Category: Entertainment

The birth of the rock group Ramones started its way during the musical doldrums of the ’70s along with bandmates Johnny, Joey, and Dee Dee Ramone. Tommy Ramone began his journey as Tom Erdelyi a great engineer working at Record Plant recording studios. He worked and managed the group who participated in the birth of New Wave, Punk Rock, and Alternative music. Ramone is playing three roles in the band which includes being their drummer, manager and also their producer. He helps in making the sound, style, and ideas of what modern rock should become for the group.

Ramone, as an independent producer worked on several recordings such as Love Goes to a Building, On Fire by the band Talking Heads, and the musical albums, Neurotica by Redd Kross, Too Tough to Die of Ramones, and Tim by the group Replacements. The writers of Rolling Stone, Record, The Village Voice, and The LA Times voted the later to be the year’s best album.

Soon, the former group The Simplistics became a partner with Ramone in Uncle Monk. The unique and sincere voice of the singer helped create real meaning to songs, creating amplifications of well-balanced rock and calmness.

Do not be confused with Uncle Monk and Ramones though. Tommy Ramone is a pseudo name after he joined and managed the Ramones within the range of modern punk and alternative music. Later on, Tommy gave up his fake name and withdraws from the band and formed a duo with Claudia Tienan and became as Uncle Monk known for their bluegrass hits and mellows. They both became a total hit releasing their own album.

On one side you have the likes of Tenacious D singing the best song in the world, seriously this is a tribute best song in the world and on the other you have to walk the Moon telling you to shut up and dance. The truth is telling the difference between rock and alternative rock is kind of tricky.

You see the thing is, the term alternative is used today to describe songs that are not mainstream, mainstream rock refers to those songs that you hear on the radio over and over until you are left with no option but to grab your axe and go to work on your radio, or turn it off because that’s less expensive, hey whatever floats your boat.

Alternative rock in itself is a subset of rock music, all that aside the truth is it’s all about marketing. Marketing created the alternative genre of music and it also created rock music.

You can thank nirvana for turning alternative rock mainstream, kind of confusing right? When something goes the mainstream it simply means that it is gaining popularity with mainstream audiences, thus it is accepted by the majority of listeners.

Alternative rock has many subcategories some examples are:

• Hard Rock
• Grunge
• Experimental Rock
• Rock
• Gothic Rock Punk Rock
• New Wave Punk Rock

Alternative rock earned its name because in the past it didn’t fit in any genre, if you know the history of punk rock you know that it all started with ‘garage bands’, keeping that in mind, you can say that alternative rock is a descendant of punk rock because of the audiences back then who were mostly college students and people who enjoyed underground music.

Alternative rock gained popularity in Britain first before it crossed the large shark-filled pond and made it to the Americas. Marketers saw an opportunity; they knew that if you make something exclusive more people will want it. This was based largely on the achievements made by bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana and sound garden.

In my opinion, the most notable alternative rock band in the UK is or rather was Coldplay, hold up did they break up? Anyways, look at a song like violet hill, it sounds and looks like rock but it isn’t, why? Because, it’s kind of different, compare that to Viva la Vida and it gets of confusing.

Viva la Vida sounds pop but on some charts, it’s ranked as a rock, the point is it the lines between punk rock/rock in general and alternative rock are blurred. It can get difficult to tell which is which.

The best alternative rock bands:

• Radio head
• Red hot chili peppers
• Green day
• Nirvana
• Foo fighters
• Linkin park
• Cold play
• Muse
• The cranberries
• Cage the elephant

In the end, you are at liberty to listen to whatever you want, so forget about the genres and subgenres rock out.

Where is punk rock headed in 2017? The truth is you never know, look at it this way. To answer that question you must first answer the question, what makes great punk rock? The problem is nobody knows that; for instance, in my opinion, the best punk rock video of 2016 was Bring me the horizons follow you, why? Because it had zombies a mailman and a zombie girlfriend, check it out.

To critics and some other people, it was considered metal, think you know better? Start by defining punk rock and you will get the point I’m trying to put across. There are bands out there that have defined and continue to redefine the punk rock genre, we can talk about the Ramones, the sex pistols etc but I prefer to keep it in the 2010s.

Falling in Reverse

When it comes to the Emo punk rock of the 2010s, two bands come to mind. Black veil Brides and Falling in Reverse, Black Veil Brides keep punk dark and creepy and Falling In Reverse Make it fun (Most of their videos border on comedy), Falling in Reverse is a band that was formed back in 2008 after an incident at a casino that got someone arrested, and as they say the rest is history.

One of their best songs: The Drug in Me is You

Jimmy Eat World

These guys have been around in the punk rock scene since 1993, in my opinion, your punk rock collection is never complete without jimmy eat the world, why?  They are awesome their lyrics are way above average and their videos mwah. The band is made up of six members namely Jim Adkins, Tom Linton, Zack Lind, Rick Bach, and last but not least Mitch porter. One of their best works: The Middle.

Blink 182

Bored to death, no you won’t be if you listen to blink 182. This is one of the bands that made Punk rock what it is today. The band was formed back in 1992 and has five members namely Travis barker, mark Hoppus, Matt Skiba, Tom Delonge, and Scott Raynor.

Check out this boy band parody, if it doesn’t make your day I don’t know what will: all the small things

Honorable Mentions

The following are bands that you must listen to before the end of this year, trust me they are awesome.

• All Time Low
• New Found Glory
• Good Charlotte
• MxPx
• My chemical romance
• NOFX
• Foo fighters

The top spot

The top spot is reserved for two bands simply because I couldn’t decide which one is the best, on one hand, you have Green Day aka the fathers of punk rock and on the other, you have the guys who brought us ‘sugar we are going down’ aka Fall Out Boy.

The Fall Out Boy was formed in 2000, Green Day, on the other hand, have been making moms say “Can You Turn Down” since 1986. If this is your introduction into the world of punk rock these two bands are the best place to begin.

Have you ever taken the time to ask yourself what indie rock is? Believe me, I have tried and in the end, I concluded that it is almost impossible to define indie rock, why? The reason is very simple, if you look at indie rock’s roots you will land on two ideas of what indie rock is.

On one hand, you have people who think that “indie” refers to India and others who think that indie music originated from alternative rock or vice versa. Now, this is where it gets weirder, you see the thing is, indie music emerged in the post-punk period back in the 80s. Back then the term indie was used to describe record labels, groups, or film companies that didn’t belong to or were not affiliated with major record companies. Today some indie bands belong to major record companies, so you tell me what indie rock truly is.

Whatever your definition of indie music is, one thing still remains most genres in music don’t have a solid definition. Some bands that have inspired indie music over the years in my opinion are:

Travis

If you are not a 90s baby you probably have never heard of these guys, Travis is a band that was formed in Glasgow back in 1990. It is one of the most popular bands in the United Kingdom for good reasons; in fact, they paved the way for bands like cold play.

The members are Fran Healy, Andy Dunlop, Dougie Payne, and Neil primrose. One of the top music these guys did was Travis: writing to reach you.

The writer Fran Healy admitted that he got inspiration for this song while listening to the Connell’s single 74-75.

Lana Del Rey

Known to many by her stage name Lana Del Rey, Elizabeth Wooldridge grant is an American born model singer and songwriter.  Some call her fake and some call her amazing, according to Lana she gets her inspiration from jazz, music from the 70s and sometimes radio.

The Killers

The killers (an American rock band) was formed in Las Vegas back in 2001, the band has four members namely Brandon flowers, Dave Keuning, Mark Stoermer and Ronnie Vanucci Jr. “Mr. Brightside” was the first song the band ever wrote, the inspiration for this song came from Brandon’s cheating girlfriend.

The White Stripes

I’m sure you have heard ‘Seven Nation Army’ somewhere, maybe in a movie trailer, on the radio, or on television. The White Stripes was formed back in 1997 in Detroit Michigan and had two members Meg white and Jack white.

The song was inspired by jacks’ inability to pronounce Salvation Army.

The point of all this is, inspiration can come from anywhere, it can come to you when you are at a festival, at home watching TV, in class, from a book, a cheating partner or anywhere else you can think of. All you need to do is open up your mind and see the possibilities. I know you have better opinions on this feel free to share them.

Death to all butt metal, no, it’s but metal and that’s hair metal. Oh, come on getting over it already, moving on. Punk rock has come a very long way from its not so humble beginnings; the first bands to enter this genre back in the 70s were the Ramones, the damned, the clash and the sex pistols. Yes, that’s right the SEX PISTOLS! With names like that by now at the back of your mind, you should know that punk rock is a middle finger to mainstream bands such as that band led by Celine Dion.

Pfft, Celine Dion doesn’t have a band, that again? You get the point; the term “punk rock” in the past was used to describe garage bands. You know because kids back then were a little creative when compared to today’s babies who sit around all day watching the Kardashians and blame their parents when they grow up to become hipsters.

There are people who believe that punk rock started way back in the 60s, why? Back then we saw the rise of bands such as the Sonics and velvet underground. The problem is most people considered and still consider most songs by these bands for lack of better words noise

Forward to the 80s punk rock goes hard, this was the age where aggressive styles such as street punk and hardcore came up. The most notable bands in the street punk genre were the rancid, the exploited and the anti-flag.

I know you are too young to remember these bands or if you are a 90s baby, mom probably kept you away from listening to them.

The 20^th Century

As the 20^th century quickly came to its end, punk rock was betrayed, betrayed I tell you betrayed! It went the mainstream. And we got a new mushy version known as pop punk, remember the Offspring, Green day and those guys who love to run around naked aka my favorite band blink-182? They were largely responsible for this.

The good thing is these bands were responsible for some of the best songs in punk rock history, so we forgive them for that. To show you how awesome these bands check out the following songs:

The Offsprings: original prankster

Greenday: American idiot

Blink 182: all the small things

Bonus song: Avril Lavigne

Avril made it to this list for one very simple reason, that video has a real life bear-shark.

You can say that punk rock exploded in the 70s and became the solid musical force that it is today. And we have the bands mentioned above to thank for all this.

You may not know this but today there are over 13 punk rock genres including:

• Deathrock: I wouldn’t want to listen to that, the notable bands in this genre are premature ejaculation and shadow project.
• Christian punk: to balance out the evil in death rock, bands: officer negative and MxPx
• Emo: notables, Paramore, and black veil brides
• Hardcore punk
• Pop punk
• Street punk
• Cowpunk

In the end, only you know what you like, and I leave you with this enjoy:

Is your favorite punk band listed here? No? Aww. That’s bad. But we’d love to know!

Uhh “Josie and the pussy cats” in my opinion one of the best movies ever, however, according to some critics you know the guys who named shark nado as one of the best movies in human in history (which it kind of is). Josie sucks; I know it’s kind of girlish and stuff but come on.

You don’t expect a movie about a record company brainwashing people to think that some chick is hot to be serious do you? All that aside punk rock has been used in movies for a very long time, over the years this form of music has inspired awesome movies and others that will make you bang your head against the wall just to get them to stop.

I’m not here to tell you about the bad ones which would be kind of great, I should do that in future. I’m here to tell you about the best moments of punk music in movies if that makes sense.

A Clockwork Orange 1987

If you are into punk rock music which you obviously are or you wouldn’t be here, this is one of the best punk rock-themed movies ever. Although this movie is about a group of angry youths in gangs, it has inspired song lyrics and movies or has been referenced in movies such as:

• Reservoir dogs
• Tenacious D pick of destiny
• The dark knight (heath ledger got inspiration from it)
• West world (1973)

I recommend that you read the book first before you watch the movie.

Return of the living dead (1985)

Considered by some as a classic and by others as an abomination, my mom calls it that. We must all admit that without such movies the walking dead wouldn’t be as big as it is today. If you paid attention the songs in the movie you will notice that they are either punk rock or death rock.

All the brain eating aside, this is still a great movie it even went ahead to inspire four sequels.

Josie and the pussy cats

Josie and the Pussycats are one of those movies that you either love or hate, compared to the other movies on this list this movie is very different.

It sort of feels like something that should be on nickelodeon (was inspired by a cartoon). The movie features a mix of pop punk, pop rock, punk rock and alternative rock.

If you are looking for something different in the punk rock world, this is it.

Honorable mentions

• The terminator
• Repo men (1984)
• Blade runner
• Decline of western civilization (1981)

Rock and Roll High School

Believe me when I tell you that this is one of the dumbest movies ever made, but in a good way. The story is very simple students versus an evil principal.

It is all about teen rebellion, you can say that the movie is a tribute to the fathers of punk or the pioneers of punk rock the Ramones. My advice, watch it today and suggest to us some more.