Page created 24 Feb 2003 by baggins
URL: www.makeoutclub.com
post all discussions on punk here.
i started this entree to continue the discussion on punk that started in one of the movie entrees.
first. the link at the top is to a website that is pretty pretentious. check it out sometime. lot's of 'content' and very little worthwhile. anyway, it is related to the general discussion of punk that's been happening in my head for years.
so, your thoughts on punk anybody? obviously shred knows a bit on the topic. whatever you want. describe a punk moment. or the crudest punk band you ever saw. or anything else.
have you ever started an entree with good intentions, with the feeling that it will probably die out very shortly?
It seems to me that almost everyone who thinks of "punks" thinks of sid and nancy, black hair, black jackets, heroin, smashing stuff, blah, blah. I usually think of these things in the 70s, way back before it was cool. But it seems to me that there was a particular "style" that grew out of that particular era's idea of anti-establishmentism. Is it thoroughly incorrect to identify that quasi sub-culture as punk? Perhaps even in the face of the inherent dichotomy?Would those early "punks" have recognized Al Sparhawk as a punk?
Sometimes I wonder if in hindsight (and maybe a desire to purify the concept of "punk") we can take the basic idea of what punk is, and see that sometimes the nerdy kid who dresses his own way and does his own thing is punker then the guy with the most safety pins on his jacket -- but is that an insight that hindsight gives us? Or is it something that people who were a part of that social group would have recognized in it's heyday? Is it entirely a misnomer to say that there was a punk scene back in the 70s and 80s? Certainly the media plays up "the scene" ... but did they all refuse to talk to each other for fear that they would start a clique?
I really don't know enough to know. But I think that what Shred has been calling "mall punk" is a definite outgrowth from the idea that punk is a particular style or a particular method of giving TheMan the finger -- and I guess I just wonder if early punks would have recognized how "punk" was a lot broader than maybe even they first thought.
If it wasn't for punk music there wouldn't be any grunge and had there not been grunge, I would have never played guitar in a college band. I'm just not good enough to play Steely Dan guitar parts, no matter how hard I try (kudos to Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, Denny Dias, and Larry Carlton). But thank goodness Nirvana came out so that I had stuff to play in a band. Or rather, thank goodness for the Sex Pistols, the Dead Milkmen, Naked Raygun, The Clash, the Dead Kennedies, the Ramones, and Minor Threat for spawning Green River, Mudhoney, Seaweed, Fugazi, Jane's Addiction, etc. etc. etc. I know, I know, Minor Threat and Fugazi both include Ian M.
I was at Six Flags Great America, and witnessed something great. I watched a guy, who dressed just like a member of the band Rancid, carve an anarchy symbol into a car on the Whizzer (a roller coaster) right infront of me. Wow! How punk! A suburban punk defacing an already tattered, 20-year old roller coaster. Look out Johnny Rotten!!!!As for the "punk" music....my favorites would have to be: The Descendents (they sing about food), Black Flag (I like Henry Rollins), and MC5 (just because they sound good).
and pedro it'sBlack Coat
White shoes
Black hat
Cadillac, yeah
The boy's a time bomb
and Operation Ivy, but that'd be all I know about punk. I dated a guy named Tom who was the drummer of a punk band in Winona when I was in college, for about a month. He didn't consider himself very punk though, but his housemates considered themselves quite so. He was very sweet, but too high for my tastes - that seemed to be their favorite form of recreation there. And quite honestly, some of his friends gave me the willies.
People in that community defined themselves as punk, or at least punk influenced before they would chain on the idea of being a grunge band. Didn't you see Hype!, chester? Besides lumping all the music that broke out of Seattle in 1991 as grunge glosses over what happened there entirely. In a music market that had become saturated and homogenized by samey hair metal bands and samey R+B groups, many *radically different* sounding bands from the same region entered the market and found a consumer base.This *radical difference* in sound makes the grunge tag inaccurate. The bands that were lumped as grunge were bands whose music was, in many ways, a reaction to mainstream slickness and simplicity. Look at Soundgarden and their song Outshined. The riffing is heavy, but the verse figure is complex, in 15/16 time, I think. What ever time it is in, it isn't 4/4, like just about every hair metal song. Kim Thayil's solo, while somewhat bluesy with double stops still has a beautiful off time feel. Unlike the hair metal of the time, Kim never makes his guitar go widdly widdly widdly. Kim never mashes his fingers way up on the tiny strings. Mudhoney, on the other hand, was straight forward. Most of their catalogue is in 4/4. They use a lot of simple bar chords. But instead of writing about getting hot groupies and partying, Mudhoney writes songs about dogs and about being sick. Their guitar production also gave the music a rough and unrefined quality that was refreshing to many ears who had grown sick of hearing the same Les Paul through a Marshall Stack.
Before Kurt Loder helped sell grunge to suburban "dudes" and boost the ad revenue of his employers, no one ever would've bought that Soundgarden and Mudhoney were part of the same sub-genre. But it has always been clear that both bands took a lot of influence from punk.
Grunge was the ultimate hoax. Hundreds of thousands of people can tell you what it is/was but it never really existed. If you really look at the bands who embraced the grunge label, they were the bands who didn't understand that grunge was more about a community than a sound. These were bands like Candlebox and the fictitious Citizen Dick.
The Japanese guy in Hype! says it best when he says, "I only like loud music. I don't need this grunge."
Regardless, the last thing this debate needs to turn into is a debate of genre.
Now, who can spot my sig's reference?
by the roadside
Dave
I'm not sure if you can find this movie in Chicago, or, in fact, anywhere outside of Southern California. It's not the Suburbia you're thinking about, it's the original Suburbia, which was shot in Downey, CA (or Whittier, or someplace close to that.) I think they used some of the actual punks that were in that scene at the time. I certainly remember knowing people who knew some of the guys in the movie. Anyway, if you can find the movie, you should watch it. There are some great scenes. IMDB Entry for Suburbia.Also, I'm not sure what you all really mean by "punk" and "scene," but I did have a friend who used to squat in abandoned buildings, and was a vegan, and showered "once a month wether or not he needed it," and played guitar & wrote songs in a "punk" band called Garblecrat, etc. Hell, it was Southern California in the '80s.
buddyhead.com is pretty punk.i like this record review. its pretty punk.
hahahahahah Axl drinking a mixed drink??? ......hahahaha
So, www.makeoutclub.com All my fault baggins went there, and now I fear I've sucked you all into a world, ulyssess and I know all too well. The girls there are spoody, and the boys well they might as well be girls. skinny white belts, to match their skinny white bodies. Why the do I have a profile? It's how my boyfrienmd and I met, and I don't ahvew the heart to take it off. Of course, most of the time you'll meet weirdo's and freaks, and if you asked me in person where we met, I'd tell you a cock fight in Pilsen. Punk on the other hand...I don't have anyhitng to say about punk, and theats about as punk-fuckin-rock as it gets.GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!
makeoutclub.com is not very punk.(although, it had had a good size role in how my girl and i met)
Actually Grunge wasn't a joke. It may have become one but the label was used before it was popular I believe. I don't recall specifically what they said in Hype but just b/c something was said in that movie doesn't make it true. Outshined actually came out after the term grunge appeared. Screaming Life, Fopp, and Ultramega OK are better examples of early grunge. Bands like Mudhoney, Melvins, Tad, Green River, even the Fastbacks were labeling themselves as grunge before 1991 when all hell broke loose. In any case, anyone gets cranky when their "scene" gets popular. Especially if their scene was countercultural and marginalized. If you're defined by being marginalized, and then you become popular, you lose your identity. I'm just glad that Chapel Hill never became the "next Seattle". Polvo and Superchunk remain unscathed.
By the way, is By the Roadside a reference to the Hater song?
isn't that a whitman poem?
Yes, Chester.Hater. Beloved Hater. Brian Wood and Ben Shephard and McBain! Awesome.
Now the question is: Who got kicked out of Hater because they were too drunk all the time?
btr
Dave
Chester, wasn't the "grunge" thing more of a reflection of the close knitness of the Seattle Music Community rather than a reflection of the style of music?
Chester, wasn't the "grunge" thing more of a reflection of the close knitness of the Seattle Music Community rather than a reflection of the style of music?btr
Dave
http://www.geocities.com/punkrawkbible
rocket from the crypt are pretty punk.(my favorite band)
(ps- i'm bummed san diego never became the new seattle)
Ulyssess00 and Everyone.RFTC is awesome! Signing to Vagrant sure won't hurt their street cred, let's just hope they can avoid The Weezer syndrome that infected The Get-Up Kids.
btr
Dave
I looked at this site, and found it really entertaining. Especially the profiles. Who the hell are these people?I have no problem with self-expression, but a lot of these people seem to be trying so hard. They all want to be...each other, I guess. Or to be weirder or cooler or more "punk" or whatever than everyone else. It's sad to see people putting forth so much effort and coming off as such pretentious fuckers (the "f" word being a word they all seem to like a lot).
I think I'm biased because I've befriended/dated/known a few people like this, and they all piss me off to no end.
That being said, from all I know of Diner customers you're not like that, so it's nothing personal. And I respect what punk truly stands for (which I guess is what this entree is trying to ascertain).
I was at school when the Pistols arrived and Poly Styrene arrived and left. I was at concerts with the Damned, the Stranglers, the Ramones, Stiff Little Fingers and Joe Strummer with his post-Clash band (playing almost all Clash numbers). About a decade later I was at a festival where I saw some of the later punk-like bands (e.g. The Screaming Blue Messiahs). Since then there are/have been plenty of shouting bands (Offspring), angry bands (Nirvana), players of thrashy feedback monotone, bands who play at 90 miles an hour, bands who dislike their audiences etc. The only band I've seen since that carried on in something like the original direction is Green Day.
dude vagrant records isnt too punk.(i think it's done a lot to hurt RFTC's street-cred and can think of half a dozen labels i'd rather see them on.)
Over on college radio street, they are doing just fine. Sure, some emo dude who owns more pairs of chunky black shoes that he owns CDs will probably slag on RFTC. Fact of the matter is Vagrant snagged Rocket From The Crypt, Face to Face, and Paul Westerberg when no else was willing to put out their records. That kind of respect and risk taking says a lot to me. What do you think?Vagrant may not be a punk label, but at least they don't just churn out Get Up Kids soundalikes.
On a somewhat related note, does anyone else here not get Dashboard Confessional?
btr
Dave
"Vagrant may not be a punk label, but at least they don't just churn out Get Up Kids soundalikes."i would say this is still very debateable. anyways, RFTC has been my favorite band for almost six years now, and i just wish they were doing better than Vagrant. it beats the deal they were getting over at <fred>Interscope</durst>, but i think they're pretty out of place there and vagrant doesnt quite know what to do with them. RFTC has a handfull of older realeses on Sympathy For The Recording Industry, the label responsible for shooting The White Stripes to huge success. I think they'd be better suited at a place like SubPop, even. but i agree that Vagrant hs made some pretty sound decisions in the orphaned artists they've recently picked up... but there's a TON of controversy behind how they do business.
"On a somewhat related note, does anyone else here not get Dashboard Confessional? "
unfortunatly, i do get it. but i get it the same way i get war on iraq.
that shit cracked me up g.
""On a somewhat related note, does anyone else here not get Dashboard Confessional? "
unfortunatly, i do get it. but i get it the same way i get war on iraq. "
i've heard too many bad things about them from too many good people to even give them a dignified listen. and i'm fine with that.
The White Stripes are great. they are releasing their next album 'elephant' on April 1st. you may have heard 'Seven Nation Army' the latest single from that album, already getting airplay. im on their mailing list, mostly for news like this. and for tour dates. they have announced a few so far, and they are playing in Dtown (their hometown) in April. im thinking of heading up there for a show.
It really should have been something like:<durst type="fred">Interscope</durst>
Q: Can you see why?
But that's sort of another layer of geekiness on top of an already great joke. And it doesn't poetically flow as well. But it's syntactic sugar is gooey and sweet.
i like The Who
the misfits.(one of my favorite favorite favorite punk bands ever.)
die die my darling.
Ha! Those guys are great! Do they still let people into their shows for free if they have a RFTC tatoo? We played one of their songs at Spring Event while they were constructing the new chapel. Come to think of it, that was the one rare perfomance we had that featured lukas's wife on drums.
Dashboard Confessional....hmmmm. Sorry, don't like them at all. Seeing that live acoustic clip of them at the MTV studios...soooo bad.We should create an entree of the Top 5 bands we really hate or maybe the worst of 2002. But giving them their own entree means we are actually acknowledging their music.
baggins: yell yes. "I'L BE SEEING YOU.... IN HELL!"chester: what RFTC song? if it was when the chapel was going up (96???) i'd bet is was something off "Scream, Dracula, Scream!" but knowing what other kind of music you like by reading posts, i'd say "Circa: Now!" is more up your alley....
ConeyIsland81: you, (and everyone else who is enjoying this new entree) should check out Buddyhead's Best and Worst of 2002. keep in mind they're a bunch of scenester snob a-holes, but they're damn funny ones. and they've got pretty decent musical critisism.
(baggis- thanks for creating this entree, i feel like i walked into george's and was told that they have a vegan version of the piza burger available.)
I just thought of it! I was trying to think of it before and I couldn't. Ditchdigger was the RFTC song. Now if I could only remember who I saw them open for at the Aragon sometime in the mid '90s...
oh yeah, regarding the tattoo thing with RFTC... its kind of been old news for a few years now. what they try to do is keep a running list of fans they have met with the tattoo, and then said fans have to get in touch with the band prior to a show or a tour in order to get onto a guest list.another problem is that the san diego club that RFTC calls home, THE CASBAH, only holds around 200 people. there are an estimated 200 people in the city of san diego with the RFTC tattoo.... so....
but when they were on the WARPED tour back in 1995, the band actually paid OUT OF THEIR OWN POCKETS for each fan with an RFTC tattoo who showed up to the warped tour. this is the same band that went on the "FREE CHARITY" tour, playing several dates of free-admission shows. one time, speedo (aka john reis, lead singer) even snuck some of my friends into a show they had drove from arizona to california to see, but couldnt get into because they were underage.
they love their fans.
DITCHDIGGER!!!!! hell yes. i used to hate that song until i saw the video, which for a low-budget indie video is soooo beautifully done. now it is one of my favorites. i used to sing it two summers ago when i actually WAS a ditchdigger for a month. the video used to be available at RFTC.com and at LAUNCH.com... but i'm not sure anymore.um... if it was aaragon... i'm guessing SOUNDGARDEN?
Check this out:http://www.rathergood.com/punk_kittens/
Pretty much anything that Joel does with kittens is mint.
Also, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs! Truly awesome band. Very good live as well.
btr
Dave
PS: We like the moon!
I think you're right. There was another band too. I'll look for the ticket tonight.
I looked at the RFTC website and it says Tenderloin played. I'm not familiar with them. Have you ever heard of Green Apple Quickstep?
I used to play Green Apple Quickstep all the time on my KUMD show. I would do sets of Green Apple Quickstep, Appleseed Cast, and Apples In Stereo.btr
Dave
That's pretty cool that you were a DJ. The state of radio is pretty sad these days. Anyway, we played a GAQ song too. Something about a windshield.
I DJ'd at KUMD for a year and a half. Now I DJ at KUWS. I think I'll always be a DJ, in some way shape or form.My show is an all Local Duluth, MN and Superior, WI Music Show. If you are interested, check out our stream around midnight on Thursdays.
www.kuws.fm
btr
Dave
The first post to this entree asked,"what is punk?"
To which my response is:
"...baby don't hurt me, baby don't hurt me... no more."
And my second question is, "would a punk eat a parfait?" I mean, parfaits are pretty establishment, don't you think?
dude, true punks will eat whatever they can get their hands on. thats why being vegan isnt punk.apples in stereo and appleseed cast, both very good. have you ever heard silver apples? i dont know to much about them, but RFTC covered one or two of their songs... they're from the 60's.
Regardless, a Punk would probably make the parfait and then eat it themselves.btr
Dave
Enlighten me as to a true punk?Veganism is actually fairly punk as I have come to understand it, dude.
And Dude, I have heard of so many bands, it is not funny. I can't place Silver Apples, but I did just listen to a pretty lame Silver Jews record.
btr
Dave
vegetarianism is punk in that it is rebellion. but its sure not nhilism. thats all i meant.to me punk is not working, fucking up as much shit as possible, doing as many drugs as possible, and therefore not giving a fuck about what you eat cause you dont give a fuck about anything except pissing people off.
i know that there is a lot more to "punk." and yes many great things have happened because punks "cared" about causes. i personally find it fascinating how punk music evolved into a very politically charged genre. i am a vegan because of it.
I think that you are confusing punk with Trotskyism. It breaks me heart to read your post. To think that all the reality guys like Rollins and Greg Norton went through so you could be so misinformed...speechless.btr
Dave
I wonder if there's a true consensus as to what punk really is. I lean towards ulyssess00 definition at first glance: destructive nihilism, but I appreciate Shredzilla's angle too. The Dead Kennedies were socially conscious but also repulsive. But I don't think anyone is carrying the same banner today that DKs carried in the 80s. Maybe Ian McKay but even that's debateable. Punk involves a sort of youthful recklessness that can't be maintained as an adult. Or perhaps shouldn't be maintained. Anyhow, my point is that if Punk is perceived by 90% of the population to be one way, can it be another way? There is a political philosphy of Liberal Republican but does it exist in reality? I don't know, maybe I'm not explaining myself well. Most people agree that punk originally grew out of frustration with technical bands like Yes and disco. People wanted something dirty and chaotic.
i was just fucking around.but chester makes a good point. who's more punk? rollins or sid viscous? GG Allin or joe strummer? the answer is: it doesnt fucking matter. all four of those dudes are TREMENDOUSLY different, but they are all sure as hell punk.
for instance, few people know that kerouac was a republican and had a hawkish view of america's foreign policy... does that mean he wasnt BEAT? (oh no... please dont tell me i've opened up a "WHAT IS BEAT?" can of worms... cuase.... nevermind)
when i made the bold comment regarding "true punks" not giving a fuck about eating a parfait, it was mainly in jest. but the point i was trying to make was the one thing punk ISN'T is trying to make up a set of rules about what is cool and what is not. if a punk were starving, they wouldnt say "nah, i'll pass on the parfait... its not punk enough... a little too aristocratic." you know? thats all i'm saying.
ever heard of MAN IS THE BASTARD? seriously one of the best punk/hardcore bands of the 90's. after playing goleta-fest one year they tried to get as many audience members as possible to all go hit the local trendy clubs for a night of dancing to techno music. that's punk because looking at that sweaty, hairy guy screaming into the microphone on stage you'd be inclined to say "that guy'd never want to 'go dancing' ."
chester do you remember how much they sucked? but, everyone was going nuts for them. then , RFTC came on and people were disin' them. it was weird. good show though, soundgarden kicked our ass and i almost lost my jacket, chester got his window smashed. the, a couple months later soundgarden broke up. wow, that was fun.
i was not yet an RFTC fan at the time of the SOUNDGARDEN tour, but i have read a lot of stuff about it including interviews of band members. the deal was that while soundgarden were big fans of RFTC, soundgarden's own fans were largely not. in fact, RFTC were booed and heckled at almost every stop on the tour. the same thing happened, though not to quite the same degree, when RFTC fans FOO FIGHTERS opted to bring the band along on their 1998 tour. every show had about a dozen rocket fans who were dancing their asses off and generally behaving how one does at a rocket show, while an entire sea of foo-fans stood still with expressionless faces. so it goes.bands like pearl jam, nirvana, soundgarden and, to a certain extent, even rage against the machine, had a very hard time with the humungeous followings they had. they were given the opportunity to be exposed to a mass audience who ate up the music itself, but didn't take the time to understand where the band members were coming from. they didnt care! they just wanted to rock, dude! the same could be said for a lot of hip-hop acts.
PS- the late, not-so-great MTV v-jay KENNEDY, sports an RFTC tattoo and once said on the air "rocket from the crypt are my FAVORITE grunge band!"
i just realized that out of the four examples of tremendously different "sure as hell punk" examples i listed, henry rollins is the only one who isnt tremendously dead.so it goes.
"Punk involves a sort of youthful recklessness that can't be maintained as an adult. Or perhaps shouldn't be maintained."I disagree. I disagree completely. I am the walking embodyment of disagreement with that statement. Being reckless has NOTHING to do with being punk. And youth is a state of mind.
"if Punk is perceived by 90% of the population to be one way, can it be another way?"
Yes. When 90% of the world perceived the world as flat, it was still round. It just so happened that the majority was misinformed. Punk has nothing to do with how the masses think. Your question totally contradicts the existence of punk in the first place. Haven't you been reading any of these posts?
btr
Dave
I had stated that punk wasn't anything tangible, but a reaction to other mainstream ideas.This speaks to
"Most people agree that punk originally grew out of frustration with technical bands like Yes and disco." - Chester
and
"the point i was trying to make was the one thing punk ISN'T is trying to make up a set of rules about what is cool and what is not." - Ulyssess00
I think all artistic revolutions happen in such a manner.
btr
Dave
currently rocking: the buzzcocks.this band is so rad. if i have my history right, they saw one of the sex pistols' first shows and said "lets do that." and so they started a band. and good music was made. music that rebelled.
but the cool thing is that they slowly evolved into almost a dance music band, while still staying true to themselves, what they loved, and what they wanted to rebell against. eventually, they broke up, and pete shelly put out an album that is very synth-based and dancey. while not as good as buzzcocks stuff, its cool to see a punk band evolve into a better version of what they were initially rebelling against. or, if not a better version, their own version.
Shredzilla, do you like the band television?
I rebel against rebellion.
if punk is an intangible reaction, and the reaction is rebellion, and a general 'deconstruction' of that to which punk is reacting, then we have the semblance of a school of thought. but the problem with that school of thought, which is fueled by punk, is that once we've questioned everything, reacted against everything, decimated to dust that which has come before, where do we go?
the answer, i believe, is that there must be a positive, proactive, rebuilding. this doesn't have to be something other than punk. but if the earliest breath of punk was the fumes of an incinerated culture, the last, dying gasps may have been dust-filled inhalation. is punk dead? depends on how you look at it. can we say that a post-punk way of looking at things is to put forth something other than that which we hate and have rebelled against?
basically, i just think that its a shallow existence living your life as a reaction to something. (im not saying this in personal reference to your proclaimed 'living adult punk' status, Shred. just as a general statement on punk.) after a while you need to decide to work toward something, and not just against everything.
and sure, Rollins went through a lot of work. but man was he fucked up.
i would suggest 2 books to all of you, as good reading closely related to this topic. the first one is called American Hardcore: A Tribal History by Steven Blush (or Brush?? not sure) it chronicles more hardcore bands in more 'scenes' than you can shake a stick at. if they played a show in the US, chances are they're at least mentioned in this book.
the second book is called Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azzerrad. it chronicles the stories of 13 indie bands from 1981 - 1991 on the premise that 1991 was 'the year that punk broke' into the mainstream with Nirvana hitting the national scene in a huge way. the stories in this book are more or less a huge part in what came before, and paved the way for such an occurrence. its a real great book, including chapters on: Black Flag, Minor Threat, Husker Du, Sonic Youth, Big Black, The Minutemen, The Butthole Surfers, Beat Happening, Fugazi, Mission to Burma, The Replacements, Dinosaur Jr. and Mudhoney. it also tells the story of labels like Twin/Tone, SST, SubPop, Dischord, and others. its a great read, and captures the spirit of what was happening beneath the surface of the musical topology in that decade.
i mean, some fuckers killed his rommate when they were walking home from the grocery store..i mean, they thought that they were gay so...he's gotten close to death. anyway, he's certainly punk because he keeps putting out albums, and people still don't care that he is, but then he still does it, he probably just keeps putting out "weight" over and over and over again
I think Bob Mould is great.
First off I want to thank you for being kind to me. I think there are a number of criticisms that could be made of my earlier post. 1st, my definitions were vague and simple. 2nd, Ian McKay has little in common with Jello Biafra when you think about it. 3rd, the recklessness is probably only seen as such by older folks. And 4th, OF COURSE 90% of the people can be wrong. What a dumb thing for me to have said. I stand by the last sentence though. Anyhow, you must like something about my perspective since you didn't tear me a new one :) I should form my thoughts more completely before making posts.
Neocerbitas...that's not how the Rollin's story goes. Rollins was becoming big on his own, but still living in a seedy LA neighborhood. Rick Rubin showed up one day at Rollin's doorstep with his limo and the half-wit "gangstas" in the neighborhood believed that Rollins was some millionaire, or probably had some valuable items in his house. Anyways, he and his best friend, Joe Cole, were walking home from the Grocery Store and they got jumped. They were lead into Rollin's house, but something went wrong and the gangsters fired a round of bullets and left. They intended to kill Henry, but instead they killed Joe.I have the an MP3 of this event, which was told on the Howard Stern Show by Rollins himself if you'd like to here it. I wouldn't rule out the gangters thinking Rollins was gay, but Rollins clearly states that he thinks the motivation was money.
As for the BUZZCOCKS. One of the members, Pete Shelley, embarked on a solo career and tried to rip-off Gary Numan's synth-rock. He even thanks Numan in his 1981 LP Homosapien, a title which led people to believe that Shelly was gay (The song "Homosapien" was banned from radio in some countries because of it's suggestive material). I'm not sure if Shelley is really gay...somebody please tell me. He then did a follow-up to the Homosapien album called XL1 which featured "Telephone Operator" which is f***ing sweet song. I'd say Shelley is "pretty punk". Literally.
This Band Could Be Your Life is a very important book for anyone who wants to be in a band.Another good one is Get In The Van by Henry Rollins.
From 1997-1999, I was in a band called dB 192 (no connection to Blink-182. The loudest man made sound ever generated was 192 dB, according to the band mythology). Me and the band's frontman, Matt Herrick, tried to take the band in D.I.Y., early SST direction because we were familiar with what punk had been. We broke punk down to its base elements and found that because so many things could be punk, punk then could not be any one thing or anyone one set of rules.
Matt was very chaotic, much more than I was, but what made him different was that while he was pointing the finger at something, he would also point it at himself. His brutal honesty had a profound effect on me. It was never enough for Matt to say, "This sucks". He would always have to add on, "Sometimes I suck, too".
So when I think of punk, I think about Matt Herrick.
btr
Dave
"if punk is an intangible reaction, and the reaction is rebellion, and a general 'deconstruction' of that to which punk is reacting, then we have the semblance of a school of thought. but the problem with that school of thought, which is fueled by punk, is that once we've questioned everything, reacted against everything, decimated to dust that which has come before, where do we go?"I don't think that the reaction has to be rebellion in every case. If you accept punk as a school of thought, you are not required to react against everything. I see punk as a reaction *to* mainstream ideas. I never meant to say it was a reaction *against* mainstream ideas. And if I did, I was out of line and would like to retract that notion.
If punks are not required to react against everything, they can be inclusive to a degree. Punks then can incorporate those ideas they agree with into their own value system. I know that this creates a fairly broad and vague definition of punk.
But look at the Minutemen's Double Nickels On The Dime.
Now look at Black Flag's The Process Of Weeding Out.
Ok, The Process Of Weeding Out is a bad example. (see how smart I am)
Look at Husker Du's Zen Arcade.
Both are double length concept records that came out on the same day on the same label. But the sound and subject matter of the records are very very different. I *think* this backs up what I am saying. I don't know. Am I way off base here?
btr
Dave
"there must be a positive, proactive, rebuilding." - Baggins"Proactive? Paradigm? Excuse me, but aren't these words dumb people use to sound smart...uh, I'm fired, aren't I?" - Itchy And Scratch Writer, The Simpson's Poochy episode.
Sorry Baggins, you've been throwing around "proactive" on this thread too much for me to pass up.
btr
Dave
are you familiar with the dwarves and their album "the dwarves come clean"?i think it fits in with what you are talking about.
You know, it is this same argument that inspired some idiots to get so worked up that they did something to Jello and now he walks with a cane. Here is a guy, who in my opinion is the punk of punks, and some dudes who thought punk was about being riotous and rebellious and chaotic pulled him off of the stage and physically decimated him.If anything, we need to have discussions like this to show the younger gererations that punk is not about hurting people when you don't agree with them.
btr
Dave
It is hard to track down any Dwarves stuff up here. I think we have some in the KUWS library. Yeah, I should check that out.btr
Dave
well, basically it is a bunch of re-recordings of their older stuff, done "clean." in other words, the same songs but with a polished-pop-studio production.it was their way of saying "we can rebell against your game, but we can play it and win, too."
i've got your point, Shred. it's where i was going with that line of questioning. i do agree that punk doesn't always have to be a reaction against, and can be inclusive, and thinking. which is why im still down with punk. unfortunately, today the word to most people means bleached spiky hair and a funny tshirt from *that store* in the mall (like you said before, Mall Punk). but punk doesn't have to go the way of blink182 or good charlotte or whoever (Avril Lavigne? please girl. you wouldn't know punk if it bit you on the ass...) and punk can evolve. what i mean is, it continually has new information to filter, and new stuff to say, and new ways to say it.
also, Shred, if you feel like driving down to Minneapolis on march 25th, The Fire Theft is playing there. they consist of Jeremy Enigk, Nate Mendel, and William Goldsmith (all of ex-Sunny Day Real Estate fame). mercurymouth, josekenobi, raskol, and i saw them play their second show ever in Los Angeles last month, and they are really great. they don't have an album out yet, but they're working on it. and they've release 3 demos of their new stuff on their website. i've been paying close attention to the progress of these guys for as long as their union as a band was officially announced (and SDRE long before that). anyway, if you dug sunny day, or Enigk's solo stuff, you'll probably dig this new stuff. to me its worth the trip. also, i just might be at that show in Minneapolis myself, and it would be lovely to finally shake your hand and shit.
BagginsI will try to get down there. It is the week after my last Spring Break, so I may be redoubling my efforts to get gradumatated. I am totally down with Enigk. Frog Queen, man.
btr
Dave
Is for you to get your a** in that puddin'! And by puddin', I mean "Chicago."
you could always come down here for the show. then drive up to Minneapolis for the other show the next day.
If you ended up cross-linking punk parfait and Theology Fried Rice do you think anyone would notice?
Deja vu!
i just saw a car commercial with a RadioBirdMan song in it...TV!!!! QUIT FUCKING EVERYTHING UP!!!!!
You'd seriously be disgusted if you knew the number of hits we got of people looking for the song from a car commercial. It must be a highly effective strategy, because I'd say about 1/5 of our hits come from people searching for things like, "carnival cruise lust for life song" and stuff like that.
maybe it's the lowercase?
wrong answer
"Punk is musical freedom. It's saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster's terms, 'nirvana' means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that's pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock."
Anybody heard of Pegboy? I think it's two guys from Naked Raygun. Don't know if they're still together.
i think i was Pegboy at the Metro back in highschool. if i remember correctly, i thought they sucked. but that was in high school.
to Superchunk? They were great. Overwhelming Colourfast was great too.
This is so cool!
Pleather bibs!!!! PLEATHER!! It would clean so beautifully *ponders*