The Adolescents have had a fluctuating lineup over the years, including punk legends like Pat Smear (the Germs) and Steve Soto (Agent Orange). Adolescents (also called the Blue Album) features Casey Royer (D.I.) on drums, Rikk Agnew (Social Distortion, Christian Death) and Frank Agnew (Social Distortion, touring guitarist for T.S.O.L.) both on guitar, Steve Soto (Agent Orange) on bass and Tony Cadena on vocals. I have zero clues as to who was in the band when I saw them, but by that point Casey Royer, Tony Cadena and Frank Agnew had all left The Adolescents.

The album has one ‘hit single,’ “Amoeba,” which has been featured in video games and movies and received some SoCal airplay in the early 80′s. Adolescents is considered a classic punk release that helped establish the SoCal mid-tempo punk sound.

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We saw DI, along with Doggy Style, play at Kutska’s Hall just outside of Green Bay, WI in November 1987. Insane crazy show, someone in the pit landed on me hard and I’m pretty sure I broke a toe that evening. The dude selling t-shirts looked very familiar – turns out it was Joe Schmo (real name Wade Waltson, who later played bass in US Bombs) from Suburbia. Some of us decided to invite him and the bands to a party in Appleton and after the show, the bands arrived. Wild wild night, think sandwich meat on the ceiling crazy, a few of my friends hooking up (in the day’s parlance: had lips) with band members – and Joe Schmo. I was keeping a diary at this time and I have a lot of details about the night that cannot be revealed to protect the not-so-innocent but in hindsight it’s a what-the-hell-were-we-thinking scenario.

The record itself is fairly light on songs: only DI, TSOL and the Vandals have performances, side 2 is all score/sound clips by Alex Gibson. I’ve seen the movie many times since the 80s, still shaking my head that Flea became, well, Flea (favorite quote: Haircut. How ’bout a haircut?). Virtually none of the other performers went on to have any significant film careers. It’s not a great movie, though a few memorable quotes peppered our teenage conversations for years: Jack Diddley, “My old man’s gonna be back soon and if we’re still here he’s gonna shit Twinkies” and “I hate buses,” Joe Schmo, “Later days.”  For the quotes, the snapshot into the life of punk kids and the small but significant soundtrack contribution, it’s hard not to remain fond of Suburbia 30+ years later.

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