Rewind the clock with me a little, and you’ll find yourself in a time where main stream punk rock did not exist in the same way it does today. Some might be surprised to find most pop-punk and/or punk rock bands not played on the radio at all, or in short bursts of Greenday, Pennywise, and the occasional Nofx song if the dj wasn’t being watched by the programming director.

I’m talking about 1996, a different time and a different place. I was merely 13 years old at the time, and had been going through a phase in which I was searching for music to listen to that didn’t have cussing, and had a slight religious slant, so that my parents would just leave me alone with some music.

The music on the radio, and played on mtv was not exactly anything that caught my eye. Even at a young age, I could tell that manufactured music was not the route that I wanted to take, nor did the messages of the Seattle grunge explosion resonate with me whatsoever.

However, a band from Bremerton, Wa. caught my ear in a sonic boom of cool that I haven’t really felt since the day I purchased this cd at Tower Records. Before I got into napster, file sharing, or anything along the lines of illegal tender, I enjoyed getting a cd or two from the record store, and occasionally my parents would fork over some money for me to get it.

Back to Mxpx:

Mxpx had put out a few records, ep’s, vinyl and singles in the underground punk movement, and one thing that I noticed was that they fit into the box that I needed to slip under the radar with my parents.

“Life in General” was fast, loud, and about things that I understood. From lamenting about how girls didn’t like them, or talking about how school sucks, the teenage angst was alive and well in three chords, fast bass lines, and clever song writing that really isn’t seen today by a lot of younger bands.

The disc clocked in well under an hour but by the time you finished listening to this album you had anthems you could raise your fist to, and a new understanding of what it was to be a teenager and/or young adult. For 17 tracks of punk rock prowess, Mxpx spoke to me at a time when a lot of things didn’t make sense, and to this day still speak volumes where other music just doesn’t make the cut.

The band impressed me with a string of interesting music videos that were way below the budget of videos played on MTV, but still found a home in underground vhs tapes that I had to send cash and mailorder, in hopes of seeing them. (this is before youtube, or the internet in every home)

“Move to Bremerton” for instances had the boys roaming the streets of their home town, just a stone throws away from where I currently reside, but I could somehow relate to the song since I had this longing for a partner in crime, although it didn’t happen for a long time, eventually I ended moving near Bremerton. Here’s the video:

With that song slowing things down on the album, and setting up the next song in their seminal release, Mxpx proved that they could write anthems just like any other great punk rock band coming out of the East Coast or Southern California Epitaph revolution. With the track “Doing Time” the singer sings a long to break neck drumming, and speedy riffs, proclaiming that school just didn’t sit well with him, but recalls the good times of passing through the school days…a perfect song that illustrates that staying in school will not be the end of the line for everyone, and that there is something more at the end.

Here’s the video for Doing Time:

The band played on, and I eventually influenced all my friends into enjoying this record, many of them purchasing it on cd and cassette. People began to notice that the mainstream was beginning to enjoy the disc too, with A& R reps from A&M records catching the band and giving them a major record deal, the band moved on from a small Seattle Based Record Company (Tooth and Nail Records) to the big time. With that being said, their last video from this record was a huge hit, a song about a lucky guy, a Chick Magnet:

It’s been more than a decade since this record came out, and the band is in their 30’s. The audience has shifted a little, but this record still speaks volumes to me in many different ways. The lyrical content ranges from relationships, living at home with parents, to more mature topics like touring, and leaving the nest altogether. Overall, this album is one of those albums that you will remember forever for being around at the right time of your life. I know it was in mine, and it still brings back specific memories in my life, whether it was helping me cope with being a geek/nerd with no chicks or being picked on by the white kids in suburbia. This album speaks volumes in a way that many other forms of media just never has since.

Mxpx’s Life in General is one of my favorite punk rock albums of all time. The lads in Mxpx aren’t going to get into the hall of fame or anything, but they most certainly changed my life, which is a lot more than most of the bands in the hall of fame have done for me.