There are a lot of fantastic books, albums, DVDs, and other things that any music fan would love to get this year, but may not know that they would love them yet. The pop culture pie hole is insatiable, and with the battered economy not everything I loved got the proper hype. This is Part One for me, the recorded sound segment.

When it comes time to buy stuff for friends (Christmas Eve, at Easy Street, Sonic Boom, or in my next installment, the Fantagraphics Store), you might see bundles of the below spilling out of my weary arms (if I haven't mail ordered extras already).

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When old school Seattle punk-metal icon Duff McKagan wrote about punk rock at the Seattle Weekly a couple of weeks ago, he gave a little list of bands he considers essential to the canon. Though it wasn't specifically numerical in importance, the phenomenon-by-response stack of heroes began with The Ramones (good choice), then The Clash (a little more arguable, but who can resist?), and then -- D.O.A.

To quote McKagan:

"D.O.A., Something Better Change: If you grew up in the Northwest in the late '70s or early '80s, D.O.A. were a larger-than-life example of how brilliant a live rock band should be. They were as important as any band in history, as far as I'm concerned."

The actual word "hardcore" as applied to latter period North American punk rock is most likely taken from a D.O.A. album title -- Hardcore '81. Note the year of its release, and that there really wasn't a musical genre with that name before D.O.A. nailed their hard, fast, no compromise sound.

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