A Journey Through Punk Rock

As an angsty teenager, I spent much of my time listening to music. And of course, most of that music was punk rock. I've somewhat gravitated more towards the indie rock and hip-hop genres in recent years, but punk was my first love, and probably the genre of which I have the most knowledge. So, I felt inspired to make a guide to essential punk, for my friends or whoever reads this blog (so for my friends) (have I made that joke on here already?). Anyway, here are what I consider to be the 100 essential punk rock albums. There may be some that you wish were on here, and my response to that is that I either don't like the album or haven't heard it; my knowledge is not exhaustive. And some of these may not be 100% pure punk but they're close enough and plenty essential to get a taste of the spectrum of the genre. It was hard to make a cutoff of what would and wouldn't be considered punk. I didn't want to make the guide too narrow, just a list of typical 3-chord late 70s stuff. I did my best to maximize both breadth and depth in this. Anyway, I'll break it down for you into sections so it won't be too intimidating. The sections may have some overlap, and they aren't perfect, but I tried to divide it up in a way that made sense and didn't make any one section too long.

Landry's Top Thirteen Films of 2013

2013 was an exceptionally strong year in film, so much so that I think every film on this list would be a top film in an average year, and the whole top five could be any other year's Oscar winner. It was a year of dramas, most historical, many intense, which marked a shift away from the more fanciful 2012. It was a strong year for films that dealt with race issues, but a relatively weak year for gender issues in film. Anyways, here's my top thirteen films of 2013.

Bomb The Music Industry! (And Action Action) (And Refused) (And Born Against) Are Fucking Dead.

So, last night I saw my favorite band play for the last time ever. Well, some of you may know that I refer to several bands as my “favorite band”. Bomb the Music Industry! is one of them. Last night was their final show, at the Warsaw in Brooklyn. Bomb has had several “last shows” over the last year or so, but this one was for real, or at least we think. It was made out to be a bigger deal than the previous ones, and Jeff even tweeted that he spent a couple of hours crying in public the night before the show. Although this was Bomb’s night, the show had a stellar lineup of openers. Opening for BtMI! were Laura Stevenson (member of Bomb), Michigan power-pop-punks Cheap Girls, and Arizona folk heroes Andrew Jackson Jihad. After waiting for nearly an hour out in the frozen Brooklyn tundra, the doors finally opened.