12 Songs: Alternative Ulsters
Growing up as a punk-obsessed teen in Socal, I felt somewhat obligated to worship at the altar of classic Socal hardcore. Black Flag were a sort of social requirement, and The Adolescents were the be-all and end-all. But my Damaged phase came and went pretty quickly, and “Amoeba” got old the 300th time around.
Eventually somebody played me the Undertones. That was huge. Then came the Jam. The Nerves. Wreckless Eric. This new thing, whatever it was (Power pop? Preppy-punk? Nerdcore?) kinda consumed much of my listening in my sophomore and junior years, and I’m not exactly proud of it. It’s easy to get stuck in a rut listening to these bands, with their annoyingly-catchy riffs, their overly-cathartic choruses, their melodramatic melodies. It’s the kind of thing that, in the eighties, would’ve got a punk thrown in a trash can for listening to.
Here’s a playlist I recently recovered from those in-between years, edited slightly to spare the listener a few painfully-maudlin tracks. And now I’m on a Flamin’ Groovies kick again. Shit. —Jackson Todd
[above artwork: Flowers, Andy Warhol]
