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One more day, and the off-season beat goes on. The latest announcement concerning Angels personnel was announced earlier today, and the big news is the hiring of Scott Radinsky as bullpen coach. Radinsky was recently working with the Dodgers' AAA affiliate, and cut his teeth as a big league reliever for 11 seasons and a handful of teams. Yes, he is another fine hire for our new GM Billy Eppler.
Perhaps more noteworthy of anything else, though, is Radinsky's punk rock roots. Yes, that guy that's running the Angels' bullpen used to be a punk, and was the singer of the early Epitaph stalwars Ten Foot Pole(formerly Scared Straight) as well as being the current singer of Pulley, who was also on the vaunted Epitaph imprint.
I was familiar with Ten Foot Pole early on in my life; freshman year of high school to be exact. I was a couple years deep into my punk rock obsession and stuff on Epitaph was always worth a listen(my, times have changed). They were a good example of the burgeoning skate punk sound that was ingrained in many of the Fat Wreck Chords stable of bands; popular among the west coast and often in the weekly issue of music mag Mean street, it was/is a style that is fast, angry...but melodic and catchy. The attitude was always there, though, and Radinsky could do the punk rock snarl with the best of them.
There you have Scott Radinsky in his punk rock element...not too shabby, and nice album/song name. More Pennywise than Plasmatics, sure, and more aggro extreme sports soundtrack than harrowing, dangerous youth attack. Still, as a good friend put it, they're "better than Sandfrog any day". Plus, it's dope that we got a punk in the bullpen. They will be in Another State of Mind this year, and the Decline of AL Western Civilization ends NOW. .
Mike Scioscia and Dave Hansen on guitars...Bud Black on synths...Jose Molina on drums/percussion...and now Scott Radinsky on vox. Billy Eppler may be a Malcolm McLaren in the making. Gimme gimme gimme. Gimme some more.