Review: Blink-182 – Take Off Your Pants And Jacket

Blink-182 - Take Off Your Pants and Jacket

Usually you can trace back to moments in time when you know you’ve discovered something special or extraordinary. Sometimes that can be a new love, a new album, or new band that makes you feel like you’re discovering a new part of yourself in the process. Looking back on the 20th anniversary of this pop-punk classic makes me remember the carefree days of school ending and looking towards the promise of an unpredictable summer. Treading into the unknown only furthered my discovery of who I was, and in the process, helped me discover one of my favorite bands of all time. Blink-182 had made quite a name for themselves on their album, Enema of the State, and all eyes were fixed to see how the pop-punk band would follow up their massively successful and now legendary record. Enter Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, the studio album that’s a pun for <ahem> the act of self love. Mark Hoppus, Tom DeLonge, and Travis Barker couldn’t have been riding any higher coming into this fourth album, and working with veteran hit-maker Jerry Finn (Green Day, Sum 41) wasn’t going to change their trajectory into the stratosphere of popularity. The topics covered on the album tackle young love, fighting back authority figures, and more serious issues like divorce. With a mix of both topical elements, on top of well-crafted pop-punk tunes, Blink-182 must have known they created something special.

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Tom DeLonge Selling Old Gear

Box Car Racer

Tom DeLonge is selling some of his old gear from the Blink-182 and Angels and Airwaves days on Reverb.

“Over the years, I’ve collected so much music gear, used on different albums and tours, that now I’m overflowing with this stuff,” said DeLonge. “I need space, and in order to make space for the next Angels & Airwaves run—so that I can rehearse, do our stretching, and hug and kiss each other and all that other shit we have to do—I want to pass this stuff on.”

The 100-piece cache DeLonge is parting with spans the whole gear spectrum, from amps to synths, guitar pedals, and more all used on world-wide tours and in the studio. Some highlights from the blink days include DeLonge’s go-to touring amps of the time: Marshall JMP-1s and multiple Mesa Boogie Triaxis amps.

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Travis Barker Launches CBD Line: Barker Wellness

Travis Barker

Travis Barker of Blink-182 has launched a CBD line called Barker Wellness Co. He talked with Rolling Stone about the products and company:

Barker, who’s been a vegetarian since he was a teenager and went full vegan to refocus and heal his body shortly after surviving a 2008 plane crash, says it was also important for him to create a product line that reflected his values. To that note, everything in Barker Wellness is vegan and cruelty-free. Everything is also made with natural ingredients, from soothing cucumber extract in the pain relief cream, to ashwagandha and reishi mushroom extracts in the recovery tincture.

Barker says he spent hours with researchers to learn about dosages and how different cannabinoids react with the body, before narrowing down the product line to things people around him would actually use. “My son is 17 and he likes to use the pain relief cream if he’s working out, like boxing or jumping rope or doing Muay Thai,” Barker says. “The cream is so good for when your body is feeling sore.”