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From The Desk Of D Generation: Pop Music

Nothing Is Anywhereis NYC punk icon D Generation’s first new album in 17 years and includes the same scrappy gang from its eponymous 1994 debut: guitarist/producer Danny Sage, vocalist Jesse Malin, bassist Howie Pyron, guitarist Richard Bacchus and drummer Michael Wildwood. It’s a defiantly New York collection of working-class anthems that celebrates the band’s gritty urban past while sneering at the gentrification and pretentious poseurs corrupting its city’s culture. These old schoolers are back, angrier than ever and ready to take that fight outside. They will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our feature on them.

radio

Sage: Being out on the road again and doing a lot of press, it’s sometimes funny to me how people think of the band, and the ways they think of and ask about the kind of music we listen to. First of all, we’re a very eclectic bunch of people. And one thing we share is a deep love of pop music.

When I was a kid, AM radio was a thing. You would be in a car, or anywhere really, and turn on the radio … And you would hear, right next to each other, back to back, side by side, the Beatles, the Stones, Bowie, James Brown, Elvis, Ohio Players, Sly And The Family Stone, ABBA, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Cash, the Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Linda Ronstadt, Dusty Springfield, Petula Clark, the Raspberries, etc. … Motown, Philly soul, Memphis stuff. Not to mention any and every late-’60s to mid-’70s one-hit wonder, a lot of which are great: “Ode To Billie Joe,” “Spirit In The Sky,” “Venus,” “Mr. Big Stuff,” “Oh Babe, What Would You Say?” I can keep going as long as you like …

It was all there, AM radio. Pop music. That, probably more than any other single thing, informed my writing and views of production and record making.