Punk: Is it dead?

if not, who/whats the punx in the elektronik/digi scene? and why, or why not. or what could've been, etcetera.

Anyone who drags around some idea that "punk" is a relevant way to describe a band is really selling it short. In the end its an attitude, and so many bands with so many different sounds in so many different genres now have that attitude, thanks to the doors that were opened in the heyday when "punk" meant something, that now it means nothing.

also because rock the casbah still gets modern radio play.

also because avril lavirgne doesn't want to be punk anymore

also because blink 182 are still around and the offspring really aren't.

also because punk was dead the moment the sex pistols album came out because "the real fans" didn't buy it and

also be... I can't do this anymore.

Jess is right.

hrrm...

i think punk as three chord jamz is deadish. and that had more in common with pop.

but punk as do-it-yourself, anything goes music is totally alive and well... it's just in different forms than the three chords style mentioned above.

gurgle,
m.

m.

They were chose by Malcolm McLaren for what they looked like.

Then, they weren't about the music, they were about the confrontation.

Why, though?

i'm with msp.

This guy says yes!

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/getback/144976/hot-topic-punks-in-a-fake-punk-world/

i've been reading "please kill me" lately and thinking that I can't really imagine this sort of thing happening again. obviously post-60's misery had a lot to do with it. and since I can't imagine anyone being as naive as they were in the 60's again, I don't see a reaction, a legitimate, real reaction, to culture like this happening one more time. but i'll probably be proven wrong.

when the next one comes, we won't even hear it approaching till its exploding around us. like a V2 rocket.

Now that lots of old fanzines are getting scanned in and posted to blogs, I wish I had the time to make a compendium of "punk is dead" essays from the last 30 years. The perfect topic for the last page of the fifth issue of your 'zine, one issue before you give up, and three months before you get listed in Factsheet Five. Last page of issue four is complaining about skinheads.

OTM. And I'm not dead. Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough.

i've been reading "please kill me" lately and thinking that I can't really imagine this sort of thing happening again. obviously post-60's misery had a lot to do with it. and since I can't imagine anyone being as naive as they were in the 60's again, I don't see a reaction, a legitimate, real reaction, to culture like this happening one more time. but i'll probably be proven wrong.

― akm, Monday, October 5, 2009 4:18 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

in "enter naomi: sst and all that" by joe carducci he says something like "punk was really just the nihilistic phase of hippie" which i always kinda liked

That's a great line, but so much of the hippy stuff was pretty nihilistic even really early on - punk just came up after the hippies had kids and got all hair-shirted about their nihilism.

Stewart Home reckons that the hardcore remnants of the 60's underground were a key element in London punk: Lemmy, Mick Farren, CR@SS, Charlie Harper, Captain Sensible and of course Maclaren, Westwood and Rhodes.

"The perfect topic for the last page of the fifth issue of your 'zine, one issue before you give up, and three months before you get listed in Factsheet Five. Last page of issue four is complaining about skinheads."

This zine could be your life.

That's a great line, but so much of the hippy stuff was pretty nihilistic even really early on - punk just came up after the hippies had kids and got all hair-shirted about their nihilism.

― Brio, Tuesday, October 6, 2009 9:01 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i'm sort of selling the whole line of thinking short...it's way better in the book which is required reading about the idea of Punk, at least the L.A. branch IMO...

punks were too old to be hippie's kids though, punk is already formed while hippie is still going (as you point out)

greg ginn saw the grateful dead like 80 times or something, i don't know what that means, but it probably means something.

yeah there was a really interesting/flawed book about all the links between the post-hippie UK traveller scene and the Crass punk scene, it came out around 1997 and was called Senseless Acts Of Beauty I think?

punk's still alive here in the Pacific NW. I work at my new job with a 23 year old prep cook who is a punk kid from Montana. he once spent $250 on an original pressing Wilson Pickett record, dunno if that's punk or not. he thinks Against Me sold out and he spent all last weekend skating. he just discovered X and is really into them.

I do see some serious dilution happening, even the hardcore fringe is diffusing into the subculture in general.

for further reference:

are there still punks?

Sort of off the subject, but I'm rereading Dr. Adder, a protopunk sci-fi novel written in 1972 by PK Dick protege KW Jeter. Wasn't published until '86. Weirdest thing about it is the "1972" part. Futurist hippie nihilism reads EXACTLY like 70s punk rock. Except without the actual punk rock...

post excerpt please!

Maybe I will transcribe some later. But not now, no.

Situationist imagery and thinking runs all through UK punk, but you find it in UK hippy rags like International Times - which, like the 60's underground press round the world, are actually really confrontational, in a way that doesn't fit at all with the received image of "hippies".

yeah, the first wave of punks were too old to all literally the children of hippies - though Sid Vicious and Joey Ramone both had kind of proto-hippie moms, right? A drug fiend and a bohemian, respectively.

And if you think of punk of something that was going on prior to the late 70s, you find a bunch of folks who basically were just hippies playing what amounts to (proto) punk rock. Laughner and Rocket from the Tombs/Pere Ubu, Electric Eels, Debris, Iggy & the Stooges, Helios Creed, side 2 of Neu! 75, etc.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_oIBqaixxaEs/Sg3N-3VpxqI/AAAAAAAABbs/4ZsYLp-mzqI/s400/f.jpg

This ties up the the connections very neatly - the UK Underground paper of record International Times published a "Punk Is Dead" cover in . . February 1977!

View it at their archive here (slow download)

http://www.internationaltimes.it/page.php?i=IT_1977-02-01_G-IT-Volume-Q_Iss-6_001

http://i637.photobucket.com/albums/uu92/damien_stone/jams.jpg

The concept of Hippie has really become clouded by the 'hippie lifestyle' - earthy, crunchy mellowness and flaky permastoned Deadheads. The real 60's counterculture was all about psychedelic, sexual and youth revolution NOW. Even the Peace&Love trip was an aggressive pacifism - "freaking out the Squares", "dope, guns and fucking in the streets". You can't get more Punk than the Yippies or Weather Underground.

I'm reading an anthology of articles about the 'Drug Culture' published in 1970 and it's striking how frightened and bewildered the adult Establishment was at the time, where modern-day Hippie is willfully non-threatening and 'peace loving'.

the aftermath of hippie, the long 70's love hangover, is what you see in hippie culture today. the 60's punks either died or got put in jail or became drug zombies or moved to the country to nurse their wounds. the same thing happened to a lot of my beloved peace punks in the 80's. they realized that screaming at a wall is futile and discovered taoism. it's inevitable. short of armed rebellion, it dawns on you that you can't change the system. so, you work on acting locally and all that. that's what the me generation was all about. that's why former black bloc people now live in the woods and brew kombucha for a living. breaking starbucks windowpanes didn't really get them anywhere.

Sort of off the subject, but I'm rereading Dr. Adder, a protopunk sci-fi novel written in 1972 by PK Dick protege KW Jeter. Wasn't published until '86. Weirdest thing about it is the "1972" part. Futurist hippie nihilism reads EXACTLY like 70s punk rock. Except without the actual punk rock...

god that book is so great. There's some discussion of it on one of the ILE sci-fi threads. Jeter is a erm, very weird (and not entirely palatable) dude tbh.

modern-day Hippie is willfully non-threatening and 'peace loving'.

The ones who went to, eg, the G8 or G20 protests weren't. Well a lot of them weren't... they will probably go the way of the Black Bloc ppl Skot mentions but there's a healthy turnover, so it seems to me anyhow

(NB I'm not suggesting hippies and anarchists are interchangeable)

Also "you can't change the system"? You can, but the process is longer, more painful, and infinitely more drawn out than it seems like it's going to be when you're 17. I don't know about where you live, but round here, if you're involved in any kind of social activism, ageing beatniks/hippies/punks whatever run the mailing list and take the minutes.

^^^not as sexy as being in a band or breaking a window tho

You can do that too, but changing the system that way(or by being sexy in any other way) is very much a right time/right place thing.

And, by the way, don't tell me you can't change the system. I've been around a while, I've seen it change a lot, and it doesn't happen all by itself.

The ones who went to, eg, the G8 or G20 protests weren't.

...and there's your 21st century punk. the style might change, but the spirit (really bohemian antiestablishmentarianism) remains.

Punk is Dead, Long Live Punk!

(as I put on Stations of the Crass)

Yeah, actually when it comes to politically active types, the flimsy boundaries between hippie and punk pretty much cease to exist. Think this has been true as long as the groups have existed.

If anyone out there wants to raise the "trustafarian" strawman, as far as the UK goes, I can say from personal experience that everyone I've ever met who remotely fits the "crusty punk" stereotype has been from a hard-knock working class background, with a contrarian family background, be it religious or political, that goes back for at least a generation.

^^^this is not true in the US. like, at all.

Huh. I've known upper-crust hippies + punks and working-class hippies + punks. Sneering at "trustafarians" has always pissed me off, though. I don't think there's anything wrong with being middle-class, rich, whatever.

there's something wrong with it when you're asking me for fucking change to buy a 40

Not saying there's anything wrong with that, just that it seems to be the knee-jerk dismissal in certain quarters, and it's very far from the truth in my (UK) experience.

I can't be the first to propose the term "upper-crusties"?

I'd be amazed if you were the first. It's a wingnut standard that the working classes are docile cattle unless disturbed by decadent upper-class lefties.

^^^this is not true in the US. like, at all.

I really don't think it is in the UK either tbh - as it goes, when people run through their repertoire of 'lol alternative lifestyle people are all from wealthy backgrounds and can go home to their parents' houses when they get bored' I tend to assume they have nothing interesting to say BUT it didn't spring from nowhere and Soukesian is working with an unrepresentative sample I fear

So, if it didn't spring from nowhere, where did it spring from? Are you saying there there is NO history of working class leftism in the uk? Just forelock tugging serfs?

I mean the strawman didn't spring from nowhere, tsk

The upper crusty stereotype does have some validity I think. I know back in Glasgow in the 80s I knew a whole bunch of crusty punks, some of whom were from upper middle class families or even upper class backgrounds. Others were from slums. But I think it says more about the pressure in the UK to "know your place" that this situation is accepted as self-evidently hypocritical. TBH their position was very much "it's not where you're from, it's where you're at", which is absolutely fine with me.

(haha I've spent the last six hours listening to this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Three-Score-Ten-Voice-People/dp/B002HRE0F0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1255044915&sr=1-1 so I'd've done well to forget British working class leftists)

xpost: Comes from nowhere? Seriously, do you really feel that individuals, yourself included, can have no awareness of their own oppression unless stirred up to revolt against their rightful rulers by bored, sadistic aristocrats? You must hate yourself an awful lot.

I went to school in UC Santa Cruz, which is a haven for this type of shit, and I can tell you I had PLENTY of fellow students who were from comfortable middle class backgrounds (parents paying tuition, etc.) who would travel to SF to sleep in the park and cop speed and whatnot. I know at least one of these people basically went crazy and became full-time homeless. Another one (my sophomore year roommate) died before turning 21. Others just became ravers/tweakers. Most annoying fucking people ever.

I think yr misinterpreting DJ Mens, souk.

Anyway, I don't even have a problem with relatively well-off kids adopting hobo lifestyles. Kids are inherently pretentious, always looking for some way to be cool and a place to fit in. They often do some silly shit in sorting all that out, but as long as their hearts are in the right place, I'm basically okay with whatever. Plus I don't give spare change to crusty street kids on general principle.

No. This is not about Anarchism or Socialism as a passing phase. I know plenty of people, of all classes, who are in this for life. Don't confuse it for a six-month student pose. If you love UK punk, you must understand this, it is absolutely part of the story and applies to the early death/doom scene as well. Reading "Please Kill Me", what struck me was how scared (and incredulous) NY punks were by The Clash. Their kind of leftism was part of the scenery in the UK in the 70's, and they couldn't understand it at all.

Agree with all that. But the existence of leftist lifers doesn't disprove the existence of those for whom is IS a passing phase. Lots of kids of all backgrounds go through a "radical" phase that they eventually outgrow. Rich kids do it, poor kids do it, and kids in the middle do it. Same is true of the lifers. They come from a variety of economic/social backgrounds.

Hmmm. I'm thinking about the folks who don't wash for years on end and get weird tattoos on their necks when they're high on mushrooms. It's not a passing phase. Even if they grow out of it it is something that's part of them wherever they go to next. It's often too intense to simply walk away from. I think that's what Soukesian is talking about too. It was a passing phase for me to hang out with them that's for sure, but then the Stretcheads couldn't keep performing for ever.

I actually think the "lifers" are the majority, in the UK at least. And, actually, if your 'economic background" leaves you hungry or disadvantaged, I don't think it's a coincidence that you might be statistically more likely to think that there might be something wrong with that.

Hey, did I mention that I get free health care?

"You can, but the process is longer, more painful, and infinitely more drawn out than it seems like it's going to be when you're 17."

i said, people went local and inward.

But we didn't give up.

i didn't say that either. people found other more productive ways to change things. if change is what they were truly after. and sometimes this simply meant a spiritual change. not giving up really. maybe giving in a little sometimes.

Brit far-left dig in their heels more, for sure. It's reflexive, may be less considered, but a lot more joyous than the American far-left. At least in my limited experience.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2018/10/10/how-punk-rock-can-revitalize-human-resources

if it wasn't before, it is now

Dis-rupt!

Dressed in multicolored pants, combat boots and spiked leather bracelets, SAP’s Chief Human Resources Officer, Stefan Ries proudly strut onto the stage of the MGM Park Theater in Las Vegas to the strains of “Bring Me to Life” by Evanesence.

Ries was here to pump up of thousands of HR professional in attendance for the annual SAP SuccessConnect event, but a more important mission statement soon emerged, emblazoned across his black tee shirt: “HR Punks.”

“The heart of the human revolution is us,” said Ries. “The old days of HR are over. Today onward we need to revolutionize and the best people who can do this are HR punks.”

https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5bbde1134bbe6f7684a6744d/960x0.jpg?fit=scale

imagine how excruciatingly embarrassing it would be to be one of this guy's children

oh god i'm so depressed

have you considered cheering yourself up by strapping on some spiked leather bracelets and strutting proudly to the strains of 'bring me to life' by evanesence?

imagine getting fired by some cunt in a clown costume

punke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W8h4W6IBGc

imagine getting fired by some cunt in a clown costume

"Glad to see you go go go go goodbye/ Glad to see you go go go go goodbye"

Struggling to think of a single figure from the punk era who wouldn't have been an HR nightmare. Strummer maybe.

broke: punk
woke: steampunk
bespoke: hrpunk

(xp) Glen Matlock obv.

skrewdriver were good at following orders iirc

pogo in the boardroom!

(but only when your stocks go up)

Line Manager Sensible

http://www.cvltnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Bad-Brains-1979-.jpg

true punk HR

"We're moving the HR Department, the general opinion among the management team is that the ground floor should be used for more front facing departments and the 1st floor for finance and upper management, do you or your team have any objections?"

"I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement"

how perry como can revitalize human resources.

Struggling to think of a single figure from the punk era who wouldn't have been an HR nightmare. Strummer maybe.

Strummer would go AWOL to Europe for weeks to hide from his boss, but at least he never stuck up for his subordinates when they were being bullied incessantly in the workplace

that is a hilarious forbes article

old punker fite - https://consequenceofsound.net/2019/03/johnny-rotten-and-marky-ramone-fight/

Yes

Legit beef or staged?

what a surprise I'm on Team Everybody but John fucking Lydon

I don't think it was staged, Marky looked genuinely mad

Assume Lydon just likes to insult people, especially turning it on whilst in Johnny Rotten character and, much like a Don Rickles audience, you’re expected to play along.

Johnny Rotten really looks like a potato.

Eh...I guess you would not expect any different a result. One thing I always got that was Lydon blamed the nyc punk rock junkies for hooking Sid bad onto smack, so it was not unexpected for him to be hostile to an old nyc punk. Marky also threw some shade towards in the MC5 in that exchange too.

Marky obv. from the apolitical it's only rock 'n' roll school but Lydon is talking garbage, of course.

Before the PiL show last year there was a $50 meet n greet, I assume it was just a few minutes of personalized abuse from Lydon.

Marky is an oaf, Lydon is a clown

And oh I don’t lol why

And oh I don’t lol why

TBH kinda was hoping Marky would get up and deck Rotten that whole time

He doesn't want to risk his wig falling off

And oh I don’t lol why

― curmudgeon

Punk's not dead, I just find it difficult to care about it in 2019.

really sad to watch them argue about the things that happened between 1976-1981

john lydon is a fucking idiot these days and has been a has been for a very long time, but he can never erase the importance of his old bands.

I don't know, John always seems to be playing a character in public. I've heard tell that he's much more approachable in person. God help you if you're a clueless member of the press, though.