The Mopes got started when singer/guitarist Dan Vapid (Screeching Weasel, Riverdales) and bassist B-Face (Queers) wrote some silly songs together to pass time on the road. Little did they know that those songs were the makings of a band. But a few years later they recruited drummer Dan Lumley (Squirtgun, Screeching Weasel) and guitarist Jughead Pierson (Screeching Weasel). The quartet rendezvoused in Lafayette, Indiana in 1999 to record their first album, Accident Waiting to Happen, which features “Baby Doll.”

The Lillingtons blasted their way out of the sleepy cowtown of Newcastle, WY, in 1996 high off the influence of spirited bands like the Ramones, Screeching Weasel, and the Queers.

The Manges. Old school punk rock. Weird irony. War, cinema, crime and rock references. Radical Ramones monkeys. No coherent opinions expressed. Negative minds. Low profile. High determination.

In an alternate universe where The Ramones played only acoustic guitars and were fronted by a female lead singer, the band might have sounded quite a bit like Chicago’s Even in Blackouts [EIB]. The creative force behind EIB is John “Jughead” Pierson, who was formerly the lead guitarist of the now-defunct Screeching Weasel, the band that brought punk to the suburbs before Green Day made millions with the same formula.