Monday FUNishment - The Inaugural Edition

G'morn friends, lovers, rock stars and spazzes,

Welcome to the first edition of Monday FUNishment

To kick off our new weekly feature, instead of talking about a band I've never liked, let's make it more challenging, and talk about a band I once LOVED.

Monday FUNishment round 1 - The Offspring

ding ding ding

This past June I had a chance to finally see this band... an hour after their show started, I finally had a chance to leave this band's "show".

Now, when Offspring first came to my attention back in high school, I was instantly hooked. The surf rock guitar riffing and Dexter Holland's soaring raspy vocal on 'Come Out and Play' shook me to my core... it sounded... scary, like good punk rock should the first time around.

Admittedly, at first the "punk purist" in me, the dude with a 5 disc CD changer that always had 'Never Mind the Bollocks' and 'Combat Rock' in there (and still does), didn't really dig the "neo-punk" thing. No term with the word "neo-" in front of it tends to be positive... neo-grunge, neo-nazi, neo-Con... blech.

Example, I didn't really "get" Green Day at first, I actually thought they were making fun of the genre... it took seeing them live to understand. To this day, in amongst the acoustic power ballads and cliched fight anthems, there's still a punk band in there... somewhere.

Offspring could've suffered the same fate with me... and then I found their cover of The Damned's 'Smash It Up'. Sold.

They COULD have suffered the same fate... and after seeing them this summer, I know they SHOULD have suffered the same fate.

My last project always used to play 'Self Esteem'... it got the band jacked, the crowd jacked... and allowed me to spit out a 3 minute intro diatribe about the girl I'd just broken up with (which oddly enough, always happened right before leaving on a road trip).

To welcome my new project, Rhymes With Fun, into the world, we included it in our set at a festival we played this summer... it was my first time playing it since seeing the guys that wrote it do it... all I could think, "Well, at least WE still do it right." ;-)

Seems to me, aging punk rockers have three choices:

1 - Double down and go for the political jugular, and become MORE relevant as their careers advance. (see: Day, Green and Religion, Bad)

2 - Accept their role as "elder statesmen" and revel in the ridiculousness while celebrating your past accomplishments. (see: Pistols, Sex)

3 - Put out uninspired album after uninspired album and support them with tours that prove any fire you once had in your belly and any respect you once had for a genre you helped define is long gone.

Guess which one Offspring falls under?

'Ignite', 'Smash' and 'Ixnay On the Hombre' will always be great records to me... and hell, I even liked the song 'Pretty Fly (for a white guy)'... it had a certain.... charm... I guess. At least there was SOME creativity and personallity that went into that song.

And that was the last of either we'd ever see from Dexter and Noodles and Co.

Old punk rockers never die... but maybe some should look into it.

Sincerely,

Chris F'n Real