SoCal Punk Essentials

Compared to their arty New York peers and safety-pinned UK cohort, the first Southern Californian punk bands seemed less fashionable and more nasty, exposing the deviance and desperation that lurked underneath the palm trees. In the late ‘70s, Germs and Black Flag upped punk's velocity to violent new extremes, inventing hardcore in the process, while X corrupted '50s rock ‘n' roll riffs with seedy underbelly poetry. But ‘80s icons like Bad Religion brought melodic sing-alongs to the circle pit, setting the stage for a ‘90s pop-punk explosion that would turn rampaging rockers (The Offspring) and ska revivalists (No Doubt) into stars.