For the past few months, in fact pretty much since I woke up paralyzed and had to be taken to SF general emergency room/hobo camp for thee uninsured, I have descended into a general doom clad malaise. Which coincidentally coincided with a total obsession with Brian Wilson, particularly the unreleased SMILE sessions. Generally I have a million ideas and action plans for every moment of leisure, you know, maybe something along the lines of an owl scouting trip with Gabe, or a bike ride round the docks, or anything mass-food-consumption related. Or bonfires on the beach for the birthday of the dreamy ERIN YANKE for which the SF weather totally cleared up, only one person puked in the sand and there was a Germs burn around the moon… Plus I taught some frat girls about the magic of making fire. The past few months have been spent holed up in my room watching documentaries about uh Brian Wilson and the making of Smile or obsessing about more general Beach Boys psychotica, like when Dennis Wilson pissed in Mike Love’s transcendental meditation tent. This is clearly NOT PUNK so I am not sure why I am writing about it in the pages of this hallowed and most punk tome. I mean seriously my world used to be more like a Minutemen song, awkward, fast political and joyous, rather than like a solemn but creepy song about a girl who cut her hair, i.e. Caroline No! but I digress. I am slowly easing back into civilian life because I can assure you that the past few months have not been spent composing teenage symphonies to god, (uh sorry, another BRIAN WILSON reference) but slouched vacantly in my room, sullen malcontent style. My gloom incongruously collided with the arrival of spring which then merged into summer and I had this idea that I was going to destroy said gloom by going with the infamous LADYHAWK to some pagan ritual on a beach somewhere on Midsummer’s eve, but that didn’t happen so my hippy mom garb didn’t get cleansed by the goddess or anything and the mood sticks on.
I may not have been inclined to ride bikes or play guitars or anything as of recent times, but there have been a few total KICKS AFFIRMATIVE/ ACTION! TIME! VISION! moments of transcendence that hopefully bode well for PRODUCTIVE SUMMER 06 which I named but have done nothing to make happen since. Anyways, here are the jams and the dreamy times.
1-Tobi wrote this and will probably be bummed I put it in here, but whatevs. It was written in response to me bitching about Flipper not only reuniting but also playing the Haight Street Fair. In mathematical terms: Flipper 2006 version+Hippies=HELL NO.
“Flipper not hippies! punk noise poet....also, how can you be washed up if your band is dystopia incarnate...the Armageddon i.e. now would be a perfect time for them to play, especially if they become more grotesque with age! flipper=the trickster anecdote to hardcore, which covered the world in a venomous teenage boy goo like privilege that stuck to everything and made us stupid...flipper would be the heroic uber villains, yelling absurdist truths over distorted noise that could hardly be call music. and the slow drums swing in a way that made them somehow disco! I love flipper! hippies are ok by me as long as they are anti-consumer and pro co-op, but flipper were not hippies. In the hardcore lexicon of my youth, hippy=fag, which is what a jock surfer who liked black flag and Marshall Stacks would call flipper. I beg to differ!”
I think she thought I meant Flipper were hippies, which is not a delusion I am under in any way, but I AM AGAINST OLD RAD BANDS RE-EXISTING AND SULLYING MY IDEA OF THEM! I mean I understand that growing old gracefully is hard for punx; most disappear or become vile caricatures of their former selves. I totally can relate to and understand the idea of wanting to recapture the feeling of freedom and kicks that youth and punk give when combined, but I think it’s better to figure out new and different ways of getting that than becoming the reconstituted meat products that most reformed bands ultimately are. Anyway Tobi is one of my favorite writers of ever and that missive totally made the world a different color to me for a second in the best way.
2-Mika Miko and the re-emergence of teenage girl destruction! I know Mika Miko are no longer teenagers, but they were when they started, and one of the raddest things about seeing them play over the years has been the amount of other bands that are now in existence formed by teenaged girls totally inspired by their idea of sound. It makes me think of how girl bands in the late 70s/early 80s from Kleenex in Switzerland, to the Ama-dots in Ohio heard the Slits and reclaimed punk for themselves. Anyway the band that inspired this adulation is Finally Punk from Austin TX, who are like fireworks going off from some kid’s bedroom window for real. Mika Miko have this Circle Jerks meets Kleenex sound, total ferocious and exciting but also fucked up and art damaged, whereas Finally Punk are more distinctly in the ‘art’ section I guess? Live, they totally destroy; they trade instruments and are simultaneously fun and aggressive like I guess I imagine old 82 era hardcore was, but without the macho kill or be killed idea. They sound smart and dumb, goofy but sure… I don’t know, musically the CDR reminded me of the Scissor Girls or Meltdown, but somehow live they also have the energy of a teenage basement hardcore band, it’s not sensitive artiste experimentalism, but a rampage on your senses. Like you have to dance or you’ll perish. Maybe also because I saw them play at an eviction party in Oakland, there was this feeling of the transcendent possibilities of punk music and destruction! They played with the also great Kiosk from Australia (also teenagers??) who play somehow stripped down elemental classic rock which is also mythology depleting in a Lydia Lunch-ish way maybe? Like Death Valley 69 but disgusted rather than ironic. Cool girl singer and guitarist and rad tunings too… Of course they all have a myspace page which I would guess is probably www.myspace.com/finallypunk or for kiosk www.myspace.com/kiosk but you should see them play live, and I think you probably can because they collectively are on a two month tour of the US. (Summer Break forever!)
3-Look Back and Laugh Live Tonite! I always felt like LBAL were a Bay Area secret, because they make so much more sense live than they do on record, and so few people outside of this area had seen them play until this summer. I was in full on grouch mode and did not want to go to the show but the force that is Golnar rode her bike to my house and MADE ME GO using mind tricks honed in the babe den or something. I have seen pictorial evidence of the aforementioned co-ordinator in full on bro mosh mode as a result of the fury and power that is Look Back and Laugh, and I was ready and waiting to see the re-match. In short, if Golnar was going to get crucial I wanted to be there. Plus I might have mentioned that Look Back and Laugh are my favourite local band. It was a rare show where pretty much every band was in the raging shredder category, and despite the fact that I did not see the cruciality emanating from the pores of Golnar LBAL totally made up for it by demonstrating why they are the best and uh, most crucial. I have said it before but I will restate it here Tobia is up there with fuckin John Brannon in my book in terms of front-person intensity... and the band as a whole is just fucking phenomenal and the summer 06 roadie said it was probably one of the best shows of tour, and I didn’t even see any of the other tour shows and I totally agree with him. Dude. Get the new 7” that just came out on derranged and get with the program if you haven’t already. Seeing them play is like watching buildings crumble! Seriously dudes, just totally fierce and righteous and timeless. The below is from an email I wrote before the show trying to convince people to get with the program and get in the pit yo:
I have not yet been to the show (tonight at BALAZO!) and it’s ALREADY in my reinvigorating-the-zombie-that-is-me list. LBAL are not to be denied. Total power and fury. I am hoping for the re-emergence of Mosh-Gnar, no half arsed fist pumps along with the chorus, Golnar must bring the mosh gnars!
ANYWAY here is a top ten:
1-Fucked Up is going to come back on the MRR radio show for a rematch 2-Scott Moore singing on my voice mail and the fact that most of Limp Wrist will be in town for the Fucked Up shows. Good times ahead. 3-Peligro Social! Get the record fools. If you like classic Spanish punk, like RIP combined with the energy and assault of black dot era Bad Brains get the record or see them play for sure. 4-Martin’s homemade Criminal Damage denim vest 5-Paco’s radio show (South American Punk, you can still listen to it at the mrr radio website!) 6-Francoise Hardy and Jacques Dutronc duets from the late 60s 7-the Mika Miko full length get it or regret it 8-the Oh Okay 7”, great early 80s lady fronted Athens GA art punk 9-firework night in the Mission, total insanity 10-pizza!
write me if you want c/o mrr.
Friday, August 24, 2007
first
Well, here is my first non guest column for MRR. I guess should write about my highly mystical entry into the mysterious world that is punk rock, but uh, I kind of don’t feel like it? It seems like it’s the hazing ritual for all new columnists here however. I understand the purpose of it, as some kind of introduction to random new columnist’s weird quirks and drunken teenage car park puke- it-up-stories but instead I have decided to write about random things I like about living in San Francisco? Or maybe just random things I like? What about if I just insert a sarcastic comment about the life changing effect Jimmy Pursey had on my life? That would probably be enough right. Or maybe something about walking along the Brighton seafront with Jon from Huggy Bear, in the late 90s of course talking about Jimmy Pursey modeling for Comme Des Garcons, that fashion label. The main thing I am going to use this column for, apart from increasing my street-team-style attempts at getting Golnar an all girl Scandi-beat army (If you want to sign up, are female, AND like Scandinavian hardcore particularly the sounds that emanate from Finland, contact me or Floyd ASAP) …is to outline the rad and inspiring things that are, uh, rad and inspire me? An extended and endless top ten with epic descriptions of the pain and suffering that elevated said things to the ‘rad and inspiring’ heights that they have reached. How am I writing a column about writing a column? So lame. I totally feel like a kid with a paper due though. AT ANY RATE.
One of my favorite musical genres is teenage bedroom/basement music. I interviewed Craig from God is my Co-pilot many years ago, and he was talking about how as a kid in the 70s he had first heard about punk via the written word, ie he read about it before he actually heard any music. When he finally heard the Sex Pistols he was super disappointed because he was expecting something that would shatter music forever, and it was basically just destroyed 50s rocknroll... I guess nowadays in the land of post ironic dudes in flares and douchebag 70s jockrock mustaches who just wanna play bar-rawk’n’roll maaaan the idea of destroying rocknroll is very pleasing to me, and I kind of wish the Sex Pistols had been more sucessful in that regard. I am super sick of gross gentlemen who resemble the jock assholes in Dazed and Confused populating the streets of my town in perpetuality; why do retro hipster people have to dress like the jock jerkoffs and secretary bitches of the past? So weird... but anyway my point was that I like the music that people made in the 70s and early 80s where when you listen to it you get this feeling that they were blown away by the notion of punk, just the idea of total freedom from the rocknroll canon. Obviously a lot of the initial fire and idea of punk came from the rediscovery of the trashed out sounds of 60s garage bands, so most of the intial wave had that as their aesthetic... hence the aforementioned destroyed rocknroll feel. But what I love is the totally insane almost terrifying music, made by the people who would never have played music if the music scene had continued to be dominated by mustached arsewipes in tight pants who wailed their cocaine demons out on their $10,000 guitars or made bassface as they thumped out another 50 year long slap bass solo. Punk was for the people, to paraphrase Patti Smith, the girls and the geeks, the queers and the maladjusted, true outsider music. I like also listening to bands that think they are making ‘normal’ rocknroll but are actually clearly operating using quite different brain chemistry and are quite unable to do ‘normal’ anything at least musically. Below I have detailed a few of my jams, I am not a masterful record nerd and I am sure I have some of the details wrong in regards to some of these records and bands, but I wanted to write about them anyway in my bogus introduction column... because fuck record nerds. Total shitsystem. Right now and always I am consumed by teenage bedroom/basement music. Music that is cohesive in it’s totality, that creates new worlds and that’s exclusive and inclusive too somehow. Like this band made these sounds and you could never do it the way they did but you could definitely do something. And you should.
UNIT 3 were a synth-punk band from LA, featuring their 8 year old daughter Venus on vocals, the UNIT 3+ VENUS 7” ‘Beer’ is perhaps one of creepiest/most awesome 7”s ever. The music kind of reminds me of the SCREAMERS, old synths played to death, with an 8 year old girl intonating over and over “Beer isn’t good for you, I don’t like beer” on the A side and, “Blue is my color...’ on the B side, and somehow making it sound like she’s singing about your future doom. It’s way more disturbing that anything Slayer or any of those Norweigian prison death bands combined have put to tape. Their ‘brother’ band was MAD SOCIETY, which featured an 11 year old boy on vocals, they also have an amazing 7” you should seek out. It’s more straight ahead So Cal punk, but the vocals are fucking terrifying and insane, almost too much to take but fucking great. I met shitworker Shane White because he overheard me talking about UNIT 3 + VENUS and couldn’t believe I had heard of them, he used to go see them all the time apparently... I think they ‘happened’ after the initial LA punk explosion, maybe more in the hardcore bonehead era? Which I think is cool because the way all the art punk people from that first generation of LA punks talk about that later era is as if it was just a million Shawn Sterns beating the shit out of each other, and the idea that this crazy 8 year old girl fronted music existed in tandem with TSOL is fuckin rad.
I can remember the first time I heard the Void side of the Faith/Void split clearly, thinking that it was pretty much the best record ever at the same time as trying to figure out how they sounded so amazing whilst falling apart. I think that is pretty much my favorite kind of hardcore, not many can do it, probably only the Neos 7”s come close... What is it that separates VOID from all the shitty bands that can’t play that have made unlistenable records? I mean Bubba Dupree is pretty much the best name ever in general, and the first two and last two songs on that split are just untouchable. Perfect suburban basement music, rage and frustration that makes no sense and is ridiculous and awesome at the same time. If you know about any other bands in this genre that are not bogus seriously send me tapes! My friend Brett made me a tape of the two RUTTO 7”s, an old Finnish lady fronted punk band who kind of remind me of VOID in some of the above mentioned ways. He called them the Finnish FRUMPIES, I guess because of the screamed out girl vocals, but I think they are more hardcore sounding, the music collapses in on itself, the singer is furious and doesn’t care at the same time. I would totally skate to this.
What else? Well obviously there’s the RAINCOATS the ultimate secret bedroom band, I am sure you have at least herad the first LP?? Total instinctive music that sounds like it had to exist or the band members would surely have expired. Hopefully there will be a feature on the Raincoats/Rough Trade scene in these pages in the next few months. My mum met Gina Birch at a memorial show for our friend Andy who was killed in a bike accident, she remembered her bc my teenage band played the first RAINCOATS reunion show, at any rate the point of that anecdote is that the RAINCOATS are all still best friends, (except for Palmolive who is a crazy Christian,) but how rad is that? I mean the music sounds like it was made by a secret society of girls, and to know that over twenty years later that same secret society still totally hang out together? That makes me psyched to grow old and stay punk. Obviously the Slits peel session and demo totally fall in this category too, I am kind of ambiguous about their reunion, who knows why? They have the daughter of one of the singers from Rip Rig and Panic doing backups, which is kind of cool... That era of music always makes me nostalgic for my childhood, the early 80s in West London were an amazing time to be alive. Or maybe just shorten that to ‘growing up in West London was the best.’ Chasing reggae soundsystems with my friends, skating at all the random 70s bowls, discovering the Rough Trade record shop, the random mix of British working class and Jamaican and Portuguese culture... Before Maggie Thatcher wiped out the dole and attempted to wipe out working class culture entirely and make England a land of upwardly mobile opportunists and speedily sinking desperation on the faces of those who were unable to ‘pull themselves up by their bootstraps’ or whatever...
I kind of get the same sense living in San Francisco, where there are weird old bohemian types who have lived in the same apartment for like 40 years surrounded by an archeology project in the works of books and records... Except I feel like that culture is getting wiped out by straight upfree market yuppie doom merchants. I read this rad interview with PINK SECTION, an old SF punk band from the late 70s that you should totally check out if you like lady fronted punk, where the singer talked about living in an apartment in the North Beach and only having to work one day a month. Can you even imagine?
I guess I meant to write about all the music that has shaped me as a human, and am not sure if I have done that successfully here. I mean I missed out HUGGY BEAR who totally changed my life, Plus there’s the English DIY culture side of teenage bedroom music, bands like the DESPERATE BICYCLES and the HOMOSEXUALS that you can probably check out on those MESSTHETICS comps that Hyped 2Death put out.
Anyway here is an eternal/right now only top ten of falling apart but world creating music:
1-Kraut/Matinee 2- Kikeiji/plastic love 3-Huggy Bear/Rubbing thee Impossible to Burst 7” 4-Void/Faith split 5-Frumpies/ all 7”s 6-Raincoats first LP 7-bedboys/L'Indifferenza Uccide 7” 8-RUTTO 7”s 9- Rappresaglia/Attack 10-Mika Miko demo tape.
Other things I am into right now include: 1-underground cave formations, 2-walking thru Golden Gate Park in the fog to the windiest shittiest but raddest beach, like walking onto the set of a 70s dinosaur sci-fi movie 3-pizza, 4-anne briggs,5- productive summer 06 6-the Townes Van Zandt documentary Be Here to Love Me 7-W.A.S.T.E.D (we all skate til everyone dies= skate summer 06!) 8-Irma Thomas 9-the Eccentric Soul comp 10-Dr Alimantado Best Dressed Chicken In Town LP
Write me c/o the MRR mailing address.
One of my favorite musical genres is teenage bedroom/basement music. I interviewed Craig from God is my Co-pilot many years ago, and he was talking about how as a kid in the 70s he had first heard about punk via the written word, ie he read about it before he actually heard any music. When he finally heard the Sex Pistols he was super disappointed because he was expecting something that would shatter music forever, and it was basically just destroyed 50s rocknroll... I guess nowadays in the land of post ironic dudes in flares and douchebag 70s jockrock mustaches who just wanna play bar-rawk’n’roll maaaan the idea of destroying rocknroll is very pleasing to me, and I kind of wish the Sex Pistols had been more sucessful in that regard. I am super sick of gross gentlemen who resemble the jock assholes in Dazed and Confused populating the streets of my town in perpetuality; why do retro hipster people have to dress like the jock jerkoffs and secretary bitches of the past? So weird... but anyway my point was that I like the music that people made in the 70s and early 80s where when you listen to it you get this feeling that they were blown away by the notion of punk, just the idea of total freedom from the rocknroll canon. Obviously a lot of the initial fire and idea of punk came from the rediscovery of the trashed out sounds of 60s garage bands, so most of the intial wave had that as their aesthetic... hence the aforementioned destroyed rocknroll feel. But what I love is the totally insane almost terrifying music, made by the people who would never have played music if the music scene had continued to be dominated by mustached arsewipes in tight pants who wailed their cocaine demons out on their $10,000 guitars or made bassface as they thumped out another 50 year long slap bass solo. Punk was for the people, to paraphrase Patti Smith, the girls and the geeks, the queers and the maladjusted, true outsider music. I like also listening to bands that think they are making ‘normal’ rocknroll but are actually clearly operating using quite different brain chemistry and are quite unable to do ‘normal’ anything at least musically. Below I have detailed a few of my jams, I am not a masterful record nerd and I am sure I have some of the details wrong in regards to some of these records and bands, but I wanted to write about them anyway in my bogus introduction column... because fuck record nerds. Total shitsystem. Right now and always I am consumed by teenage bedroom/basement music. Music that is cohesive in it’s totality, that creates new worlds and that’s exclusive and inclusive too somehow. Like this band made these sounds and you could never do it the way they did but you could definitely do something. And you should.
UNIT 3 were a synth-punk band from LA, featuring their 8 year old daughter Venus on vocals, the UNIT 3+ VENUS 7” ‘Beer’ is perhaps one of creepiest/most awesome 7”s ever. The music kind of reminds me of the SCREAMERS, old synths played to death, with an 8 year old girl intonating over and over “Beer isn’t good for you, I don’t like beer” on the A side and, “Blue is my color...’ on the B side, and somehow making it sound like she’s singing about your future doom. It’s way more disturbing that anything Slayer or any of those Norweigian prison death bands combined have put to tape. Their ‘brother’ band was MAD SOCIETY, which featured an 11 year old boy on vocals, they also have an amazing 7” you should seek out. It’s more straight ahead So Cal punk, but the vocals are fucking terrifying and insane, almost too much to take but fucking great. I met shitworker Shane White because he overheard me talking about UNIT 3 + VENUS and couldn’t believe I had heard of them, he used to go see them all the time apparently... I think they ‘happened’ after the initial LA punk explosion, maybe more in the hardcore bonehead era? Which I think is cool because the way all the art punk people from that first generation of LA punks talk about that later era is as if it was just a million Shawn Sterns beating the shit out of each other, and the idea that this crazy 8 year old girl fronted music existed in tandem with TSOL is fuckin rad.
I can remember the first time I heard the Void side of the Faith/Void split clearly, thinking that it was pretty much the best record ever at the same time as trying to figure out how they sounded so amazing whilst falling apart. I think that is pretty much my favorite kind of hardcore, not many can do it, probably only the Neos 7”s come close... What is it that separates VOID from all the shitty bands that can’t play that have made unlistenable records? I mean Bubba Dupree is pretty much the best name ever in general, and the first two and last two songs on that split are just untouchable. Perfect suburban basement music, rage and frustration that makes no sense and is ridiculous and awesome at the same time. If you know about any other bands in this genre that are not bogus seriously send me tapes! My friend Brett made me a tape of the two RUTTO 7”s, an old Finnish lady fronted punk band who kind of remind me of VOID in some of the above mentioned ways. He called them the Finnish FRUMPIES, I guess because of the screamed out girl vocals, but I think they are more hardcore sounding, the music collapses in on itself, the singer is furious and doesn’t care at the same time. I would totally skate to this.
What else? Well obviously there’s the RAINCOATS the ultimate secret bedroom band, I am sure you have at least herad the first LP?? Total instinctive music that sounds like it had to exist or the band members would surely have expired. Hopefully there will be a feature on the Raincoats/Rough Trade scene in these pages in the next few months. My mum met Gina Birch at a memorial show for our friend Andy who was killed in a bike accident, she remembered her bc my teenage band played the first RAINCOATS reunion show, at any rate the point of that anecdote is that the RAINCOATS are all still best friends, (except for Palmolive who is a crazy Christian,) but how rad is that? I mean the music sounds like it was made by a secret society of girls, and to know that over twenty years later that same secret society still totally hang out together? That makes me psyched to grow old and stay punk. Obviously the Slits peel session and demo totally fall in this category too, I am kind of ambiguous about their reunion, who knows why? They have the daughter of one of the singers from Rip Rig and Panic doing backups, which is kind of cool... That era of music always makes me nostalgic for my childhood, the early 80s in West London were an amazing time to be alive. Or maybe just shorten that to ‘growing up in West London was the best.’ Chasing reggae soundsystems with my friends, skating at all the random 70s bowls, discovering the Rough Trade record shop, the random mix of British working class and Jamaican and Portuguese culture... Before Maggie Thatcher wiped out the dole and attempted to wipe out working class culture entirely and make England a land of upwardly mobile opportunists and speedily sinking desperation on the faces of those who were unable to ‘pull themselves up by their bootstraps’ or whatever...
I kind of get the same sense living in San Francisco, where there are weird old bohemian types who have lived in the same apartment for like 40 years surrounded by an archeology project in the works of books and records... Except I feel like that culture is getting wiped out by straight upfree market yuppie doom merchants. I read this rad interview with PINK SECTION, an old SF punk band from the late 70s that you should totally check out if you like lady fronted punk, where the singer talked about living in an apartment in the North Beach and only having to work one day a month. Can you even imagine?
I guess I meant to write about all the music that has shaped me as a human, and am not sure if I have done that successfully here. I mean I missed out HUGGY BEAR who totally changed my life, Plus there’s the English DIY culture side of teenage bedroom music, bands like the DESPERATE BICYCLES and the HOMOSEXUALS that you can probably check out on those MESSTHETICS comps that Hyped 2Death put out.
Anyway here is an eternal/right now only top ten of falling apart but world creating music:
1-Kraut/Matinee 2- Kikeiji/plastic love 3-Huggy Bear/Rubbing thee Impossible to Burst 7” 4-Void/Faith split 5-Frumpies/ all 7”s 6-Raincoats first LP 7-bedboys/L'Indifferenza Uccide 7” 8-RUTTO 7”s 9- Rappresaglia/Attack 10-Mika Miko demo tape.
Other things I am into right now include: 1-underground cave formations, 2-walking thru Golden Gate Park in the fog to the windiest shittiest but raddest beach, like walking onto the set of a 70s dinosaur sci-fi movie 3-pizza, 4-anne briggs,5- productive summer 06 6-the Townes Van Zandt documentary Be Here to Love Me 7-W.A.S.T.E.D (we all skate til everyone dies= skate summer 06!) 8-Irma Thomas 9-the Eccentric Soul comp 10-Dr Alimantado Best Dressed Chicken In Town LP
Write me c/o the MRR mailing address.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
guest column
I wanted to write something about feminism and politics in punk, this is written in some vague attempt to start a ‘dialogue’ on something that is really important to me. I keep feeling like I have to insert some kind of disclaimer here, I am sort of uncomfortable writing in this forum just bc it feels so permanent, like MRR is the canon of punk rock and these words are now set in stone. Fuck it right… this is more of a collection of random thoughts on said subjects, not a cohesive and conclusive dissertation on feminism in punk today. Anyway! Please respond.
As of recent times my friends have been subjected to epic conversations about the transition from End Racism longsleeves and long instructional song intros about the plight of the downtrodden to messageboard cynicism and ironic dismissiveness in regards to anything that might implicate someone in the crime of giving a shit. It feels like the political culture in punk has gone from the 90s faux sincere personal is political feminist 4 fux to a general feeling of “Hey we’ve achieved feminism now, let’s talk about lipcream flexis!” Everything seems really static and codified. I don’t mean that somehow in thee olden days everyone had a deep understanding of feminist issues and it was like a constant giant group hug at all times in safe spaces across america, maybe more like there seemed to be a willingness to confront uncomfortable issues. And I don’t mean that those confrontations were always fruitful or beneficial, but at least people had to at least pretend they gave a shit somehow… It just feels like things have shifted towards the comfort of apathy, anything that makes anyone feel uncomfortable is ridiculed and dismissed.
The random instance that inspired all of this profound insight is actually one of the most irritating things about about being an active woman in the punk scene. When you are talking to someone at a show say and they don’t bother to introduce you to their friends or maybe they don’t acknowledge what you do. For example a dude will be given a title and background info upon introduction; ‘This is Scott Weed of Douche and the Fuckin Bags” Whereas generally women’s work in the scene is not acknowledged as being part of their punk identity. It seems really superficial perhaps, but when experienced on a constant basis it can make everything you do seem like meaningless background busywork.
Another random point is that I feel like a lot of cool punk girls have jumped ship for the comforts of indie rock/noise/whatever… and why is that? I think underground culture is way more fragmentary and separated out than it was before, and a lot of people (girls/women) see punk/hardcore as a monolithic outdated form, rather than an idea they can own and use for their own purposes. I got into punk thru riot grrrl, via Huggy Bear in London where I grew up. Riot grrrl was clearly contextualized within the punk movement, it was intially at least a spark of DIY spirit in a staid and boring scene. There was a distinct sense of taking things back, and of invigorating a staid and reactionary dude scene with ideas and sounds and words that genuinely freaked people out at least intially… before everything got codified and the rule book was written out and the sense of freedom and adventure dissipated in a flood of press attention and the dogmaticcs of expensive private school liberal artpeak. My question in regards to the after effects of that would be; How did feminism become knowing how to knit yr boyfriend a skull and crossbones scarf? I get so bored and depressed looking at magazines like Bust and Venus. Mainstream indie rock culture magazines, which obviously have their roots in riot grrl but seem to ultimately be about being a crafty entrepreneur and encouraging an alternative girl-culture based on consumption rather than liberation through ideas and sound. It’s so frustrating how pedestrian and mundane feminist culture is right now in that sense. Emulating a crafty mom from a midwestern suburb in the 70s isn’t why I got into punk. I understand the notion of DIY and making your own things and how that could be perceived as an empowering buy-nothing stance but I don’t feel like that is really what’s at work. What do you think?
My last point is a little all over the place but here goes… I know that the internet has revolutionized punk in many good and decent ways, for instance I love the fact that I can now find out in about 5 seconds all I ever needed to know about The Proletariat, seriously I used to have to weasel info from random reluctant to share dudes about that kind of thing in the pre information age, when I discovered that early 80s hardcore was in fact my favourite kind of music. Anyway I digress… does that same instant avalability of info also makes it way easier to not really be into things in the same way that you are when you have to struggle to figure things out on your own via random mix tapes and random pen pal contact? Does it create a mass consumer culture where people greedily consume and regurgitate without thought? Where information about obscure bands formed in Nordic squats in the early 80s becomes almost like currency? Does that make sense… probably not. I have this image in my head of a pac man like game where people are just consuming information hungrily and without pause, just gorging to own and feel important.
I think the internet also re-inforces the idea of punk as a lifestyle choice/consumer phenomenon rather than a spirit, that sounds corny but I can’t think of another way of explaining it really… I can’t imagine a day when I will not call myself a punk, to me punk isn’t so much about bulletbelts and amebix buttpatches but it’s an idea of opposition and freedom. Punk is obviously an aesthetic culture, messing with appearance is one of the fun things about punk and being a punk, but when things become so codified and punk stops being an idea of opposition and becomes a pose with a set collection of visual identifiers then how is it a revolutionary concept? There’s nothing punk about blindly simulating the past, being a total replicant. I like have this cool picture of VOID where they look like diseased preppies, their clothes aren’t particularly ‘punk’ but they just look wrong, out of place, like a question mark. Do kids feel like they have to have a ripped up Articles of Faith t shirt and authentic keith morris style cycle cap to be hardcore now? I mean this is so obvious, but I guess I have just been thinking a lot about punk as being more than just a set of signifiers, the right records, the right reference points, the right outfit. Do people ever buy the ‘wrong’ SSD record anymore?
As I said before this is more of a collection of thoughts and ideas than anything conclusive and it would be cool if people would write in and talk about their feelings on such weighty mattters. Also if girls/women would write in and talk about their experiences/call me on my shiiiiit etc etc. I guess the general gist of all this is something along the lines of me feeling alienated from the politics of punk, trying to figure out how to make feminism and female punk identity and just punk politics relevant to my life/point of view. It feels like a lot of the politics in the scene now are either unspoken, like ‘oh of course we are anti sexist/racist/homophobic’ but …let’s not talk about that! Now back to those 84 Finnish punk demos. Or things are really explicit and cartoony, like watch me destroy society as I puke on myself outside of Burnt Ramen! Or maybe the green anarcho crimethinc types and their notion of politics as a vegan potluck kissing booth, which makes me wanna puke. I like some instances of situationist sloganeering, which they seem to have adopted in a clumsy wholesale way. Turning the sharp witticisms of mai 68 into a mouldy assortment of buttflappatch opportunistic freerider manifestos somehow seems so boring to me. Plus I hate hippies.
Anyway this is super convoluted and was really difficult to write. I wanted to say as a parting shot that the Limp Wrist show at Burnt Ramen was really inspiring and terrifying in many ways, some of which I will not go into, but the audience was truly insane, like a Glen E Friedman photo of some old DC hardcore show, piled up and sweating and totally connected to the moment and the band. It was also truly mixed. There were so many girls, queers, boys, weird homeless dudes, old punks, sxe warrior types, you know. It was super inspiring to see teenage girls at the front screaming the words and holding their own in the pit. Speaking as a wussy aging punk girl who watched from behind the guitar amp on stage the spectacle seemed really timeless, not like a retread of a only jock dudes up front of the aforementioned Glen E Friedman picture reference. Girls holding their own in the pit? Maybe actions speak louder than words. Anyway. What do you think? Please write me! via MRR….
As of recent times my friends have been subjected to epic conversations about the transition from End Racism longsleeves and long instructional song intros about the plight of the downtrodden to messageboard cynicism and ironic dismissiveness in regards to anything that might implicate someone in the crime of giving a shit. It feels like the political culture in punk has gone from the 90s faux sincere personal is political feminist 4 fux to a general feeling of “Hey we’ve achieved feminism now, let’s talk about lipcream flexis!” Everything seems really static and codified. I don’t mean that somehow in thee olden days everyone had a deep understanding of feminist issues and it was like a constant giant group hug at all times in safe spaces across america, maybe more like there seemed to be a willingness to confront uncomfortable issues. And I don’t mean that those confrontations were always fruitful or beneficial, but at least people had to at least pretend they gave a shit somehow… It just feels like things have shifted towards the comfort of apathy, anything that makes anyone feel uncomfortable is ridiculed and dismissed.
The random instance that inspired all of this profound insight is actually one of the most irritating things about about being an active woman in the punk scene. When you are talking to someone at a show say and they don’t bother to introduce you to their friends or maybe they don’t acknowledge what you do. For example a dude will be given a title and background info upon introduction; ‘This is Scott Weed of Douche and the Fuckin Bags” Whereas generally women’s work in the scene is not acknowledged as being part of their punk identity. It seems really superficial perhaps, but when experienced on a constant basis it can make everything you do seem like meaningless background busywork.
Another random point is that I feel like a lot of cool punk girls have jumped ship for the comforts of indie rock/noise/whatever… and why is that? I think underground culture is way more fragmentary and separated out than it was before, and a lot of people (girls/women) see punk/hardcore as a monolithic outdated form, rather than an idea they can own and use for their own purposes. I got into punk thru riot grrrl, via Huggy Bear in London where I grew up. Riot grrrl was clearly contextualized within the punk movement, it was intially at least a spark of DIY spirit in a staid and boring scene. There was a distinct sense of taking things back, and of invigorating a staid and reactionary dude scene with ideas and sounds and words that genuinely freaked people out at least intially… before everything got codified and the rule book was written out and the sense of freedom and adventure dissipated in a flood of press attention and the dogmaticcs of expensive private school liberal artpeak. My question in regards to the after effects of that would be; How did feminism become knowing how to knit yr boyfriend a skull and crossbones scarf? I get so bored and depressed looking at magazines like Bust and Venus. Mainstream indie rock culture magazines, which obviously have their roots in riot grrl but seem to ultimately be about being a crafty entrepreneur and encouraging an alternative girl-culture based on consumption rather than liberation through ideas and sound. It’s so frustrating how pedestrian and mundane feminist culture is right now in that sense. Emulating a crafty mom from a midwestern suburb in the 70s isn’t why I got into punk. I understand the notion of DIY and making your own things and how that could be perceived as an empowering buy-nothing stance but I don’t feel like that is really what’s at work. What do you think?
My last point is a little all over the place but here goes… I know that the internet has revolutionized punk in many good and decent ways, for instance I love the fact that I can now find out in about 5 seconds all I ever needed to know about The Proletariat, seriously I used to have to weasel info from random reluctant to share dudes about that kind of thing in the pre information age, when I discovered that early 80s hardcore was in fact my favourite kind of music. Anyway I digress… does that same instant avalability of info also makes it way easier to not really be into things in the same way that you are when you have to struggle to figure things out on your own via random mix tapes and random pen pal contact? Does it create a mass consumer culture where people greedily consume and regurgitate without thought? Where information about obscure bands formed in Nordic squats in the early 80s becomes almost like currency? Does that make sense… probably not. I have this image in my head of a pac man like game where people are just consuming information hungrily and without pause, just gorging to own and feel important.
I think the internet also re-inforces the idea of punk as a lifestyle choice/consumer phenomenon rather than a spirit, that sounds corny but I can’t think of another way of explaining it really… I can’t imagine a day when I will not call myself a punk, to me punk isn’t so much about bulletbelts and amebix buttpatches but it’s an idea of opposition and freedom. Punk is obviously an aesthetic culture, messing with appearance is one of the fun things about punk and being a punk, but when things become so codified and punk stops being an idea of opposition and becomes a pose with a set collection of visual identifiers then how is it a revolutionary concept? There’s nothing punk about blindly simulating the past, being a total replicant. I like have this cool picture of VOID where they look like diseased preppies, their clothes aren’t particularly ‘punk’ but they just look wrong, out of place, like a question mark. Do kids feel like they have to have a ripped up Articles of Faith t shirt and authentic keith morris style cycle cap to be hardcore now? I mean this is so obvious, but I guess I have just been thinking a lot about punk as being more than just a set of signifiers, the right records, the right reference points, the right outfit. Do people ever buy the ‘wrong’ SSD record anymore?
As I said before this is more of a collection of thoughts and ideas than anything conclusive and it would be cool if people would write in and talk about their feelings on such weighty mattters. Also if girls/women would write in and talk about their experiences/call me on my shiiiiit etc etc. I guess the general gist of all this is something along the lines of me feeling alienated from the politics of punk, trying to figure out how to make feminism and female punk identity and just punk politics relevant to my life/point of view. It feels like a lot of the politics in the scene now are either unspoken, like ‘oh of course we are anti sexist/racist/homophobic’ but …let’s not talk about that! Now back to those 84 Finnish punk demos. Or things are really explicit and cartoony, like watch me destroy society as I puke on myself outside of Burnt Ramen! Or maybe the green anarcho crimethinc types and their notion of politics as a vegan potluck kissing booth, which makes me wanna puke. I like some instances of situationist sloganeering, which they seem to have adopted in a clumsy wholesale way. Turning the sharp witticisms of mai 68 into a mouldy assortment of buttflappatch opportunistic freerider manifestos somehow seems so boring to me. Plus I hate hippies.
Anyway this is super convoluted and was really difficult to write. I wanted to say as a parting shot that the Limp Wrist show at Burnt Ramen was really inspiring and terrifying in many ways, some of which I will not go into, but the audience was truly insane, like a Glen E Friedman photo of some old DC hardcore show, piled up and sweating and totally connected to the moment and the band. It was also truly mixed. There were so many girls, queers, boys, weird homeless dudes, old punks, sxe warrior types, you know. It was super inspiring to see teenage girls at the front screaming the words and holding their own in the pit. Speaking as a wussy aging punk girl who watched from behind the guitar amp on stage the spectacle seemed really timeless, not like a retread of a only jock dudes up front of the aforementioned Glen E Friedman picture reference. Girls holding their own in the pit? Maybe actions speak louder than words. Anyway. What do you think? Please write me! via MRR….
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)