ah! moral dillema(sp...!?!?)

[WEBCYAN]

A friend of mine is really into punk music. They like sum 41, blink 182, sr71, and a host of other bands that use random combinations of letters and numbers.

Anyway, I had never liked punk, or emo, or whatever its called. Greenday had some great stuff tho. He created awesome counter vocal melodies against some really simple guitar power chords.
But other than that I didnt like it.
So...my friend challenged me to write 10 punk songs in one night that were just as good as anything greenday could do.

Well, I tried. I came up with 10 songs. 3 sucked big time, but the other 7 floored my friend. I found that I have a really good knack for writing this kind of thing. It is just as good as greendays stuff. All the songs consist of only power chords played in drop d using JUST the lower 3 strings.
But the vocal counter melodies I came up with are really good.
So now Im confused. I really dont like to listen to punk music, but I find I like playing it.

But it almost seems like cheating. I mean, punk music is REALLY easy to write, record, mix, etc..
I want to challenge myself more(I like APC, tool, soundgarden, etc..) but I still like punk music.

Im not sure what path to choose. Maybe both?
Anyway, my friend is really pressuring me to record those 7 songs. He LOVES punk music and still thinks what I wrote is as good as greenday. Thats quite a compliment.

For now every song has the EXACT same 4/4 kick/snare/kick/snare and hi hat pattern and the bass just plays the root note of each power chord over the kick drum. But, apparantly its still good...

 

[CMiller]

You said you like playing it right? Then what's the big deal? Its only music, man, get over your fears and play what you enjoy playing.

 

[blackbuck]

Hahahah. The evil starts. I remember the same thing. My friends couldn't understand what was happening to me.

Seriously, those bands you mentioned.... well... I don't really consider them to be that great. Though they do have some decent songs somtimes, (I do like blink I guess- they're still "blink" to me).

Anyway, look at it like this.

The ESSENSE of punk is ROCK revival & expression. Listen to early punk, poppunk like ramones, clash... it's ROCK. The songs ROCK. It's not about "look at me I rock" or "it's time to sing about rock" glam, they rock with simplicity. While rock music was into big solos, arena rock, these guys took three chords and make complete, catchy, expressive songs that meant something.

I do like tool and soundgarden too. But you don't need to make things complicated to make a good song. Crap, you can easily screw up a decent song by complicating it when you shouldn't. By intentionally stripping away the "look at me and my baddass riffing & solos" you can destroy a good vocal line. And if you go see bands you havn't seen... well, it's just hard to follow alot of these guys who change up so much. It's rare that I'll see a heavy riffing band that I can get into (though it does happen) the first time.

I grew up loving Van Halen & likewise music (as did billy joe of green day). But you don't need to be eddie to rock! Us non-gods can rock too. I find it funny that VH made "aint talkin' bout love" to make fun of the simplicity of punk rock, and it ended up being one of their best songs.

I remember my first punk show..... the "the queers" with "screw 32" and some more opening acts. My god, I had never seen them before, and damn did they lay it down. SOOOO easy to get into the music. After that I was hooked. I paid 6bucks, saw five bands, all of which kept my attention. Wheras I'd go to a 30 dollar concert of a "better" band, and get bored during the drum solo, the endless guitar solos...... the bass solo....

So I say, embrace it. You're shutting out a whole genre because of a stereotype.

Ask yourself this question.... what do you dislike about listening to punk? You don't have to do it like others do, but you can take what you like from it. Hell I don't stick with PR formats always either. I just like the rawness, expressiveness, and independance of it.

Like I said, I don't really like those bands your friends into. Check out some of these bands, they are more varied than the poppunk your friend likes..... and probably harder to get into.

Snuff (can't understand what they say but they have awesome melodies)
Jawbreaker (my favorite band- hard to get into though)
Swingin' Utter's (another fav.... great stuff)
Samiam (very different. Check out their last album "ashtray" easy to get into)
Pegboy
The queers (Ramones ish)
THe Ramones (of course)
The Clash
Ten Foot pole (rev)
Bad Religion
Early Offspring (ixnay, ingition)
Social Distortion
All
Face to Face
No Use for a Name
Jugheads Revenge
Stiff Little fingers
Good Riddance
Pennywise
Devildogs

Some emo bands, like Weezer, Jimmie Eat World, The Get up Kids, etc, may be more accessable. If you said you thought green day was ok, well, get an album BEFORE dookie. They SUCKED NUTS after dookie, and the only song I like on dookie is "she". Untill you hear "2000 light years away" or "going to pasequa"......

Good luck!

 

[Bedubs]

Pegboy was totally amazing when I saw them at the doubledoor! They played at a 911 benefit with 14 other bands and they absolutely ruled the house. Can you say instant mosh??

-b

 

[gec]

Hey Web,


I think it comes down to what your intentions are?


You don't like punk, but your good at it.....Do you want a career in music? If you do then stick to what your good at....

If not record it and license the music to punk recording artists. Good music is good music....

 

[blackbuck]

I doubt many punk artists would buy music, unless it's a cover tune, or a friends song.

Pegboy's still together? Damn, they do rock. But I thought they broke up awhile back. That's good news to me!

I think alot of people's anti-punk sentiments are because they don't understand it, or think of someone just screaming or something.