Curious what notable personalities in the scene think was great this year? So is TGEFM! So we reached out to some of our favorite luminaries ranging from musicians, label personnel, and more for their “Best of 2025” lists. Now, listen: TGEFM is not a taskmistress. Contributors can write these out however they want. So if it doesn’t actually look or read like a list… and sometimes it really is just a list with no other observations! Who cares?
Chris Ruckus wears a lot of hats. A member of Mutiny and Dissidente and now taking the stage with longtime friends Stuck Lucky, his year looks less like a neat list and more like a lived-in journal. Instead of chasing what was new in 2025, Chris traced his year through memory, vinyl purchases and moments that left a mark, using music as both a timeline and a coping mechanism. What follows reads less like a best-of and more like a personal archive, one shaped by touring, friendships, film festivals, late nights, big scares and small victories. It’s reflective, funny, painfully honest and very Chris, inviting you not just to hear what he listened to but to understand why it mattered when it did.
Chris recently suffered a brain aneurysm and is still navigating recovery, medical bills and time away from work. If you’re able, you can support him directly by donating or sharing his GoFundMe.
My birthday is New Year’s Eve. Growing up, it gave me a complex watching everyone I love literally count down to the end of my personal holiday. Pop the champagne! Sing a song! Kiss! Thank the Lord we don’t have to think about Chris Ruckus for another year! Though any perceived slights were only in my head, it always bummed me out. I even went as far as calling December 31st “My Birthday and Nothing Else”, an inside joke that persists to this day.
As I rapidly approach middle-age, I could give a shit less about my birthday. The years blur together, and my memory, which was never particularly sharp, has lost whatever dull edge it may have once possessed. This means the pages of my calendar (Hello Kitty for 2025) are full of scribbled notes to myself. A convenient papertrail for an aging punk attempting to piece together what 38 meant to him. This, cross-referenced with a meticulously catalogued Discogs account should provide context to what I listened to and cared enough about to purchase physically and add to my collection. These records didn’t necessarily release this year, but rather what I added to my record collection around the time of notable events. In this way, I hope this serves not only as a retrospective of my year, but also as a retrospective of music you may have missed out on when it was initially released. Everyone else’s year-end reviews will tell you what 2025 releases are worth listening to. Let them be the taste-makers, and allow me to provide a glimpse into a year of my life.
WINTER
Every March, my wife and I attend the Pittsburgh Japanese Film Festival at Row House Cinema, a cute one-screen independent movie theater in Lawrenceville. It’s a two-week long test of endurance where we watch twenty or so films, and fill our quota of movie-going for the year. It’s a lot of fun, and surprisingly exhausting. Because of the theme, we end up listening to a lot of Japanese music around this time. A lot of the time it’s bands that have done anime theme songs. This year, it was all-femme noisy rock bands ex-Girl and Afrirampo.
ex-Girl‘s Endangered Species
(released in 2004 on Alternative Tentacles).
This record is a collection of psychedelic 60’s rock inspired songs, through the lens of the early 2000s Y2K aesthetic (which I hear is popular now. Everything is cyclical.) The drums are overdriven and saturated for the 60s garage feel, but the bass is round and fat and filling. Which frees the piano and synthesizers to get noisy and weird. The vocals are tightly harmonized, even for the more upbeat songs that want to get a little Melt-Banana-y. Arrangements are surprising and clever. Expect to hear jarring changes from verse to chorus and back again, but not in a way that takes you out of the songs. Production additions such as modular synth loops and 70s style string sections are so essential to the arrangements, I wonder how this three-piece pulls off these songs live. Apparently they’re back together, so maybe I’ll find out.
Afrirampo‘s We Are Uchu No Ko
(released in 2010 on Supponpo).
Afrirampo is a drum and guitar two-piece with both women singing. The songs are chaotic but never lose the plot. The drums range from tribal and driving, to sparse and humorous. The guitars are soaked in reverb and delay in a pleasant garage band way. The songs can be repetitive in a hypnotic, post-rock sort of way, but without any of the pretense of that genre. They’re noisy, and lively, and sound like two best friends having fun and letting you in on an inside joke.
SPRING
In May, my band MUTINY recorded our upcoming full-length record at Buzzbomb Studios in Orange, CA. Since members of MUTINY are from all over the country, our saxophonist Eric and I flew in to crash our drummer Mike’s place, who lives about 10 minutes from the studio. Mike left for tour with The Adolescents during our stay, so Eric and I mostly just recorded during the day, and hung out listening to music and eating ramen all night. During these sessions, we had an astonishing number of guest musicians (over 20, if memory serves) but the one who stands out the most is 8 Kalacas‘ trumpet player and band leader, Chorizo.
8 Kalacas’ “Fronteras”
(released in 2022 on Atomic Fire)
The absolute best band in ska-core. We played together at Supernova Ska Fest in 2024, and they were my favorite set of the festival. They are outspokenly political, speaking out about the ICE raids affecting their community. Musically, they’re equal parts ska and metal: the guitars chainsaw and tremolo pick, and the drums alternate between tight hammering double-bass, and groove-heavy sections. Then the bright horns kick in, and the verse plays some break-neck upstrokes and you remember where you’re at. If you’re like me and grew up listening to Voodoo Glow Skulls, this band does it harder and faster.
SUMMER
In June, I played my first show with my long-time friends Stuck Lucky at Camp Punksylvania. I’ve known Stuck Lucky for as long as I’ve been in touring bands, and they have been my favorite band since the first time we shared a stage in 2006. I was asked to play organ on their 2024 record Counting Curses and was geeked when they asked me to play with them live. I’ve been at almost every iteration of Camp Punx, so it always feels like a family reunion. This year especially, as we also shared the stage with The Best of the Worst, more long-time friends. My last car was a Fiat without Bluetooth or an aux input. I had been collecting vinyl records for years, but all my CDs had been scratched, lost, donated or gifted away years ago. Two exceptions to that: The Best of the Worst’s Painted Fools and Stuck Lucky’s self-titled album.
The Best of the Worst New Dead Ends
(released in 2025 on Bad Time)
I think this record was actually released a month or so after I saw them at Camp Punx, but one of them was gracious enough to send it to me early. The Best of the Worst are one of those bands that are constantly pushing the envelope and making it seem effortless. Their discography is just immaculate. Heavy, sometimes mathy. Soulful and groovy. And Liz’s voice gives me goosebumps. This is The Best of the Worst at their very best. The horn lines will worm their way into your brain, the verses will get you on your feet dancing, and the breakdowns will have you crowd-killing alone in your apartment.
Stuck Lucky’s entire discography
(released 2006 – 2024 on Community, Bad Time, Ska Punk International)
This one feels a little dirty, as I’ve since been asked to join the band. In the weeks leading up to Camp Punksylvania and our midwest tour, I got to do a deep dive into my favorite band of all time to learn those songs forward and backward. I knew the ones I played on Counting Curses intimately, but since I was adapting my set-up from the MUTINY live show, I needed to rewrite, record, sample, and map out the songs for a sampler. Fun! But seriously, this band rules. If you’re unfamiliar, they’re a fast ska / thrash band with a little bit of old country horror to round out the sound. The energy is frenetic, the vocals are gruff and biting, the horns dance up and down the scale, the drums gallop, the bass bounces back and forth, the guitars go from shredding to chicken-pickin’ AND I GET TO BE THERE TOO!
FALL
Annnnnnnd then the Fall. I had an aneurysm at the end of September. I’m tired of telling the story at this point, so here’s the Cliff Notes version: my wife and I were watching sumo wrestling before getting ready to go to a show. Normal Sunday night stuff. We noticed a growing, pulsing lump on my wrist. Did some Googling. Looks like a ganglion cyst? Supposed to smash it with a Bible. We don’t have a Bible. How about a Final Fantasy I – VI art book? How about we get it checked out instead. Oh! That’s your radial artery! You gotta go to a real hospital! Your blood pressure is through the roof! We don’t have a cardiologist on staff! You might be having a stroke! Here’s an ambulance to another hospital! Guess we’re not making that show! Four day hospital stay! Bills, bills, bills! Onosato wins the sumo tournament in a play-off! I can’t feel my hand! I can’t make a fist! Physical therapy! FMLA! GoFundMe! Benefit show! Three months off work, and I can’t even play guitar! This sucks!
Skinhead It’s a Beautiful Day, What a Beautiful Day
(released in 2025 on Closed Casket Activities)
When I started to be able to play guitar again, it was rough. I wasn’t able to play the fast metal riffs or barre chords that writing MUTINY songs require. So I returned to my punk rock roots. Simple, hardcore and oi songs I could manage. When I found this record, it was everything I needed at the time. Aggressive playing, hard-hitting, angry as fuck. Simple. Almost all the drum beats are the same, the riffs are usually no more than four notes. The bass is generally overdriven and keeps the songs motoring forward. The vocals are brutal, but the lyrics aren’t all home invasions and splitting heads. They’re also bittersweet and funny. Yeah, it’s not music about good people. It’s not even music for good people. It’s the perfect soundtrack for things not going your way. As of writing, I’m still off work. My hand works much better now, a little stiffer and slower than before, but I’m back to playing metal riffs and barre chords. But I’m grateful this record was there to act as physical therapy when I needed to play along to some basic punk rock. It even inspired me to write some new oi songs of my own. Maybe you can hear them in 2026.
Bad Dad (occasionally called Ed) has been on the periphery of the punk and punk-adjacent scene for over twenty years. While many contributors to this site have musical experience and talent, Ed’s musical claim to fame comes from his time in arguably the most punk rock Blockbuster Video district in NJ where he worked alongside members of Blanks 77, Best Hit TV and Brian Fallon. He is more than just an awful father to his 2 daughters, he is also a dreadful husband, a subpar writer, a terrible dresser and has a severe deficiency in all things talent… but hey, at least he’s self-aware, amirite?
Check out the pathetic attempts at photography on his insta at https://www.instagram.com/bad_dad_photography/