Part of the reason I bought a copy of Milo Goes to College is because it's one of those records people just own, pretty much regardless of how they actually feel about the Descendents. It was also the first record in what would become the monthly-record-from-Damaged year, a companion to my Tuesday-record-from-Spillers year, which only really came about because we kept going into Damaged on a Saturday and I felt bad that we'd just chat to Welly for a while and buy nothing. I used those Saturdays to dig deeper into a lot of the 80's punk bands that were so influential and that I was reading about in Our Band Could Be Your Life. Descendents only ticked the first box, but this was a record I'd known about for years, so figured I should pick up.
I don't love the Descendents, but do enjoy what they do. There are some great moments across these 16 songs - Parents, I'm Not a Punk, Suburban Home and Jean is Dead all have huge choruses. And by huge, I mean really wonderful choruses. Their ability to writing such a soaring chorus is really the best thing about this album. Hope is basically a whole song of such moments. I particularly remember putting this album whilst walking around the Statue of Liberty when I was in New York a few months later, just for the song Statue of Liberty; it was a pretty nice moment.
I saw the Descendents twice, and the first time remains one of the worst concerts I've ever seen. I'm not sure I've written about it on here before (can't think why I would have) so here goes. In the April of 2011 Descendents were playing a handful of shows for the first time in a very long time and a lot of people were extremely excited, in particular all of the punks I'd got to know in Cardiff. I was living in London by this point, so figured the shows would be a good chance to see a lot of familiar faces. They sold out pretty quickly, but I managed to grab a ticket on the day from some friend of a friend. It seemed that most of Cardiff had spent the afternoon drinking and smoking on the park into front of Shepherd's Bush Empire and I remember vividly walking through the mess and smell, seeing people we knew and looking forward to the show.
Annoyingly, the ticket was for the first floor area of the venue, but it was more annoying when we realised that Hugh and Chris (who were staying with me that night) had tickets for the third floor. In a story that I feel should have (if it hasn't already) gone down in history, Hugh and Chris managed to smuggle their way onto the second floor when the guy on the door wasn't looking, and I stood at the very front of the first floor, climbed up on the barrier and passed my first floor ticket up to Hugh, so he could come down, give it back to me and then pass it back up to Chris. From the front right balcony of Shepherd's Bush Empire we watched a car crash of a show.
Milo had lost his voice, and quickly became frustrated with his inability to sing songs. From where we were stood, we could see that the front few rows of the ground floor were still having a good time, but the rest of the audience wasn't enjoying it. After just a few songs, Milo threw his mic to the ground and stormed off the stage. The rest of the band weren't sure what to do, went off stage for a bit, came back and did a variety of All songs, Black Flag covers and Descendents songs with singers from the support bands helping out. It was painful to watch and far from enjoyable (but also one of the best Black Flag tribute sets I've seen). I remember Chris reading out some of the best tweets about the show on the train back to my house.
They were due to play again the next night and my brother-in-law's band were (inexplicably) supporting, but stories of how bad the show was began to spread and by early afternoon the show was cancelled. I think Si's band had already begun their journey down from Birmingham, so managed to find another show to jump on somewhere else in the city. I saw the Descendents play a very good show at Reading Festival just four months later. It would have been easy to skip it based on the show we saw, but I was keen to give them another chance and it paid off - they were great fun. However, no matter how great they were, it'll never take away from my main memory of the Descendents being that horrific show in Shepherd's Bush.
Format: 12"
Tracks: 16
Cost: £9.75 new
Bought: Damaged Records, Cardiff
When: 02/02/08
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no
