Bender "funny kar"

I received a copy of #bender "funny kar" to review for a fanzine in 1994.  While I wasn't into the CD's art at all I loved the chunky pop-punk on the disc. While listening and taking notes for my review I read that the band was from Toronto, just and hour and a half north of Buffalo.  While the border has always been a hassle for bands I had hoped to maybe catch these guys.  Never did.  In any event I wrote a favorable review and kept the disc around.  I used a couple of its anthemic songs on mixed tapes.  They were a band made for mix tapes:  strong catchy songs recorded well by a really obscure band. They made you look cool.  Along the way I started listening to this CD a lot.  A friend of mine had recently moved to NYC and got a job working for the hipster girl clothing company Delia's.   He phoned me up one time and told me to call the service line for the store after hours.  I did and the "hold" music was this album.  He was so pleased with his influence and honestly I was pretty impressed too.  That kind of shit is golden to twenty-two year old obsessive music fans.  After starting writing this all u can find out is this is their only full-length on the defunct Ringing Ear records (a home to a bunch if awesome early/mid nineties pop punk)  kind of surprised they never got any bigger, it prob was the really awful album art/concept.

The Wynona Riders "j.d. salinger"

There was a time in my life I would have bought anything Lookout! Records released, and they released this gem with a moniker aimed squarely at me.  The album comes off as a fairly standard pop-punk affair but the lyrics are more biting than their contemporaries. It was 1996 and my friend had started a band, I don't recall the band's name but I do recall they had a song called "drive like yoshi", through this band and his fanzine he was able to book #thewynonariders at the showplace theater here in Buffalo.  The show didn't have a great turnout and my friend and his band stumbled through their first show. The Wynona Riders took the stage and the contrast was so severe, they were wound tight and played a fantastic set to the largely empty venue.  They really won me over by treating the dozen people  in that large hall to a great performance.
I was reminded of this album because the singer has since joined the road with the current touring Dead Kennedys. The dks played here recently and I wasn't able to attend though the reviews I've heard were largely positive.  I got a little lost in thinking about how far our paths have traveled in twenty years, that guy performing sold out shows with the Dead Kennedys and me staying home to help out with my three beautiful sons.  Sometimes courses work out for people and not in an expected way.

Green Day "1039 soothed out sappy hours"

In the summer of 1989 my family moved to the rural souther tier of New York state. I had moved out and stayed in a one bedroom apartment with my friends girlfriend, I then stayed with that friends angelically patient family in an attempt to finish my senior year in high school. I managed to mess up that incredibly generous situation and packed my garbage bag of clothes and with tail tucked joined my family at their new backwoods home. Miraculously there was one kid at that rural school who loved punk rock and skateboarding and we quickly became inseparable. My mom in an attempt to soften the blow of failure bought me a cd player for christmas. My country punk rock friend and I salivated over a trip to the legendary record store in Buffalo: Home of the Hits. We eventually got there and my friend had convinced me to buy this Green Day album he had read about in some fanzine he managed to mail order.  We both became the World's Biggest Green Day Fans that spring. Spring bled into summer and I spent that summer restlessly prowling that countryside and the tiny village at it's center.  I would make the 14 mile skate on rough rural pavement to his house daily (and the pitch black walk home). We didn't have a portable radio so while we were skating around that miniscule town in the relentless  buggy heat of that farmland we would loudly sing green day songs. The longing pubescent romanticism suited our situation perfectly. While green day would put out two more incredible albums they would eventually fade from my interest and I lost my superfandom.  But listening to this album for the first time in a long time I am reminded that I've committed all the lyrics to memory and I remember just how fun they are to sing with a friend and skateboard no where in particular.