KRLX mix #66 (2/25/2021)

In honor of his dad’s birthday, DJ Owen serves up a jangly selection of ’80s roots rock, very much the sort of thing the former would have played in his own KRLX DJ days. True to its name, this episode features many SoCal artists, from cowpunk practitioners (The Long Ryders, Rank and File, The Blasters, Lone Justice, Jason and the Scorchers, etc.) to Chicano rockers (Los Lobos) to ostensibly straight-up punk outfits (Minutemen and X). 

Still, the West Coast didn’t have a monopoly on roots rock, as demonstrated by the U.K. punks-turned-alt-country progenitors The Mekons. The Northeast is likewise represented (The Del Fuegos and Treat Her Right [Massachusetts], The Del-Lords [New York]), as is the Midwest (The Jayhawks) and the South (Guadalcanal Diary and R.E.M. [in some guises]).

Despite the genre’s widespread adoption, its heyday was regrettably short. But cue up this hard-twanging playlist, and — like The Beat Farmers — you’ll find some reason to believe.