Part 2 of 3 (Read Part 1 here!)

Top 5 Old Releases of 2023

In no particular order, of course.

Ramones – Loco Live

Release Date: March 1, 1991

My Favorite Tracks: Wart Hog, Pinhead, Havana Affair

I’ve been a Ramones fan most of my life. My love for them only grew deeper once I started playing bass almost two years ago; Dee Dee Ramone has always been one of my musical heroes. I then took it a step further when I read Punk Rock Blitzkrieg: My Life as a Ramone by Marky Ramone. Understandably, I couldn’t stop thinking about the Ramones and their music while reading so I was inspired to pick up the bass and take on a new project: Learn as many Ramones songs as possible.

And what better way to do it than playing along with one of their live records? At the time of this writing, I can play Durango 95, Teenage Lobotomy, Psycho Therapy, Blitzkrieg Bop, Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio?, I Believe in Miracles, Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment, Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, I Wanna Be Sedated, The KKK Took My Baby Away, I Wanna Live, My Brain is Hanging Upside Down, Chinese Rocks, Wart Hog and Beat On The Brat. Oddly enough, that’s barely half of the 31 songs on this killer live album! While there may be a few of what I would consider “staples” absent from this record, it does cover most of their hits and a few deeper cuts. A great place to start if you want to dip your toes into the Ramones’ music but an even better place to start if you just love playing punk rock bass guitar! (Also yes, I know this is CJ Ramone playing on this record, but he’s largely playing Dee Dee’s songs)

Scene Queen – Bimbocore Vol. 2

Release Date: November 10, 2022

My Favorite Tracks: Pink Hotel, Barbie & Ken, Pink G-String

I was introduced to Scene Queen last year and I’ve been a HUGE fan ever since. With a handful of new tracks this year, she’s poised to release another banging album next year (I’m guessing). I’ve been blasting both “Bimbocore” and “Bimbocore Vol. 2” almost every day this year. She’s terribly inappropriate but so, so, so GOOD! The metal is so heavy but she’s unapologetically PINK. It’s the perfect combination.

With that said, don’t listen to this record if you’re looking for philosophy or any kind of deep meaning. She wears her promiscuity on her sleeve and the mood of her music is just pure fun, pure heavy and nothing more. I can’t wait to hear a new record!

Baby Bugs – Genesis

Release Date: August 23, 2022

My Favorite Tracks: Autotheist, I Told You So, Pretty For You

Baby Bugs wasn’t on my radar and I’m not entirely even sure how they fell onto it. I’m guessing it was a Spotify discover mode present and believe me when I tell you that it was a true gift! I Told You So is the first song I heard and I immediately fell in love with their sound. They aren’t reinventing the wheel at all, but they’re taking punk rock in a cool direction. Autotheist is an all-out angst-riddled rager while track two Pretty For You is a forlorn folk punk song. There are elements of hardcore punk, horror punk, skate punk and everything in between on this record, all things I love.

I think what I love most about this band is lead singer Bowie’s vocal style. Sultry and pouty, she’s a rock-and-roll Lana. I don’t know for sure but I assume she’s the main songwriter in the band and she has a poetic gift that seems to be strongly influenced by folk-punk, a genre I’ve re-fallen in love with this year. In Angels, she croons, “I see angels, I hear demons; people tell me they’re not real. But if no one else can see them, then of course that’s how they feel.” Another powerful line comes from penultimate track Tapeworms: “They tell me to swallow tapeworms to eat up all my sin; They tell me to starve my fucking self ‘til I can wear size negative ten. My body feels like hell and I know this feeling well, gonna rip off my skin; He says I’ll feel sick, at least I’ll get pretty again.”

TOOL – Fear Inoculum

Release Date: August 30, 2019

My Favorite Tracks: Fear Inoculum, Pneuma, Invincible

TOOL fans have a reputation for being pretentious, for being gatekeepers or for simply being obnoxious. It’s for these reasons that I didn’t get into them until the last few years. I knew they had a reputation for being incredibly talented musicians and phenomenal songwriters but as someone who loves the fast-paced world of punk, it was oftentimes hard for me to enjoy a metal band that required a bit of commitment in each of their songs in order to get to the heavy shit.

Then this year I got us tickets to see TOOL at Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville. In preparation for the show I started listening to some sample setlists other Spotify users had created and it turned me onto some of their other well-known songs like The Pot, Stinkfist and Sober but it also put me onto some of their newer material from their most recent effort “Fear Inoculum.” From this record, they included the title track as the show opener, Pneuma, Descending, Chocolate Chip Trip, Culling Voices and Invincible. It was enough for me to reconsider my stance on the band – I got to see what I would consider the world’s best rhythm section play live and I couldn’t be more grateful.

Green Day – Nimrod

Release Date: October 14, 1997

My Favorite Tracks: Hitchin’ a Ride, Platypus (I Hate You), Prosthetic Head

It’s no secret that “Insomniac” is my favorite Green Day record but “Nimrod” is arguably the stronger album. As with the previous years, I chose multiple Green Day albums to learn to play on guitar in their entirety and this was my favorite one to learn. If I ever get to meet the guys in the band, I would tell them about how my mom only allowed me to buy “Insomniac” if I promised they didn’t sing about sex or drugs, then promptly asked her what meth amphetamine was after purchasing. I’d then tell them about how after purchasing “Nimrod” and reading the lyrics to All The Time, I asked my Gran what Salud meant, and while trying to look for context she read the lyric “Wasting time, wasting time down a bum-fuck road and I don’t know where the hell it will go.” She promised not to say anything to my mom but it goes without saying my family didn’t care much for Green Day.

Yet here we are, nearly 26 years later, and I’m still blasting it, loving every second of it and now learning how to play the whole thing on guitar. I have tickets to see Green Day (finally!) next year in Cincinnati and I can’t begin to describe how excited I am. Billie Joe Armstrong is a lifelong hero of mine and it will be an honor to be in the same town, at the same venue and hearing him sing all the songs that made me a punker.

Honorable Mentions:

VIAL – LOUDMOUTH (July 30, 2021)

Misfits – Static Age (July 15, 1997)