When To Hang It Up

With punk bands who have been around since the late 70's and early 80's, band members are now reaching their 50's, 60's, and even 70's (see Monty Oxymoron of The Damned). In other entertainment mediums like sports, age is a clear factor in how long you can be at your peak. But age factors differently into music. When musicians get older do they become more jaded, less talented, and aren't able to put out music that can compare to that of their prime? In some cases this rings true, but age still isn't by itself as the definitive factor of when a band should hang it up. So for anyone out there in a band I've compiled three simple rules of when to hang it up:

*If their is a general consensus among your fans that you've stopped putting out good music-
This one is obvious. If your putting out shit music as a newly formed band that's once thing, but as a band that's been together for a while who has put out good music in the past, you're just tarnishing your legacy.

*If you've had a period of 10 years between album releases-
Ten years is a pretty liberal amount of time, the most time between releases where the new album was good is the 8 years it took Social Distortion to release Sex, Love and Rock 'n' Roll. Eventually if you don't put new music out you aren't relevant and only exist as a nostalgia act.

*If your primary singer and songwriter leaves the band-
There have been cases where the primary songwriter who isn't the singer leaves the band, and the bands new stuff still sounds good, case in point Brian James leaving The Damned. However I can not recall a case where the opposite is true. Sure they may sound okay, like when Michale Graves first joined the Misfits, but with a different singer and a different songwriter on every song, it never has the same feel it once did.

So using this criteria I present you with the bands who most desperately need to hang it up:


*Dead Kennedys-
After originally breaking up in 1986, in 2001 the members that made up the instrumentals of the Dead Kennedys decided they wanted to reform. Biafra refused, and after winning a court battle over who owned the Dead Kennedys name, they got Brandon Cruz of Dr. Know to be their singer. Cruz quit after a few years, and while the singers position changed a couple times since the backing line up of East Bay Ray, Klaus Flouride, and D.H. Peligro stayed the same. Fast forward this March, D.H. quits the band, leaving them with only two of their core members. Now fast forward to earlier this week, I'm writing this article and as fate would have it Klaus quits the band, leaving East Bay Ray as the only member of the so called Dead Kennedys who ever recorded a note of music on a Dead Kennedys album. While Biafra has put out two albums with The Melvins that are just as good as his DK material, the Biafra-less Kennedys haven't bothered to release any new material since their reformation, which makes sense since Jello wrote just about every one of their original songs. So far the band hasn't announced who, if anyone, will replace Klaus, but I think most everyone would agree that East Bay Ray touring with three other random musicians billed as the Dead Kennedys, is just dragging the band's legacy through the dirt.


*Misfits-
The Misfits story is basically the same story as the Dead Kennedys but with new material being released. The Misfits broke up in 1983, and in 1995 Jerry and Doyle approach Glenn Danzig about reforming the band. Danzig doesn't want to reform, and like the Kennedys they go through a court battle over the rights to the bands name. Danzig gives up the Misfits name in a settlement, and Jerry and Doyle recruit new drummer Dr. Chud, and new singer Michale Graves (who was 2 years old when the Misfits originally formed). So despite the fact that Danzig wrote all of the original songs, the band decided to write a new album, and low and behold it wasn't a bad album. In fact the album would have probably been perceived as great by Misfits fans except for one fact, they used the Misfits name when it wasn't the Misfits. American Psycho was too slickly produced to be a Misfits album, and most importantly it didn't have Glenn Danzig singing. Back then Jerry Only could have saved face if he simply used a different band name, but now there's no room for damage protection. Graves left the band and Jerry decided he would be the new singer. His own brother Doyle leaves the band and decides he'd rather play with Danzig at his solo shows. And yet like East Bay Ray did with the Dead Kennedys, Jerry Only continues to parade around a band called the Misfits.


*The Germs-
When a bandmember dies, usually the remaining members ask themselves "What would said member want us to do''? Rarely does a band come to the conclusion to reform 25 years after their singer died and the band broke up, only to be fronted by an actor in order to promote a movie. But so is the story of The Germs. Darby Crash Od'd on heroin in 1980, and for the next 25 years the band remained inactive. In 2005 when a movie about The Germs was being made they decided to get the guy who played Darby in the movie, to perform with them. So Shane West, the actor turned Germs singer, who was previously best known for acting in some crappy movie with Mandy Moore, and wasn't even born when The Germs first formed, is now a member of the band. I'm sure that's what Darby Crash would have wanted.