It’s hot. You’re sweaty. Dozens of bands are showing off their raw skills on more than ten stages. A plethora of teenagers and young adults, wearing their punk-or-nothing personas, surround you. A ministry of radio stations has staked out their own spots within the vast parking lot to distribute their hope, wisdom, and free swag to the fastest growing consumer age market in the world.
It’s the only place where a reclusive Misfits fanatic, a Hollister-clad, tennis-playing prima donna and a forty-something business owner …

It shouldn’t take an especially active reader to see that the Modern Pea Pod tends not to cover music that gets played on the radio. And I’m not gonna lie: part of that comes down to our own personal tastes. But another reason why we don’t usually talk to bands who get radio airplay is because the bands who get radio airplay don’t usually want to talk to us. I mean, seriously, if you were 50 Cent, James Blunt, Red Hot Chili Peppers or …

I was helping run the sound at a small club outside of Houston when I first heard. In between sets, I spun one of my favorite Clash records, and some young punk kid shot me a stupid thumbs up. “Cool tribute,” he said after coming over. I gave him a look that said, “What the hell are you talking about?” I guess he figured it out, because then he said, “Didn’t you hear? Joe Strummer died last night.”
For guys my age, Joe Strummer was more …

What is this, a time warp? Here I am in June of 2006, and the face that stares back at me from the promo CD on my desk might as well have stepped right out of 1981. That curled lip. That spiky fringe of jet-black hair. Those thick clouds of eyeliner around the toughest set of sloe eyes in rock’n’roll. It’s Joan Fucking Jett: trailblazing female rocker, inspiration for Guitar Wolf’s “Jett Rock’n’Roll,” and probably the hottest alleged lesbian ever to pour herself …

Ladies, ladies, ladies…when will you ever learn? Rock singers are appealing, sure: they sweat and they strut and they wear their jeans skin-tight (the better to accentuate their stuffed crotches). Maybe they’re even a little sensitive, too, with their liner note dedications and their power ballads. But once the break-up comes around — and come it will — you’ll be spending the rest of your life hearing about what a bitch you were, and it’s safe to say that no amount of free backstage …

When people imagine music by an acknowledged gay male, they usually expect it to be filled with stage theatricality and a tone of angst that comes from the travails of being young and gay. Songs such as the Bronski Beat’s “Need a Man Blues” instantly come to mind when pondering the identity of the openly gay man in music. With its lonely vocals, shattering falsetto vocal range, and darkest blue melody, “Need a Man Blues” captures the gloom of wanting someone, anyone; but at …

A few weeks ago, the Sex Pistols answered their inevitable nomination to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with what many fans trumpeted as an especially “punk” gesture: an open letter, hand-scrawled and atrociously spelled, declaring their contempt for the corporate institution and vehemently declining to appear at the ceremony. And it was pretty punk of them, insomuch as our concept of “punk” in the 21st century has been informed by mass-produced bondage pants, vague notions of “sticking it to the man” …

I have long held the opinion that with every album a band releases, there should be change, evolution, and growth. It’s for this reason that there’s a lot of people out there who would probably consider me to be a punk rock heretic; but the fact of the matter is, when it comes to Southern California’s Bad Religion, I just prefer the newer stuff to the old. This isn’t to say that I can’t appreciate their classics, but with every album there’s a noticeable …