Only once or twice a month do albums like this come along, a rarity in modern times, so I thought that I should make mention of this. Tony Hawk’s “American Wasteland” CD accompanies his (sure to be) best selling video game of the same name. On it, a veritable who’s who of modern all-stars have been assembled to pay homage to punk’s roots. You could look at it as that, or you could look at it as a horrible fake. A CD put together to spur consumer spending among the span style=”font-style: italic;”Hot Topic/Tony Hawk/span crowd. The credibility, which this CD desperately needs (as a selling feature) is furnished on the backs of a wide variety of bands who didn’t have to hide behind the term punk to sell records; they coined it. Hey Steve Jones, formerly of the Sex Pistols, what do you have to say about these “new punk” bands?br /div style=”text-align: center;”a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://www.stereogum.com/archives/002030.html”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1133/636/400/New%20York%20Post%20Steve%20Jones.jpg” alt=”" border=”0″ //aspan style=”font-size:78%;”thanks to a href=”http://www.stereogum.com/”stereogum/a for the article/spanbr //divbr /div style=”text-align: center;”span style=”color: rgb(0, 204, 204); font-weight: bold;”CultureBully presents The American Wasteland Project:/spanbr //divbr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1133/636/1600/Amazon%20American%20Wasteland%2001.jpg”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1133/636/320/Amazon%20American%20Wasteland%2001.jpg” alt=”" border=”0″ //aa onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1133/636/1600/Amazon%20American%20Wasteland%2002.jpg”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1133/636/320/Amazon%20American%20Wasteland%2002.jpg” alt=”" border=”0″ //aa onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1133/636/1600/Amazon%20American%20Wasteland%2003.jpg”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1133/636/320/Amazon%20American%20Wasteland%2003.jpg” alt=”" border=”0″ //aa onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1133/636/1600/Amazon%20American%20Wasteland%2005.jpg”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1133/636/320/Amazon%20American%20Wasteland%2005.jpg” alt=”" border=”0″ //aa onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1133/636/1600/Amazon%20American%20Wasteland%2004.1.jpg”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1133/636/320/Amazon%20American%20Wasteland%2004.1.jpg” alt=”" border=”0″ //abr /Do you take Amazon.com reviews at their word? Probably not. For as much fun people make of sites like Pitchfork, they do offer sensible, grounded reviews (a href=”http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/d/destinys-child/1s.shtml”in most cases/a) which help people find music that is definitely worth owning. I suggest, rather, that you take Amazon.com reviews as a source of downtime amusement, as I’m doing right now. “Killing classics should be a felony.” Damn straight! “This is a joke” And I’m not laughing! “How could they” Profits, bitch! “Emo sucks!” …Yes… “Blows the originals away” F’n Rig…what? Blows the originals away? Well, often times I do like cover songs, occasionally as much as I like the originals. Let’s see where we stand with this album.br /div style=”text-align: center;”a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1133/636/1600/tony%20hawk%20american%20wasteland%20wow%20this%20is%20gay.0.jpg”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1133/636/200/tony%20hawk%20american%20wasteland%20wow%20this%20is%20gay.jpg” alt=”" border=”0″ //a1) Senses Fail “Institutionalized” (Suicidal Tendencies)br /2) Taking Back Sunday “Suburban Home/I Like Food” (The Descendents)br /3) My Chemical Romance “Astro Zombies” (Misfits)br /4) Emanuel “Search and Destroy” (Iggy The Stooges)br /5) Saves the Day “Sonic Reducer” (The Dead Boys)br /6) Dropkick Murphys “Who is Who” (The Adolescents)br /7) Thrice “Seeing Red/Screaming At the Wall” (Minor Threat)br /8) The Bled “House of Suffering” (Bad Brains)br /9) Hot Snakes “Time to Escape” (Government Issue)br /10) Fall Out Boy “Start Today” (Gorilla Biscuits)br /11) Alkaline Trio “Wash Away” (T.S.O.L.)br //div div style=”text-align: center;”12) Thursday “Ever Fallen In Love” (The Buzzcocks)br /13) From Autumn to Ashes “Let’s Have A War” (Fear)br /14) Rise Against “Fix Me” (Black Flag)br /br /div style=”text-align: left;”There are bands on this list that I like such as the Dropkick Murphys, bands I mildly regard as “do-able” like Rise Against, and bands I cannot tolerate at all…My Chemical Romance. But to be fair, I listened to the album, in its entirety, patiently…waiting…cringing…but we’ll get to that later. When I was listening to “Sonic Reducer” I thought to myself about how weak the vocals sounded; and furthermore the entire lack of passion in the music. It dawned on me however that I was just like the kids buying these albums at one point in time (but, my path didn’t start with Saves the Day, point me). The first time I heard “Sonic Reducer” was on a Pearl Jam bootleg (sJoeyo:p/o:p/s Johnny Ramone was featured on guitar for the track). How cool is that? It was the opposite of the Saves the Day version, it span style=”font-style: italic;”burned/span with passion and was completely span style=”font-style: italic;”overwhelming/span (cheesy, but true). (oh, and span style=”font-style: italic;”this/span span style=”font-style: italic;”is me/span completely understanding that many people would squint, gag and otherwise show their lack of approval for saying that Pearl Jam is better than Saves the Day, but I span style=”font-style: italic;”so/span stand by it)br /br /I’ve been thinking about ways to take this post. I could search the internet for hours scrounging up links to better covers of these same songs. I could even find the originals (same time killing process involved). I don’t honestly think that in doing so I will help anyone to actually check Bad Brains out, who hasn’t already done so. But, sometimes you’ve got to get crunk and throw caution to the wind…tug on Superman’s cape…etc. So, here’s to wasting my time so you don’t have to.br /br /For those looking to see what American Wasteland doesn’t sound like, consult the following:br /br /div style=”text-align: center;” p class=”MsoNormal”sAdolescents “st1:city st=”on”st1:place st=”on”L.A./st1:place/st1:city Girl”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sAdolescents “Creatures”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”so:pspan style=”text-decoration: none;” /span/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sBad Brains “Big Takeover”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sBad Brains “Jah Love”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sBad Brains “Pay to Cum”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sBad Brains “Sailin’ On”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sBad Brains “Stay Close to Me”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”so:pspan style=”text-decoration: none;” /span/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sBlack Flag “Depression”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sBlack Flag “Jealous Again”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sBlack Flag “Louie Louie”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sBlack Flag “Nervous Breakdown”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sBlack Flag “Police Story”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sBlack Flag “Slip It In”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”so:pspan style=”text-decoration: none;” /span/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sBuzzcocks “Ever Fallen In Love”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sBuzzcocks “Fast Cars”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sBuzzcocks “Friends” (live)o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”so:pspan style=”text-decoration: none;” /span/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sDescendents “Coffee Mug”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sDescendents “Cool to Be You”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sDescendents “Doug Rides a Skateboard”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sDescendents “Enjoy”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sDescendents “Everything Sux”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sDescendents “Green”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sDescendents “I’m the One”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sDescendents “Kids”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sDescendents “My Dad Sucks”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sDescendents “Nothing With You”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sDescendents “Sour Grapes”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sDescendents “Vinnie”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sDescendents “Wendy”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sDescendents “Your Face”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”so:pspan style=”text-decoration: none;” /span/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sFear “I Don’t Care About You”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”so:pspan style=”text-decoration: none;” /span/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sGovernment Issue “On the Screen”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sGovernment Issue “Wild Blood”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sGovernment Issue “World Caved In”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”so:pspan style=”text-decoration: none;” /span/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sIggy The Stooges “Dead Rockstar” (live 2004 st1:country-region st=”on”st1:place st=”on”Japan/st1:place/st1:country-region)o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sIggy amp; The Stooges “Little Doll” (live 2003 st1:country-region st=”on”st1:place st=”on”France/st1:place/st1:country-region)o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sIggy The Stooges “Search amp; Destroy”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sIggy The Stooges “Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”so:pspan style=”text-decoration: none;” /span/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sMisfits “Archangel”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sMisfits “Astro Zombies”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sMisfits “Hybrid Moments”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sMisfits “Last Caress”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sMisfits “Mommy Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight?”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sMisfits “You Belong To Me”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”so:pspan style=”text-decoration: none;” /span/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sSuicidal Tendencies “Institutionalized”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”so:pspan style=”text-decoration: none;” /span/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sT.S.O.L. “Code Blue”o:p/o:p/s/p p class=”MsoNormal”sT.S.O.L. “Love Story”o:p/o:p/s/p span style=”font-style: italic;”/span/div /div /div