We hope it’s an out-of-this-world Tom DeLonge birthday this year! And no, that’s not a joke about Tom’s extraterrestrial beliefs. We’re believers, too.
I wasn’t cool enough to have heard Blink-182‘s Cheshire Cat debut album when it dropped in 1995. But I was an intern at WFNX in 1997 when the band signed to MCA Records and released their first major-label single, “Dammit.” Back then, I was an intern for FNX Music Director Laurie Gail in the Music Department.
The cool thing about FNX was that interns didn’t just fetch coffee and make copies. We got to have a say in some of the programming. Back in those days, we had a nightly “Cage Match”-style music feature where two new songs would go up against each other. Whichever song received more votes would move on to the next night’s match.
If a song won 10 nights in a row, it was automatically added to the FNX playlist. That’s exactly what happened with “Dammit.” No surprise there; it’s one of those songs that, the first time you hear it, it throws you right across the room. Some pop punk hits, and some pop punk misses. Blink-182 put themselves in the first camp right off the bat.
A Tom DeLonge Birthday Six-Pack
So naturally, I’m leading my six-song set with that gem. It’s still, to this day, one of my favorite Blink jams. Seeing them throw it down that summer at the Warped Tour stop at Three County Fairgrounds out in Northampton was a trip. Or maybe it was the summer of ’98? All those summer Warped Tour memories are so fuzzy now.
In any event, Happy Birthday, Tom. I cracked a six-pack for his drummer recently, too. Check that out here. And scroll on for six Tom songs that I like and I hope you like, too.
