Albums I Loved In High School: MxPx & 'Life In General

"I gotta get back to the beach in the sun" - MxPx, "Southbound"

We’re doing another round of these, and we’re really getting into poppunk for the next four weeks. I’m making myself vulnerable, here, and I don’t even charge for this blog yet.

There is a point to all this looking back: Lazy & Entitled has another record coming out soon, a Shipwrecked Sailor record (more accurately b & the shipwrecked sailor, but there’s some name tweaks maybe coming, more on that later). It’s going to be more in line with Brendan and my punk roots than Weight of An Anchor. I quit drinking and can play guitar fast again, who knew?

MxPx was one of if not my favorite band for a long while there. Does MxPx count as skatepunk? Poppunk? At 16, I was most comfortable right between those two genres, as I saw them. MxPx had one of the cooler names out there, they stayed true to three-piece minimalism, and (importantly) they were vocal Christians. I’ve always liked my punk with a message—if you can barely play your instrument, you better get me amped up to love my fellow humans and pursue righteousness.

Then 2003’s Before Everything & After came out, which kinda revealed MxPx was slowing down, creatively and physically. My tastes changed, and when I was fresh out of college and mad at organized religion the way only 22-year-olds can be, I heard salacious, scandalous things about one of the members that I can now neither confirm nor find evidence of. Still, for a longer time than I was a fan, MxPx lived in my head as “uncreative hypocrites.”

Today I’m going to see if their first- or second-best album holds up. Next week, I’ll see if their other first- or second-best album holds up. We’re really reckoning with Maximum Plaid here.

Middlename

*palm muted A string* “EEEEEMOOOO-TIONNNNN / IS MY MIDDLE NAME”

It’s sometimes easy to see why the adults made fun of us. Or why my wife would make fun of this record if I ever put it on in her presence. Great chord prog in the verse tho.

I just want to say the hook is about how great it is to go to shows, and that feels important. So is squeezing three verses and an instrumental bridge into three minutes.

My Mom Still Cleans My Room

A great example of why I like three-pieces. Tom plays non-power chords sometimes, and Mike is an interesting bass player.

Do Your Feet Hurt

Obviously corny, for the pickup lines and the insufferable Youth Group Romance.

Brendan and I loved songs that would do 50s-style 6/8 ballad stuff, though. That sentence probably shouldn’t be past tense.

Sometimes You Have To Ask Yourself

Shoutout to Yuri Ruley, man. Always down to play as fast as possible, but quick and clean with the cymbal grab when there are staccato pauses.

The Wonder Years

I was gonna say this could’ve been cut from the album, and probably still could’ve, but that “stop everything but palm muted guitar and sing anthem lyrics for 15-to-19-year-olds” bridge brought me right back. What a move, especially when you’re playing in front of people that know the words.

Move to Bremerton

Great guitar intro, definitely an anthem for when you’re fresh back from Acquire The Fire or Cornerstone Festival and have a crush on a girl named Polly from Florida who you can now only talk to on AOL Instant Messenger. I can see why this was a single.

New York to Nowhere

In high school, I’d listen to this cautionary tale about how much touring sucks and think “goddamn I can’t wait to go on tour.”

Andrea

Hey, I forgot my band covered this song! Then it came right back to me when the opening chords hit. We covered so much of this album, man. We’d play a lot of house shows. Venues give you 15-25 minutes. Sophie’s mom down the street says you can play for 45-60 minutes or until the cops get called.

Your Problem, My Emergency

One of my favorites. I still like it, if only for Tom’s right-hand 32rd-note scratching and Mike’s bass solo at 1:10, one of the better feel changes in skate punk history.

Chick Magnet

The second-most learned bass line among novice bass players of a certain age, behind Blink 182’s “Carousel.” The second-most tolerable pop punk walking bass line, behind “Longview” by Green Day—and neither of them are really tolerable. This song sucks, it’s retrograde trash. I can’t believe how many birthday party setlists my band in high school padded out with this thing. I mean, I can believe it, but not happily.

Today Is In My Way

Another favorite, despite being in the hated key of C. Just gets the feel changes right.

Sorry So Sorry

Sorry so sorry y’all forgot to do anything interesting in this song.

Doing Time

Here’s how to make 16-year-olds nostalgic for high school while they’re still in.

Correct Me If I’m Wrong

“You’re in the turn lane / and I’m the intersection” ooooh Bremerton got metaphor!

Cristalena

Proud skate/poppunk tradition of picking a girl’s name and writing a song about this girl. Years later, Jessica Hopper would write about girls in emo songs like this: “Girls in emo songs today do not have names. We are not identified beyond our absence, our shape drawn by the pain we’ve caused. Our lives, our day-to-day-to-day does not exist, we do not get colored in. Our actions are portrayed solely through the detailing of neurotic self-entanglement of the boy singer—our region of personal power, simply, is our impact on his romantic life. We’re vessels redeemed in the light of boy-love. On a pedestal, on our backs. Muses at best. Cum rags or invisible at worst. Check out our pictures on the covers of records—we are sad-eyed and winsome and comely (thank you Hot Rod Circuit, The Crush, Cursive, Something Corporate, et al.)—the fantasy girl you could take home and comfort.”

Did emo make the scene more retrograde? Idk fight it out in the comments.

Destroyed By You

This is the second-to-last song on the album.

Southbound

This song kinda rips. MxPx is low-key great at beach anthems. I’m kinda still trying to write my version of this song. Good vibes, impossible-not-to-smile-at surf guitar outro. This song is cherry limeade THC syrup in your Pepsi cola. That final chimey G chord made me glad I did this.

What Scratches This Itch For Me Today:

Nostalgia is embarrassing, because do you really like music or were you just happier when you were 16? One answer is depressing. The point of looking back at records I liked in high school is to see where I am today, too.

I catch myself craving skatepunk. It’s why I like Homey so much, that album is skatepunk as played by jazz wizards who turned their distortion pedals. Brendan’s been reminding me that Lagwagon is pretty good, and I jammed a Hi Standard record the other day and had a blast. If there was a new band who was legitimately like “we’re slightly pissed off but mostly we have undiagnosed hyperactivity disorders and just wanna have fun,” I would listen to that band. I’m not sure teenagers are allowed to feel that way after Trump and COVID and Gaza tho.

What scratches the itch today is probably just the like once-a-month or so listening to this stuff again.

Verdict: I feel more nostalgic fondness than I thought I would

the jock on this cover would later become Solid State, and this battle would play out on the seminal Tooth & Nail vs Solid State compilation (credit: Tooth & Nail)

You don’t need to listen to MxPx, you certainly don’t need to put them on the pedestal I put them on in high school. But I don’t need to be mad at them anymore.

Shoutout to guitarists with right palm callouses.

Sorry you got an email,

Chris