration.

Being a part of the same scene as Reagan Youth, albeit a later generation, they often covered Reagan Youth's "Degenerated" at their shows. I mean, considering the band name it makes sense. I'm not really crazy about them, but if you're curious, here's one of their songs. I think it was on the soundtrack to that movie, "The Faculty".

"Helpless" by D Generation