Spencer's Gift Rock

The history of pop-punk is long and illustrious. Starting in the late 1970s with the Buzzcocks, it ran aground with Green Day, blink-182 and all those other suburban California tunesmiths who peppered the charts over the last decade like ants on a wedding cake. I'm sure that by 1999, every city in America had at least one or two local contenders for the throne previously occupied by the Descendents. Even DFW boasted one or two pop-punk bands that did fairly well, swimming out of the local talent pool to gain fleeting national success. Denton's Bowling For Soup went from headlining Fry Street Fair to appearing on soundtracks for teen movies and touring the world seemingly overnight. Through a combination of shrewd management, youthful exuberance and a knack for writing catchy songs about teenage love and other mysteries, BFS spread their little wings as far and as fast as they could. While nowhere near a household name outside of this area, if you asked any group of 16-year-old girls at a shopping mall in 2002, one of them would blush at the mention of the band with the type of teeny-bopper recognition that girls of my generation reserved for Rob Lowe. Come get wooed all over again Friday at the Ridglea Theater, 6025 Camp Bowie Blvd. in Fort Worth. Doors at 7 p.m.; tickets are $17. Visit frontgatetickets.com.
Fri., Jan. 12, 7 p.m.