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Underground > Radio & Music >

Punk Is Dad

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10:23 / 12.05.03

Looks to me that what these kids are doing is entirely correct and in accordance with the very Rules that they are being accused of flouting in this thread.

They are:

1. Pissing the older generation off by listening to the the wrong sort of music (ie nu-punk)

2. Showing no interest in the music of the older generation (ie the Clash)

3. Generally not doing the things the older generation think they should be doing (eg repeating what the older generation did but with different music)

11:17 / 12.05.03

quite so!

13:19 / 12.05.03

well, yes and no.

im only 23, and the same generation.
i dont think andrew pisses off my dad, or even my older friends as much as e pisses off kids his own age who know that the nuskool 'punk' is mostly marketing and well sold pop.

and my dad never liked the clash anyway.

i do see yur point, but i think the kids listening to slipknot and manson are more punk for the reasons you put up. and hell, even eminem, little twat that he is.

15:32 / 12.05.03

Fair enough, I keep forgetting you're not all old farts like me, though I do see similar complaints posted on places like Fallnet, which is a refuge for the elderly and infirm.

Regarding the thing about people only being interested in new bands, I can sort of understand that. I can see how it might be important, to a young fan especially, to be into the music made by your peers, to celebrate with your compatriots (crap word but I can't think of a better one right now) rather than your mum and dad. And that's aside from the fact that no matter how similar in style two pieces of music might be, you can almost always tell the more recent version from the older. The differences are often too subtle too describe but they're there.

Locust No longer

21:13 / 12.05.03

I'm trying to find a common ground in this thread but can't really. I grew up in DIY punk, and I do agree with who ever said that it's a very regional thing. Different places sprout different heads of the monster. I was more influenced by the "crust-core" anarchist scene, my favorite bands six years ago being Doom, Resist, State of Fear and other similar named groups with spiked hair. This scene had a very different point of view of what punk was than say the hardcore kids from upstate New York with running shoes and the straight edge lifestyle. Some of these people simply view punk as a youth cult, while some view it as a life long state of being, and a political counter culture. I lean towards the life long state of being, because I understand that the punk attitude and punk music can sometimes be very far away from each other. Actually, I haven't been going to many shows for the past year, and often times find that I'm out of touch with the whole "culture." However, I still feel it's as viable as a alternative to mainstream culture as any musically motiviated scene is. I may no longer wear a mohican and stud my clothes but I'm still certainly intune with that attitude. I realize that my personal experience has little importance to the discussion, but I can only answer personally about things like punk rock for as said before it's very subjective. Trying to find one single meaning or reason behind punk is probably futile, and whether or not it's dead or alive.... I suppose it makes very little difference to anyone not involved in their own little slice of punk culture.

11:27 / 13.05.03

I lean towards the life long state of being, because I understand that the punk attitude and punk music can sometimes be very far away from each other.

aye, totally.

how many people here would 'identify' as punks?

and how many here are still thiking that even though they are not, say, daft enough to think living in a squat will work forever, still feel like their outlook is at the very least shaped by punk, if not a punk one in itself?

i know i gave up on making sure i looked punk almost as soon as i managed to do so, but i still feel 'punk as fuck' occasionally if not most of the time.

18:48 / 14.05.03

im not sure i buy this concept that the most important litumus test for whether or not something is punk is that it piss off the previous generation. if this even happens, which you'd be hard pressed to argue, it would be as an epiphenomenon of the other activities and results surrounding the punk movements.

the reason i have a problem with today's so called punks is not because they are young and i don't understand them. it's because they are a bunch of fucking little pussies who play music in order to sell records. the originators of punk were low-lives, drag queens, hustlers, prostitutes, drug addicts, criminals, and genuine psychopaths, as well as hard driven artists and conceptualists. if this new breed are squeeky clean business opportunists and that fact pisses me off, its a hard argument to call them any more punk than the current breed of stockbrokers or marketing gurus. you'd have to be abusing the terms punk to the point of removing any signification in order to favor the "pisses of [someone] from another generation" operational definition.

Matthew Fluxington

21:20 / 14.05.03

I think the whole idea of punk needing piss off older generations is bullshit. It's stupid, ignorant bullshit. It has nothing to do with the kind of punk I identify with - I lean heavily on early 90s DIY left wing non-genre specific arty punk, and that has more to do with respect and community.

Nazi Punks Fuck Off, man.

03:38 / 15.05.03

What, like Fugazi?

To be honest, if you are currently making 'punk rock' music, it's dubious you're doing much new or interesting.

That said, I just bought the new Tomahawk album and it's fucking proper. And it's rock music.

But then, one could suggest that punk is a compartment of aforementioned. Which had its' day in the late '70s-early '80s.

Are Disco Six punk? What about Disco Punk - the Rapture, Le Tigre, LCD Soundsystem, which I rather like? Or synthcore? I could do with a few less D4s and the (Stooges-emulating) like, mind.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are nae bad, eh? Artschool fuckers.

Etc, etc.

03:40 / 15.05.03

And what about protonihilist punks like what I think you like, Flux? Don't they irritate the elder generation?

'Cos they refuse to engage on certain levels, in a Naomi Klein kinda way.

Matthew Fluxington

05:06 / 15.05.03

(bangs head against wall in frustration)

It's all punk, Duncan. In. Different. Ways.

12:58 / 15.05.03

Flux:
> I think the whole idea of punk needing piss off older
> generations is bullshit. It's stupid, ignorant bullshit.

I was being a bit flippant when I brought that up. However, I will cop to being a complete f***ing moron for getting involved in a discussion about what is or isn't punk, or appropriate behaviour for punks. Isn't it about time someone in authority gave us a proper FINAL definition? Anyone here got one that the Pope could sign his name under?

Matthew Fluxington

14:00 / 15.05.03

Oh, I understand, Saveloy. This conversation is so frustrating and pointless - I mean, once we've figured out what is definitively punk, can we start another thread to explain exactly what God is?

Punk is a lot like religion in this way - there's a lot of different sects and faiths, all trying for a vaguely similar goal in their own ways. Some people are more reasonable, some people integrate the concepts into their own ideas, some people are parts of scary dogmatic cults.

14:48 / 15.05.03

So, it can piss off the elder generation, but needn't necessarily? Please define punk for us then, Flux.

And try not to be a patronising ringpiece when you do it.

15:32 / 15.05.03

i dunno what people think is so aggravating about discussing what "punk" means. there's lots of incredibly engaging books (Please Kill Me, We got the Neutron Bomb) and movies (Decline of Western Civilization, Filth and the Fury) that i'd like to talk about here; and obvously there's an endless amount of music and art which continues to be relevant and amazing. the world we're in now has a lot of similarities to the world the created the reaction of punk in the 70s. there's a lot of fruitfull conversation to be had in comparing the birth of punk with its later manifestations, and in understanding the meanings of the weird negative-punk of todays top forty bands. dontcha think?

Matthew Fluxington

16:38 / 15.05.03

Duncan, are you paying attention to me?

I'm telling you - there's not any way to give a proper definition of punk, there are too many factions and sects, too many people who have very different (but mostly quite valid) personal definitions of what punk is. Like I said, it's a lot like religion that way - the loose idea of a higher power occurs in pretty much every permutation of religion but it's always different.

17:09 / 15.05.03

Cop Killer's first post doesn't refer to punk ethos, though. While he's not delineated the distinction in his abstract, Punk Rock is what's (for the most part) being discussed here.

I think that is quantifiable. Hence, my attempting to open up the chat with above references. It's spectacularly irritating when you try and shut down people's line of thought, often with a send off line implying stupidity - a frequent occurrence of late. Kindly stop.

08:32 / 16.05.03

I don't really care about what is and what ain't punk, and the different sects and the blah blah blah; it's old and useless anyway, so, what difference does all that make?

10:48 / 16.05.03

I don't really care about what is and what ain't punk...

What exactly is the point of this thread then?

Cop Killer's first post doesn't refer to punk ethos, though. While he's not delineated the distinction in his abstract, Punk Rock is what's (for the most part) being discussed here

CK's first post is just one big rant so it seems fair that the thread should go wherever the people responding choose to take it. But, if you're going to insist that this thread is about "punk rock music" and nothing else, please feel free to explain what exactly "punk rock music" is.

First person to mention guitars is going to find a Screamers tape jammed down their throat.

20:06 / 16.05.03

guitars!

(sweet, a free screamers tape!)

i remember being 'told' by a friend that nirvana were not punk. they werent nihilistic in her eyes, and that was what punk was. TO HER. because she had just read 'englands dreaming', a great but still flawed book.

i think the point is that people like labels, and they hate it when people use a label that refers to something they like and look up to to describe something they dont.

see avril as punk.

16:33 / 18.05.03

ooh... screamers tape! i just found a copy of the double cd with their live and demo stuff, and i grabbed a video of them playing in 1979. is there anything else out there? how insane was it for a band in 1979 to say that recording albums was outmoded? would they be a lot more famous if they had put something out?

as far as the "its old, why talk about it" grumble from CK, i don't get this... do you say that about modernist literature? pop art? its often MORE interesting to talk about things that are over, because then you can start to understand a complete picture. i still insist it's not all that mystical to understand what punk meant when it was created; there was a very clearcut moment when it happened, with a small group of people involved. so aside from the weird ambient bickering attending the thread, do people think that punk did something important, and would that kind of a movement be important in our current culture?

17:54 / 18.05.03

Attitude and d.i.y. ethos over received opinion, homage and privilege.

Maybe.

21:07 / 18.05.03

It comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable. And it inspired a million kids to go out and make something of their own, not because they would make any money out of it, but because punk showed how easy it was to speak out. Not too many genres and eras can claim the same. Maybe the beginning of the whole cyber-thing, or the early days of the World Wide Web, when all you needed were a little html, IMG tags and a friend who worked late at Kinko's and would let you scan stuff in. Musically, maybe mash-ups, rude sound collages and All Your Base-type stunts...But those times will come around again. They always do. The quickest way to grow old is to cling to something like punk as if one genre at one time was the only thing that mattered or ever will.

Punk isn't important; the spirit that informed it is, and it wears many clothes and hairdos. I think the test of a good punk record is one you can still listen to without wincing and, even if it doesn't make you feel the way it did back in the day, you still recognize that feeling.

I shaw a lot o' bandsh in the '80s, shonny, yessshireee! (he cackles, clutching his threadbare bootleg Dead Kennedys shirt)

--

09:54 / 19.05.03

Personally, I always felt that the first wave industrial bands like Throbbing Gristle (and later Whitehouse) were almost way more punk then most of the classic punk bands of those times, ie they were so contraversial (both lyrically, visually, and sonically for their time) most people chose to ignore them or try to pretend they didn't even exist.

Having said that, I still think that the Dead Kennedys are the best of the classic punk bands (and the first punk band I ever heard at that) mainly because of their great lyrics and all the outrage they caused.

I really like Jello's spoken word albums too. Sure he can repeat himself a lot, but he's had some classic bits, and even his new one has some good moments, like when he points out how The War Against Terrorism is an acronym for "twat".

And insulting Tipper Gore never gets old.

10:38 / 19.05.03

what can ya say about punk, punk is an abstract atitude, its being flogged to death at the moment by MTV, its being swallowed up and its eating itself, but its always moving and evolving ever changing, the changling, pikin up on the Minute men thing d. boon rocks the boat.

Matthew Fluxington

17:36 / 20.05.03

"I saw some kid wearing a Sex Pistols T-shirt the other day—he couldn't have been more than 9 when the Pistols did their Filthy Lucre reunion tour," Tolbert said. "I was like, 'You can listen to the music, you can wear the T-shirt, but I was there.' I had fifth-row seats at that goddamn stadium, man, right up front, close enough to see Johnny Rotten's wrinkles. Did you see an original member of The Clash play during Big Audio Dynamite II's last tour? Did you see two of the four original Ramones play at the KROQ Weenie Roast in '95? You did not, but I did. I swear to God, they're like a joke, these people."

23:49 / 20.05.03

moriarty: I don't know where you're looking, obviously, but maybe your understanding of punk as an ethos is being expressed in non-guitar music right now?

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