I also think I've found more of a balance as to where hardcore and punk fit into my life, i no longer really look to lyric sheets for an escape or for "enlightenment" or whatever you want to call it. That probably has more to do with age, most kids around playing bands are around my age, or if they're now defunct they were around my age when they wrote their best stuff. I guess in a lot of ways I've stopped looking to punk or hardcore for my identity, that's stupid anyway, but i would say as a younger kid it helped me in a lot of ways. I'm not trying to say that kids in their early twenties don't have anything good to say, it's quite the contrary, there's something amazing that you can only really capture in your youth, the older you get the harder it is to sustain but i would say one of the most important things a person can do is hang on to their youth, to never get old in spirit.
The point I'm trying to make is that i think you move past the point in life where punk music can really have a profound impact on your life, that's not say you stop participating in it, or stop loving it, it just means that you're able to put it into a greater perspective that sees punk music as only a piece in the vastness of your entire life and your development as a person. I think the impact that punk or hardcore can have on a person can resonate throughout their whole life and can help them connect or carry on what it meant to them to others, it never dies, it just shifts priorities. Punk music has had a huge impact on my life, it's shaped part of who i am now, i can still remember the first punk song i ever heard, i was 11 or 12 years old and my aunt bought me a cover album which included a song by MxPx. I must have played that song a thousand times over within a week, something just clicked, the rest is history. A lot of my ideas as a kid in high school came from the music i listened to and for that I'm incredibly thankful, thankful i had music to spare me from the otherwise mundane existance of an awkward, angry teenagers life.
Although my philosophical bent on life has been changing and is in some ways moving away from some of the more dominant ideals in punk music there are still a lot of relevant bands whose political and social commentary speaks to what i believe. Good Riddance will forever be that band, specifically their record Operation Phoenix, which is a masterpiece. There are also bands like Minor Threat and 7 Seconds that speak to me and have influenced me on that level. And more recent bands like Strike Anywhere, Stretch Arm Strong, Verse, and Lion of Judah are encouraging to me, just to know that it's not lost on these bands that effecting the world in a positive way is the most noble thing a group of kids with a microphone and a few attentive ears can do.
With all that said, I've been listening to a lot of great music the last little while though and will be more so now. The Hostage Calm LP has been constantly churning the hard disk on my mp3 player, the more i listen to it the more i like it, perhaps my praise for it was a little subdued in the review i wrote for it, probably not. I've also been listening to the new True Colors 7", which is very good, maybe even better than Focus on The Light and Battery's Whatever it Takes is gaining near legendary status in my personal discography.
Over the past year or so I've been giving more time to Battery's entire discography and i haven't been slightest bit disappointed. I remember when i first heard of this band and i went through a struggle to get all their material so i could listen to all of it. Whatever It Takes was the first album i came upon and as often seems to be the case, with myself at least, it's still my
favorite stuff by them even though I've had a chance to listen to their full discography thoroughly enough.I think this album flows together better than any of their others, the production is a bit more crisp and seems to capture them as a band better. I've never been awed by Battery's lyrics, with the exception of Why Is She In Pain and this record is no different, the content is really good it's just not written great. They still saywhat they're intended and what they're intended to say is definitely worth saying. The song Who Are You? is also one of my favorite Battery songs, i love the riffs and melodies in it. This record really seems like a completion of their style, i don't want to say they coined a new style of hardcore but they certainly had a sound that would not have been recognizable before their existance. They're one of a few bands that have a distinctive style and sound that sets them apart from they're contemporaries and this record is in my opinion the most complete display of Battery's style of hardcore punk. If you don't have this record yet, pick it up here: http://revhq.com/store.revhq?Page=search&Id=REV065
I've written too much this post, one more thing. I'm going to be turning my other blog, Against The Grain, into a book review blog of sorts . I've read a ton of books over the past few years, some of them which have been hugely influential on my life so i thought it would be cool to do a little write up on some of them. So hopefully i'll have the first one up by the end of the week, just a heads up to anyone who may be interested, it will be on Leo Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You.
Also, i almost forgot again, check out A Riot of My Own it's a really good blog by xroldx from The Netherlands. Some cool interviews and album reviews over there, definitely worth the time!
Currently listening: Good Riddance - Operation Phoenix
