Youth Brigade

Another vintage cut from the archives. If you've not yet heard it, you are required to go obtain a copy of The Sound and the Fury (or Sink With Kalifornija if you got one of them dadgummed compact disc players). Youth Brigade were always a little different from their louder-harder-faster peers in the 80's California punk scene. Consisting of the three Stern brothers, they mixed up the usual hardcore with Oi! and dub influences, along with a classic rock sense of structure. Just listen to this song, "What Will the Revolution Change?" It's a punk epic on par with "Kids of the Black Hole" by the Adolescents.

I never trust extremists of any stripe. I associated with a lot of hardcore leftists and would-be revolutionaries when I was younger, and it dawned on me that they were just as dangerous as they people they resisted. Most of them weren't even all that active as activists. They just liked to sit around eating vegan food that smelled godawful and spew conspiracy theories. Revolutions almost always just bring about the same kinds of oppression, just with different names. Look at what happened in Russia and China. The problem with extremists is that they are so convinced of their rightness and moral superiority that they have no problem forcing their lifestyle choices on you, be it Christian values in the guise of the FCC or someone attempting to enforce PC speech. I see no difference between the Taliban and a group of extreme leftists. A revolution by either would change nothing.

I loved the phrase "What Will the Revolution Change?" so much, that I wrote it on the lapel of the "punk vest" back in high school. (Yeah, I was kind of a dumbass back then.) It was a pretty gnar-gnar garmet. I bought some old sport coat at Salvation Army for $3, ripped the sleeves off, put patternless safety pins all over the fucking thing, and wrote in huge letters on the back "I VOTED BU$H." I really liked that last part - it pissed off conservative types and punk rockers with no sense of irony (all of them). It's only once in a lifetime that you own a piece of clothing that incredible.

http://www.mysharefile.com/v/4936381/Youth_Brigade_What_Will_The_Revolution_Change.mp3.html