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Scene Compilations

Posted by Rob Ortenzi on 17-Nov-06 @ 04:25 PM

Quite different from the label samplers we know today, the punk-rock "scene" comp-you know, that archaic idea of putting all the bands from a given area onto one kickass, regionally flavored LP-has pretty much become obsolete in the post-internet-explosion era. Which is a shame, given how many new communities of bands could benefit from one. So, until a Hands Across Suburban Chicago comp materializes or Gerard Way bankrolls a disc documenting the New Jersey basement set, here are 10 must-own collections that significantly helped define the scenes in their respective corners of the world.

Various Artists Someone Got Their Head Kicked In (BYO,1982) Someone Got Their Head Kicked In As the first release on BYO, a nascent indie label run by a group of former Beverly Hills rich kids who also played in the early hardcore band Youth Brigade, Someone Got Their Head Kicked In helped put Southern California’s unique brand of melodic punk rock on the map. Looking back at the list of high-octane pioneers on this thing (from Bad Religion to Adolescents to Social Distortion), it’s hard to believe that, not only did they invent this genre a quarter-century ago, but that most of these bands are still defining it to this day.

Various Artists The Thing That Ate Floyd (LOOKOUT!,1988) As an early document of the famed East Bay punk scene, The Thing That Ate Floyd featured many of the area’s eventual stars, like Operation Ivy, Crimpshrine and the Lookouts, whose contribution, “Outside,” was sung by future Green Day drummer Tré Cool. But really, it was the nobodies on Floyd-awesomely bad bands like Vomit Launch and Sewer Trout, most of whom would go unnoticed when the limos finally pulled up to Gilman Street-who perfectly captured the scene’s flippant attitude and scrappy sound.

Various Artists New York City Hardcore: The Way It Is (REVELATION,1988) Similar to Someone Got Their Head Kicked In in terms of its cultural impact, The Way It Is not only compiled nearly every great New York City hardcore band there was (Youth Of Today, Gorilla Biscuits, Sick Of It All); it also made late-’80s Lower Manhattan seem like the only place in the world where this kind of music was going down. Though many of these bands would mount brief comebacks years after the scene’s glory had faded, The Way It Is distills a time and a place where they could seemingly do no wrong.

Various Artists Kill Rock Stars (KILL ROCK STARS,1991) Sure, the sound quality is crap, and yeah, there are probably no more than three people in the world currently feeling nostalgic for Some Velvet Sidewalk, but there really hasn’t been another compilation in the past 15 years that captured its given music scene as effortlessly as the first Kill Rock Stars collection did. Featuring the early work of Bikini Kill, Unwound and Bratmobile, this was exactly what Olympia, Washington, sounded like in 1991. Oh, and you might want give the song “Beeswax” a second spin. It’s by some band called Nirvana.

Various Artists (Don’t Forget To) Breathe (CRANK!,1997) Even though many of the bands on (Don’t Forget To) Breathe are actually from metropolitan areas like Denver and Los Angeles, this Crank! Records compilation became a crib sheet for curious teenagers who wanted to know what Midwestern emo sounded like in the late ’90s. From the clipped melodies of the Promise Ring and Knapsack to the cleanly picked guitars of Boys Life and Christie Front Drive, it may have not been a “scene” in the geographical sense, but let’s face it: They were all stealing from the same two or three people.

Various Artists State Of The Union (DISCHORD,1989) By the late ’80s, with many of Dischord’s original artists either growing up or relocating to the Sunset Strip, the Washington, DC, hardcore scene ditched the hardcore shout-alongs for a growing set of influences. The angular sound many of the bands on State Of The Union (Fugazi, Soulside, Shudder To Think, et al.) helped pioneer was often called “post-hardcore,” but a few years later, a less-preferable term came about to describe it, when emo pioneers Sunny Day Real Estate took their tear-stained lyrics and applied it to the scene’s dynamic musical thrust.

Various Artists Fiesta Comes Alive! (SLAP-A-HAM,1997) Recorded at the then-annual Fiesta Grande noise fest, an all-day event organized by Spazz bassist and Slap-A-Ham Records founder Chris Dodge, Fiesta Comes Alive! proved to be a critical document of the “power violence” scene that began taking shape up and down California in the mid-’90s. Featuring raucous live sets from noise merchants Plutocracy, the Locust and Man Is The Bastard, its brief sonic blasts were later mirrored by the scene itself when a few years later Dodge folded Slap-A-Ham and most power-violence records became available only on eBay.

Various Artists My Mom Likes These Songs (BOXCAR,1998) Ignore the ska bands, and this admittedly obscure compilation provides a much-needed document of the fiercely independent punk scene that was happening in and around Gainesville, Florida, by the mid-’90s. Though quite a few of the scene’s main players are missing, notable appearances include gruff post-hardcore heroes Hot Water Music and Discount, an anthemic pop-punk band fronted by Allison Mosshart-who would later discover the Velvet Underground, apparently stop eating, and become one-half of the minimalist blues-punk duo the Kills.

Various Artists Mindset Overhaul (WRECK-AGE,1998) As is often the case with any great punk scene, this group of melodic hardcore acts from Long Island would become hugely influential to a new generation of artists (see: Glassjaw, Taking Back Sunday, et al.), yet it would go virtually unnoticed while they were actually still around. On Mindset Overhaul, the only Long Island scene comp that isn’t hopelessly out of print, bands like Milhouse, Mind Over Matter and Silent Majority get their just dues, as do Sons Of Abraham, the world’s first, last and possibly greatest all-Jewish straight-edge band.

Various Artists Magnetic Curses (THICK,2000) Years before you could find Pete Wentz’s name in Ashlee Simpson’s SideKick, the Chicago pop-punk scene belonged to a group of spun-out bike messengers Jessica’s little sis never would’ve set foot near. On this admittedly eclectic compilation, old-school political punks Mekons and third-wave ska troop Blue Meanies showed up, but it was the slew of working class pop-punk bands (Oblivion, the Arrivals and a pre-Satan Alkaline Trio) who turned Magnetic Curses into a snapshot of what it was like during the late ’90s in Chicago to be young, dumb and totally wasted.