.45 Grave was a Los Angeles-based death-rock band whose macabre, morose and sometimes amusing music helped to get the goth-rock genre off to its shambling life. In 1985, after gaining a fair deal of attention via gloom-ridden gigs and several depressing releases, the band split up, with Paul B. Cutler and Dinah Cancer (real name Mary Sims) going... [+] Read More

Yes No

A member of the first edition of Black Flag circa 1981-1982, guitarist Dez Cadena moved on after the band temporarily broke up in 1983 due to contract squabbles with Unicorn/MCA. By 1984, he had recruited two veterans of the L.A. hardcore scene (Paul Roessler and Jeff Dahl) to form DC3, a band which pointed back to the roots of hardcore by... [+] Read More

Yes No

The Dead Kennedys merged revolutionary politics with hardcore punk music and, in the process, became one of the defining hardcore bands. Often, they were more notable for their politics than their music, but that was part of their impact. The Kennedys were more inspired by British punk and the fiery, revolutionary-implied politics of the Sex... [+] Read More

Yes No

The Dead Kennedys merged revolutionary politics with hardcore punk music and, in the process, became one of the defining hardcore bands. Often, they were more notable for their politics than their music, but that was part of their impact. The Kennedys were more inspired by British punk and the fiery, revolutionary-implied politics of the Sex... [+] Read More

Yes No

Formed in Edmonton in the early '80s, SNFU has been one of the best and longest living of Canada's indie punk bands. Led by brothers Bret and Marc Bekle, the band debuted in 1984 with ...And No One Else Wanted to Play for Better Youth Organization Records. By 1989, SNFU had moved to Cargo, releasing two albums before moving yet again to Epitaph... [+] Read More

Yes No

Conjuring a fiendish witches' brew of primal rockabilly, grease-stained '60s garage rock, vintage monster movies, perverse and glistening sex, and the detritus and effluvia of 50 years of American pop culture, the Cramps are a truly American creation much in the manner of the Cadillac, the White Castle hamburger, the Fender Stratocaster, and... [+] Read More

Yes No

As punk's history enters a new millennium, the impact of the band initially judged "the least likely to" seems to grow ever more each day. The Ramones hold deserved pride of place for kick-starting the whole thing, while the Sex Pistols and to a lesser extent the Clash helped take it to an even more notorious level, role models for many young... [+] Read More

Yes No

Genuinely shocking or tasteless, campy fun? It was sometimes hard to tell which way the Misfits wanted to be taken, and the immense cult following that has grown up in the years after their actual existence (1977-1983) seems divided in its own assessment. It certainly wasn't the Misfits' musicianship -- which was as crude as the recording... [+] Read More

Yes No