A worthwhile read, with a few caveats. 1) The lede is buried. All he says about punk rock is absolutely true, but "words written" do not equal "merit earned." Here's the one paragraph that balances out everything negative you can say about punk: And there it is: Punk Rock as Devil's Advocate. This is an article from the lesser (and mocked) of two Seattle alt weeklies. They mention Skootchie's (nee DV8, nee Polly Esther's, nee a million other things) and The Monastery, a club so rife with underage drugs it singlehandedly caused the Teen Dance Ordinance. And see, three of my friends spun as Skootchie's, and four of them spun at The Monastery. It still has a Facebook group with over a thousand members, despite closing 20 years before Facebook. So allow me a little argument from authority: this be my turf. And what I can tell you is that Punk, worldwide but particularly in Seattle, was a transitional culture. One is not punk for very long - punk is a place you visit on your way to ska, on your way to jam bands, on your way to metal, on your way to goth. It's a very useful conceit with a very short shelf life: one is punk just long enough to doubt and reorganize one's thoughts towards something else. He mentions Siouxsie Sioux. Goth claimed her in 1978, yo. And while I had friends who were into punk in High School, I have friends who were into Goth in high school who are still into goth. I have friends who were into metal in high school who are still into metal. I have friends in high school who were into Industrial who are still into Industrial. My buddy Paul has been spinning six hours of Industrial every Sunday since 1988. That's 25 years. And you damn betcha he started out punk. I worked in those clubs for seven years, man. 50-90 hours a week. And I never once saw a punk. I mixed The Selector - no punks. Mixed Test Department - no punks. Mixed Pigface: no punks. Fuckin' Martin Atkins bailed on Punk 20 years ago. Every punk you've ever heard can tell you punk is bullshit. Here's a lovely little ditty from Johnny Rotten himself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8Ne9sRcSrM Fuckin' string machines and shit, yo. Yeah, "Punk is Bullshit." …and you gotta be some kinda stupid to sit there and watch it burn. The whole point is to run away snickering. Weird little swipe at the "indie" scene in there, too. I mixed Ben Gibbard's first album. Dude wasn't a poseur by any stretch - he was shrewd. We all watched Sky Cries Mary sign a 10-album deal with Sony and disband after This Timeless Turning. Death Cab didn't sign any deals with anyone - they had an album, they'd sell it to you. And they're millionaires now. That ain't punk, that's the ethos you get after you try punk on long enough to learn how to say no to the man.Admittedly, punk rock was a club that accepted all the misfits. It channeled adolescent anger and frustration into positive and inclusive feelings of belonging. This is not an insignificant achievement. Punk rock was an island of lost toys, a fantasy world where the kids made the rules and the hateful, hurtful world of drunk dads, preps, jocks, feathered-hair girls in Aerosmith baseball Ts, meathead campus police, racist cowboys, and flat-topped Korean War vets was overturned. It was a wonderful kind of sleep-away camp where the counselors and campers were all the same, huddled around a fire in the basement of an abandoned Catholic school telling ghost stories about the time Rod Stewart had his stomach pumped and imagining a future without “The Man” that looked like Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
“Punk is flaming dogshit in a bag!”
I really appreciate the caveats and all the background/supplemental info. Why does this publication get mocked? Anyway I am curious, since you've got first-hand experience with the city and the scene such as it was, do you agree with the article's assertion that punk culture has had a negative effect on culture at large? You also mention that several of your friends, while starting out with punk, eventually found other musical cultures that they've held on to. Do you feel like those cultures contributed to the negativity that the writer mentions?This is an article from the lesser (and mocked) of two Seattle alt weeklies.
It's trite. It's corporate. And it has nothing of merit to say. You know how people who aren't from New York think The Village Voice is awesome but when you really look at it, it's like the New Yorker minus all the stuff that actually matters? The Seattle Weekly is like that. It's pretty much the the Life Magazine to The Stranger's Vanity Fair. I absolutely disagree. Punk is, at its core, Dadaism. It is a transitional movement embraced short-term. Punks don't die, they move on, having been changed in some way by their passage through punk. That's why I called it "devil's advocacy" - punk is that first angry reaction against establishment, that first shot in the arm that there's something more and that what you have is corrupt. It's a pendulum and punk is at one extreme - everyone involved will eventually find their new center somewhere between "where they were" and "punk." You can't really talk about the lasting effects of ephemera - not even the Sex Pistols committed to punk for long (1975-1978). They got big because of Malcolm McLaren - who ten years later was selling out big: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxs106rp5RQ I think metal is cathartic. I think metal allows people who feel aggressive and testosterone-laden to channel their anger into harmless creative pursuits. Much as people keep trying to blame metal for all sorts of evil, metalheads are just about the chillest mutherfuckers you've ever met. Goths? Shit, son, Goths have been studied.Why does this publication get mocked?
Anyway I am curious, since you've got first-hand experience with the city and the scene such as it was, do you agree with the article's assertion that punk culture has had a negative effect on culture at large?
You also mention that several of your friends, while starting out with punk, eventually found other musical cultures that they've held on to. Do you feel like those cultures contributed to the negativity that the writer mentions?
"It's a relatively middle-class subculture, so despite … all the going out and being into the music, goths have always had a fairly positive view of people who are also achieving academically."
It means goths may have better career options than an outsider might expect. Succeeding in their chosen career had, Hodkinson observes, become increasingly important to those he interviewed as they moved into their late 20s and 30s, and he was surprised by how much participants in his study were willing to adapt their look to fit in at work. "I even gave people scenarios where they couldn't wear certain things. I expected them to say that they'd have to leave [their job], but they said they'd have to seriously consider it."
Got it. That makes sense. I didn't know if there was some incident that caused the mockery or just shoddiness. I like this. I've never considered this before this conversation. I'm going to have to think about this a bit more. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxs106rp5RQ| Haha! Oh man, when the "face" winks, just kills me. "Selling out big" is right. I can understand that though. Now that you mention it, I have noticed that my friends who are into metal are generally really nice, cool people who like to . . . (and I mean this with absolutely no malice or derision) play make-believe and dress-up. I haven't read much about Goth culture, though I have spoken to some people who are into it and I was surprised that they all ended up talking about acceptance and support, to one degree or another. Anyway, thanks for taking time to help expand my view and knowledge of subcultures, I appreciate it!You know how people who aren't from New York think The Village Voice is awesome but when you really look at it, it's like the New Yorker minus all the stuff that actually matters? The Seattle Weekly is like that. It's pretty much the the Life Magazine to The Stranger's Vanity Fair.
I absolutely disagree. Punk is, at its core, Dadaism. It is a transitional movement embraced short-term. Punks don't die, they move on, having been changed in some way by their passage through punk. That's why I called it "devil's advocacy" - punk is that first angry reaction against establishment, that first shot in the arm that there's something more and that what you have is corrupt. It's a pendulum and punk is at one extreme - everyone involved will eventually find their new center somewhere between "where they were" and "punk."
They got big because of Malcolm McLaren - who ten years later was selling out big:
I think metal is cathartic. I think metal allows people who feel aggressive and testosterone-laden to channel their anger into harmless creative pursuits. Much as people keep trying to blame metal for all sorts of evil, metalheads are just about the chillest mutherfuckers you've ever met.|