If I listen to punk music, I'm usually looking to feel some sort of energy or power from the music. You know when you listen to a song and it makes you feel like you can run through a brick wall and still have enough in the tank to stagedive into a crowd of people? That's what I want. So of course, I listen to a lot of hardcore. I'm not too picky about it either, as long as the music gets down, I'm with it. It's really hard to pick out my favorite bands, but of the established/older bands, I'd probably pick Suicidal Tendencies, Cro-Mags, D.R.I, Gorilla Biscuits, Madball, Black Flag, Terror, Converge, and Discharge. With the newer bands though, I could go on. The hardcore scene is fucking killing it right now, especially since shows/concerts have been happening again. Turnstile and Drain are the two modern hardcore bands that I could confidently say were my top favorites. Other bands that do it for me: Xibalba, Gulch, Never Ending Game, Regulate, Section H8, No Pressure, Koyo, Kruelty, Vein...

If you like the old California feel of Black Flag and Circle Jerks, Personal Damage is good (enough). If you like UK82 punk, Phane is good.

https://1753.bandcamp.com/album/personal-damage-ambush

https://phanepunx.bandcamp.com/album/10-charged-trax

I like what I am hearing from both of those - especially Phane. Small nods to metal here and there in their sound too.

Shame that almost none of this stuff gets released on CD - I would buy it instantly.

Ok, I'm really going to have to download all those then.

I'll tentatively believe you that those are their best albums, but all I'll say is I know enough from their early albums to know I'm a diehard Gwar fan when it comes to those. I could absolutely listen to This Toilet Earth, Scumsdogs, America Must be Destroyer and Hell-o over and over, and I saw them live twice in the 90s and they were amazing.

You might have a rude awakening when it comes to some of those albums because <SPOILER AS FUCK> some tracks on those are musically thrash metal as hell.

Been pulling out my Mad Brother Ward albums. He just released a new 7” after doing nothing for 25 years so now I’m on a listening kick.

https://www.ruinedrecords.com/product/m ... gly-life-7

What are your thoughts on Thrice ?

My band jams out "All That's Left" occasionally, and I dig that. I know a lot of people who really enjoy their older stuff. What do you think of their stylistic changes over the years?

I like how they grew and matured. Their first 2-3 albums are really high school-esque if I can say it that way Lol. Since Vheissu they have continued to grow and I respect that. Digging my own grave from Earth disc is awesome and it reminds me of Tom Waits

Minor Threat, cos you only need to get the Complete Discography CD to have everything!

Bad Religion are awesome. I have mostt of their albums and I saw them live for the first time near the end of 2021 in Austin. They really got the crowd going, especially when they asked if anyone remembered Tony Hawk's Pro Skater for the PSX and played You!

Germs, X, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Misfits, and Sick of It All are all worth listening to as well.

99% certain it was intentional. The instruments coming to focus one-by-one and then it all ends back the way it started so I assume they did that on purpose. I've read a few things about Minor Threat/the early DC scene and have never seen anything about it being an accident.

Wanted to give a shoutout to some other great bands that might be less known or were only mentioned in passing here:

Poison Idea - Truly one of the greatest punk bands of all time. Their discography can get kind of messy because stuff has been reissued/re-packaged a ton of times but its overwhelmingly great. "Pick Your King", to me, is one of the best 7"s to come out of that first wave of American hardcore (1980-1983) and "Feel The Darkness" is probably their best LP.

Stains - There were a lot of bands called the Stains. I'm referring to the guys out of East LA who recorded one self-titled LP that SST Records released a couple years after they broke up. They were a huge influence on Black Flag (I read an interview from '80 or '81 where Chuck Dukowski referred to them as his favorite band and Dez Cadena hung out and lived with a some of the guys). You're not gonna get the LP now unless you're prepared to shell out a few hundred bucks but their stuff has suddenly, and quietly, appeared on streaming sites recently.

Trial by Fire - For a long time, their recordings were considered a holy grail for Chicago punk fans. They were 3/4s of the band Strike Under, one of the early Chicago punk bands and one of the first musical acts to have a record on Wax Trax records (who recently reissued their lone EP and put it up on streaming sites). Trial by Fire recorded an LP in 1982 but then broke up so the recordings were shelved until they were finally issued in 2017. Bassist Pierre Kezdy went on to play in Naked Raygun and Pegboy was is a legend in the Chicago punk scene.

Offenders - Texas hardcore guys who put out 2 great albums in the 80s (reissued as a double LP by Southern Lord in 2014). Great players (bassist Mikey Donaldson played on part of DRI's "Dealing With It" album after Dennis Johnson quit) and sadly underrated.

Dwarves - The Dwarves have a long history and a large discography and I have to admit that I've never really gotten into the later, poppier-punk stuff, but "Blood, Guts & Pussy" is a pretty fucking fantastic blast of punk rock.

Necros - "Conquest for Death" is one of the best LPs to come out of the early '80s Midwest hardcore scene. Sadly, most of their stuff has been out of print since '84 or so but they have fairly recently hinted that it might be finally coming back in print (I heard singer Barry Hennsler say on podcast that both Southern Lord and Third Man had expressed interest). There is a Necros bandcamp page, too, that offers most of their recordings. I sort of assume that its official since their Facebook page, which had ties to their drummer, promoted it.

Bl'ast! - These guys get dissed as Black Flag-clones, and the influence is obvious, but I think they put enough of their own spin on it to make it worthwhile. In particular, their second album, "It's In My Blood", is a standout. The original albums are still available from SST Records but Southern Lord also did some re-mix/reissue things (Greg Anderson is a huge fan). The "Blood" LP on Southern Lord is features Wiliam DuVall's (of Alice in Chains) original second guitar tracks that were recorded for "It's All in My Blood" but removed from that release after he quit Bl'ast! before the record came out.

Scream - These guys are probably mostly famous now for really giving Dave Grohl his start but their debut album (pre-Dave) "Still Screaming" is a killer hardcore record and their second album, "This Side Up" is also really good. I'm actually not so much of a fan of the stuff Dave is on, mostly for production reasons, but Southern Lord did a remix/reissue of "No More Censorship", their 4th album (Grohl's first) which was called "NMC 17" and supposedly sounds way better.

I'm somewhat new to punk, but I've been getting into Bad Religion, Gorilla Biscuits, Leftover Crack, and The Damned.

This is one genre I've been meaning to dive deeper.

Bad Religion is awesome, one of my most played bands during the last couple of years. Hear Nothing... by Discharge also works in this adress. From Finland we have Kollaa Kestää and Pikakassa. The latter probably only works fully if you understand our language. Crazy stuff.

Since a lot of you guys seem to prefer the older stuff, have you heard Finland's Kaaos? If not, I'd think you'd like them. There are a lot of great Finnish punk bands, but Kaaos is a favorite.

https://youtu.be/bjHFg3agqYI

Kaaos sounds good. Got to try to find their records, if that's possible. I'm a newbie regarding Terveet Kädet too. A total wimp, so to speak.

For me the best punk bands are Rites of Spring and Anal Cunt

Crass is really good.

My favorite punk bands would have to be

Poison Idea
Negative Approach
Germs
Circle Jerks
H100s
Ramones
Cock Sparrer
The Business
Misfits

And not one of my favorite bands but the two ep's from Amdi Petersens Arme are favorite punk records of mine.

Iron Reagan, if they count. I love how the music is pretty much identical to Municipal Waste but they express a more political sense of humour. Fuck The Neighbours is a classic.

Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables is the best punk album of all time and I won't hear otherwise.

Negative Approach and Void aren't appreciated enough for their influence imo

Over the last few years I've been gravitating more and more toward crust and hardcore punk bands. These days my favourites include Nuclear Death Terror, Disrupt, Caustic Christ, Abuso Sonoro, Anti Cimex, Skitsystem and Wolfbrigade.

Anyone new to Punk, should really get his introduction from the classics; the British, the American and the German (and also some Australian). Crass, Sex Pistols, Ian Dury, Peter and the Test Tube Babies, The Exploited, Reagan Youth, Nina Hagen, The Birthday Party et cetera...

I started out trying to listen to classic bands like Ramones, Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag etc. and though I hated punk.
When I got introduced to crust, d-beat and the heavier hardcore punk stuff I finally understood that I just didn't like mainstream punk.

To each his own, but to call such hostile, vitriolic music made by bands like Crass as being mainstream does not make sense. I understand mainstream punk for the lighter, 'party' punk rock such as Ramones, The Clash and other lightweight punk, but Crass, The Birthday Party and such are nowhere near that.

Try listening to The Birthday Party Peel Session recording, or to anything by Crass, then tell me it's mainstream.

I didn't mention Crass. I also wouldn't in a thousand years lob in The Exploited and Crass with Sex Pistols.

I had to work my way backwards...way back when. When I first heard punk, I didn't have a lot of interest in it. Bad Brains, DxRxIx, and Minor Threat made it click, and then it all opened up for me. It's a good time for crust right now (I don't consider Skitsystem and the like to be crust).

Bad Brains are my favorite. I have a self-titled long sleeve.

The Casualties!!! Oi!

Friends, while I am at work I was thinking that most people are not aware of beautiful (hehe) Argentinian punk we got here. Blast these, u won't regret it
Flema: Get drunk, high, sniff some shit and fuck it. Literally there is a song that goes in the album "I with go to the corner and vomit, whoever pass by I will splash out"

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDB84C10FCA856EA7

2 Minutos: mosh and punkkk
https://youtu.be/Oj7za7KMeaM

Los Violadores: classsssic
https://youtu.be/pAfwJ-JTno0

we got tons of punky and hardcore stuff. We were pioneers / influential /I hate 'influencer' word, is disgusting ugly shit/ in some sort of way with all the music.

Been playing The Queers - A Day Late & A Dollar Short lately. Still a fun time. In small doses.

I just see Drop Kick Murphys at Wembley Arena and they were proper up for it. Terrific show.

My top 4 punk bands are all quite metallic:

Anti-Nowhere League - discovered thanks to Metallica

Sticky Filth

Plasmatics - they're in the Archives and I prefer their metal album Coup d'état, but best labelled as a punk band overall

Dayglo Abortions

Then there's Big Blue Blanket, a New Zealand band from the late 90s that doesn't really have any material online. I was lucky enough to catch both of their reunion shows (15 years apart), with the recent one being just 6 weeks ago. They're more straight forward punk with some ska influences. They have relevance to my taste in metal too though, as they're the first band I started to like where the vocalist makes the majority of the lyrics indecipherable. So once I was able to handle them then I was ready to face extreme metal next, haha.

I’m currently revisiting Nomeansno after (stupidly, stupidly) selling my collection some 15 years ago. Best decision I’ve made in a looong time. I can’t do them justice, but they are incredibly good.

I’m about to do the same with Minutemen - similar story with their Double Nickels On The Dime.

Dead Kennedys rule as well, though I never went beyond Frankenchrist.

Those are probably my top three. After that, some main “honorable mentions” would include Fugazi, some Hüsker Dü (never went beyond Flip Your Wig), and Discharge simply for Hear Nothing...

Here’s NMN -

Dead Kennedys have always been the cream of the crop for me. Smart lyrics, great sounding production, and stellar songwriting. They're my favorite punk band bar none.

Aside from them, I love Black Flag, Crass, and most anarcho-punk in general.

H100s, 9 Shocks Terror, Gordon Solie Motherfuckers and Bomb Builder. Ohio had some awesome bands.

I've been listening to their albums "Love Songs for the Retarded" and "Don't Back Down" a lot lately.
Definitely a fun band. I think Screeching Weasel and MTX do that style better, though.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Co22M2PATMz/

OC Rippers live and wild