Punk

This morning I was listening to one of the great BIO Split Series albums, concretely vol.4 Bouncing Souls Anti-Flag, and I felt like talking about my favourite bands in here.

If I were asked which are my all time favourites bands, I would reply Rancid or NOFX. But, there are so many cool bands that it is difficult to make a decision. It's been a while since I started being into punk. Many shows, many bands, many albums... My preferences have been progressively changing from fast punk to more ska based punk and to fusion of styles.

Without being exhaustive, here you have a list of nice bands you can check out if you like punk:

Classic punk: Ramones, The Clash, Sex Pistols...
American punk: Rancid, NOFX, Bad Religion, Time Again, Anti-flag, Dropkick Murphies, Against Me!, Rise Against...
Spanish punk: La Polla, Eskorbuto, Piperrak, Kaotiko, Reincidentes...
Japanese Punk: Hi-Standard
Ska and all derived genres: Operation Ivy, Kortatu, Streetlight Manifesto, Less than Jake, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, Ska-p...

My all time favourite band is possibly Rancid. Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman started together in the legendary ska band Operation Ivy. Then, they started Rancid up and created the most important band in the 90s. Some of their albums (And Out Come the Wolves, Life Won't Wait, Undestructible...) are so good you never get tired of listening to them... It is amazing how they can play a hardcore song and then a ska one in just a few seconds and with such a coherence. I really like them. A nice song here, Old Friend in the album And Out Come the Wolves (dedicated to Hatty):



NOFX is another band that needs to be mentioned... They have always been irreverent and politically incorrect. To me, they are truly california punks... There songs, very fast and with a lot of ska, are sometimes so angry... Songs like Bob, Don't call me white, Reeko or Linoleum are so good I will never get tired of listening to them once and again. And what about The Decline... an 18 minutes punk shot with amazing lyrics... Here I will post Bob:



And now, La Polla Records from Spain... so good...



And a nice ska from Kortatu, also from Spain:



One thing I like most about punk is going to shows... They become so crazy with all the trashing, body surfing and dancing that you have real fun... This video shows what a punk show can turn up to be! Do you remember Mic when we went to the Festival in Strasbourg when Dropkick Murphies played this song? That was so much fun... with all the crazy German skinheads around...



And to finish a nice Japanese band, Hi-standard. It is better you check them out in the video below and make an idea by yourselves of how they sound like. Their outfit in this show in FujiRock is so nice... playing punk and wearing yukata... hahaha... interesting...





And to wrap this up, an old school punk Joe Strummer from The Clash making a cover of Bob Marley's Redemption Song. It is a posthumous video and therefore a homage to Joe. Rest in Peace and thanx for all.