For those who have lingering credit for digital downloads and don’t know where to start, here are a few recommendations:
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Read on…

Medications: “Seasons”
This is a fantastic gateway into the songwriting prowess of Medications. The hook is established immediately, and it’s powerful and memorable in every way. I love this song. Chad Molter plays drums and bass, Devin Ocampo plays guitar (which totally revs up at 2:50, fair warning), and they both trade off between lead and background vocal parts.
On a personal level, I find this whole record, Completely Removed, particularly fascinating because I used to live in the house where this album was recorded, and I spent a lot of time working on my own recording projects in that basement. It’s thrilling for me to hear Devin’s approach to recording and how, tonally, that very familiar room has been transformed.
I may as well add … the first song on side B, “Kilometers and Smiles,” is a scorcher, too.

Scream: “Who Knows – Who Cares?”
Back in the days of making mixtapes for road trips, this was a pretty standard feature on my mixes – mainly because I never got tired of hearing it. And this was usually the song that made someone in the car stop talking for a second to ask, “Hey, who is this?!” Recorded in 1982, Still Screaming features a ton of great songs – it’s actually relentless with the hits – and my guess is that it influenced a lot of bands that came along a few years later – especially out west.
For one reason or another, “Who Knows – Who Cares?” was always my jam. (Of course, “Solidarity” and “Came without Warning” are pretty unstoppable, too.)

Antelope: “Dead Eye”
You won’t find bigger Antelope fans than every single person in the Dischord office. I realized this when Michael Fussell started our morning one day by blasting the Antelope EP, which was followed immediately by the 7 inch, which was then followed by their full-length, Reflector. No one complained. In fact, we were all in full agreement that once the sequence had begun, breaking the cycle was not option.
Simply put, Antelope is a band to obsess over.
While it’s tough to choose a favorite (because I don’t think they wrote a bad song), I’m recommending “Dead Eye” as a starting point ‘cause the lyrics have some art history appeal. Anyone who’s familiar with the Blue and Rose Periods should know what I’m talking about.

As always, thanks for reading.

-Ryan