I first started listening to ‘punk-rock’ bands when I was about 14 as my best friend at the time had been borrowing his older brothers CDs and passing them onto me. I remember Face To Face and their track ‘Blind’ being the first that I really latched onto and it definitely changed my perspective on music. Up to that point I wasn’t that interested in anything but Michael Jackson, but this was catchy and direct and worlds away from the music my parents would play at home. A few years later I saw them at the old Garage in Highbury along with members of Skirtbox, I was in teenage heaven!
From there his CD collection led me onto Ten Foot Pole, who instantly sounded similar to Face To Face and I snapped it up. I could’ve chosen a number of songs from Rev but ‘Closer To Grey’ has the catchier chorus. I never got the chance to see them live. I still listen to that album every few months and love it every time.
MxPx were known to me as The Cootees – again down to stumbling across that CD in the collection first and then finding that they’d changed their name. Their ‘Let’s Play House’ album is brilliant and very few people seem to know about it. ‘I’m Okay, You’re Okay’ appears on that and ‘Slowly Going The Way Of The Buffalo’. It was my first exposure to more radio friendly pop-punk, and certainly lead me onto Blink-182, New Found Glory, The Starting Line and The Movielife. Who became my favourite bands growing up, and I still absolutely love them now.
Blink and the Drive Thru Records bands were the staple musical diets of all of my friends back in school, and I’m sure that was the case for so many kids across the world. They bridged the gap between punk-rock and radio pop-music. It allowed you to be alternative but without any real social or political leanings, which felt like a good choice to a white middle class kid going to a grammar school!
North American bands came before the UK bands in my musical upbringing, but it was definitely my love for the bands in my local scene that inspired me to get involved in music. I’m from Watford, so naturally I absolutely buzz off Captain Everything! Their hometown shows were always organised chaos and I remember being so excited when I found out that their bass player Jon was a Watford FC fan like me. The album launch show for ‘Rocket Science’ is one of my all time favourite gigs. The Bombjacks and Skirtbox were also part of that Bucks / Herts scene and, with their Japanese success, I genuinely believed at former would go onto be a huge band. They never really played enough shows to break them out of the South East though and ended up only featuring in Japan. They reunited for a show last September and Skirtbox played an impromptu set too, it was just like old times. Having local bands doing so well made me believe that it was possible to make something of yourself in music.
Hundred Reasons are included at the expense of ‘A’ here, as they don’t appear to have any tracks on Spotify! ‘Idea Above Our Station’ is a cracking album and they were the first UK band that I really saw break out into bigger venues and main stage festival appearances.
The Maple State have been my favourite UK band since I first heard them while at university. I ended up helping them on merch for a while and was lucky enough to release their last output with Walnut Tree Records. Bit of a dream come true really. I know that Greg is now working on Ghost Saddles, so I’m looking forward to hearing how that goes.
I finish the playlist with three bands that have featured heavily on my playlists for the last five years. Piebald, The Anniversary and Hey Mercedes. Three band that are well known but never became superstars. I like how understated they’ve always felt, as if they were some of the best kept secrets in music. I drove across to Groezrock for the day last year to see Piebald and I was fortunate enough to meet them after they played. I’ve never seen Hey Mercedes or The Anniversary and that constantly bums me out.
TOM BECK