There's a guy who comes into the store every Thursday, buys nothing, and tells me the same thing: "Punk died when Fat Mike sold out." I never ask what he means by that. I just nod and reorganize the Alkaline Trio section while he's talking. This week, I was thinking about him while running to this playlist — forty minutes of egg punk, garage rock, folk punk, post-punk, all of it supposedly dead or sold out or whatever — and I realized something. The playlist isn't titled "MARCH '24" because it's a calendar artifact. It's titled that because March is the month you stop making excuses. The lakefront trail is thawed. The wind still bites, but you're out of reasons not to run. And this playlist? It's the sonic equivalent of lacing up before you talk yourself out of it.
"Primer for the pint" — that's what the playlist says it is, and look, I get it. This is the run you do before you earn the beer. Forty minutes, sixteen tracks, most of them clocking in around 156 BPM, which is fast enough to make you feel like you're doing something without turning your cardiovascular system into a complaint department. But here's what makes this specific collection work: it's not trying to be pure. Punk purists lose their minds when you mix skate punk with folk punk, when you put Frank Turner next to Death Lens, when you let IDLES share space with surf rock. But purity is boring, and it doesn't get you through four miles.
The playlist kicks off with Alkaline Trio's "Teenage Heart," which is the right move — Matt Skiba's voice has this worn-in urgency that doesn't need to prove anything. Then IDLES comes in with "Hall & Oates," and suddenly you're in a different gear entirely. Joe Talbot sounds like he's yelling through a wall, and that wall is your own resistance to getting out the door. Teen Mortgage's "Valley II" keeps the tempo high but adds this lo-fi garage crunch that reminds me of early Ty Segall before everyone knew who he was. By the time you hit "Blood, Hair, And Eyeballs" — another Alkaline Trio cut — you're not thinking about genre anymore. You're just moving.
Death Lens shows up twice in the first half, and that's not an accident. "Vacant" and "Moontower" both have this driving, hypnotic quality — the kind of thing that makes you forget you're running until you check your watch and realize you've been holding a pace you didn't think you had in you. Bad Nerves' "Antidote" is pure adrenaline, the kind of track that makes you want to sprint through an intersection before the light changes. This is the section where the playlist stops asking permission and starts making demands.
Then it shifts. BODEGA's "No Vanguard Revival" has this art-punk detachment, like David Byrne decided to make a running playlist. One Dimensional Creatures and Spiritual Cramp follow — both bands mining that post-punk tension between velocity and restraint. This is where the playlist reveals its thesis: it's not about one kind of energy. It's about cycling through different kinds of urgency, each one pushing you forward in a different way.
Frank Turner shows up at tracks 11 and 12, and I know what you're thinking — folk punk doesn't belong on a running playlist. But "Get Better" and "Girl From The Record Shop" both hit this sweet spot between anthemic and intimate. Turner's whole thing is that he sounds like he's writing these songs in real time, figuring out what he believes as he's singing it. Running to him feels like having a conversation with someone who's also trying to work something out. It's not motivational. It's just honest.
The final stretch — Alkaline Trio's "Break," STIFF RICHARDS' "Fill In The Blanks," White Reaper's "Shimmy" featuring Spiritual Cramp, and Die Spitz's "Chug" — is where the playlist earns the pint. These tracks don't slow down, but they do something more interesting: they get looser. The urgency is still there, but it's not grinding anymore. It's celebratory. You're not running away from something. You're running toward the finish, and the beer, and whatever comes after.
Top 5 songs I'd put on a mixtape for someone I'll never give it to: "Teenage Heart" by Alkaline Trio — because Skiba understands that nostalgia is just another word for unfinished business. "Hall & Oates" by IDLES — because sometimes you need someone to yell at you until you believe them. "No Vanguard Revival" by BODEGA — because art-punk shouldn't work for running, but it does, and that contradiction is the whole point. "Get Better" by Frank Turner — because he wrote the song I've been trying to write for fifteen years, and I'm still mad about it. "Shimmy" by White Reaper featuring Spiritual Cramp — because it sounds like the moment you realize you're going to finish the run, and the beer is real, and maybe that's enough for today.
What came first, the run or the excuse not to run? I still don't know. But I know this: March is when you stop asking that question and just start moving. This playlist doesn't solve anything. It doesn't make you faster or smarter or better at figuring out your life. But it gets you through forty minutes, and sometimes that's the only thing that matters.
