Descendents: I Don't Want to Grow Up C/D?

Classic...ALL OF IT

The Descendents should have broken up in 1983.

YOU GOT SOUR GRAPES!

And the edge has gone dull.

I like to pretend 'Merican never existed.

"As far as drinking, none of drink except Frosty, and Curtis has a beer if he's thirsty, but he's not into getting drunk so it's no biggie, but all that goes inot your personal interpretation of what Straight Edge is."

The EDGE was NEVER NOT DULL; but have you ever read the DIANE FILES? Cripes.

ES has good songs on it. Wholesale dismissal is the retreat of the record store dude who didn't even bother to listen to it.

I love you.

I almost concur with your boyfriend's 'Damaged- Loose Nut' theory. It made me snigger anyhow.Descendents will never end up as the car crash wreck crock of shit the Flag became, possibly cos they don't smoke copious amounts of green

Silly Girl = my favorite song in high school

EAT SHIT!

Also: Some of the songs on the live records have superior arrangements to the studio versions (aka the Budakhan phenomenon, esp. on "Good Good Things", "Cameage", "I Wanna Be A Bear", etc.)

there was an ALL reunion last weekend!

http://www.punknews.org/article/27484 (with video)

RIP Frank Navetta :(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Navetta

RIP Frank.

Never knew you, but 'Milo' had a massive impact on me and still sounds fresh

So there are four random CD just sitting on a counter next to the trash in the kitchen at work -- some Agent Orange, 7 Seconds, and Descendents. How long is it to polite to wait before deciding that I can take Milo Goes to College?

Negative seconds.

Take them, burn them, return them.

w/r/t IDWGU:

so many of the songs off this record are superior on the Hallraker Live album... "Good Good Things" and "My World" especially.

A bunch of their songs are superior on Liveage so that makes a lot of sense That is to say I should probly grab me that Hallraker some time

We have a Carducci essay on Frank Navetta and the Descendents in this week's New Vulgate.

Amazing story. I didn't see them until the mid-'80s, so this is all new to me.

carducci is the bomb

Carducci = an all-time great, one of maybe a dozen whose music writing strikes me as actually Important. Thanks for this Descendents piece. "They were rungless!" I love that. I hope that punk rock gave them a rung; Lord knows it (and they) gave one to enough of us.

Carducci = an all-time great, one of maybe a dozen whose music writing strikes me as actually Important. Thanks for this Descendents piece. "They were rungless!" I love that. I hope that punk rock gave them a rung; Lord knows it (and they) gave one to enough of us.

yeah, jeepers

seeing carducci speak on book tour a couple of years back qualifies as one of my personal highlights of that year.

yeah, how would i have gotten through high school without descendents? what a great band. was just listening to tonyage off of "milo goes to college". what a crazy, brilliant song. musical chops worthy of black flag "we are too technically-skilled to be languishing in hardcore realm" and perfectly snotty lyrics which rival darby crash's attitude in his prime, but which somehow manage to take shots at him and seemingly every other subculture existent at the time in southern california.

ou beat up Fearl's bass player
You were all surfers last year
3 years ago it wasn't cool
You spit on me, but I'm no one
Eh, bobby pin had long hair
But you spit on darby crash
He had a fucking mohawk man
3 years ago
Forming in 1975
I'm a new waver
My girlfriend's a surfer
I'm no more a trendy than you are
And she's not going to fuck you anyways
Eh, it dosen't matter, you all suck
You don't know shit about punk rock
You're just a bunch of drug addicts
Screwing up what we call FUN
I hate everything, that means you
I hate you more than I do
I got no time to sleep, time to get laid
I got a 2"x 2", but it dosen't matter
Fake hard core
You spit on URINALS

it's just so funny, like you get the impression that even at the time the song was written it was speaking to rivalries or complaints that were already long-past.

ultimate socal punk band, no doubt. so good that everyone they influenced ends up seeming kind of pointless.

to address the original post, my introduction to the 'i don't want to grow up' record, and the descendents in general, for that matter, came in the form of an unlabeled mixtape that someone had passed on to me. at the time i had to be disabused by said passer-on of the notion that it was two different bands. i thought upon initial listens that the silly girl side was one band, and another entirely different band was responsible for the side 1 one minute-ish rants

did they influence anyone in a good way, though? i mean, i liked the first green day single, but sort of cringe at most nineties pop-punk bands' efforts

i dunno, probably not! that's kind of what i mean, though -- their music was so fully-formed and perfect that anyone else trying to do something similar had nowhere to go.

yeah, i guess you're right.

there's some passage in that carducci article linked to upthread where he talks about how desperate people at that time were to get up on a stage and play music, which i think is something worth considering-- i mean, there are certainly enough outlets these days in which people can make fun of a myspace-posted track or whatever, but, back then you kind of had to actually play a show or hand out cassettes of your music or something if you wanted to have your music heard. possibly that risk-taking inspired people to invest more in finished products? or maybe not? i dunno

yeah, i grew up in the same town as the descendants (they went to my high school) and it was always interesting to hear about the scene from older dudes then, how there was no infrastructure for bands like that, so they had to do weird stuff like play at elks lodges, or volleyball tournaments or whatever.

cool

that's a weird part of that nook of the world, though, right? like i went on a family vacation to southern california in high school, and i tried to convince my dad to drive to strategic locations based on my musical tastes at the time, and i remember getting all excited when we drove on some detour through san pedro, where i guess new alliance/sst was based at the time? and my dad was just baffled, like, 'uh, wait, why are you getting excited about this place'?

but anyhow the impression i got from the descendents' career is that they seemed to position themselves in resolutely unfashionable way, even in their own sub-sub-culture or whatever, yet still somehow managing to rub elbows with the go-go's or bangles or whatever. i mean, what is there to have stopped descendents from achieving mtv-ish 120 minutes-fame at the time, aside from their own willful perversity? how were they any freakier or more unlikely a success story than say, the three o'clock?

but yeah, it's weird, am i just crazy or isn't milo goes to college pretty much equivalent to singles going steady in terms of songcraft??

dunno, from what i've read about them, they were pretty non-careerist overall. probably could've courted more mainstreamy success, but just didn't choose to.
and the manhattan beach area is pretty radically different from san pedro -- the latter's a lot more blue collar. MB in the 70s-early 80s would've been a sleepy, kinda hippie beach town.

My son and I were just on vacation in California and stayed with relatives in nearby Hermosa Beach. Driving the rent-a-car around there I occasionally thought about how my mental images of the area from seeing SST and New Alliance bands back in the '80s in DC did not match up with what the area actually looks like (now and then). I also somehow thought way back when that it was even farther from downtown LA than it is.

yeah, i mean, someone listening to a lot of those bands would get a weird image of the place. like a lot of black flag is so intense/claustraphobic but then you think -- these guys could walk down to the beach after band practice and chill out.

(and yeah, the south bay of the 70s was waaaaay different than it is now. it's gotten mega glitzy, nary a trace of the old bohemian kinda thing ... i barely recognize it myself)

yeah, i mean, someone listening to a lot of those bands would get a weird image of the place. like a lot of black flag is so intense/claustrophobic but then you think -- these guys could walk down to the beach after band practice and chill out.

yeah, i tried to ask joe carducci at book talk why there were all these angsty hardcore bands coming out of supposedly idyllic l.a. of the time. i think he gave me a well-reasoned response based on "i was there", suburbia, ugh, etc., that was hard to argue with. but that geographical dynamic does seem funny sometimes. like, it's much easier to imagine super-angry hardcore bands coming out of eighties lower east side nyc or landlocked midwest chicago or detroit or something.

"supposedly idyllic l.a. of "

ugh, begin by replacing "supposedly" with "presumably"?

i can't think nor write these days. early-onset alzheimer's

"what is there to have stopped descendents from achieving mtv-ish 120 minutes-fame at the time,"
"isn't milo goes to college pretty much equivalent to singles going steady in terms of songcraft??"

descendents and buzzcocks are neck & neck peers if you go by inclusion on tony hawk video game soundtracks

"went to the no-nukes rally, the don quixotes made me feel silly!"

London Shepherd's Bush Empire, Apr 25 - just booked tickets. BIG

Ooh!

Hope this actually happens, just found out DRI cancelled.

I didn't even know they were coming over! Descendents are in Europe for some kiddy punk festival full of iirc mostly terrible bands

Any news of other dates in the UK or Ireland?

http://www.filmagemovie.com/Filmage.html

It doesn't matter - you all suck.
Don't give a shit about punk rock!

the rerun of the London show noted above (that happened cos Milo blew out his voice during the first one) was the funnest of times

Used to fuck with this song so hard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYAM17lLtKk

new album is pretty good! very milo to right a 1 minute hardcore rant about how he has to watch his cholesterol now and can't eat fast food burgers

Ha, that sounds great

lol the song "No Fat Burger" basically describes where my life is headed (except fortunately nobody in my fam has heart issues)

this is a good album but it sounds like someone on the label sent the Saint Vitus producer to the Descendents booth by mistake

Seein em right now for first time

Hahah whoops

1981 or so: "Hey do you ever think a T-shirt with our logo and main visual image will appear worldwide on a US government hearing about trying to overturn an election and have a lot of people wondering what the hell." "Hmm, nah."

Hahaha for those who can’t parse that the proud boy face tattoo guy about to testify before the 1/6 committee is wearing a Descendants T-shirt

Another vote in favor of me never liking this band 🙃

Oath Keeper rather than Proud Boy but it is just a distinction of which stupid asshole you follow.

Friend on FB: "He wants to be stereotyped. He wants to be classified."

An unsurprising update.

We completely disavow groups like the Oath Keepers and in no way condone their hateful ideology.

— DESCENDENTS (@descendents) July 12, 2022

Descendents definitely had some problematic elements in their lyrics on Milo goes to college, though more of the typical "high school kid misogyny" type. nothing like THIS.

ultimately though, they weren't political, they sang about girls and poop and Oath Keepers like girls and poop

It always starts with misogyny and juvenile humor

All I know is the drive-thru song from "Pump Up the Volume," which is like the punk version of, I dunno, Napalm Death's "You Suffer."

xpost Yeah, like the "OK" sign or all the alt-right memes. "We're just joking!"

I never really gave a shit about the Descendents one way or the other, but I'm familiar enough with their discography to believe that it's a miiiiiiiighty big stretch to draw a straight line from them to the Oath Keepers.

"relax it's just a joke"

"get a sense of humor, it's a joke"

"you're misinterpreting me"

"i was exaggerating for effect"

"hang mike pence"

of course it's a big stretch -- how it starts isn't how it always inevitably ends

"hang mike pence"

no, no, you have to understand, it's ironic hyperbole, like when morrissey sings "hang the DJ," nobody says *he's* racist

SST had better strike while the iron is hot and whip up some more MILO vinyls

"Hope" is like a proto-incel anthem for better or worse

Someone who wants to destroy the capitol being into a loud punk band with many irony-drenched songs about not fitting is not the craziest thing I’ve ever heard

*not fitting in, that is

Otm about Hope.

Jamie Raskin promoted a Mission of Burma show on Harvard campus my freshman year, 1981. It’s possible these are the only two in the room who know the Descendants pic.twitter.com/1ER33ZUz12

— Damon K (@dada_drummer) July 12, 2022

Maybe not a straight line but the Descendants/ALL have always reflected a "both sides are equally bad!" plus "we aren't really homophobes it is just a joke!" plus Milo's aggrieved nice guy who can't get laid schtick plus being firmly in the SST libertarian wing that I can't really say I am surprised, they are touchstones of male suburban nerd ennui for a reason

that describes their 80s output, but nothing since

they removed several songs from their setlists nowadays due to some of the problematic stuff, namely "I'm not a Loser" and "Pervert".

when I was Milo's age on Milo Goes to College, I was still a Fundamentalist, pro-life, anti-Affirmative Action incel.

I would say it describes "Everything Sux" which is the last time I really engaged with them and the newer stuff might be different but I can see how people who grew up on the "classics" could also be down with the Oathkeepers or Proud Boys or whatevs. Punk bands having problematic audiences aren't really a new thing.

Oh, I absolutely get why someone like that might have been big into the Descendents, I just get a little weird about drawing a straight line and blaming the music directly for who these doofuses became or the choices the made. It's ugly when the right uses it to excuse school shootings and I try not to fall into that trap elsewhere.

I just get a little weird about drawing a straight line and blaming the music directly for who these doofuses became or the choices the made
To be clear, no one did that!

There were a few posts nodding in that direction though.

Milo had a heart attack last night followed by bypass surgery and is in recovery. All Descendents shows are canceled until further notice.