Top 5 L.A. Punk Albums of 2011

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FIDLAR
See also:
*"She Gets A Free Abortion": The Five Dopiest Political Punk Songs
*The Top Ten Los Angeles Albums Of 2011
*Top Ten Los Angeles Metal Albums of 2011
*Top Five Los Angeles Jazz Albums of 2011

L.A.'s punk scene went places in 2011 -- mostly to the beach and the bar. Many of the year's best records in the genre were heavily infused with a surf-garage rock sound and lyrics about being really, really fucked up. It's a rather stark transition away from The Smell's sober ethic.

A note: These albums weren't ranked entirely in the traditional way; I also took into account how well the energy from their songs translated into live shows.

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5. The Lovely Bad Things
New Ghost/ Old Waves
After stirring up a feeding frenzy for their Shark Week tape, The Lovely Bad Things further chummed the waters with New Ghost/Old Waves. Playing what has been accurately described as "kitchen sink rock", the quartet are best at their fastest. Standouts include the Tiger Army-esque "Old Ghost," and "Icee Creeps," an excellent loose mess of a track.

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Awdlefja K
Awdlefja K

wow, does this guy even live in la. if so i don't think he leaves his house to go to shows or records stores. terrible terrible list.

fartino
fartino

bleached is the least punk thing i've seen in a while.. just because they were in mika miko don't mean shit. Can't compare at all, they were the poppy-est thing live and people just assumed they should mosh to it. SHIT SUCKS.

elfarto
elfarto

agreed....doesn't mean their music is shit...just not punk! bleached and pangea are rad as fuck--love 'em, but it gets really annoying when people (+ journals/sites) categorize them as punk. they are all def more indie & garage/punk influenced. 

Adler Bloom
Adler Bloom

Very cool- know and respect most of these bands-- interesting to read some of the discussions of what is punk and what is not. Everyone has their own definition and definitions as dictated by the so called mainstream pretty much uses punk as the umbrella term for any music that induces mosh pits, ha. The main thing is that the author of this piece uses the term punk, NOT the bands. Most bands don't even like to define their sound or be genre specific... I safely call most of this genre post punk and leave it at that. Just stoked that some good bands are getting some recognition. congrats to all of them!!AB from AP

NoFUNever
NoFUNever

1977 - 1982 here and all around the world people were growing up musically blowing out the man and the rock/metal scene. There were no Punk clubs to play in. We made our clubs. Punk grew up. And then we all went post punk then industrial/experimental etc some of us all at the same time.

Look at all the new variations created since 1980 - that are now standard musical genre. Move on. Grow up. D.Y. I.

Sammy
Sammy

hate to break it to you but nobody listens to a 60 year old burn out.....

Sammy
Sammy

 but you dont care because your so "punk rawk"

Sammy
Sammy

haha agreed. but this is totally what happens when you give a fat angry 45 year old punk dude a computer with internet.

NoFUNever
NoFUNever

It's 60 years old - ass wipe. And I know punk for what it was, when it was, and I was playing with all the original punk bands here in LA.

And I know exactly what it represented before children like yourself decided to mine it as a fake lifestyle to get a record deal. POSUER.

I was building this online stuff in 1995. So bring it - toad.

NoFUNever
NoFUNever

Turn it the fuck up Pilgrims. Need so much volume!

Magazine - A Song From Under The Floorboards - Later... 17/10/09 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

I am angry I am ill and I Am as ugly as sinMy irritability keeps me alive and kickingI know the meaning of life, it doesnt help me a bitI know beauty and I know a good thing when I see itThis is a song from under the floorboardsThis is a song from where the wall is crackedMy force of habit, I am an insectI have to confess Im proud as hell of that factI know the highest and the bestI accord them all due respectBut the brightest jewel inside of meGlows with pleasure at my own stupidityThis is a song ....I used to make phantoms I could later chaseImages of all that could be desiredThen I got tired of counting all of these blessingsAnd then I just got tiredThis is a song ...

NoFUNever
NoFUNever

PIL - Public Image - and this is/was punk in the first beginnings of  the global media octopus age. Recognize your masters. You have none when you are making original music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Jeff
Jeff

Fuck yeah! Lovely Bad Things they Fucking own and Fidlar, Bleached and Pangea for sure!

Sammy
Sammy

you didnt write the article so dont cry about it. go start a "real punk" or some shit. This is LA Weekly who write reviews based on skill and popular opinion not what you're small misconstrued opinion of  what punk really is....

NoFUNever
NoFUNever

Sammy is a fake. He just uses people. Must be a agent working for the man.Has no idea about originality. FAKE.

Sammy
Sammy

your just full of hate ***NOT PUNK dude~!!! ....lets hear ur new music bro!!!! WHAT IS YOUR NEW  ALL STAR BAND CALLED? please enlighten us all

NoFUNever
NoFUNever

My dead Ggrandma Wendi hits pppunk better then these fake ass  "PUNK" shills you offer for Warner Bros contracts. " MONEY MONEY MONEY... Sammy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

fuck all star bands - light your self on

NoFUNever
NoFUNever

Not punk. Not even punk... we used to call this mess you call punk "poseur" for good reason.

That insane mental 24 year old illegal German guy who burned all those cars and apartments and houses on a rampage for his also insane mom in jail being deported is more punk then all this horse crap.

all this is just more ghost punk tied into the massive media octopus

so all you kids -- go start a new musical movement with something more then a rehash of a dead punk scene from 1977 -- go scare all your hollywood friends and parents. Be fucking original..

NoFUNever
NoFUNever

Permafrost (Secondhand Daylight) - Magazinehttp://www.youtube.com...

NoFUNever
NoFUNever

Punk Is Dead!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Punk Is Dead.Yes that's right, punk is dead,It's just another cheap product for the consumers head.Bubblegum rock on plastic transistors,Schoolboy sedition backed by big time promoters.CBS promote the Clash,But it ain't for revolution, it's just for cash.Punk became a fashion just like hippy used to beAnd it ain't got a thing to do with you or me.Movements are systems and systems kill.Movements are expressions of the public will.Punk became a movement cos we all felt lost,But the leaders sold out and now we all pay the cost.Punk narcissism was social napalm,Steve Jones started doing real harm.Preaching revolution, anarchy and changeAs he sucked from the system that had given him his name.Well I'm tired of staring through shit stained glass,Tired of staring up a superstars arse,I've got an arse and crap and a name,I'm just waiting for my fifteen minutes fame.Steve Jones you're napalm,If you're so pretty (vacant) why do you swarm?Patti Smith you're napalm,You write with your hand but it's Rimbaud's arm.And me, yes I, do I want to burn?Is there something I can learn?Do I need a business man to promote my angle?Can I resist the carrots that fame and fortune dangle?I see the velvet zippies in their bondage gear,The social elite with safety-pins in their ear,I watch and understand that it don't mean a thing,The scorpions might attack, but the systems stole the sting.PUNK IS DEAD. PUNK IS DEAD. PUNK IS DEAD.PUNK IS DEAD. PUNK IS DEAD. PUNK IS DEAD.PUNK IS DEAD. PUNK IS DEAD. PUNK IS DEAD.

Sammy
Sammy

lets hear ur new music bro!!!! WHAT IS YOUR NEW  ALL STAR BAND CALLED? please enlighten us all

NoFUNever
NoFUNever

Well since I did all that punkshit back in 1977 I would say. Do something new musically. I am.

NoFUNever
NoFUNever

Shitting on stage like GG - no - making new music of course. Punk was. It was... it is done.The contemporary bands you are hawking are just more Hollywood fake.Fake. They just want contracts...movies. $$$ MONEY!

Sammy
Sammy

these are contemporary bands you dipshit. this isnt the 80's anymore....obviously bad brains & minor threat would rule every one of these bands. 2011 bro..... lets hear you start a band and see how punk you really are....make some real "punk" art..... and if you are more punk than GG Allin i will applaud you

Sammy
Sammy

i think you have serious social problems.....

NoFUNever
NoFUNever

From the album 'Secondhand Daylight' 

Released 30/3/79  --- --- 1979 kids

Howard Devoto - vocalsJohn McGeoch - guitarBarry Adamson - bassDave Formula - keyboardsJohn Doyle - drums, percussion

NoFUNever
NoFUNever

The cinematic musicality to come.ASMZ - 13 Angels Standing Guard 'Round the Side of Your Bed http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Punk - only in memories

William Butler Yeats

Among School Children

I I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;

A kind old nun in a white hood replies;

The children learn to cipher and to sing,

To study reading-books and histories,

To cut and sew, be neat in everything

In the best modern way - the children's eyes

In momentary wonder stare upon

A sixty-year-old smiling public man.III dream of a Ledaean body, bent

Above a sinking fire. a tale that she

Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event

That changed some childish day to tragedy -

Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent

Into a sphere from youthful sympathy,

Or else, to alter Plato's parable,

Into the yolk and white of the one shell.IIIAnd thinking of that fit of grief or rage

I look upon one child or t'other there

And wonder if she stood so at that age -

For even daughters of the swan can share

Something of every paddler's heritage -

And had that colour upon cheek or hair,

And thereupon my heart is driven wild:

She stands before me as a living child.IVHer present image floats into the mind -

Did Quattrocento finger fashion it

Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind

And took a mess of shadows for its meat?

And I though never of Ledaean kind

Had pretty plumage once - enough of that,

Better to smile on all that smile, and show

There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.VWhat youthful mother, a shape upon her lap

Honey of generation had betrayed,

And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape

As recollection or the drug decide,

Would think her Son, did she but see that shape

With sixty or more winters on its head,

A compensation for the pang of his birth,

Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?VIPlato thought nature but a spume that plays

Upon a ghostly paradigm of things;

Solider Aristotle played the taws

Upon the bottom of a king of kings;

World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras

Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings

What a star sang and careless Muses heard:

Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.VIIBoth nuns and mothers worship images,

But those the candles light are not as those

That animate a mother's reveries,

But keep a marble or a bronze repose.

And yet they too break hearts - O Presences

That passion, piety or affection knows,

And that all heavenly glory symbolise -

O self-born mockers of man's enterprise;VIIILabour is blossoming or dancing whereThe body is not bruised to pleasure soul.Nor beauty born out of its own despair,Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,How can we know the dancer from the dance?

Anthony
Anthony

if your going to write an article about 2011's best punk albums, make sure to look for PUNK albums.

Guest
Guest

L.A. Weekly Presents: Shitrock's Greatest Shits, This Week in Emo & Exclusive 'Shitest Rap We Could Find' Slideshow.

roycifer
roycifer

cool list but can you put them all on ONE page please? thanks from everyone who reads your site.

Lazyroar
Lazyroar

Joyce Manor should be on here.

harmooo
harmooo

FIDLAR IS FUCKING AWESOME FUCK YEAH

Dave Ehrlich
Dave Ehrlich

TRMRS are fantastic.  Great to see them get the local recognition they deserve. 

Star Jonestown
Star Jonestown

Great list, but the click-thru aspect of it is extremely annoying.  Unnecessary.  (4 more pageviews!  Wow!  Let's make Everything a Slideshow!  Go Internets!).

Druemitchell
Druemitchell

this is friggin awesome BRAVO Kai Flanders! You have a new fan my friend :-)

Ivy Miller
Ivy Miller

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p.s. The admirers of thoseuniformed person are also warmly welcome,there are lots of servicemen and women there.

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