Old Pop-Punk Compilations...

If you look thru my collection you'll see that i'm interested in all the different aspects of hardcore/punk, pretty much all the styles and different scenes are represented (except for white power shit like Skrewdriver). But one style that you'll see alot of is 80's/90's style pop punk. I still love alot of the melodic punk that pops up in basements and not the kind that pops up on billboard charts. It seems that the early to mid 90's were the best years for this style of punk, with cities like Berkeley/San Francisco/Oakland and Gainesville, Florida providing alot of my favorite bands. You could usually count on labels like No Idea, Very Small, Lookout!, Mutant Pop, Allied and others to provide the goods. I'm going to write sporadically about some old pop punk bands, and maybe i'll even upload some lost gems. This week i got a couple compilation singles in the mail that i won on ebay. One of them i had been trying to procure for a while, and the other i honestly had never heard of before but had to have since it featured Cringer. First up, "Misfit Heartbeat" on Take A Day Records (which didn't release alot but most of it was great), and this double-7" comp features Pinhead Gunpowder, Wynona Riders, Rhythm Collision, Pot Valiant and others. Nice little photo copied booklet with lyrics and what not inside the photo copied sleeve. All in all not the strongest comp, the Pinhead Gunpowder song is ok but not great, Wynona Riders cover "Kids in America" (it seems like a million pop punk bands covered this song years ago), Rhythm Collision has one of their great speedy melodic songs here, and Pot Valiant is surprisingly great on here with a song that sounds like old DC emo or a bay area band called Scherzo. The other comp i got is called "Things I Stole" and features Christ on A Crutch, Lupo, Cringer, and Libido Boyz, and is on Disaster Records. Not 100% "pop punk". Like i said, i had never heard of this record or label so when i saw the listing i had to throw my hat into the ring and try and win this 7". The packaging on this record is great, the picture sleeve folds out into a big poster with some original poster art on 1 side with the other side providing band info & lyrics. Christ on a Crutch, who are NOT pop punk, does a Diddy Squat cover which is pretty cool. We don't need to mention Lupo. The Cringer song comes from when the band lived in San Francisco which is important to note since their early days in Hawaii and L.A. are when the band was still weak and honing their skills. Their song, "Hooked On Junk" is similar in style to the songs on the (amazing) "Karin" 7". These later songs show the progression in Lance's lyrics and music that eventually became the blueprint for J Church. Libido Boyz song here is fast and melodic, sounding like a combination or SNFU (and other skate rock bands) and Uniform Choice (mainly vocals). I recommend tracking this down if only for the Cringer song.