Punk Rock Academy Fight Song – Good Guys Don’t Wear White

“Show me a hero and I’ll prove he’s a bum.” That is one of my favorite quotes by one of my heroes. The man who spoke it was World War Two fighter pilot Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, a medal of honor winner with a reputation for hard drinking and rule breaking but also some one who quickly realized the inherent danger of putting people up on a pedestal especially if he was the one on that pedestal. Precisely the type of person any impressionable young Punk couldn’t help but be attracted to. Read more

Punk Rock Academy Fight Song – The Fun Was Never Ending

So as most of you have noticed my brilliant musings have been missing in action for close to a month and a half. It hasn’t been by choice and it hasn’t been because of a lack of ideas but rather quite the opposite. The ideas and memories have been bouncing around my brain like a Chinese gymnast on speed. However every time I flipped open the computer and attempted to get started I’d wind up scrapping whatever I was doing and head over to Surfline and see what the waves were like in Costa Rica or i’d kill some time on Facebook. But I just couldn’t focus Read more

Punk Rock Academy Fight Song – A Riot Of My Own

Ahh Yes the riot. Probably one of the most over used cliched terms in Punk rock. I bet there are more Punk songs about rioting than there are country songs about driving tractors and being proud to be a redneck. Side note- I really do like country music, just not the lame derivative type that panders to the lowest common denominator but I digress.  Seeing the recent civil unrest in London brought this idea to mind-that the term riot within the context of Punk rock has become hackneyed and trite. Wow I must be some high brow intellectual to be putting together such a phrase Read more

Punk Rock Academy Fight Song – The Kids Are Alright

It seems to me like every generation falls into the same trap. We swear up and down that we wont do it. No way man, I'm not gonna be that guy. Be eventually what we think is maturity sets in and we feel it is our god given right or perhaps it is our righteous duty and we give in to that feeling in the back of our heads that we’ve been suppressing for years. And then when we cant take it anymore and we explode and out come that odious phrase “…Kids these days.” Its the sad acknowledgment that we are slowly evolving (or maybe devolving) in to Read more

Punk Rock Academy Fight Song – Wassup Rockers

"Mr. N – What are You? What do you mean, what am I-? Yeah like what are you, you know where are you from? Oh I live in Long Beach but I grew up in  San Gabriel if that's what you mean. No Mr. N what are you, what's your nationality.  Well I'm American. NO, NO, No comes the exasperated response where were you born. Well I was born in Georgia but what does that have to do with anything". And so it plays out like an updated version of the old Abbott and Costello "Who's on First" routine whenever my students find out that I am in fact like most of them -Hispanic or Latino or Chicano or whatever the correct term is. Read more

Punk Rock Academy Fight Song – Garageland

So there I stood, exhausted, shirtless ears ringing covered in sweat and cheap beer. And damn if it wasn’t the greatest feeling ever. We’d finally done it. We played our first show. Well it wasn't really a show it was a party in Mikey's backyard with the express purpose of giving our band a place to finally play. But the important thing was that we had finally crossed that rubicon that separates the punks from the Punk Rockers. We were no longer just three guys and a crappy casio keyboard in a garage we were four guys with a real live drummer in an honest to god band. Read more

Next Page »