I really don’t have much to set this up. The year was pretty good and a bunch of music happened to catch my ears. I constantly write and talk about the greatness of Ramones, and a lot of great and new Ramones-influenced music came along. I also had a bit of hardcore get my attention for the first time in a while. Legends came back and knocked me out. And my home state of Iowa put out some good stuff. Below are a “top 5” of stuff I liked this year thematically and in no particular order (which conveniently allows me to drop all sorts of new music recommendations without doing a traditional “best of” list – the sort of thing I notoriously struggle with). Enjoy.
5) Hardcore music got my attention for the first time in a while.
I’ve had a back-and-forth relationship with hardcore punk over the years, diving all in at times and then completely cutting it from my life. This year, a few records in particular got my attention. I really managed to get into the stomping power pop grit of the two Militarie Gun EP’s, All Roads Lead to the Gun I & II. Action News’ Failed State sounded like a chaotic racket, threatening to fall off the rails at any given moment, but always managing to hang on. It was a glorious cacophony. Then, Turnstile dropped Glow On. I’ve been hearing for some time that I’m supposed to like Turnstile, and while records like Time & Space and Nonstop Feeling were fine, I never really drifted back to listen to them over again. Glow On is different. I keep coming back over and over and it’s ended up one of my most listened to records of the year. Yea, some of their stuff sounds like 311. But I like it (and in a moment of confession: I like 311, too; deal with it).
4) The state of Iowa (my home) continued to put out the good stuff.
Ottumwa’s TV Cop stayed relatively quiet through much of the year, but dropped a ridiculously good grunge-pop-punk single called “Bad Brain”. It’s worth a listen. The Blendours also did their part, giving up Go On Vacation in June and Washington Called (an album recorded back in 2013) in July. On top of that, Trevor Blendour played fantastically fun live performances from his bedroom on Facebook with a bunch of frequency. Finally, Iowa’s very own and venerable Bloated Kat Records released a bunch of good new stuff from bands like Death Kill Overdrive, Nanny, Saturday Night Karaoke, Kane and the Stubborn Stains, Mark Murphy and the Meds, and Teenage Bigfoot (featuring TGEFM’s Tiffa!). Yay Iowa!
3) The Grim Deeds camp keeps rolling along.
(Full Disclosure and shameless plug all wrapped into one: Grim Deeds runs Laptop Punk Records, which just so happens to have released some of my stuff this year). Deeds is a mainstay on my lists, and he put out a bunch of great stuff again this year. Only the Beast III is a ton of fun (with crazy cool cover art by TGEFM’s very own head editor Jeff Sorley!), as is his October Self Titled release and the end of 2021 drop What Dreams May Come. Then, under The Gungans guise, he managed to drop 2 more fun releases with March’s …And the Fans Who Hate Them and the recent Squirtgungan (which might be my favorite of his releases this year). And for what it’s worth, Laptop Punk opened the year with a fun mattcrap release and then added another 50+ releases before things wrapped. Lots of fun stuff from here including Mantis Watch, Lauren Banjo, J Prozac, Lesser Creatures, Fatrace, Lookit, Martians!, The Labor Pains, Dave Strong, Marisa in Pink, The Mitochondriacs, The Rieslinger, and many more.
2) Some legends came back around and offered the good stuff.
I’m old and I’ve been listening to a bunch of punk rock for a while now. This year saw a few of my old favorites come back around and show that they still can do what they do well. Australia’s Hard-Ons came back with a new singer and new album (I’m Sorry Sir, That Riff’s Been Taken) that seemed pretty right. But the best of the returns came with The Lillingtons Can Anybody Hear Me? Enemy You tribute, the Beatnik Termites 50’s doo-wop throwback Sweatin’ To The Termites, and the Descendents revived look-back to the band’s early days 9th & Walnut. All three would pretty easily make a year end top 10-type countdown for me.
1) Awesome Ramonescore punk, both of the catchy pop punk variety and of the goofy horror-sci-fi-spy variety.
This year, we had a bunch of great records from bands that revel in Ramones-influenced stuff that I love. Some of it was just silly, catchy pop punk. I loved the stuff on Pep Talk’s Live, Laugh Lobotomy and Capgun Heroes Last Call for Adderall. Indonesia’s Fatrace and New York’s Goin’ Places dropped candy-coated hooks with Tropical Pleasure and Save The World. The Shivvies landed on bubblegum Ramones with their self-titled album while Matt Ellis dug into the seedier Dee Dee side of Ramones with Full Moon Fever. Lesser Creatures and The Suck delivered fantastically rough songs on Issue One and Boris Sprinkler. And then Lily Livers went and got the Ramones-sound drunk on The Replacements with the supercool Sunny Side Up. Evening Shadows self-titled release also got lumped into the Ramones sound by many, and while I wouldn’t quite describe it like that, the album is addictive and catchy as can be, easily one of my favorites this year. Oh, and if you like all sorts of fun B-movie lyrics with your Ramones, that was taken care of fantastically as well. The self-titled Zoanoids record, Covert Flops Mission: Implausible, Bad Secret’s Vinyl-ONE, and Mantis Watch’s Channel 101 all hit just right and are some of my most listened to this year. For a Ramones addict like myself, this year was good.
That’s all I’ve got in me at the moment. RYAN out.
ryan is a reviewer and news editor for TGEFM. He’s very secretive, he might be an alien.
