Suburbia

Okay, punks. If you grew up on punk icons Good Charlotte, if you call Green Day's Dookie or Offspring's Smash "old school", if you paint your leather because you saw it on VH1, if you think the term "hardcore" relates to Ozzfest somehow, if you think skinheads originated in America as a racist gang, if you think tagging cars and brick walls started with hip-hop, if you call slam dancing "moshing"... here's a little history lesson:

1. Good Charlotte is a mainstream pop-rock band

2. Green Day released great records called 39 Smooth and Kerplunk on Lookout. Offspring's debut (if you can find an original copy) is fast, sloppy, out of tune and pretty cool. But if you're really looking for old school, The Damned can give you a good glimpse into where T.S.O.L (with two songs in the movie) and even Brit-pop come from.

3. Four offset bars are required on all leather jackets. Thank Greg Ginn.

4. Hardcore is, well, without explaining American post-punk and straight edge, Dead Kennedys, SNFU, 7 Seconds, Agnostic Front, Crucifucks, Youth of Today, Judge, Gorrila Biscuits and thousands more, not Slipknot. Go listen to Propaghandi.

5. Violent, young, maybe confused in their politics, but ignore the news stories and find a 4-Skins or Sham 69 record. Then look up S.H.A.R.P. on the internet.

6. Look for the Exploited's mantra "Punks Not Dead" on the walls of your local alleys, it's probably still there somewhere.

7. There's a way to do it, look at a Circle Jerks shirt. Stage diving used to be legal... honest.

AND... if you needed to be told any of that, go rent Suburbia and you'll take your first step toward enlightenment. Oi, Oi That's yer lot.