Punkcore Records fucking rules.

I don't care what you think to the contrary. No one can ever change my feeling on that one. They've been supporting awesome street-punk bands for years.

Now that that's out of the way I can get on to writing a proper article. I was on the Punkcore site again recently, and they haven't updated that thing in years. Not only that, but every time I look at their band roster...I get more depressed.

The last 3 or 4 years have been BRUTAL for the street-punk scene, and their roster is a sad, sad reminder of that fact. Let's quickly re-cap at some of the bands lost(Punkcore or otherwise, these are just some of my favorites):

- A Global Threat - The Agrestix - Career Soldiers - Cheap Sex - Clit 45 - Defied - Sayaka - The Devotchkas - The Virus

Okay...so those last 2 weren't lost in the last 4 years, but I'm still bitter as fuck. These were the bands that got me into punk, these were the bands that inspired me to start playing music myself and these were the bands that you could listen to no matter what kinda mood you were in.

Not only that, but it was this style of music that had enough of a voice to get points across, but was simple enough that ANYONE could voice an opinion. A lot of the underground bands coming out now make me feel like they've bought into every bullshit lie the left-wingers have put out there. Don't get me wrong, I'm a left-leaner myself, but I don't feel the need to force MY beliefs down the throats of others, especially if you need a dictionary to understand half of the words they're using in their songs.

And call me old-fashioned, but some kind of melody I can pogo/mosh to is crucial. And I'm sick of hearing about the same dark crap in every fucking song. I know full-well that the world is shit. I know full-well people starve to death or are killed in wars every day. I want to hear bands get angry about it and maybe think of some solutions, and I sure as fuck don't need to hear about the same things in every song.

All ranting aside, it feels as though street punk is slowly dying again like it did in the 80's. Most of the old heavyweight bands have broken up, don't play very often or have just vanished off of the face of the Earth, and it doesn't seem as if enough new distros/labels/websites/new awesome bands have been starting up to take their place.

I can only hope that the new generation of kids I see coming to shows nowadays stick with it so that this kind of punk isn't lost and forgotten years down the road.

And maybe someday my band, or a band just like us, will have music that'll change a kid's life, kind of like these bands did mine.

Until that day comes, To all those before me and that will hopefully come after me, I salute you.