Dan Condon: Sick Tunes, November 16, 2012

I don't fit the classic archetype of a classic Descendents fan. I can't skate, I hate toilet humour, I abhor sexism, I don't like it when people refer to things as 'gay' in a negative fashion and, out of the thousands of records I own, I daresay less than ten of them were released on the Fat Wreck Chords label.

But I love Descendents all the same and after hearing they were going to be touring here for the second time early next year, I thought I'd dedicate a blog to them so that those of you who know the name and know the iconic imagery but don't know the music can stop nodding and smiling when your mates start “frothing” about their upcoming shows.

Let me start by saying that, if you like the music here, please go out and buy the records. Of course I believe you ought to always buy the music you like, but I make a point of saying it in this instance as Descendents records are cheap; I had to replace my wax copy of I Don't Wanna Grow Up a few weeks back and it cost me less than 20 bucks.

So, here are five Descendents songs I want to talk about. They're not necessarily my favourite Descendents songs, but they are all good and they all kind of represent something cool about the band.

MYAGE

So, this is where it all begins. For many people, this is the first Descendents song they ever hear as it kicks off the band's classic debut LP Milo Goes To College. That record, released 30 years ago this year, remains one of the most influential 20-odd minutes of punk rock ever committed to tape and is constantly name checked by any band playing anything remotely resembling this kind of music.

This is also proof of how Bill Stevenson – the band's drummer – had that irresistible knack of writing such simple, heart-on-sleeve, almost-sappy lyrics very early on, he must have been 17 or so when he wrote the lyrics for Myage. “Alone at night, she plans her game/correctly thinking that i'm in pain/but every night it's always the same/she be a-fuckin' with my brain”, I mean, it's hardly literary genius but I can guarantee you that there are hundreds of thousands of teenage boys who have pretty much convinced themselves this song is written about them.

Musically this song has the two most vital traits that I believe would go on to typify Descendents for their entire career; the catchiness of the song's “She don't need no one” chorus and the sheer pace at which they play – this song is fast – are two of the most endearing things about the band. Melodic hardcore indeed.

GOOD GOOD THINGS

I hate divulging too much personal information on here, but I firmly believe that some of the best records in history were released in the year of my birth, 1985. Talking Heads' Little Creatures, Tom Waits' Rain Dogs, The Replacements' Tim, The Pogues' Rum, Sodomy & The Lash, Paul Kelly's Post, The Dead Milkmen's Big Lizard in My Backyard and, who could forget, the mighty 1-2 punch of John Cougar Mellancamp's Scarecrow and John Fogerty's Centerfield (hey, fucking listen to them before you look at me like that).

Another LP that goes a fair way to proving the sheer quality '85 delivered to the world of rock music is Descendents' brilliant I Don't Wanna Grow Up. Their second LP came a couple of years after Milo Goes To College because, well, frontman Milo Aukerman was at college and Bill Stevenson joined Black Flag for a couple of years, as you do. They came back with a vengeance though; more tuneful, occasionally thrashier, occasionally very pop-oriented and as stupid and fun as they had been on their debut.

Listening to Good Good Things is kind of like sitting down with the most fucked of all your friends – you know the one, always too drunk, never has any money, hops from bed to bed – and having a mind-blowingly deep conversation that makes you realise there is so much below the surface if people are willing to dig that far. It's one of my favourite love songs ever written and I hope you're aware how big a call that is. Only Descendents could write a song as earnest as this just minutes after singing “Don't you sometimes wonder what I want/Don't you sometimes think I just want your cunt” in the just-okay Pervert and “No Fat Beaver/No Fat Beaver/Swear I'm gonna leave her/Can't stand her fat beaver” in the awesomely blistering No FB.

CLEAN SHEETS

You have to sleep on the floor because your girlfriend has slept with some other guy in your bed. How on earth are there so few songs written about this?

All is a very important record when looking at Descendents career as a whole. Following its release, Milo decided it was time to fuck this punk rock thing off and go and work in biochemistry and the rest of the band went on to form a band called All with a different vocalist (originally Dag Nasty's Dave Smalley but they've had three in their 25 year career).

All was this concept that Bill Stevenson and his mate Pat McCuistion – who has been referred to as the fifth member of the band – had come up with that basically was focused on doing the utmost and achieving the utmost; pretty noble, I guess. I'm not entirely sure how that fits in with this record, I've never really thought about it too much, because most of the songs here seem to speak of relationships gone sour, which makes sense as the band were reaching their mid-20s around this stage.

This was the first record that featured bassist Karl Alvarez and guitarist Stephen Egerton and there's a pretty clear difference in the way the band play, Egerton's guitar parts strikingly more complex than anything people had heard from this band in the past.

I'M THE ONE

I understand that not everyone was all that keen on the Descendents 1996 comeback record Everything Sucks, some people believing the LP lives up to its name, but I think it's a pretty solid record, purely because it wasn't necessarily Descendents trying to make another Milo Goes To College, which would have almost certainly been a horrid failure, but it saw them playing their natural game.

Descendents were never really a singles band, which gives I'm The One an extra significance, as it was the first single from an album that they ever released. Aside from that, it's just an incredibly catchy tune that really fit in with the punk rock landscape of the time; there's no doubt that there were stacks of bands taking the sound Descendents had been a big part of establishing and modernising it and Descendents didn't really seem to shy away from that.

I LIKE FOOD

I couldn't end the blog without tipping my hat to some of the band's goofiness. The band had so many little in-jokes and just oddities that remain completely bizarre to anyone who isn't already aware of some of this ridiculousness. The legend of the Bonus Cup (an incredibly, some might say dangerously, strong cup of coffee the band would allegedly subsist on), the pure flatulence of Orgofart (their lowest point, surely) and the aforementioned concept of All and the songs that went along with it were all points of interest that meant this band would never get boring.

I Like Food from the band's 1981 Fat EP is just a 17 second blast of hardcore that speaks of food, how the protagonist in the song enjoys it and how they might eat you if you don't get out of their way. Completely fucking stupid, completely fucking awesome.

The great thing about this band is that you can argue over the respective merits of their best and worst material all day long and you'll almost always end up in a disagreement. One thing is for sure, I'm very glad they're coming back to Australia next year.