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Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

The 100 Best Punk Songs, 54-61

Michele Catalano — Fri, 9 Jun 2006 01:27:17 EDT

The list moves on to the second half. My co-blogger (T) and myself (M) come up with eight more this evening. 54. Dwarves - "Let’s Fuck"So I’m sitting here thinking about doing a list of the most offensive punk songs. And this immediately comes to mind. And then I think, hey this should be on the 100 list too because really, the Dwarves need to be represented and what better way to do that with a song that has the lyrics I'm made of rubber/You're made of glue/I wanna stick my fucking cock inside of you? I’m planning on using this song to freak out my neighbors next time they bang that fucking basketball in the driveway at 2am. -M55. Circle Jerks - "Back Against the Wall"A cool song about defiance and being brought down by the man and the impotence of trying to fight back. Well, when you’re 18 it’s a cool thing to sing about because you have the whole emotion of “yea, dude, right on!” behind it. When you’re 43, it’s a cool song to sing because it reminds you what it was like to be 18 and hear that breaking glass sound for the first time; it lets you feel that fuck you and everything you stand for attitude surge up in your bloodstream again when the song comes on. At least for a minute or two before you realize dinner is burning on the stove and the dog ate your kid’s homework. -M56. Sick of it All - "Potential for a Fall"This list is so heavy with west coast bands, I had to get some east side representation going on. This is NY Hardcore. A voice as mean as the South Bronx, music heavy as Hell’s Kitchen. Whatever that means. I’m just trying to make an analogy here. This is part punk, part metal, all aggression. I think it’s about materialism, but really, sometimes it’s just about needing the right kind of music to play when you’re feeling all aggro. -M57. H2O - "Faster Than the World" Well yea, you had to see this coming. And hey, another NYC band! A great song about a band being out on the road. Typical H2O speed combined with a catchy riff, and it passes my “is this song repeatable?” test with a 5, meaning I listened to this song five times in a row one day while playing dodge-and-weave with tractor trailers on the Long Island Expressway. And if a song can make someone in a little Mazda feel invincible against those 18 wheelers, then rock on. -M 58. Clutch - "Shogun Named Marcus" Is this metal? Is it punk? What the fuck comes out of Iowa? This is like angry corn farmer music. "I will pick your corn as long as I can stick an ear so deep in you that you will hear Orville Redenbacher's dead voice whispering in your ear." Just saying, whispering, "You did wrong boy. And I hope you enjoy my corn!" This is angry music and I'm not gonna fool you. I have no fucking idea what this meant. Something about shoguns and taxes and Feds and geishas and corn coming out of your ass like like a god damn explosion of popcorning goodness, knives and sex in a warehouse. With chickens hanging around. Just watching.But I may be wrong.But chickens watching you having sex with a Geisha while not paying your taxes is a kinda cool thought.Or maybe that's just me. -T(Unumbered) Clutch - Shogun Named MarcusListen. I have no idea what he’s talking about with his review of this song. Maybe he doesn’t either. I know he digs it, 'cause Clutch is sort of how we met, but dude....corn fucking? Seriously? I’m going to do the same song, just so none of you think this is really about Orville Redenbacher porn.This song is all bass and heaviness and gritty voice singing about ummm...hari kari and emperors and sourmash and new world samurai. It’s got a kick ass groove and the lyrics are fun to sing and/or decipher and it really doesn’t matter what they are saying because, dude, this band -- and this song -- will kick your ass from here to the fucking cornfields of Iowa and you’ll never know what hit you. But trust me, it won’t be a fucking corn on the cob up your ass. I swear. -M59. Murphys Law - "Care Bear" Ok. Now that I'm done fucking around and talking about sticking corn up someone's ass with Orville's ghost floating around, let's get to the shit. This was a song about a party gone wrong and someone just wanting to help. Fucking care bear. I just broke a bottle. I just broke some glass. This fucker moves. New York hardcore at it's best. Float your flags and ink your skin. I don't care. This song was cool. These guys were fun. All they wanted to do was drink beer, smoke dope and play. Sweat the beer out of you from the night before and wash the memories away with another beer. Cause we are not stopping. Cause you gotta have fun. In the sun. Yeah you gotta have fun! fun! A great song from a band that really didn't give a fuck anymore except about not being able to see straight. And I don't even think they wanted to do that. That's Murphy's Law.*disclaimer - I know the fun lyrics were from another song -T60. Cro Mags - "We Gotta Know" Could anyone understand the lyrics? I couldn't. I know I'm almost deaf and shit, but this was a long time ago when I could hear. I couldn't get it. Pre H2O. Pre Sick Of It All. Pre Gorilla Biscuits. Pre CIV. This was shit that went nuts. Or made us nuts. This came out before all the skinhead shit took hold in California. Back when we tried to figure out what gang people were in by their fucking shoelaces on the god damn Doc Martins. Fucking shoelaces. I'm fucking colorblind god dammit. Gimmie a fucking break.Hey kids, this was life. Things happen. Back when I learned that you duck your head a bit when someone is diving on you. Push your head into the back of a bigger guy and let him take it. Fuck man, my inner mouth is cut up with so many lessons of when i was learning. It screams at me to duck when the dog jumps on me night. Still to this day. This was this song. Stand or fall. -T61. CIV - "Set Your Goals" Jesus Christ another fucking New York hardcore band. Well I did ask Michele for East Coast bands and really, after you get out of glam and get out of Ramones, hardcore really takes over. You New Yorkers are an angry lot. Hey dude, I grew up on the west coast, so hearing this song kinda made me think, "Man they are pissed off." Basically an inspirational song but an angry one. Fuck. Remind me not to order a pizza next time I'm New York. The "Double Double Pepperoni with Extra Anger" sounds like too much for me. But it is a cool song that sets off a cool album. Sure it's short, but really man, how much can you take? -T

Michele is from Long Island and writes about two of her favorite things - punk rock and fast cars -along with her better half at Faster Than the World.

100 Greatest Punk Songs, 23-34

Michele Catalano — Wed, 31 May 2006 09:54:36 EDT

We plow on. We, being my co-blogger (T) and me (M). 23. Circle Jerks - "Live Fast, Die Young" Talk about anthems. I was 18 when this song came out. When you're 18 you fluctuate between feeling like you are gonna live forever and feeling like you want to die. Those two things kind of lend themselves to each other when you spend every night doing some sort of damage to your body and your brain cells and your life expectancy, and you really just don't give a fuck about growing old and you sit around talking about how much getting older sucks and what is the point when the world is going to shit anyhow so you sit outside the bar in your car wondering if you are too drunk or stoned to drive and you pop Group Sex into the cassette player and you spend the next hour screaming live fast, die young and you think, hell yea. That's what I'm gonna do. Live fast, die young. We see how that worked out. - M download24. NoMeansNo - "Big Dick"- Wanna call them punk? hm. Well they had a punk following. Does that count? Make your own call. I don't fucking know. They influenced a lot of punk bands. Does that count? Hm. I don't know. But, I guess you can call them punk, or not. I don't really care. This song was on a great album that basically changed the way a lot of people thought about punk rock. From guitarist and vocalist driven to bass drive. It changed a lot of things we were doing. We never thought about things like that. They had a new style and a new approach. "You could rule a set with a bass? Really? Really?" This band started making people think that bass players weren't the background anymore. They were up front. And they had issues. - T download25. Swingin' Utters -"Derailer" Ok. Some of you guys are gonna hate this for separate reasons. And I've heard them all before. They went to Fat, they changed their style, and they try too hard to sound like an English band. Well hey, hell that's all true. A band from San Francisco does sound pretty lame singing about the Queen while they were living in SF. Actually, it's kind of funny if you think about it. But this song was really about conformity and how bad you get beat when you move off the track. You better learn to get fucked. And you better get used to it. Cause you're a needy person. -T download26. The Explosion -"No Revolution" Really fucking angry shit that cut down to the core of what I was feeling when I first heard it. Something that was gnawing at me. Something that I thought I was all alone in feeling. But they felt it too. They felt the same. Let's smash it all and start again. We started this shit and we are tired of you guys letting it fall. This song brought back to life a dying man on the street with songs about fun and, well, basically, insulting us for letting this slip through our fingers. It just made me feel happy that I wasn't alone. -T download 27. 42. Strung Out - "Ultimate Devotion" Fast-paced, dark and desperate, this is not your parent's love song. It's an ode to submissiveness or a plea for domination, depending on your point of view. In some ways it reminds me of that stalker-like, clingy love that you get in high school when you try to break up with a guy and he says he'd kill himself if you did and two days later he comes to school with his skin all red and blistery cause he tried to burn himself to death under the sun lamp in his parents' bathroom. Or maybe that's just me. -M download28. TSOL - "Code Blue" Is it really a song about fucking the dead or is it more like a statement on how much girls suck? Either way it's got fun lyrics (And I don't even care how she died...But I like it better if she smells of formaldehyde!). And really, even if you're not into necrophilia or bitching about what a prude your girl is, this song has such a great groove you'll find yourself moving along to it. And so what if you accidentally put it on a party mix and play it real loud while your neighbors are having a family outing in their backyard. Like they never heard the phrase "I wanna fuck the dead" before. Sheesh. -M download29. Fear - "Gimmie Some Action" A band that walks out and tells you they will walk out if you spit on them, then does walk off has got to be pretty cool. Lee Ving would come out, for each show, insult the crowd, then spit on the crowd, then jump into this song. It made entire floors turn into pits. It really didn't matter where you were at on the floor. If you were standing , you were in it. Surprise motherfucker. Didn't think you would get this did you? Get fucking used to it or go to the bar. This is the way it was gonna be for the next three minutes and if you don't like it, there is a Coors Lite waiting for you at the pussy bar. Take your Silver Bullet and sit at the side cause this is punk rock. This is a song that has balls hanging down to its god damn knees. And please don't ask me what that means, cause I don't even know. - T download30. Butt Trumpet - "I'm Ugly And I Don't Know Why" This might be more of a song for girls or guys with low esteem. Hell, it was a song for everyone really. Who in the world has never had their love taken away. Then fucking insulted in the playground. Then got so angry they shoved a peanut up someone's ass. Don't fucking take my love and insult me. One is bad enough. Two means you get your fucking ass kicked. Hey dude, it happens. Bianca sounds so fucking angry in this song you just wanna grab a beer and watch the cat fight that gonna happen and place bets on whose gonna win. Great song... and I bet Bianca beat the shit out of the chick and she was farting Jiffy Spread for the next two weeks. -T download31. Down By Law - "1944" Anyone familiar with the California scene knows what they are talking about and who they are talking about and where they there were talking about. l had a personal feeling for this song. Always trying your best and always hitting the end of some critic's crap. Being disliked by some critic? That critic disliking you so much when he's never felt the sweat drip on to your bass while you're playing until you can't see straight? Playing until you are dizzy? Bagging on me? Fuck him. It's easy to sit and create words on a page, but when you look down on the floor and see people having fun together, it's different. It stops being about divisions. It starts being about having fun and wasn't this what it was about? Having fun? Not what others thought because we gave all that shit up along time ago. Just having fun. -T download32. The Jam - "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" The first time I heard this song - about a guy trying to get home from work to his wife but gets jacked by some thugs in the a subway station, was the first time I fell in love with The Jam. It was Weller's ability to tell a complete, chilling story here, combined with the perfect pace of the song; rise and fall, slow and frenzied, giving the whole thing an air of drama that made see this band for everything they were. The build up as the guy is laying there, beaten and describing his what he sees as he's on the floor dying, (The last thing that I saw As I lay there on the floor Was Jesus saves painted by an atheist nutter) and then the lines "I glanced back on my life and thought about my wife cause they took the keys - and she'll think its me." That stayed with me. Haunted me. I still to this day - over 20 years later - get that same gut-punch feeling when I listen to this. That, kids, is what turns a good song into a great song. - M download33. Refused - "New Noise" The first time I heard this song, I was watching (what the hell was the name of that metal show on the old Much Music?) TV late at night and they showed this video. Some dorks in suits come out on a stage. Oh, what the fuck is this shit they're playing now? And then the opening riff and I thought, hmmm...sounds promising. Then the drums kick in, then the bass kicks in and then it slows down....yea, I'm digging this but where's this going, and then.........CAN I SCREAM? Whoa, dude. Whoa. The rest of the song kicked my ass. I had been half asleep when it started and by the time the dude was screaming We're not....leading, I was off the couch, adrenaline kicked in, and on the computer looking up shit about this band. Swedish hardcore punk? Right on. They may look like rejects from an Ed Sullivan repeat, but they fucking kicked my ass. Shape of Punk to Come is one of my favorite albums ever. - M download34. Minor Threat - "It Follows" Yea, I'm doing another Minor Threat song. It's my list, I can do what I want. This song is relentless. From that opening bass to the last "It followed me" and the breathless vocals, you really get the sense of someone just trying to get the fuck away from a life they no longer want. Somehow that life keeps chasing you and following you and just when you think you are moving fast enough to not turn your head and see it behind you, it's still breathing down your neck. And even at the end, when the whistling kicks in and you feel like yea, I got away, I'll just hide behind this corner and it won't find me, you know the whistling is just fake bravado and what you were running from is still going to find you and fuck you up. -M download

Michele is from Long Island and writes about two of her favorite things - punk rock and fast cars -along with her better half at Faster Than the World.

100 Greatest Punk Songs 13-22

Michele Catalano — Sat, 27 May 2006 04:25:14 EDT

13 - 22 of a work in progress, compiled by me (M) and my co-blogger (T)13. MDC - "I Remember" Okay. This song made you think that maybe your life wasn't so bad. That someone had it worse than you. That someone was angrier than you and more pissed off than you. That no matter how punk you thought you were, someone is always behind you going, "Hey dude, you think you saw the shit? Lemme buy you a beer and tell you my story." A serious what-the-fuck song from some SF transplants that makes you think. It's a time to remember and a time to forget. Nothing I can do but get away. Good stuff. - T download14. Husker Du - "New Day Rising" This song is like fifty hits of speed shoved into your veins with a needle that's been dipped in pure adrenaline. It's fucking primal scream therapy. It's stomping on the ground and shaking your head and kicking the wall and maybe taking a chunk of plaster out of the spot behind your bedroom door and you really don't fucking care, you are just ripping shit off your walls and throwing books and empty beer cans around and screaming along with the song - and I mean throat tearing, from the bottom of your stomach screaming, which you play 43 times in a row until a neighbor bangs on the window and asks if you are okay and you are like, "Fuck, yeah, I'm okay. I'm better than okay." Cathartic. - M download15. Radio Birdman - "New Race" Gah! I knew someone would say that and I'd have to kick my ass for losing that album. Australian punk rock. Really, basically the only thing Australia had at the time. They came out of nowhere and they were gone before I could work a telephone. This is a great song that, well, fuck, now I need to get the album again. Just real, cool punk that kicks with simple, clean, no distortion licks that kinda rocks. Well, fuck that. It rocks. If you've never heard Radio Birdman, download some of their stuff. It's one of the only cool things to come out of Australia since Crocodile Dundee.....I knew someone was gonna say that song, dammit. And now I'm out fifteen bucks on the CD. - T download 16. Misfits - "Some Kind of Hate" I'm trying to narrow my Misfits songs down and damn, it's hard. But I think out of all of them, this one best exemplifies Danzig's penchant for masturbating with his own voice. You won't get this kind of "I'm a real singer, damn it, listen to me croooooooon" again until much later on (when he was solo) with "You and Me (Less Than Zero)." And I'm not saying that like it's a bad thing. Danzig was at his best when he was making sweet love to himself. Plus, you gotta dig the whole Phil Spector-type music, as if the Ronettes were gonna suddenly bust out with maggots in the eye of love won't copulate. - M download17. D.I. - "Youth In Asia" What the hell was with this song? Youth in Asia? What the fuck? It took me, like, 15 times listening to it to get it. Youth in Asia? It moves you but you try to figure out the title...what does he mean? Asian land war? Then you slowly get it or, like me, it hits you in the face like a cast iron skillet and you feel like the dumbest son of a bitch on the block since Goober rolled into Mayberry. Pull the plug, let me die, youth in asia, wave bye-bye. Hey, I never said I was that smart. In fact, I'm feeling pretty stupid right now remembering when it hit me. Don't laugh, dammit. It happens. But awesome song that has a weird title until you say it fast. Kinda clever. Maybe stupid. You make the call. I like it - T download18. Richard Hell and the Voidoids - "Blank Generation" One of the first "punk" songs I ever heard. Had to be on WNEW FM, which is where I heard most of this music first. I heard this and "Love Comes in Spurts" and I was like, what the hell is this? Who the hell is this? I found a blank cassette tape and threw it into my stereo and just sat around and waited and waited for them to play the song again so I could hit record. When I finally got it on tape, I sat there and analyzed it, pressing stop and pause and play over and over again, trying to figure out what about the song made me feel like there was something subversive and dangerous and rebellious about his voice, something that made me want to go and hang out in a dark alley and smoke cigarettes and bitch about the man. - M download19. BGK - "Youth For Crime" A Dutch band who hated the British scene. Somehow they got signed to Alternative Tentacles for some weird reason. Still not sure about that and about their name. B.G.K., or Balthasar Gerards Kommando. Hmm. Anyway, the song. Seriously. This song is an orgasm. It walks up the fret then blasts you with vocals. Like a tease at a strip show that you just pray for her to stop so either you can go home and masturbate or get another beer. But it doesn't quit. It's not done. It just walks. "Youth for crime." He keeps yelling the top of the fret. "Youth for crime." Keeps yelling. This tape lived with me for years and every time I listened to it, I prayed for that last track. - T download20. 7 Seconds - "Remains to Be Seen" Listen to my story! That's the way the song kicks in and then it's just a relentless barrage of words and music until the Misfits-like whoa-whoa break lets you breathe for a second before it kicks again and, by the time it's all over, you have carpal tunnel syndrome from drumming on your steering wheel and it's left you more breathless than your last orgasm. - M download21. Minor Threat - "Salad Days" Almost everyone who has added to this list has a favorite Minor Threat song. So I'm gonna get mine up here first. Because I can. The slow start, the build up, the anticipation because you know the song is gonna kick any second and then MacKaye starts in half singing, half talking in that frenzied way -- and that's one of the things I aways dug most about Minor Threat, the way his vocals make it seem like you're sitting in a bar with him and he's just going off about something (and this is also true of why I love Fugazi and, on a different but similar tangent, 7 Seconds). And listening to "Salad Days", you know it's the last thing they did, so you sing along with the lyrics in a wistful kind of way but you think, what a hell of a way to go out. - M download [I like this song so much, it's replaced the old place]22. Sham 69 - "Sunday Morning Nightmare" - The only reason I really like this song a lot is because when you hear calls of unity and all that other crap for an hour then a song about getting into fight, throwing up on your clothes, and yelling at your sister is fun. Don't get me wrong. I love all sham, but this one has to be my favorite. It's so "fuck you, get out of my way" it's kinda cute. I know saying that this is my favorite is going to bring a lot of backlash, but that kids are united stuff was way before me and was in another country so it didn't really effect me. Or maybe I just didn't care then. I dunno. I was more in tune with beating up your sister's boyfriend for wearing your clothes. Plus they talked funny! -T download

Michele is from Long Island and writes about two of her favorite things - punk rock and fast cars -along with her better half at Faster Than the World.

Let's Have a War: 100 Best Punk Songs, 7-12

Michele Catalano — Thu, 25 May 2006 18:39:42 EDT

Hey, we're getting there. 12 down, 80-something to go. Don't make me do math in my head, ok?Six more, my co-blogger's are marked with a T, mine with an M. 7. Black Flag -"Rats Eyes" A song that was definitely at the end of their career. Something in it. Something. I don't know what, grabbed me. It was slow and it was angry and it just sounded like we were done, but no matter what they saw and the shit you pulled they would always be there watching. Cause they stopped sleeping and they stopped caring way before you inhaled your first gasp of air. They were done before you started and now they just watched from the shadows and waited. - T8. Fang - "Berkeley Heathen Scum" A song I liked cause it was in a scene I was in. This was punk rock. This was being in a town where you were hated by hippy bongloads and college students at the same time. Saying to them 'hey dude, fuck you, I'm tired of your shit and you are all bothering me so go fucking away." The song rocks and the words are out of it, but I still had a good time listening to it. download - T9. Angry Samoans - "Lights Out" Hey dude. There's not much to say on this song except to quote them. "We weren't the best but we rocked the hardest." Jesus, dude. What the fuck was with these guys? A band from LA in the LA scene who fucking didn't care about anything but breaking things. While others were singing about love on a couch they were singing about poking your eyes out with a fork. I'm telling you, this song rocks. *Disclaimer* This blog has no responsibility if you poke your eyes out with a fork. download - T10. The Clash - "Complete Control" It was snotty Brit punk. It was rock and roll. It was part Chuck Berry, part Sex Pistols, and all 'fuck you' anthem. Singing c-o-n--trol while Strummer yells over your voice is something that never gets old. download -M11. Exploited - "Sex and Violence" sexandviolence sexandviolence sexandviolence sexandviolence.......singing this song while sitting in some dirty club waiting for your favorite local punk band to come on, drinking cheap two for one beers and slamming back a shot of 151 for each beer and everyone pounding their fists on the bar singing sexandviolence sexandviolence sexandviolence sexandviolence. Yea. That's what I'm talking about. download -M12. GBH - "Knife Edge" Whenever I talk about GBH, I have to start off by saying that they were a much better band than people give them credit for. Ok, got that out of the way. This song was made for the pit. The starts and stops, the breakneck pace, the winding guitar, the machine gun delivery of the lyrics, and then the drop, it's like the band was giving you a break, letting you catch your breath before they kicked back in and you had to get your feet moving all over again. Livin' my life on the edge of a knife. Kick ass stuff. download - MWe'll try to do more than six next time or this is going to be a long haul.

Michele is from Long Island and writes about two of her favorite things - punk rock and fast cars -along with her better half at Faster Than the World.

Let's Have a War: The 100 Best Punk Songs

Michele Catalano — Thu, 25 May 2006 07:47:39 EDT

My co-blogger "the turtle" and I have decided to come up with our own list of the 100 best punk songs. Yea, it's been done a million times before, but maybe not by two people with disparate tastes and a broad vision of what punk rock is - two people who will also take suggestions from you to add to the list (Just please don't say Emerson Lake and Palmer songs or anything about "fire on the mountain" at the Dead show in '78. This is punk and hardcore and maybe indies). See, we know lists like this can start a small war. But that's the fun in doing it.This list will take a while to compile. We're starting with three songs each. Keep in mind they are in no particular order. We'll worry - and fight about - ranking and order when we reach 100. So we start with six tonight - three each - In no particular order. Turtle's picks:SNFU - "She's Not On The Menu" - What can you say about this song? This song moves. When you listen to it you get the feeling that Chi Pig has seen this shit before and will see it again. And even though he has to watch this happening it doesn't mean he's happy about it. His feeling comes out in this song. This was a song about something I take to heart. Treating people like shit just cause you can. And that's all fucked up. Plus it's got a cowbell in it! downloadThe Business - "Harry May"- My first exposure to the Business. These were fun songs, but really not. Do you know what I mean? It was always fun to chant the chorus but the verse was about killing people. I was at a bar during World Cup and they kept this song on constantly. This wasn't the first time I heard it but I was surprised how many UK fans, young and old, knew this song like the back of their hand. Great song that will get you ready for World Cup '06. Plus, dude, they talk funny like. "arry arry arry may!" downloadHellacopters -"Fire Fire Fire"- Frustration and anger and fast cars and fast women and fast beer. I'm not sure about the fast beer part. The garage sound on this song really moves you. "Working all day won't give me a buzz, so I set it for a six pack and a fast car. OH YEAH!" This line is a thing of beauty. Barely able to hear the screams as Dregen rips thru it like a hot knife through butter. Great song about hating where you are at and just wanting to get away. downloadFor my first three songs, I just went with my three most played songs on my Last Fm thing for this week. I have this tendency to obsess.Rocket From the Crypt - "Salt Future" It's one of those songs that you can't just have on, you don't just listen to it - you have to sing it. And I mean sing. Loud. Like you mean it. Even if you don't know the words you just make them up as you go along and then sing real loud on the parts you do know and who knows what the fuck a salt future is or why it's rising, but god damn this is some good drunken barroom sing-along music and I'm gonna belt this out like I mean it. downloadFugazi - "Promises" Another song you just have to sing, but this one you belt out with the windows in the car rolled up instead of down because your voice may crack on a word or two. The pickup right before he starts in with the "Go where you think you want to go" verse, the promises/words exchange at the end, the way the anger beneath the lyrics comes out as frustration in his voice - it all makes for one of those songs I shouldn't listen to a lot, but I can't help doing it anyhow. downloadRich Kids on LSD- "Scab on My Brain" - This song is awesome. It's fast and loud and obnoxious and, if you do it right, your throat should hurt when you are done singing. And really, having the words SCAB ON MY BRAIN! burst forth from your speakers as your kids' friends are hanging out in your kitchen is just icing. download That's just the start. Six down, 194 to go. Throw some suggestions at us!

Michele is from Long Island and writes about two of her favorite things - punk rock and fast cars -along with her better half at Faster Than the World.