I started this artist challenge thing on social media to try and keep my sanity during the lock down. The challenge was to list an artist every day for seven days that made some sort of an impact to my musical tastes. On the social media posts, I provided no explanation so I thought I’d provide a little background here on my blog about those choices.
Day Three was another Southern California-based punk band, Descendents.
I distinctly remember that I was over at a friend’s house. I was in high school. It was the late 80s, probably around 1988. My friend and I had just got back to his house after skating around his subdivision (yes, skateboarding). When we got back to his house he pulled out this cassette tape and told me that I had to listen to this band. The cassette tape was Liveage! The band was the Descendents. It was great! We listened to it quite a few times that evening. For a couple of years, this was the only music of theirs that I had listened to. I’m not sure why I didn’t bother going out and looking for more of their stuff. Perhaps it was because none of my other friends were listening to this band for whatever reason.
However, a few years later, while in a music store (hell, could have been the same one), I found a cassette of their compilation album Somery and grabbed it. I remembered liking this band and wanted to be able to hear them again. Along with Bad Religion, I was listening to this band quite a bit after purchasing this cassette. Later on, I ended up finding cassettes of some of their other material and they became a staple in my listening library.
Moving forward to 1996. I was living in Alaska. Only had one friend that was into the same music that I was into and I didn’t have much of a way to learn about new music that was coming out. My friend and I were in the base exchange (for you non-military types the base exchange is like a big department store on military bases that carries just about everything). We were looking through the electronics area (where they kept the music) and my friend called me over to where he was. “Look! A new Descendents CD!” At this point, as far as I knew, the band was not a band anymore and they had more or less morphed into the band ALL. But here it was, right in front of my eyes. A new Descendents CD. Obviously, my friend and I both bought a copy. The album was Everything Sucks. We must have listened to that album dozens of times that weekend, which prompted us to pull out our older Descendents material and we had ourselves a Descendents marathon. He and I were also playing in a band at the time. This band often played covers as well as some original material. After this weekend, we added a few Descendents songs to our repotoire.
The Descendents are one of those bands that are always listed in my favorites lists. They could very well be my #1 (depend on my mood when the favorites question is asked). I have seen them 3 times. I actually saw the band ALL before I saw these guys. It was at the ALL show where I met Descendents/All guitar player Stephen Egerton for the first time and we continued to stay in touch after this meeting. In fact, when he did a solo performance in Oklahoma City, my wife and I got married during said performance. Now that I think about it, I did not see the Descendents until after this. I only remember this because my friend Dave and I were at Riot Fest in Dallas and the Descendents were playing there and I ran into Stephen’s wife (who I met at the solo performance/wedding) and hung out with her for a bit. The 2nd and 3rd time I saw the Descendents was in the same weekend, two days in a row.
Anyway, I really enjoy the Descendents. I love the feel of their music. It makes me happy. I love the goofiness of their songs. I just love the Descendents.
Otter Limits 