Grapthar's Song of the Day: The Vandals 'Urban Struggle'

grapthar (74)in #music • 5 years ago

The Vandals - Urban Struggle

The Vandals are a really

interesting band in the history of punk. They began in the early '80s in Southern California, and always had a snarky, comedy sort of edge to their music, which later became their sort of defining feature. After a number of line up changes, they released a "comedy-country-punk" album in the late '80s, then embraced the fast, '90s skate punk sound, which they stuck with all the way through today.

Listen to Urban Struggle by The Vandals here.

This is one of their

early songs, before the lineup changes, from their 1982 EP Peace Thru Vandalism. It tells the story of "country-fans" who want desperately to be cowboys, and get into fights with the local punks, but because of their urban upbringing, can never cement their identity as true western heroes. I love the use of the The Good, the Bad and the Ugly riff in the intro, and the chord progression that follows is actually really interesting theory-wise, though I don't think they were aware of those subtleties when writing it.