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Showing posts with label punk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label punk. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Punk Rock: An Oral History by John Robb
i have read about two hundred pages of this in the past week and i have to say, it's one for the fans!
you don't get a lot of second-hand analysis of what it all meant, but rather a reflective play by play account of how it all went down by those who were there.
in case you don't know who john robb is, he was in the membranes, this is about the english punk scene...
as with any oral history, my favorite part is listening to those involved track their influences. studying aesthetic lineages in punk is one of my favorite pastimes. it involves hours of research and hanging out, studying the private record collections of people who have been around longer than you, asking them questions, listening to how they discovered what means the most to them and learning how what they unearthed evolved into their own art and how it provided them with the tools to create a meaningful existence and try to change things via participation...to be more than a consumer...to realize your place in history....that history forms you ...and then to try and use that same methodology to impact future history...to use being in a band or making a fanzine as a way to create the world you want to exist in...and to recognize that this is totally possible because it has happened before and it will happen again.
there is something i miss about the pre-internet times. people used to come over and hang out because i have a lot of records and they were interested in the stories behind them. now i post anecdotes online for whoever to read, but i am less upfront in some ways, because who wants to share intimate details and acquired knowledge with faceless strangers? i used to have entire friendships based on talking about records. now it seems like people are vultures, waiting to get 'your list' so they can go home and secretly download it and wait to mention it to you again after they have read the wikipedia page!!!! like, 'hey have you heard this'...hmmmm, maybe (quickly google) then they come up with some kind of 'informed anecdote' and formulate an opinion based on being indifferent and detached...i feel like people are so dismissive these days. i hear people dismiss the sex pistols (johnny rotten, so amazing!) or subway sect (Vic fucking Godard!!) or the damned (the Captain!) or sham 69 (jimmy pursey's first sentence in this book: I Was Born Punk!!!!!) or generation x (Tony James!) or the ramones or patti smith even and i'm like, seriously get over yourself! what Do YOU LIKE? duran duran? donovan? the shirelles? i like (some of) that shit too, but it does not compare to punk! i mean, if they are young kids in groups starting their own scene then this would be a healthy rebellion, but most usually they aren't. they are just consumers who aren't in bands. or if they are in bands, they don't challenge the status quo, they uphold it. that's not punk. it's poser.
i'm not saying that pop music isn't ever transformative or meaningful...but it is punk that gives us an entry point into the culture. pop keeps us on the outside looking in, fulfilling our prescribed roles as consumers...fans. punk demands that we act and question 'the way things are'...to get out of the audience and destroy the stage! at its worst it's cacophony and aimless, ignorant rebellion. at its best a means of active resistance, a meaningful life, community, participation. you win whether it's good or bad then, innit. as a style it might be tedious, but as a method it's always fresh because it allows the dispossessed, often in the form of the kid, to intervene in the world (i.e. start a band) however they see fit at the moment they are alive.
anyhow, there are still aesthetic evolutions, but they are less linear and the chronology is sorta confusing, in that anyone can reference any tradition from any time period sorta instantly....which is really overwhelmingly exciting yet simultaneously so daunting as to make you not even care enough to try...well that is sometimes how it makes me feel. i wrote about this recently, but who cares how many mp3s you have on your hard drive if you can't even listen to them? the upside is we get these extreme trends like all the awesome screamers-influenced bands of the early 2000's. but sometimes it just comes off like pastiche or tribute bands.
and what will future oral histories have to tell us?
"I remember when that one blog said bla bla bla and then I downloaded bla bla bla and that's how it all started"
boring.
so this book is reminding me that the stories and how we tell them to each other are what it's all about....if we don't do anything except check email or listen to 'demos' on myspace and watch everything on youtube and occasionally see people we know at 'the bar' then really, what is happening?
i want to use the internet for storytelling, i try to do that, but it seems like people are looking for instant gratification rather than impact. i have a lot to say, all the time about everything...i want it to sink in. i think books are best for that kind of storytelling. but friendships can be good for that as well...
"remember that time we all drove to portland to see unwound and then the car broke down.... and someone had a gun in the back yard and the cops came.... and then your mom got pissed because we were late but she didn't know that we lied to her... and then i bought the zero's record but left it at the 3rd street house and then the frumpies wrote that single based on 'cosmetic couple'..." etc so much better than 'remember when we checked our email and then went to work and then went to the bar and then came home and checked our email again'.
i like the idea of doing stuff just so that you can have something to remember later...that has always worked for me as a motivating factor. pretend your life is a movie and you are a fictional character. that is what this book is reminding me...the difference between real life and a mediated, virtual existence. punk to me=real life living. to be alive, to be open, to care enough to fuck shit up.
oh, and that i fucking love the clash:
let fury have the hour/anger can be power...don't you know that you can use it?
WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO NOW!?!???
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
What's a haircut anyway?
Riding the bus today I noticed more (ironic?) mullets, mustaches and hippies than ever before. I miss the innocence of an 80's mohawk. I mean, it seems like more than a generation gap. While I do find these haircuts and looks in general to be insanely ugly-*ok that part is maybe part generation gap*---what freaks me out is that the kids don't seem to mean it.
Maybe they DO mean it. But how do you mean irony? This is what I call post-irony. It's a little confusing....
I have a friend who claims to hate irony (and the 80's) who swears he collects California raisins because he REALLY SINCERELY loves the California raisins. This kind of post-irony, where the ironic tactic of referencing something historically is claimed as an act of authenticity, has been going on for awhile now. I remember noticing it for the first time in the late 80s. But what does it mean to REALLY LOVE a bad bad haircut. How can you MEAN a mullet?
During the 70's/80's rise of the mullet, it was also called a saftey cut. People had this haircut so they could have both long and short hair at the same time. You could be a rocker (long hair) and still get a job (tidy short hair in front, away from your face). Hence SAFETY cut. It has a long history as a working class haircut, possibly for this reason.
When people in the 90's started bringing the mullet back ironically (see article in Grand Royale, the Beastie Boys magazine, from 93 or 94 for an early, influential spiel) I found it to be disrespectful and in poor taste. Like when people love to laugh at someone who is so behind the times or whatever. It was just kind of mean. I didn't think it was funny or "cool" to make jokes about mullets or laugh at people with them, I just found it depressing and sad.
In the past few years, the mullet has become the new mohawk. Not just worn by fashionista hipsters at discos, but dreaded bad-haircutted punx have now have them too. They have this weird combo of a safety cut and a "no hawk", which is a mullet-y mohawk that has no actual shaved parts, just some longer hair in the midddle, surrounded by shorter hair. This haircut is super trendy right now. There is a newer version of it that combines the mullet or 'bi-level' with a new wave asymmetrical hair cut. To me this looks extremely silly and the punx who wear them seem to be super into road warrior--also silly in a punksploitation type way... see also quincy punks the suburban phenomenon, not to be confused with the band quincy punx... But whatevs.
Anyhow, this haircut has been around for at least five years or so, but it just keeps getting more and more popular....as do the mustaches and the punks-turned-hippies. I can't tell the 'hipster' hippies from the hippy-hippies anymore. And then today there was this one young woman on the bus with a mullet who looked like a real 80's mom, not like a kid trying to dress like an 80's mom. I really couldn't tell if she was being ironic or not. I think she just really wants to have a mullet because she thinks it's the best haircut, not because she thinks it's funny or weird. I think she means it. I'm trying to understand this and I can't understand it. It just looks bad to me and it always will. Like she got the 80's wrong. Or maybe she doesn't even know this is an 80's look. Is that possible? Post-Irony or just bad fashion? Maybe post-post irony, where the historical reference ceases to be evoked entirely, in which case, a rose is a rose is a rose (see gertrude stein) and the thing being signified becomes the thing itself. But, a mullet is still a symbol, regardless or whether or not the kid wearing it is aware of its history.
I'm writing this at a time when I am more anti-fashion than I have been since I was teenager, but I have been thinking about this as an example of irony vs. authenticity. The poser vs. the punk. The carefully constructed and outwardly expressed authenticity of "the punk" might also be a little hard to take....but given a choice...at least everyone knows a mohawk is supposed to be rebellious. Right? What about MR T you ask? Hmmm. I'll have to think about it.
I guess I understand that someone who had never heard Marvin Gaye or Gladys Knight and the Pips before the California Raisins covered I Heard It Through the Grapevine could love them...especially if they were a little kid during that time period. I mean, I didn't properly hear Aretha Franklin or Booker T and the MGs until I saw the Blues Brothers for example. But you don't see me collecting Blues Brothers memorabilia either. No. I collect Stax/Volt singles, as it should be.
Ok ok ok. You are not what you own etc. (see Underground Ideas 2009)
But are you what you wear?
What is a haircut anyway?
I'm going to listen to Alternative TV and try and remember what punk means to me.
Maybe they DO mean it. But how do you mean irony? This is what I call post-irony. It's a little confusing....
I have a friend who claims to hate irony (and the 80's) who swears he collects California raisins because he REALLY SINCERELY loves the California raisins. This kind of post-irony, where the ironic tactic of referencing something historically is claimed as an act of authenticity, has been going on for awhile now. I remember noticing it for the first time in the late 80s. But what does it mean to REALLY LOVE a bad bad haircut. How can you MEAN a mullet?
During the 70's/80's rise of the mullet, it was also called a saftey cut. People had this haircut so they could have both long and short hair at the same time. You could be a rocker (long hair) and still get a job (tidy short hair in front, away from your face). Hence SAFETY cut. It has a long history as a working class haircut, possibly for this reason.
When people in the 90's started bringing the mullet back ironically (see article in Grand Royale, the Beastie Boys magazine, from 93 or 94 for an early, influential spiel) I found it to be disrespectful and in poor taste. Like when people love to laugh at someone who is so behind the times or whatever. It was just kind of mean. I didn't think it was funny or "cool" to make jokes about mullets or laugh at people with them, I just found it depressing and sad.
In the past few years, the mullet has become the new mohawk. Not just worn by fashionista hipsters at discos, but dreaded bad-haircutted punx have now have them too. They have this weird combo of a safety cut and a "no hawk", which is a mullet-y mohawk that has no actual shaved parts, just some longer hair in the midddle, surrounded by shorter hair. This haircut is super trendy right now. There is a newer version of it that combines the mullet or 'bi-level' with a new wave asymmetrical hair cut. To me this looks extremely silly and the punx who wear them seem to be super into road warrior--also silly in a punksploitation type way... see also quincy punks the suburban phenomenon, not to be confused with the band quincy punx... But whatevs.
Anyhow, this haircut has been around for at least five years or so, but it just keeps getting more and more popular....as do the mustaches and the punks-turned-hippies. I can't tell the 'hipster' hippies from the hippy-hippies anymore. And then today there was this one young woman on the bus with a mullet who looked like a real 80's mom, not like a kid trying to dress like an 80's mom. I really couldn't tell if she was being ironic or not. I think she just really wants to have a mullet because she thinks it's the best haircut, not because she thinks it's funny or weird. I think she means it. I'm trying to understand this and I can't understand it. It just looks bad to me and it always will. Like she got the 80's wrong. Or maybe she doesn't even know this is an 80's look. Is that possible? Post-Irony or just bad fashion? Maybe post-post irony, where the historical reference ceases to be evoked entirely, in which case, a rose is a rose is a rose (see gertrude stein) and the thing being signified becomes the thing itself. But, a mullet is still a symbol, regardless or whether or not the kid wearing it is aware of its history.
I'm writing this at a time when I am more anti-fashion than I have been since I was teenager, but I have been thinking about this as an example of irony vs. authenticity. The poser vs. the punk. The carefully constructed and outwardly expressed authenticity of "the punk" might also be a little hard to take....but given a choice...at least everyone knows a mohawk is supposed to be rebellious. Right? What about MR T you ask? Hmmm. I'll have to think about it.
I guess I understand that someone who had never heard Marvin Gaye or Gladys Knight and the Pips before the California Raisins covered I Heard It Through the Grapevine could love them...especially if they were a little kid during that time period. I mean, I didn't properly hear Aretha Franklin or Booker T and the MGs until I saw the Blues Brothers for example. But you don't see me collecting Blues Brothers memorabilia either. No. I collect Stax/Volt singles, as it should be.
Ok ok ok. You are not what you own etc. (see Underground Ideas 2009)
But are you what you wear?
What is a haircut anyway?
I'm going to listen to Alternative TV and try and remember what punk means to me.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
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