Things were tough all over for a straight edge kid in the Long Beach and Lakewood punk scenes in the 1980s. No scene to speak of had existed in Cerritos since Channel 3 and Hated. And for years Jeff Banks had made his bones with punk rock bands The Imps, Dead Tradition and the seminal California alleycore punk rock outfit Visual Discrimination. Sharing the stage with the likes of the Cro-Mags, Uncle Slam, Excel and Blast!, Banks honed his chops and earned a reputation for being a seemingly endless fountain of hooks and riffs.