[thechat] spin magazine: punk

McCreath_David McCreath_David at xmail.asd.k12.ak.us
Tue May 15 12:18:54 CDT 2001


>Exene says "... I can't think of anything really new in music.  I'd 
>hate to be 15 right now."
>
>You think she's right?  Sounds like a crotchety old lady to me.
>
>I think what used to be called punk/new wave has evolved & branched 
>out: techno, inde... dare I say rap?

When the term "punk" was coined, it included Blondie, Talking Heads,
Television, and a passle of other bands on a pretty wide gray strip between
art rock and Ramones. "New Wave" was invented when the folks at Sire needed
a way to market Talking Heads without making people think of the Sex Pistols
who had become the face of Punk Rock.

"techno" was invented when somebody wanted to start recording disco music
again; "indie" was invented when bands who weren't necessarily "punk" but
definitely weren't mainstream wanted to market themselves beyond the
"college rock" label. "Rap" had some validity for a while, and just like
there are still real rebellious punk rock bands, there are still rebellious
rap groups. But don't ask me to look at eminem and think punk rock or
rebellion; he's a putz and a tool.

It's all words and cliques.

Okay, that said, I think the answer to your question, Erika, comes down to
how you decide to define "punk". 

Is it outsider status? (Outside what?) That covers a lot of bands.  

Is it a will to maintain outsider status? That covers fewer bands, starting
with Ani DiFranco and Fugazi. (It also extends to bands like Beat Happening
who stated repeatedly in interviews that they were a punk band.)

For myself, there are very, very few bands that have any sort of public
profile that are "punk". The things that made punk rock were not just loud,
fast music and snotty attitudes. THE thing that made punk rock what it was
in its heyday was community. To be sure, there were many other elements,
including musical experimentation. But none of them would have happened
without a genuine counter-cultural community. That community came to exist
for its own purpose. We were punks because we were part of the community, we
were part of the community because we were punks.

That's the element that I see missing from all the other music going on. We
have a highly commoditized youth culture today, and that has brought some
good things (the average kid probably listens to a broader range of music
than he or she used to), and some bad things. Along with musical
assimilation, rebellion has been commoditized.

I think that's what Exene is getting at. Yeah, there's some old fartness to
it. You can't go thrash at the Mabuhay Gardens like you used to. Rancid is
on MTV. Green Day and (God forbid) Blink 182 pass for punk rock. It ain't
the same. 

Some punks grew up and broadened their scope:

http://www.badreligion.com/researchfund/index.html

Some moved on to other things, some still cling to former glory, many died.
It's hard to center your music around rebellion now because MTV needs
something new every six months, and there are plenty of bands ready to "sell
out". That's what she means.

But I think a lot of punk can happen on the Internet. It took 20+ years for
rock 'n' roll to transmogrify from Bill Haley to Johnny Rotten, and the
coming of age of a generation that had literally grown up with it. The real
revolution on the Internet is still probably a couple of years away, and it
will be at the hands of people who were born into it.

I don't know. I'm starting to ramble a little, so I'm going to get back to
work.

David




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