are there still punks?

I think I'll leave that one for the R&B fans but I suspect a lot of purists would say yes.

"You seem to be assuming that punk rock always has to be what it was in 1977....so they can't win, right?

No, I am asserting that punk died in 1979 and that any attempt to revive it is intrinsically and by definition contrary to just about everything punk ever meant.

"Either they are "punks" that are just haplessly rehashing the sounds of 77 or they're not punks at all!"

And since "haplessly rehashing the sounds of 77" is itself intrinsically and by definition un-punk....

Very good question: the answer to which is that punk was not just a fashion or a type of music - and one of the central concepts underlying punk was a belief that reviving the past rather than moving forward and creating your own scene was an exercise in pointless necrophilia.

But for the most part, the lasting influences consist of music and a bit of fashion and DIY shows/records/zines (which really wasn't borrowed so much from UK punk) and (most of all) having fun with people of the same age and tastes. There's no yearning for the good old days or fear of 'keeping it real.'

Punk was all about recontextualizing... You are so wrong.

Regurgitating, no.

And again, they're (mostly) not concerned with being 'punk' - they do what they do and it gets called punk. Youth culture is much more organic than you're giving them credit for.

Surely it can only be a mischaracterisation if you believe there IS some continuity from Punk as it meant in 1977 to punk as it means in 2004: which is precisely the opposite standpoint from that which Milo and Eisbar are taking?

I also suspect from your spelling of mischaracterization (sic) that we’re in danger of getting into a debate about US punk vs. UK punk, which is something else again!

Yes, I'm rather afraid it is now.

http://www.tombraider4u.com/pictures/punk-kitty.gif

I wouldn't trust the Crass reviewer.

Just read this here whole thread. I'm almost 39, started listening to shit like the Necros and Dead Kennedys at about age 15 - 1982 or so. Grew up going to hardcore shows and even then people were making the same arguments as Mr. Osborne above - oh, it's different now, these kids have no idea, blah blah. Now it's twenty years later, and I own a house. We have punk shows in the basement. We book everything from local 15-year-olds to 40-something dudes like the Detonators or Iowaska (ex-Amebix).

Let me make this clear:

There is a clear and continuous line of DIY culture that can be drawn through all of this. Many of these young kids are very smart and the music they play sounds nothing like the hardcore I used to listen to. I am proud to have them within the lineage of punk music. The heaviest influences these days, paradoxically, seem to be folk music and noise. As a lifelong musical omnivore, I view this as a very positive development. And what about these kids who listen to The Ex or Fugazi? Those bands are practically first-wave punk themselves, don't the kids have a right to dig them and be inspired?

Jesus, this blathering about how punk is this or that is such crap. It's a cultural template that people impose their own ideals and dreams upon. Lester Bangs put it best... it's all about some kids who want to be fried out of their skins by the most scalding propulsion imaginable, for a night they can pretend lasts for the rest of their lives.

Over and out.

Well there is at least something admirably punk-like in the sheer brazen pig-headed obstinacy of that belief!

Please don't get me wrong: I'd like to remind you that I did actually start off right at the beginning by saying "I'm kind of ambivalent about this...." and I genuinely think it's fantastic that so much of the lineage of punk is being perpetuated in the ways that you describe (in particular, the musical eclecticism that you describe is wholly admirable - and to my mind shows a much greater correlation with that particular aspect of "Punk V1.0" than was evidenced by most of it's original successors in title at the time!) - I just very firmly believe that both the legacy of "Punk V1.0" and the present and future of "Punk VX.whatever" would be far better served if they weren't confusing matters by sharing the same name - and since we don't have the option of going back in time and changing the name of "Punk V1.0"....

(Fuck! Why couldn't I have thought of that yesterday when it might have actually been funny?)

Just read this here whole thread. I'm almost 39, started listening to shit like the Necros and Dead Kennedys at about age 15 - 1982 or so. Grew up going to hardcore shows and even then people were making the same arguments as Mr. Osborne above - oh, it's different now, these kids have no idea, blah blah. Now it's twenty years later, and I own a house. We have punk shows in the basement. We book everything from local 15-year-olds to 40-something dudes like the Detonators or Iowaska (ex-Amebix).

Let me make this clear:

There is a clear and continuous line of DIY culture that can be drawn through all of this. Many of these young kids are very smart and the music they play sounds nothing like the hardcore I used to listen to. I am proud to have them within the lineage of punk music. The heaviest influences these days, paradoxically, seem to be folk music and noise. As a lifelong musical omnivore, I view this as a very positive development. And what about these kids who listen to The Ex or Fugazi? Those bands are practically first-wave punk themselves, don't the kids have a right to dig them and be inspired?

Jesus, this blathering about how punk is this or that is such crap. It's a cultural template that people impose their own ideals and dreams upon. Lester Bangs put it best... it's all about some kids who want to be fried out of their skins by the most scalding propulsion imaginable, for a night they can pretend lasts for the rest of their lives.

Over and out.

-- sleeve (sleev...), May 5th, 2005.

otm.

so you mean minor threat, black flag, bad brains, etc. dont count as punk?

"I also suspect from your spelling of mischaracterization (sic) that we’re in danger of getting into a debate about US punk vs. UK punk, which is something else again!"

i think thats a LARGE part of the issue actually.

Speaking both as a Limey and as an old (former? ex?) punk, it seems to me that it's not just the writers but the members of those youth culture themselves.

"so you mean minor threat, black flag, bad brains, etc. dont count as punk?"

Speaking both as a Limey and as an old (former? ex?) punk, it seems to me that "Hardcore" is a much beter name for them, don't you agree?

x-post 4vr|l roxx fuk all yuo h4t4z

Oh and before anyone starts: yes, you Septics invented it - but (as has frequently been the case) you largely failed realise what you'd got or to do anything particularly useful with it until us Limey's took it, rationalised it, repackaged it, and sold it back to you!

We done here?

Not if they're swaddling themsevles in the iconography of the Punk Rock that happened two decades before their birth it isn't.

Fair enough, but lots of that stuff itself was ripped off of WWII imagery from the British military. I'm talking more about specific band names. I.E. you didn't see the Vibrators walking around with Small Faces t-shirts on.