Tag: punk

684. Biohazard

~ ernopepper ~ Leave a comment

(October 2025) Episode 684 is BIOHAZARD. A good example of a crossover mix of metal and punk with a healthy dose of rap metal (especially early in their recording career). The attitude and lyrics are more to the punk side, full of anger and defiance. It’s aggressive and intense stuff.

Fun fact: Joining Tame Impala, Biohazard becomes the second artist for which I completed the episode on the same day their most recent album was released.

Favorite album: Means to an End

Favorite song: A Lot to Learn

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: I’m not a big fan of metal/punk fusion, but they’re better than others. Urban Discipline was their breakthrough album and is probably a good place to start.

621. Flipper

~ ernopepper ~ Leave a comment

(December 2024) Episode 621 is FLIPPER. I only ever knew them from a high school mix tape that had “Old Lady Who Swallowed The Fly” on it, which seemed like a humorous one-off. But listening all these decades later, I admire what the instruments are doing on the track, building up in a crescendo. And in this you can hear why they influenced grunge and noise rock. The aesthetic is punk but the form differs. Rather than short and fast, the songs are standard length and feature sonic explorations. I can see that they were a big thing in their day, but I did not experience it then, and listening at a distance without nostalgia, it hasn’t aged that well.

Favorite album: Album – Generic Flipper

Favorite song: Sex Bomb

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: Album – Generic Flipper or the early compilation Sex Bomb Baby!

601. Agent Orange

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(September 2024) Episode 601 is AGENT ORANGE. They are written up as pioneers of surf-punk so I thought they’d be what The Cramps are to rockabilly-punk. And my college roommate had a big poster of them on his dorm wall. Both these things made me expect something more than I found. The surf thing seems limited to (decent) covers of “Pipeline” and “Miserlou,” and beyond first two EPs the rest bored me. Mushy pop-punk, like the Blink 182 of the 1980s, but with even less kick.

Favorite album: Living in Darkness

Favorite song: Bloodstains

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: The Bloodstains and Bitchin’ Summer

559. Redd Kross

~ ernopepper ~ Leave a comment

(April 2024) Episode 559 is REDD KROSS. They provided a combination of hard guitars and melodic songcraft that filled the gap between 1970s power pop and the 1990s pop punk and power pop revival. LA-area brothers Jeff and Steven McDonald started out with a punk sound but added the melodies by the late 1980s. By its label I should be all over this, but I found the sum less than the parts. Generally their songs lack the hooks that I look for in power pop songs, although their two 2010s albums did do a better job at that.

Favorite album: Researching the Blues

Favorite song: The Nu Temptations

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: The two 2010s albums, but I suspect that true fans will point to their 1980 EP.

554. Napalm Death

~ ernopepper ~ Leave a comment

(March 2024) Episode 554 is NAPALM DEATH, pioneers of the “grindcore” subgenre, a mix of hardcore punk and extreme metal. But to my unsophisticated ear, this is indistinguishable from death metal, with the cookie monster growl and thunder kicks. Detectable punk elements include their anarcho-political lyrics (they cover “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” in fine form) and brevity of song: the Guinness Book of World Records awards Napalm Death for having the shortest song ever recorded, “You Suffer,” which clocks in at a little more than a second. They went through several lineup changes, and the early few albums are mixed rawer than what came later. But the pace and fury is consistent from their notable first (1987) to the latest (2020). As I’ve said before, I’m attracted to music at the extremes, and Napalm Death certainly offers that.

Favourite album: Order of the Leech

Favourite song:  Cesspits

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: Do it. Even if you know you’ll hate it, put it on and force yourself to experience it.

549. Dead Milkmen

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(February 2024) Episode 549 is DEAD MILKMEN. I seems like there were a thousand bands like this when I was in college, but somehow Dead Milkmen stuck in my memory, probably due to the prevalence of “Bitchin’ Camaro” on college radio. It’s easy to see why suburban kids like me in a comfy dorm room would label this punk rock; at most we can call it nerd punk. It’s more fitting to consider them as humor rock because that’s the main thrust of their lyrics and songs. But I find that it hasn’t aged well, compared to bands that exhibited more cleverness and absurdity in their approach, like They Might Be Giants, Violent Femmes and King Missile. Much of my sour impression is due to the vocal style of Joseph Genaro, who comes off as the kid who tried to write a comic series in high school that no one but him thought was funny.

Favorite album: Big Lizard in My Backyard

Favorite song: Bitchin’ Camaro

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: Only if it scratches your nostalgia itch, otherwise no need to bother.

539. Meat Puppets

~ ernopepper ~ 1 Comment

(December 2023) Episode 539 is MEAT PUPPETS. In a slightly alternate universe, I would have been into the Meat Puppets from the beginning. But maybe because I didn’t hang around the college radio station enough, I never experienced that entry point that many of my peers did (same goes for me with lots of SST and other bands that followed a similar career arc, like Flaming Lips and Butthole Surfers). Coming at this retroactively, I’m not sure how to approach them. Is it through their first punk offering, their odd prog-guitar/slacker-vocal thing from the late 80s, their Nirvana-aided 15 minutes of MTV fame, their later conventional rock and country rock? Don’t get me wrong, there is lots of good music in here. And I appreciate that they evolved and didn’t rely on retreads.  But I can’t figure out what makes their music special enough to make me want to return to it. Maybe my hipper peers can inform me.

Favorite album: Meat Puppets II (1984)

Favorite song: Lake of Fire

Best mid-period album: Too High To Die (1994)

Best late-period album: Lillipop (2011)

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: Kinda depends on your preference, given their style evolution (see above). But I’d recommend the first two raw-sounding albums.

530. Butthole Surfers

~ ernopepper ~ 1 Comment

(October 2023) Episode 530 is the BUTTHOLE SURFERS. Based on long-ago exposure to their first EP, I thought they were a punk band. That was true in that moment, but over their career they were a lot else, and that else is hard to characterize. It’s a mishmash of rock, noise, metal, psychedelic, experimentalism, tape collages. The attitude was irreverent and inflammatory, designed to shock and offend. I had no idea until now that the 90s alt-rock hit “Pepper” was by the same dudes who gave us “The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey’s Grave.” Butthole Surfers is a group that earns its cult following. I love bizarre stuff but on first listen I’m not sure it’s my kind of bizarre. Ask me after a few more listens, I may change my mind.

Favorite album: Locust Abortion Technician

Favorite EP: Butthole Surfers

Favorite song: P.S.Y.

Favorite freak-out covers: Hurdy Gurdy Man and American Woman

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: Per above, I’ll need more to pass judgment. but I got enough to say that they deserve their cult following.

524. Poison Idea

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(September 2023) Episode 524 is POISON IDEA. I am not a punk connoisseur, but to me this is solid punk content. Birthed in Portland, OR, in the early 1980s, their first two EPs (Pick Your King, Record Collectors Are Pretentious Assholes) deliver concise hardcore fury, and the following two LPs deliver in that space between punk and metal. Amidst personnel changes they continued recording through the 1990s and after. Their last two albums (2006 and 2015) are some of the best stay-true-to-form that I have heard an aging punk band recreate.

Favorite album: War All the Time

Favorite song: Feel the Darkness

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: I recommend if you’re punk-curious, but if you’re into it you already know them.

494. Radio Birdman

~ ernopepper ~ Leave a comment

(May 2023) Episode 494 is RADIO BIRDMAN. An early and energetic punk band from Australia. Their version of punk derived from the garage-band lineage, particularly the proto-punk sounds of the Stooges and MC5, which is not a surprise given guitarist Deniz Tek grew up in Michigan. They didn’t last long (there was one reunion album) but what they did was great.

Favourite album: Radios Appear

Favourite song: Aloha Steve and Danno

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: The first album is a bucket of primal, propulsive fun.