Refused
The Glass House
April 12, 2012
Prior to Refused's intensely anticipated show at the Glass House, frontman Dennis Lyxzen posted a Youtube video on his Facebook artist page of punk legends The Germs performing "Lexicon Devil" at the Whisky in 1979. Lyxzen remarked that "we are going to do some last minute rehearsals so that we can sound at least as good as the Germs!" The performance he was speaking of was a perfect example of the repertoire of the early punk rock spectacle: raw, noisy, and driven more by the crash-and-burn minded forces behind the instruments than the actual physical parts controlling them. After so many years out of the live performance circuit, would he and Refused be able to capture the crux and core of what made Darby Crash and his band of punks so extraordinary? Only early Friday morning could say.
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John Gilhooley/ OC Weekly

Former Weekly cover guy and T.S.O.L. lead singer Jack Grisham went on the record with our sister publication LA Weekly's sex blog, After Dark LA about his sexual history and current Christian leanings. It's super candid and fun, care of erstwhile  writer Danielle Bacher. Read our favorite parts--about pee and Grisham's sexual style--after the jump. TMI? You betcha.
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Ceremony, the Rohnert Park punk band that's been labeled everything from punk rock to  shitgaze (yes, that genre exists) just released their new album Zoo last Tuesday, and they'll be at the Center For The Arts in Eagle Rock, then Chain Reaction in Anaheim on Friday (along with Cold World, Skin Like Iron, Rank/Xerox, and Joyce Manor) to promote it. Ceremony's inspired guitarist Anthony Anzaldo answers some of my queries concerning punk rock, venues, and not being a straight edge band.

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This is not Lagwagon.

Since their start in the early 1990s, Santa Barbara-based skate-punk rascals Lagwagon have penned tons of great tracks: "Razor Burn" (the best song ever written about looking like a member of ZZ Top), "After You My Friend" (the best song featuring an elevator music interlude), "Leave the Light On" (the best song with Jacob's Ladder dialogue), and "May 16" (the best song from a Tony Hawk game--well, that's one harder to decide). As they've crafted their hook-heavy discography, Lagwagon have also done a bunch of covers along the way. In celebration of the band's date this Saturday at House of Blues in Anaheim with Cobra Skulls and Nothington, let's revisit and rate every cover Lagwagon has committed to record. Don't worry, there are only nine of 'em.

(Oh, and a quick note as we start: For years, a skate-punk version of Kim Wilde's "Kids in America" has been mistakenly attributed to, among others, Lagwagon, Pennywise, NOFX, and MxPx, probably because someone misnamed a file on Napster or Kazaa way back when. It belongs to none of those groups. Instead, it was recorded by Fourth Grade Nothing and appeared on the Bio-Dome soundtrack. Why can't the world afford Pauly Shore/Stephen Baldwin collaborations the respect they deserve?)

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​Speaking of LA Weekly, their print feature this week on Fidlar, the garage punks from Highland Park, revealed that Zac Carper, Brandon Schwartzel, and Elvis and Max Kuehn have pretty solid OC ties. The Kuehn brothers' dad is T.S.O.L. keyboardist Greg Kuehn.

According to the Weekly, the "young Kuehns started a band called the Diffs when they were 13 and played with punk greats like Adolescents, Circle Jerks and the Germs. They opened for the Adicts at the Key Club.  'Going to their house is weird,' says Carper. 'Duane Peters will be hanging out there.'"More >>

​Vans Warped Tour is doing OC locals a favor this year; it's making a stop at Irvin on June 21, a day before its Pomona show. Unlike previous years, they're lumping all the SoCal dates together instead of looping around and coming back towards the end of the tour; the tour's Ventura date is on June 24; San Diego is on June 27. You can sign up and register for presale tickets that will be sold on March 30. The lineup--consisting of 44 bands so far--is listed after the jump.

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​The 14th Annual Punk Rock Bowling and Music Festival just announced the first five bands of this year's line up: Rancid, NOFX, Pennywise, the Adicts and the Briefs are performing!

Touted as the biggest punk rock party of the year, the festival takes place on Memorial Day weekend, on May 25 to  28 in Downtown Las Vegas.

It's actually possible that it is the biggest punk rock fete: there's four nights of music, three days of the festival, two days of bowling and poker, and pool parties galore. 

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www.facebook.com/RIKKAGNEW

​There's not a lot of songs that encapsulate living in Orange County better than "O.C. Life," written and originally released by Adolescents guitarist Rikk Agnew in 1982. Since then it's been covered by everyone from D.I., Offspring and Zebrahead as the quintessential protest song for the antipathy that envelopes the county.

So every once in a while, we dust it off, listen to it, and marvel at how, 30 years later, all the words still ring true. "The limits of your mind is where the county line ends / Listen to the media present it all as fact /  Following the lead cause you don't know how to act / Travel in a straight line cause you don't know your own way / They'll get you in the end before you know you'll have a say."

But who did it best? After the jump, the original and three covers are analyzed side-by-side.
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