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by Stephen Thomas Erlewine By melding punk with reggae, Bad Brains became one of the definitive American hardcore punk groups of the early '80s. Although the group released only a handful of records during its peak, including the legendary cassette-only debut, Bad Brains, they developed a dedicated following, many of whom would later form their own hardcore and alternative bands. As for Bad Brains themselves, they continued to record and tour in varying lineups led by guitarist Dr. Know into the late '90s yet never managed to break out of their cult status....

The Adicts are a British punk rock quartet founded in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, in the late '70s by lead singer Monkey (Keith Warren), guitarist Pete Davidson, bassist Mel Ellis, and drummer Kid Dee (Michael Davison). The group affected the look of the "droogs" in the film A Clockwork Orange. Largely independent record makers, they nevertheless made the British charts with their second album, Sound of Music, in 1982, and the single "Bad Boy" in 1983....

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine The Sex Pistols may have been the first British punk rock band, but the Clash were the definitive British punk rockers. Where the Pistols were nihilistic, the Clash were fiery and idealistic, charged with righteousness and a leftist political ideology. From the outset, the band was more musically adventurous, expanding its hard rock & roll with reggae, dub, and rockabilly among other roots musics. Furthermore, they were blessed with two exceptional songwriters in Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, each with a distinctive voice and style. The Clash copped heavily from classic outlaw imagery, positioning themselves as rebels with a cause....

The saga of the Cramps begins in 1972 in Sacramento, CA, when LSD enthusiast and Alice Cooper fan Erick Purkhiser picked up a hitchhiker, a woman with a highly evolved rock & roll fashion sense named Kristy Wallace. The two quickly took note of one another, but major sparks didn't began to fly until a few weeks later, when they discovered they were both enrolled in a course on "Art and Shamanism" at Sacramento City College. These two lovebirds were soon sharing both an apartment and their collective enthusiasm for the stranger and more obscure sounds of rock's first era, as well as the more flamboyant music of the day....

Tiger Army is an alternative/psychobilly band that was formed in 1995 in Berkeley, California. They are named after the infamous Tiger Force from the Vietnam War....

D. Boon and Mike Watt began playing music when they were teenagers in the mid-'70s, covering '70s hard rock standards. After they graduated from high school in 1976, they heard their first punk rock records, which marked a significant change in their musical development. Once Boon and Watt heard punk, they began writing their own songs and decided to form their first full-fledged rock & roll band. In 1980, the pair assembled a quartet called the Reactionaries, which featured drummer Frank Tonche and a second guitarist. Within a few months, their second guitarist left and the band changed their name to the Minutemen, since most of their songs were not much longer than a minute in duration. Th...

Bad Religion formed in the northern suburbs of Los Angeles in 1980, comprising guitarist Brett Gurewitz, vocalist Greg Graffin, bassist Jay Bentley, and drummer Jay Ziskrout. Gurewitz established his own record company, Epitaph, to release the band's records. Between their self-titled EP and their first full-length record, Pete Finestone replaced Ziskrout as the group's drummer. Into the Unknown, their debut album, was released in 1983 and gained them some attention on the national U.S. hardcore scene. After its release, the group's lineup changed, as bassist Paul Dedona and drummer Davy Goldman joined the group....

y Greg Prato & Stephen Thomas Erlewine The Dead Boys were one of the first punk bands to escalate the level of violence, nihilism, and pure ugliness of punk rock to extreme new levels. Although considered part of New York's mid-'70s CBGB's scene, all of its bandmembers originally hailed from Cleveland, OH. The group's roots lay in the early-'70s Cleveland cult band Rocket from the Tombs, which included future Dead Boys Cheetah Chrome (aka Gene O'Connor) on guitar, and Johnny Blitz (aka John Madansky) on drums, along with future Pere Ubu members David Thomas and Peter Laughner. The group's sound was a bit too comparable to art rock for Chrome and Blitz's tastes (whose influences included the...

Voodoo Glow Skulls recorded their debut, Who Is, This Is? for Dr. Strange Records in 1993, selling 200,000 copies worldwide. The band then signed to Epitaph Records and released four CDs that collectively sold over 750,000 copies worldwide....

They are particularly known for their sophisticated use of style, metaphor, vocabulary, imagery, and vocal harmonies (the oozin' aahs), whether reflective on matters of personal feelings or of personal or social responsibility. Perhaps paradoxically, at least at first thought, despite the band's name, Bad Religion may be accurately characterized as far more thematically concerned with questions of the essential character and implications of freedom than with religion or atheism in the more conventional and narrower sense of those terms....