The Conservative Impulse of Punk

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Uh....this is a contradiction...
a. the clash for one had rockabilly AND reggae influences..
b. the clash R not punk and there R no influences...
a. rockabilly AND reggae influences..
b. there R no influences...
a. influences...
b. no influences...

It's dialectical.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 27 August 2002 15:15 (twenty-one years ago) link

neither of which I am 100% convinced of, so thanks for arguing about them

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Tuesday, 27 August 2002 15:15 (twenty-one years ago) link

I guess pro-caveman attitudes can make for good art, but sometimes open the door to other caveman-like attitudes.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Tuesday, 27 August 2002 15:22 (twenty-one years ago) link

Roots reggae always had a conservative slant, at least in the way Fritz defines the C-word - "back to basics", god, family. The Clash and some others responded (I think) to the liberation theology in there - and the groove - but that spark seems to have been quite ably contained somehow. I mean the last time I was over at June Cleaver's she had Bob Marley - "Legend" in her CD stack. And "London Calling".

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 27 August 2002 15:24 (twenty-one years ago) link

to be anti-dinosaur is to also be pro-caveman.

and please note that this is based on "Alley-Oop" not real facts

Roots reggae always had a conservative slant

and hell yeah to that! I still don't understand why the emperor-worshipping back-to-the-land anti-gay anti-woman pro-Bible religious elements of reggae get such a free pass to groovytown just because they smoke pot (take out the emperor and bible and you got the MC5 too)

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Tuesday, 27 August 2002 15:29 (twenty-one years ago) link

Tracer that pic of Siouxsie doesn't tell me anything other than press photographers will always have an eye for the biggest show-offs in an audience. The look on the face of the girl behind, second left, as she catches the photographer's eye - now that's something, maybe 'punk' I don't know (I'm not a punk after all).

Lord C. - what are the differences between ska(1) and ska(2)?

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 27 August 2002 15:31 (twenty-one years ago) link

2.) It is frustrating that people talk about the punk mythos of dinosaur-slaying without acknowledging that to be anti-dinosaur is to also be pro-caveman.
HAHAHAHA. Thats either silly or profound, and I'm leaning toward profound. I guess the question is this: would your rather be a walnut-brained reptile destined to be smashed by a big asteroid or a hairy lout with a tenuous potential for true greatness (well, before the second asteroid comes and wipes out us cavemen as well.)

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Tuesday, 27 August 2002 15:33 (twenty-one years ago) link

Lord C. - what are the differences between ska(1) and ska(2)?
Ska(1) slow bass-driven dance music from jamaica in the 1950s
Ska(2) fast bass-driven dance music from portobello road in 1977-1982

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Tuesday, 27 August 2002 15:34 (twenty-one years ago) link

Thats either silly or profound, and I'm leaning toward profound.

have I got an ILE thread for you ;)

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Tuesday, 27 August 2002 15:36 (twenty-one years ago) link

Ska(1) is slow? Blimey I'd hate to try and dance to fast!

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 27 August 2002 15:39 (twenty-one years ago) link

Roots reggae always had a conservative slant, at least in the way Fritz defines the C-word - "back to basics", god, family.
Hmmmm. Yeah, but it's an exotic form of conservatism. And its funkier than Lawrence Welk or Pat Boone. Getting away from Welk/Boone is what I'm talking about.

The Clash and some others responded (I think) to the liberation theology in there - and the groove - but that spark seems to have been quite ably contained somehow.
Tragic, really. We shoulda let it all flow out of us.

I mean the last time I was over at June Cleaver's she had Bob Marley - "Legend" in her CD stack. And "London Calling".
Yeah, but YOUR June Cleaver is Rockist Scum who has the records but never listens to them. The June Cleaver I'm referring to still thinks Tony Bennett is too racy for her blood.

Fritz: have I got an ILE thread for you
Post a link, and I'll take a look.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Tuesday, 27 August 2002 15:40 (twenty-one years ago) link

Tom the look of the girl second from left is the look of someone who desperately would like to be in the shot! I posted the pic to suggest that punk is also about DEMANDING the photog's attention, hopefully when you are looking your most ridiculous - "yeah, JUDGE me motherfucker!" - which the girl in back is not (tho the amt of eyeshadow on her IS a bit ridiculous). I think the girl in the tie is k-cute.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 27 August 2002 15:55 (twenty-one years ago) link

someone should do a "secret history" book based entirely on the expressions of people in the backgrounds of snapshots of key pop cult moments

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Tuesday, 27 August 2002 16:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

http://www.tw-zone.com/cosmo/photoshop/pix/oswaldoriginal.jpg

That's Mark on the left getting rid of Custos in the middle while Fritz looks on in horror. I'm in the background with the white hat thinking "The hell?"

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 27 August 2002 16:26 (twenty-one years ago) link

Left, argh. RIGHT. Delete ILM, etc.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 27 August 2002 16:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

aw, why do i always have to be the one who looks on in horror? and ned got to wear a cooler hat than me! no fair!

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Tuesday, 27 August 2002 17:18 (twenty-one years ago) link

Your clarification/revision makes a lot more sense to me than your initial post Fritz, I pretty much agree. I do think you're confusing "musically direct" with "musically conservative" though. The bands you cite may have been inspired by the catchy/cathartic/fun elements of "rock and roll" but it's not like they were treating 50s rock as a "traditional" music...like some sort of purist folk revivalists. A rocker might listen to the B-52's and hear "Cool, back to basics ? and The Mysterians rock-and-roll!" but John Lennon heard them and thought "Cool, sounds like Yoko!"

What you're talking about definitely applies to many punk subgenres, but I think the "alt-country" movement might be a better example of "musical conservatism."

― Clyde, Tuesday, 27 August 2002 17:37 (twenty-one years ago) link

Ska(1) is slow? Blimey I'd hate to try and dance to fast!
Ummm. I think I might've confused myself. I will now correct myself: Ska is mid-paced, Rocksteady is slow.
Blimey I'd hate to try and dance to fast!
Dance any speed you like, its a free country.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Tuesday, 27 August 2002 20:10 (twenty-one years ago) link

That's Mark on the left getting rid of Custos in the middle while Fritz looks on in horror. I'm in the background with the white hat thinking "The hell?"
Always hated that picture...they never show the one where I'm in the sharp zoot suit and the ducktail standing on a big pile on money, they only show the one where that tittie bar owner is trying to kill me. That makes me mad.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Tuesday, 27 August 2002 20:13 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yes LC but I understand the difference between Ska(1) and Rocksteady - I asked the difference between Ska(1) and Ska(2) - so is there a musical difference?

Tracer I don't agree - the look is more negative than just jealousy. I read it as a bit of jealousy, a bit of fear, a bit of disappointment. I think punk - like most 'scenes' - must have been a crushing disappointment for a lot of scared or shy kids who wanted a place where they could 'fit in' and 'be themselves' and discovered that it *was* themselves who made them unable to fit in, not the square straight world (or whatever).

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 08:26 (twenty-one years ago) link

mark s bewhiskered trope #1: who is nevah betrayed nevah grows up

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 08:42 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yes LC but I understand the difference between Ska(1) and Rocksteady - I asked the difference between Ska(1) and Ska(2) - so is there a musical difference?
Hmmmm. Well, yeah. Ska(1) is dreamier and more...I dunno...soulful? Its a cliche, but its also true. But what it really boils down to subtle differences in the singer and the brass section.
Ska(1) == A real Jamaican accent and a slightly Cajan/New Orleans tinge to the brass section. Like a proto-funky Glenn Miller.
Ska(2) == A fake british accent and a more frantic/abrupt brass section. And although I haven't checked it out with a metronome, Ska(2) sounds like it uses faster tempos. Obviously the music of white punks you like Reggae...in theory...but who finds the vaguely hippee-like vibe of Rastafarianism to be off-putting.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 12:10 (twenty-one years ago) link

that photo obv = the great punX0r Rorschach test!! Fritz's formulation is clear and sensible enough to stand up to almost everything said here so far so I perversely wanted to complicate it - it's TOO lucid for punk. I think Clyde is OTM - it works better for other things. DC hardcore and straightedge. and emo!! (at least fashion-wise) All of whom were working with a, ahem, legacy of punk so punk doesn't entirely evade the charges. The image of punk that I like is people who, from the vantage point of the crowd, had the attitude first and all the musical underpinnings second - is this too simple? - all the high-school band teachers told their students "get legit first - THEN you can wail" and the punks reversed this. JUDGE us = throw us into the charts like all the other Christian swine, even though we're wailing far before we're legit. Overcoming expectations: it's crude, we look weird, you are laughing us off: prepare to get rocked. the fantasy of EVERY disappointed misfit kid, from Dylan Klebold to the Second-From-Left girl you're imagining. (the difference between a school shooting, the Sex Pistols, and a betrayed fan = ::::::::::: ??) I am still avoiding the question I know.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 15:54 (twenty-one years ago) link

I guess it depends whether the fantasy of EVERY disappointed misfit kid, from Dylan Klebold to the Second-From-Left girl is a)"I will have the last laugh on these fools" or b)"I will restore order because things are all terribly wrong" and maybe sometimes a) rises from an initial yearning for b), and that's what I was trying to get at with this thread. (but i will change my mind in 10 minutes anyway)

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 16:15 (twenty-one years ago) link

just thinking that the creative impulse might be intertwined with a retrogressive one, I guess.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 16:22 (twenty-one years ago) link

i've used it before, but here's a semi-lame analogy: Punk as Pol Pot. We're going to build a great new society by going back to the traditional ways, but first we have to get rid of all this technology and book-learnin'.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 16:24 (twenty-one years ago) link

"i've used it before, but here's a semi-lame analogy: Punk as Pol Pot."
In that case, what would be the equivalent of "Holiday In Cambodia"? And would the epic post-solo chorus go "Roll...ins... Roll... ins... ROLLINS ROLLINS ROLLINS ROLLINS"

― Nate Patrin, Wednesday, 28 August 2002 16:44 (twenty-one years ago) link

Vaguely remembered from a Hankypoo interview: "Yeah, you go ahead and sing songs about smacking bitches or whatever. I'll be sitting over here waiting for music to be real again."

― Nate Patrin, Wednesday, 28 August 2002 16:45 (twenty-one years ago) link

Jello Biafra also put down techno in (I think) the Onion's AV Club because it made people want to dance mindlessly instead of prepare for cultural revolution and billboard defacement and vandalizing McDonald's and participating in Critical Mass or whatever. OH NO

― Nate Patrin, Wednesday, 28 August 2002 16:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

"i will restore wrongs because these laughs are all terribly ordered"

techno has resulted in more lame "culture-jamming" than any DK albums ever!!

― Tracer hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 17:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

Tracer your view of punk is a bit too "there's no such word as can't" for me. Or "Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway"!

I'm reminded of the Venn Diagram Mark S reprints in his 'Concrete' essay - here are the punks and here are the non-punks and here are the people who don't fit into either. The reading is that those people are sympathetic but I think they can be sympathetic and also frightened and miserable and disappointed.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 21:46 (twenty-one years ago) link

hey i just got in touch with colette (of venn diagram fame)!! she is a grown-up with a propah job!!

i suppose this is hardly earth-shaking news but it just goes to show: when is jello biafra going to get a propah job, eh? (i haf still not forgiven him for "too drunk to fuck", i paid GOOD MONEY FOR THAT you laYMoR)

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 22:01 (twenty-one years ago) link

Well I like the DKs. I just think Jello's views on not-punk music, when not pertaining to the censorship thereof, are kind of weird. Like dig when they came out with "Triumph of the Swill" on Bedtime For Democracy they mocked hair-metal pretty severely, but then Dee Snider gets called into the PMRC trials and all of a sudden Biafra has to side with him as an anti-censorship crusader or something. Weird how that happens.

― Nate Patrin, Wednesday, 28 August 2002 22:33 (twenty-one years ago) link

Well, I think Biafra will happily ally himself with anyone who is anti-censorship...but that doesn't mean he has to like their music.
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" as the Moslems are fond of saying.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 23:08 (twenty-one years ago) link

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3237g/images/hanginthere_punks.gif

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 29 August 2002 12:40 (twenty-one years ago) link

that would be a wicked t-shirt!

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 29 August 2002 12:48 (twenty-one years ago) link

anybody else have nekkid siouxsie pix to post?

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Thursday, 29 August 2002 16:38 (twenty-one years ago) link

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