Monday Morning Playlist – 6/10/24

So, it’s been a couple of weeks since Memorial Day and I have been working on a few other things I had already posted. Now it’s Monday and I’m sure we all need that extra boost of music and caffeine on a Monday. Especially for me with the caffeine. I tend to double down 🥴😵‍💫. Much like the previous posts. Your first 10 songs in your playlist and no skipping no matter how obscure. No judgments and on that note let’s get the ball rolling.

The Dollheads are a pop-punk trio that originated out of Las Vegas. I forgot out about them last year while I was still in Vegas. Ironic, right? I was browsing through Instagram on the way home from Vegas, and I see NOFX tag these kids in a video promo for the Punk Rock Bowling festival. This Bitch has that classic punk feel with angry lyrics with vocals that’s similar to The Donna’s and also my favorite track I heard on Spotify. So, I purchased the EP off of Amazon. It’s really good from top to bottom. Full of energy, all originals, and no covers. It’s awesome to see youngsters still finding inspiration from this kind of music.
Title Holder was the opening track for The Interrupters 3rd record, and it’s a strong opener to a great record. I first heard of this group on the radio. Sirius XM’s Faction Punk station with their single She’s Kerosene. I thought they were very Rancid inspirited with a cut of Ramones. It’s a basic formula, and it works. The ska-punk thing was always a fun sub-genre, with Voodoo Glow Skulls being my favorite band in that category, but this is a solid band when I saw them live too. Really fun show!
Ok, I know what you’re thinking. Why am I listening to this douchebag? Well, I’ll tell ya. All the hate for this guy was just an online hate bandwagon that I did not jump on. I know he’s done and said some stupid things in the media, but you know what, who the hell hasn’t? Any musician knows that shock value comes with a price and controversy is king. It gets the most clicks. I personally don’t pay attention to that shit because I think the music would speak for itself despite how much of an asshole you can be online. That being said, I took a deep dive on this guy and give the man a fair chance to see if his dumb mistakes emulate in his music, starting with the Punk-Pop record he released a few years ago at that time when I did the research, Tickets to My Downfall, and worked my way backward. This is a good song. The entire record of Hotel Diablo was a personal journey for this guy. Death In My Pocket was about the biggest things in his life he lost and his struggles to cope with it. I was not much into MGK’s hip-hop, because I found it kind of stale, but he can bust a good flow if he wants to with the best of them but its too bad, he got more famous in the time of hip-hop got really lazy with trap beats, autotune and mumble rap because his skills on this record would have been much more appreciated. Not everything he’s done is a winner, but I thought this was a great effort to show some vulnerability, and what better way to do that than through your art.
The xx was an interesting group, but I do like the Intro. I think intro songs are interesting because it’s a bit of an experiment. Hailing from the UK, I found this track on a random playlist on Tidal. It may be a short track, but it left a good impression. The classic less is more theory works well with this one.
The 90s was sure an interesting time in music history, and I loved it! Unfiltered, unapologetic, and just in your face! Feed The Monkey was in the 1990 film Encino Man at the end of the movie when you see the band playing on stage at the school dance. As side project from the great Mike Muir and Robert Trujillo on bass from the legendary Suicidal Tendencies, and I could tell they a had great time dipping into that category of funk with a slice of that SoCal skate-punk, and it was fantastic!
I don’t know much about Soilwork, but I know that this track was a bonus from the digipack edition of this record. I never really took a deep dive in this band, probably because their music did not grab me that much but I got a copy of this record from an ex-girlfriend to add to my archive and this was really good record. I didn’t pay much attention to much what they did afterward, but I did like this one right off the bat. I may just take a deeper dive now that I think about it. That’s the one thing about music. Always something new no matter what year it had been released
Remember Tomorrow was an Iron Maiden cover. When Metallica released Hardwired in 2016, it was double disc record, but there were special editions that had a 3rd disc of extra goodies! Live songs from around the world and small record shops and more studio cover songs. This was one of those hidden gems that seemed like Metallica had made it their own because of how they played it despite being a Maiden track. Metallica was always fantastic with cover songs and with full disclosure I didn’t know until I had gotten older that Turn The Page was a Bob Seger cover until I heard my mother sang a long with the lyrics when it played on my stere and I asked how she knew it. Learn something new every day, people.
Sevendust was a band that I was heavily into in my teens. Although I got into them when they released the video for Denial, Animosity was my all-time favorite thing they had released, and at the time, I was dealing with a lot of heavy stuff as a young man and my CDs and headphones were always there for me when people were not. It’s not that I did not want to. It was more that I had no idea who to trust. The only could was my music to make me not feel so alone. I always did love Sevendust style. Heavy metal with soullike vocals with a dash of growling when nessacery, and Lajon had the perfect blend of soul and ferociousness. Sevendust had that blend of having to really emotional heavy tracks like Live Again (my personal favorite), up to very heavy energetic songs like Praise. This record was in my rotation for a very long time, and I got to see them live scoring a set list that I had signed by 4 out of the 5 members in 2004 that I still have to this day. So good!
You Make Me Sick is one of those tracks that will just amp you up to get something, speeding down the freeway or anything you need the energy for. DevilDriver was always known for that element.
Released 4 years after the debut of The Gift of Game, this record was complete 180 from that record. Crazy Town was not appreciated or accepted in the world or heavy metal or even hip-hop for that matter and to be honest I was not a big fan of these guys. They just reminded me of a Limp Bizkit cop out. Even the members themselves were having a lot of issues at the time they just wanted to join the party but there comes a time when where that party stops and Darkhorse is what came out of that result. I’ll be honest I was even 50/50 the debut with songs like Toxic and Black Cloud I did enjoy it, but Darkhorse seemed more like therapy. It’s no secret that several members had a drug problem, and that affected the music and the time it took to release new materials but I will say, with songs like Candy Coated, it was much more of a mature direction in my opinion. Stayed more on the hard rock side with not so much on the hip-hop element.

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