“…I love this band. They helped me survive high school, I needed to get away, I didn’t have a car, I had no girlfriend, so what was I to do? Music. There were times when I didn’t think I was going to make it, but their music helped me get through, and I’m glad for that and I’ll never forget it.” – Jack Ball, Coolidge Records -
This is by no means a new tribute album. In fact it came out in 1995 and I’m pretty sure it’s the first tribute album I ever bought. It’s also lovingly put together and my favorite tribute album. I seriously still listen to it all the time. The Descendents are one of the best of the original SST Hardcore bands. They set themselves apart from their Hardcore peers by writing heartfelt love songs with actual melodies when everyone else was screaming about hating cops and youthful rebellion (not that there’s anything wrong with that either). They are credited with writing the three shortest Punk songs of all time. ALL (1 second). NO ALL (1 second and change). And Weinerschnitzel (11 seconds). Like the FSS they have a love affair with strong-ass coffee. They wrote some hokey jokey songs like I Like Food, Van, Enjoy, and I Wanna Be a Bear, but don’t hold that against them. They’ve influenced more bands than can be listed here. And they’re one of the few of the original Hardcore acts that put out a decent album in the 90s when Punk broke (again). I can listen to The Descendents any day of the week. Some weeks I listen to them every day of the week. “Homage” is a great addition to their catalog and really shows just how strong a lot of their songs are. If you don’t know The Descendents, just listen to Bikeage to see what I mean. It sits easily on my top 5 punk songs of all time list (list found in my head).
This is a pretty meaty tribute album with 29 songs in all. There’s a ton of bands on here that I never heard of when this came out and am still unfamiliar with today. And there’s a good lot of bands on here that are some of my favorite bands in their own right. The Bouncing Souls (no strangers to tribute albums) cover Pervert and mind you this was around the time right before “Maniacal Laughter” came out when The Souls were still somewhat unpolished. This is also my favorite era of The Souls and this song is just further proof of how great they were back then. Another favorite of mine around this time was Black Train Jack, and their cover of Catalina is also proof that there was a lot of great things happening in the scene in 1995. Indie heroes Pavement surprisingly make an appearance on this tribute as well with It’s a Hectic World sounding surprisingly un-Pavement. Long Island’s Garden Variety, a Punk Rock matinee staple at this time, does a killer version of Clean Sheets. Two of my other favorite tracks on this album are Good Good Things by Dunebuggy and Silly Girl by Bunnygrunt. I have no idea who these bands are/were but both have female singers and both songs really lend themselves to being sung by a woman. I’d love to hear an all-female tribute to The Descendents solely based on just how good these two covers are. Some band/person named Drew does such an odd cover of Hey Hey that it’s actually compelling. The liner notes say that Drew recorded in a warehouse and that’s exactly what it sounds like as I’m pretty sure the percussion is some guy breaking things and banging on shit they found lying around.
If you’re a fan of The Descendents pick this up. It’s really a great tribute to the band and also a great tribute to what was going on in Punk circa 1995.
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