Did the Descendents change punk music forever? 

Milo Goes to College was and still is one of my favorite albums of all time

Buzzcocks "singles going steady" is the first pop punk album. Milo and boys just picked up where they left off and stepped it up a notch.

Fun fact - I grew up on Wu-Tang & gangsta rap BUT bald Matt Pinfield mentioned this band in a random snippet on MTV when I was about 14 years old. I don't know why, but the name of the band enticed me so much that I looked them up at "The Wall" (if anyone remembers this music store!?) and bought "Everything Sucks". I consider it my first "rock" cd. I met my first girlfriend at age 15 who turned me on to CRASS and it was all over after that..... punk fan for life.

I was in a real shite punk band that played with I believe was Joy killer and Bill was the drummer. He hung out with us, what a great human being. Nicest Legend I've ever met.

Green Day, The Offspring, Rancid etc. owe the Descendents props.

So I was living in Fort Collins, CO, when the Descendents played their first reunion show in 1996. I had already met Stephen because he and his now wife often came into the restaurant where I worked (two of the nicest people alive, incidentally). That show was at a tiny club called Nightingales that could hold maybe 300 people. Well over a 1000 people showed up and it was the most packed, claustrophobic show of my life. But also insane. And amazing. One of the opening bands was an act that featured Abe Brennan (formerly of My Name) and a very young bassist named Jeff Matz...now in High on Fire. I still can't believe I was there for that show and close to the front. They were very surprised by the turnout. They had a lyric that said "we can't sell out a telephone booth" so they didn't quite realize just how much their fame and legend had grown in the 1991-96 time period. They weren't immensely popular in the 80s (like most punk bands), but everyone who saw them was influenced by them, and then started their own bands. For a group of guys who slept under desks in a strip mall office complex during their early years as ALL, they deserve all the attention and love they've gotten. *Speaking of ALL, the only thing missed in that was Scott Reynolds first replaced Dave Smalley, and then Chad replaced Scott. Oh, and Dave is sadly fighting cancer so send him good thoughts. Great video. Descendents are great people who made great music.

I don't think they changed punk, they just added a new genre within punk that, at the time, was already breaking off into other types of sub-genres under the "punk" umbrella.

Ah the Descendents. I have listened to them on and off since HS :late 80's -early 90's Not much different than the bands comings an goings. 🙂 Great job and thanks.

Thanks! This video is a great introduction to a [legendary] band I've heard about for most of my life, but never personally listened to. Have to do that sometime... 😶

Great video! I really like the direction of the channel and keep up the good work!

I’m watching this and I look down and realize I’m wearin the descendents shorts..iconic and legendary band

I probably have more stories about the descendents than I do with any other band from seeing black flag show up during their encore one time to meeting milo at a bad religion show its crazy how much in just the last few years how important this band has become to me since they reformed and I was able to see them perform.

Nicely done 👍✅

Someone turned me on to Liveage back in '89 or '90. Loved it. Never went any deeper mostly because the studio recordings didn't have the same energy as the live one.

I love this band so much.

Great job on this! The only thing I wish you would have maybe touched on more is how important Tony Lombardo was to the band. Milo Goes to College is BY FAR their best album. Tony wrote, or had co writing credit on SEVEN of the 14 songs. That’s HALF the album! Some of the other records have a good song here or there.. but nothing like Milo Goes to College.

I saw the Descendents one time, in 97 or 98, I think, at Pomona, with Less Than Jake, Guttermouth and maybe a couple others. Some jerkoff robbed the box office, and the gig was stopped just about 5mins after the Descendents took the stage. Their sound got cut, but In typical fashion, they played on for about a dozen rapidfire songs, attempting to figure out what happened to the sound, before realizing the police had shown up and they were being cut off. Cops had the place surrounded, and the punks were borderline ready to do some stomping, but fortunately, as far as I know, nothing happened. We managed to leave safely, without consternation. Great show, though!

had no idea the lore was this deep

Everything Sucks with Chad singing is so damn solid!!!!

I went to high school with most of them. They were a year ahead of me. The same high school was where parts of Rock and Roll High School were filmed.

I think they’re really the pioneers of the pop punk sound of the late 90’s early 2000’s.

Q&A @ this channel's host: This is my first video of yours that I both encountered and watched. Thanks for doing this video on The Descendents! I see that you've already got one on one of my personal top-fav 1st gen west coast punk bands, Minutemen (still bummed by D. Boon's death -- even after almost 40 years since ithappened) -- plan to watch it next. If you haven't already made one on The Adolescents, please add that to your hopper of future videos to make

I saw All 9-10 times just to hear Descendants covers.

Scott Reynolds was ALL second singer

The Last were a great band - my local heroes.

I think Hypercaffium Spazzinate is way underrated! I think it might be their best work to date. If you have not heard this record, you need to.

The short answer to the title of this video - Yes. A lot.

❤

The plus/minus symbol means "more or less" maybe Morales was a family name

Just reading the title, yes.

Pls do history of oi/street punk and d-beat/crust punk now 🙏🏼

this story fills in some Tony Lombardo/Ray Cooper timeline. so in 1992ish i started playing drums with a singer/guitarist/songwriter named Aimee Lay who is still active and plays shows around la and is amazing. she knew Tony Lombardo somehow and got him to come out and in pretty short order he joined the band. i knew of the descendents but was not a huge fan myself so i didn't think all that much of it. We played our first show at Tony's house calling ourselves the Direction. Dos and Frida Rentes band played that night too to support Tony which was very cool. the direction fell apart but tony and i kept going. at some point Tony called Ray Cooper and asked him to come down and jam with us, which he did, surprisingly, because i don't think he had been in a band since descendents. Ray and i hit it off right away and whether it was because of that or some other reason he decided to join the band. we then found Joel Bratton who answered an ad in the recycler to be our lead singer. he had been in Thelonius Monster, Rhino 39 and was currently in a hardcore band called Long Beach Allday. We couldn't agree on a name, so we picked the one we all hated: Spiffy. We started playing some shows around town, and we were okay. Bill Stevenson was in town one day and came to one of our sessions. we were decent enough and he offered to record a demo for us at the blasting room for free. we just needed to get to Colorado and pay for the digital audio tape that he would use to record us (we even stayed at his place when we went up there). we were not nearly polished enough to record, but they had such a busy schedule that our only window in the next year was in about a month from that time. so we picked 6 songs and flew out there. we recorded all six tracks in one weekend. that was in early 96. they were intended to be demo tracks, but we knew some guys who had small record labels and they were champing at the bit to release the sessions as 45s so we released 5 songs on 2 singles. we didn't like the way the 6th song came out so we never released it. it was during this time also that Tony was "sneaking away" to work on Everything Sucks. which he just could have told us, but he thought we would be pissed or something. so on the strength of those singles and our record labels we started playing a lot more gigs. then one of our labels wanted us to do a West Coast tour all the way from San Diego to Seattle. Ray and I didn't want to do it. Shortly thereafter Ray moved to Chicago to pursue his other career: video game animation. So in 97 the band was pretty much done. you can find the singles on Spotify and Apple music if you are interested. hope this was vaguely interesting

Is it just me or does the name "American Martyrs sound great as a band or album name ?

just a personal opinion but I believe gg allin and the jabbers started pop punk...

You should do one on Face to Face.

I love both the Descendants and All, Karl is one of if not the best bassists in all of pop-punk and Bill has produced so much amazing shit

Im from south bay lomita ca the allroy sez records is hung up in alfredos resturant in lomita the same city milo was born in. Bill is from torrance the next city over. Im proud of my lil 90717 and of all the bands to come out the south bay/harbor area. pennywise decendents, minuetment, even black flag used to rehearse in hermosa beach. Ca. Then all the band from long beach dont get me started. We called the harbor area southbay where the ghetto meets the sea😂😂😂😂

How can i find some music by the last? The surf element intrigues me.

fat mike wrote in the song 13 stitches that he heard kabuki girl on the radio and got on the bus to go buy his all time favorite record

Here's a couple of story suggestions - The Butthole Surfers or how a wacked out psychedelic punk band became cult heroes in the late 1980's. Another is the story of Joy Division - or how a forgotten corner of the UK became the cornerstone of the post punk world.

You didn't mention Milestone Mulos band in grad school

Have you seen Filmage?

This is basically a book report of Filmage.

You jumped straight from Dave Smalley to Chad Price while yadda yadda-ing right over Scott Reynolds. Yeah, you said you wouldn't be going into All as a band too much, but that jump over makes it seem like Scott wasn't a part of any of the process. I was actually in the room (and boat) when Scott was asked to pen lyrics and record vocals for a school project All/Descendents song Stephan wanted for his kid, which as far as I know was never released for the public. Scott was here in Pensacola, Florida with us when it all went down and we found him a spot to record vocal tracks at the Dead Buggs house. Scott continues to collaborate with the Descendents as much as Chad does, so to see him left out of the conversation is dismissive. All three "common" singers (minus Smalley, that is) routinely take turns representing All/Descendents with Milo the very clear main man. Just sucks to see Scott left out of this. Such an underrated vocalist. Represent!

personally speaking, I don't see them starting any new genre and I've been listening to punk since 1975.

That's Doug, not Karl at 21:19

FUCK YEAH THE BEST PUNK BAND

Holding the microphone really exacerbates how you don’t know what to do with your hands.

Honestly, I wish you would’ve elaborated on how the Descendents created the genre of Pop Punk.

I can tell you watched the Filmage documentary for your research

Damn, Scott Reynolds gets no respect.. Dave Smalley did one ALL records. Scott did at least 4 before Chad took over. I know that it wasn't meant to be an ALL doc but that was a massive jump.

Pretty cool vid. Thanks! But I just gotta say that Enjoy! is more than just toilet jokes. The title track is all about the stank, and there's that track of nothing but farts that comes across like a goofy skit on a rap record. But the rest of the album is pretty diverse. Just two examples. The pop-punk style they are known for in Cheer and the dark, sludginess of Days are Blood.

man.. dont put the blame for "pop punk" on them. thats just fucked.

They are not as reveared as i think they should be. Dont let Twitter/X get a hold of their old lyrics though😅😅

I don't know about you, but I find it very disconcerting to think that Milo Auckerman might've been responsible for both fronting a great punk band and also poisoning half the country with PFOAs 😂

And here I thought the Buzzcocks created pop punk. A punk style that almost entirely sucks, by the way.

Never liked these guys music. Disliked their sound and all the bands that had that sound. That being said thier story was interesting and I liked this whole production. Great work

They’re not even punk how’s that?

I don't want to grow up.. 9 or 10 of the songs & their cover of Wendy was their apex 💯. Ya would've mentioned the Beach Boys specifically as being a crucial inspiration, also to the Last & the 'every summer day' single which is probably THE most top notch single from that scene/era. 🇺🇲🎶👌🏻

Ya said Milo was born in '67 .... I'm pretty sure it was 63/4 cuz he "went to college" in '82 hence the l.p title. ✋🏻