Hey, Bad Religion is still around? Wow!

There’s a free live album, offered by the band that you can download for free – but I’ll get to that in a minute, okay? Just, um, give me a minute.

I grew up in Mid-Michigan, a long, long time ago. I remember when I was in sixth grade, I played trumpet for the school band. It meant I had to ride the bus with the high-schoolers to get to band practice in the mornings before the start of the elementary school day.

There was an older kid who lived down the block, and I’d walk to his driveway in the early mornings twice a week. It was dark, and cold, and my trumpet case was heavy, and Dugan was a scary kid. He wore leather jackets and had spikey hair, I was pretty sure he carried a knife. I, however, was a pudgy, bookish kid with thick glasses and a trumpet… in short, a dork. Dugan tried to strike up some conversation a few times, and he was really nice in retrospect, even though at the time I was terrified. One January morning, as we stood in the knee-deep snow in the dark, he asked me what kind of music I listened to… and I don’t remember what I answered. Thinking back, it was probably something like Huey Lewis and the News. Like I said, I was a dork. He handed me a cassette of SUFFER, by Bad Religion. Said he’d got a newer one for Christmas, and I could have this one if I wanted.

It changed the way I saw the world, folks. No kidding. In the years that followed, SUFFER has been hailed as one of the most important punk albums ever made, and it changed me from a pathetic dork to a pathetic dork who suddenly knew there was more to music than what they played on America’s Top Forty Countdown.

I’m still a dork. But I’m a dork who has fond memories of listening to Bad Religion in secret, because I was fairly sure my parents would take it away from me if they knew I had it. It was that cool.

Okay, fast-forward. The band has been around for 31 years, and they’re releasing a live album on the internets! If you’ve never heard of Bad Religion, let me be the scary cool kid at your bus stop, and give you this internet download site. I got a new one for Christmas, and you can have this one if you want. Give it a listen. It might change the way you see the world. Or not. It’s just music, after all… but music can be some pretty powerful stuff.