Three Albums That Changed My Life: Antwon

The first time I ever heard this record was from a guy I met in the punk scene in San Jose named “Trouble.” I met him at a show in Campbell at one of the last Campbell Community Centre shows in west side San Jose when I was younger. We later on became friends from seeing each other at shows and he later moved into a friends house called the Compton House in the garage in a tent. He was the first person to show me veganism and he was also straight edge at the time, but he told me he had a very intense speed habit when he was younger. I appreciated a lot of what he had to show me which leads me to this record WHY LP by Discharge!! I knew Discharge songs, but I didn’t really dig deep into the meanings of what they meant until someone I had respected at that time explained them to me, lol. From that day on my view on the power of music changed, I felt like it didn’t matter what you did as long as you did it with heart and made in undeniably tough, the message will be heard. The impact of this record is crazy the riffs will live on and be imitated for ever, I’m sure!  “Trouble” explained to me the title track WHY… WHY DROP BOMBS ON CHILDREN?? HOLY FUCK !!! It hit me. These fucking insane anthems were just what I was looking for as a kid. Now this album cuts like a fucking knife whenever I hear this shit, I could be living in the suburbs totally secluded someday but if I heard Societies Victim or It’s No TV Sketch I’d go fuckin’ nuts and transform like the wolf man.

This band was everything to me growing up. I was a young skinhead into punk, but a lot of the skinheads had beef with punks which I didn’t feel was right at all, but what can you do… I never saw punks and skins get along and I thought that was trash and I still do to this day. These songs were written so good I’m glad I grew up on real rock and roll like this. My friend Sean showed me this band. He was a great guitar player and he taught me a couple Blitz songs on guitar. This was the soundtrack to a lot of bus rides on the way to Taco Bravo to link up with fools. Even the records later when Blitz became more new wave made total sense to me; listen to this fuckin’ album, this is what happens when great minds think alike. This is two punks and two skins makin’ a legendary album. If you do anything in your life get familiar.

I think I first heard this first when my friends Daniel left his iPod mini at my house. I always refer to him as my cousin, Darnel, because of the racial ambiguity that we share. He’s sorta darker with freckles everyone believes he’s my cousin. I love ’em like family, we also grew up going to shows. Phil Evlrum’s music showed me a lot about layering music. I had a friend named Robbie who made similar music and his set up for recording was insane, he taught me a lot about home recording around the time me and Bad Slurp were recording a lot. Him and Phil Elvrum together shaped what I thought of and about home recordings. I never grew up in a studio a lot of the stuff we never recorded in an actual studio growing up. This album is extremely legendary to me. One time I seen Phil Elvrum in Olympia, in a book store where his wife was playing a show, I didn’t say hi, I just stared lol!