Moving west is pretty common in America. It’s just kind of what you do.
But if you move out west and hate it, or if your parents moved you to the overcrowded yuppie city of San Francisco and you hate it, then you rock out.
Punk rock is the opposite of America. [1] It does not quest for material wealth. It does not quest for advancement. It quests for equality and a coherent state of mind, by way of simple, unadorned, aggressive songs, which soothe people’s anger.
Me, since I live in Indiana now, but once lived in Pennsylvania and loved it there, I’m too far west as it is, so I need music that’s FROM the west, to counteract this. It’s like, if you have tunes you really dig, you shouldn’t move to the place where they’re from: you should move the exact OPPOSITE way, because that music was originated, was conceived on its birth, as a combatant, not just out of the blue. That combatant is a nullifier of a certain cultural force, whether they’re yuppies and hippies of the west as in the case of the best punk rock, or widespread sociological atrocity, as in the hip-hop of New York or wherever… take it as a red flag and… DON’T GO THERE! The best state of mind is actually not needing music at all, just doing things in autodidactic mode and hopefully stumbling on some routine of satisfying glory, or wisdom you can share with people.
But we all know that’s impossible, so there’s music, and that’s about the best we can do. Here’s my punk mix:
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1 Strung Out – “Drag Me Down”
2 Fugazi – “Great Cop”
3 Descendents – “Suburban Home”
4 The Offspring – “Come out and Play”
5 Bad Brains – “I against I”
6 Mudhoney – “Shoot the Moon”
7 No Use for a Name – “Leave it Behind”
8 Bad Religion – “I Want to Conquer the World”
9 Swell Maps – “Dresden Style”
10 Limp – “Decision”
11 At the Drive-in – “Pickpocket”
12 Mighty Mighty Bosstones – “A Sad Silence”
13 Crass – “Systematic Death”
14 Goldfinger – “The City with Two Faces”
15 Lagwagon – “Name Dropping”
16 Buzzcocks – “Fast Cars”
17 Rancid – “Time Bomb”
18 Less than Jake – “Automatic”
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[1] Per the movie SLC Punk!, “Rednecks are the epitome of America… and America? Well, FU** America!” By the way, happy SLC Punk 2 everyone, looks like the critics like it.