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Pennywise - ‘Fight Till You Die’ from Full Circle (1997)
The latest Fucked Up album isn’t as bad as I expected, but it’s still not a patch on the melodic hardcore we used to have.
Pennywise - ‘Surfin’ USA’ (Beach Boys cover)
‘cos they’re probably the shittiest band I like, and the tail end of the ‘being 17’ phase of my liking punk rock - but I doubt even they’d write about going “surfing in my mind”, although the singer does say “drop in, Fletch!” before the sweet guitar solo. the fact that the video is made up of snowboarding scenes is just a bonus.
“…You laugh right behind my back
I won’t ever die
I’ll go surfing in my mind
I’m not supposed to be a kid, but I’m an idiot…”
- Wavves, ‘Idiot’
Pennywise - ‘Minor Threat’ from Live @ The Key Club (Epitaph Records, 2000)
Listen to the list of bands at the start, and how Bad Religion gets the biggest cheer, perhaps even bigger than Minor Threat itself. I had grown out of, or had exhausted, Epitaph by the time I picked up Minor Threat and got into Dischord, but I still go back to Pennywise probably more often than Minor Threat.
This live cover isn’t exactly transcendent, the delivery of the vocals doesn’t have the same effect as the original, but if you like the style it’s pretty good. If you don’t, if you’re a punk purist who wants the crunchy smear of 1981 guitars, then sorry but no-one’s forcing you to listen. There’s always the ‘latest’ Dischord release to be reissued on LP - the Minor Threat demo tape.
