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Back when, I used to think I was mad anti-establishment sitting around with my friends in our parent's Westchester homes, reading punk rock zines. Time passed, and it turns out we weren't so much rebellious as we were just kinda reckless, but I guess that's pretty punk. Anyways, even if I was a silly little boy, the Cometbus zines I was reading were still great. He was the first writer I ever found who seemed like a real person to me. His zines were all handwritten and all about loneliness and girl trouble and punk, basically the summation of my experience from the ages of about twelve to eighteen or so. He also played drums and wrote lyrics in a bunch of bands that I love. These are a few choice examples.
"In my Mind" by Crimpshrine
As far as I always knew, Crimpshrine was the first noteworthy band Aaron Cometbus was involved with. Paired with Jeff Ott's meatgrinder vocals and punk rock chords/hair metal riffs guitar playing, Cometbus's lyrics came across with a sort of chaotic beauty that lots of punk bands shoot for, but not as many achieve. His drumming had a certain identifiable frenetic quality to it, using a lot of double hits where most drummers used one, something that I really miss from his later efforts.
"Landlords" by Pinhead Gunpowder
So after Crimpshrine, Cometbus founded Pinhead Gunpowder along with a couple of friends from the East Bay scene. So if you own a radio, you're probably gonna recognize the vocalist on this track as Billie Joe Armstrong, from Green Day. I'll be the first to tell you that Green Day sucks 99.4% of the time and that I think they're shitheads for taking the master rights for 39 Smooth and Kerplunk back from Lookout!, but nonetheless, I enjoy Mr. Armstrong's vocals with Pinhead Gunpowder. This band was formed when Green Day was still broke and playing shows at 924 Gilman Street, so I can assume that Armstrong's intentions were still pure when he signed on. I still think he's a prick.
"Jailbird Bars" by Cleveland Bound Death Sentence
Cometbus on Drums, Patrick from Dillinger Four playing Bass, Emily of the Salteens playing guitar and doing most of the wailing, and Mr. Spitball playing guitar, this was a project based in Minneapolis, and was put together with no real intentions of serious touring or anything. Which is a shame, cuz this band is great. I've heard them described as someone pissing in the Buzzcock's mouth. Does that make sense? Maybe not, but it's a fun analogy and I think if you really concentrate hard enough you can see how it makes a little sense. This song is another one of those moments for me where a punk band achieves that filthy beauty that no other genre can really replicate.
Personally, my favorite love songs are punk rock love songs. You know the girl in the story is probably not a knockout, but she probably wears cute pink converse and has red hair and is much closer to anyone you'll meet than any of the girls in a backstreet boys song. There's a lot of earnesty to it too, punk rock has always had a tough guy image, deserved or not, and to hear these bands belt out lyrics about love and loss seems more earnest than some guy with a flowing white shirt. So here's a couple of my favorite punk rock love songs.
"Pretty Mess" by Crimpshrine
This song captures a lot of different facets of young love really well. "In love with no place to go,", "my friends would never understand,", it's all there. One of my favorite parts of the song is that he calls this girl a "pretty mess", that idea that to the average passerby this girl might seem like a trainwreck, but you think she's beautiful. This is the first of two songs on my short little list sung by Jeff Ott, although this first one was written by Crimpshrine's drummer Aaron Cometbus. Goddamn incestous East Bay Scene.
"Kiss The Bottle" by Jawbreaker
Blake Schwarzenbach's mean rasp is the perfect vehicle for this song about love turned to alcoholism. When Schwarzenbach croons, "I know I painted you a prettier picture, baby," you can't help but feel sorry for this guy. It's like he's tried his best, but things just turned out differently than he planned. Come on, who can't relate to that?
"The End of The Summer" by Fifteen
It's not like the inevitable end of the summer fling is a unique theme in music. I mean, this song is basically the punk rock version of "Summer Lovin'" from Grease. Even though I've never seen Grease (seriously, just once, in a play my cousin was in when I was 4). That's the beauty of art though, you don't neccesarily need a whole new idea, because everyone has the ability to interpret things differently. Fifteen's Jeff Ott isn't neccessarily mourning the end of the summer here, he's looking towards the future and the possibility that they can have another summer just as great as the one that's passed. Also, the cowbell here is so crucial.
"Hope" by the Descendents
So back in my heck of young times, one of the first albums I ever bought for myself was Sublime's 40 oz. to Freedom. I still credit this album with really getting me into music, since Sublime put so many cover songs on that album. Since I loved the album so much, I would go out and buy the albums by the original artists. That's how I first laid my hands on Milo Goes to College by the Descendents in 7th grade. I fell in love with that album as a whole, but the one Sublime covered stuck out in particular. Hope is a love song in that quintessential punk rock vein of "i hate your boyfriend". It's been done a million times, but rarely this well. If you can find it, there's a live version of this song from the album Liveage. Milo croons a little more live than he does on the album and it works really well on this song.
