When I got into high school, I made friends that knew about underground punk bands. I learned how small record labels would release sample CDs so you could learn about new bands and buy their albums. Sample CDs were albums with twenty different bands with twenty different singles. It was the way underground bands could get noticed while bypassing MTV and the top-40 radio stations. My music collection was filled with them.
Now that I'm older and technology has improved, I listen to punk rock via satellite radio and Spotify. XM radio has a station called Faction, and it's the only one in their network that consistently plays punk rock.
I was driving home from work a few months ago I noticed that the music on Faction had remained largely unchanged from five years ago. They were still playing the same punk rock songs they played in 2010. Even Marky Ramones' radio show, Punk Rock Blitzkrieg, was mostly playing songs from the 80s. I realized that it had been a while since I had heard any new punk rock. Even my newest punk album in my Spotify collection was from NOFX, and while it was a new album, NOFX had been around for 25 years.
Holy shit, did punk rock finally die?, I wondered.
That night I went online and searched for new punk rock bands. Thank Christ, punk rock was not dead. The genre of music that I've listened to ever since I was a 12 year old boy was still very much alive. I found one of the bands mentioned and put it into my Spotify before I even read anything about them, and listened to them the next day while I drove home from work.
I wish I could tell you which band it was, or what the song was, but I deleted the album after listening and have been unable to find it since. The only thing I remember about them is that one of the songs was some emo-ish number that was talking about how all we need is to live for today and not worry about anything else.
I've never been really big on emo-punk, and I could've just deleted the album for that reason alone, but it was the lyrics that made me angry. "How in the fuck are you going to tell me to only worry about today?", I thought. "I'm in debt up to my eyeballs, I have to work 60 hours a week to get my bills paid on time, I have a college degree that I'm sitting on, and I have to raise two kids. HOW IN THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO TELL ME TO LIVE JUST FOR TODAY?! NOT WORRYING ABOUT TOMORROW IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY I HAVE MONEY PROBLEMS!"
Oh, shit. Punk rock didn't die. I fucking outgrew it.
There was nothing unique about that song. Punk songs talking about living for today and not worrying about tomorrow are common as dirt. I listened to them when I was a kid. Pennywise has a song called Living for Today, and they're so 90s their albums might as well come with a pair of parachute pants. When I was in Iraq ten years ago, Rise Against's Swing Life Away was a song I listened to when I was stressed out and missing home, and the entire song is about not worrying about life's problems.
A few days ago on Facebook, both New Found Glory and MxPx posted a link to the same article where they said they were proud to be the inspiration of the new generation of pop punk rock bands. The majority of the list was filled with bands that either formed or got discovered somewhere between 1997 and 2002. Blink 182, Yellowcard, Jimmy Eat World, and a whole bunch of great bands were on the list, and I didn't even realize that they were considered old school now. Not only was I surprised to find that the bands I listened to were the "old men", but I was pretty pissed off that Operation: Ivy was not on the list. There would be no pop-punk if it weren't for Operation: Ivy! These goddamn kids today and their taste in music, I tell ya! Do the words "Sound System" mean nothing to them?! Probably not!
There's a reason why NOFX was my newest punk rock album. They, like the Dropkick Murphys, MxPx, and a whole bunch of old bands still releasing new music, grew up with me. Their lyrics aren't meant for an audience of teenagers and young adults, even if they might like them, too.
Getting old sucks. Not just physically, but also emotionally. It's bad enough when I'm in the gym and have to keep dealing with the realization that my body is no longer 22 years old. Knowing that even my favorite musical genre has started to slip away really sucks. What the fuck am I going to listen to when the kids become the old men?
Anyway, all this ranting about music and getting old does have a point about mental health, and there's a story behind it.
A couple of Friday's ago my wife suggested that when the kids fall asleep, we have my stepdad watch the kids and go see a movie. This has become a routine for us. I didn't want to go to the movies again, but we both didn't know what else to do. We're too old to go clubbing, too broke to hit up the bars (and also old enough to not want to be wasted behind the wheel), and that pretty much left bowling, which we also weren't in the mood to do. While we were discussing what to do, a glorious idea went into my mind.
"Grab your keys. We're leaving", I told my wife.
"Where?"
"Don't ask questions. Just get in the car."
I told her to stop at the 7/11, and grab any drink she wanted that had a large amount of caffeine, as well as any snacks she felt like eating. After that, I told her to drive along any road, preferably a rural road with few traffic lights.
I didn't want to tell her what I had planned, because on the surface, it sounded stupid. But I remembered when I was young and an old friend of mine named Mike would drive around the middle of nowhere while we blasted punk rock and sang along to it. It was one of the most fun things to do when you're too young to be allowed into night clubs and you lived during a time when gas was $1 a gallon. Not only did we do it, but I remembered a lot of friends that were going through fits of depression did it by themselves. They'd tell me about how they just enjoyed driving around listening to their favorite music late at night. It was a way to relax when you're filled with teen angst. It's therapy for the young.
My wife even picked the same route that Mike liked to take. I did a search on Spotify for "90s punk", and an album called, "Punk Goes 90s, Volume 2" popped up as the first result.
Punk Goes 90s? You gotta be shitting me. Is this a joke?
I calmed down once I realized that the punk bands of my time did 80s cover songs, so I should get over it.
The first track was a cover of Lit's "My Own Worst Enemy" by a band called Get Scared. They did an even better cover than the original (I can't say the same about the rest of the album). I put it on and within a minute my wife and I were smiling as we cruised down the road screaming, "PLEASE TELL ME WHYYYYYYYYY, MY CAR IS IN THE FRONT YAAARRRRRD, AND I'M, SLEEPING WITH MY CLOTHES ON!!!!!" We did this for about 1 1/2 hours as I kept searching for songs from our youth that we both liked. It was the most fun we've had in a long time.
There's a healing power that music has that I had long forgotten about. When you're old, music isn't the same as when you're young. When you're old, music is just something to listen to, but when you're young, it's everything. It's more than entertainment; it's a part of your identity. You don't just listen to music when you're young. You wear it. You have friends that are as passionate about it as you are. It doesn't matter if it's punk rock, hip hop, country, or whatever. Music when you're young means that much to you. When you get old, those old songs have the same connection. They have the power to make you feel happy again.
If you're having a shitty day and can get out of the house, just go driving and crank that sound system up. It's still one thing that you can depend on.
