[kj] OT: "Punk's Not Dead" documentary

[Alexander Smith]

It's called revisionism, Oliver, and you're absolutely right. Time  
was when you were literally DEMONIZED for liking Punk Rock. I was  
only ten years old circa the era of the Ramones/Pistols and such, but  
even by the latter era of hardcore, people were *still* having a hard  
time grasping/accepting it (witness the infamous episode of "Quincy,"  
the chair-throwing on "Geraldo" etc.). I caught a great deal of flak  
in high school for being a fan of the Circle Jerks and Black Flag  
(now, in all sincerity, had I been into Night Ranger and REO  
Speedwagon, who is to say I still wouldn't have caught flak, but  
stilll). Fans of the culture/movement/music/tribe of Punk were *NOT*  
plentiful, which only built a sense of solidarity between those who  
*were* into it. Being a "punker" was as stigmatized as being a "D&D  
geek" (albeit slightly cooler, one suspects).

There was a great deal of closed-mindedness and misconception when it  
came to the Punk/Hardcore community in the early to mid 1980s -- it  
hadn't yet been de-fanged, housebroken and entirely subsumed by the  
mainstream.

One thing I'm certainly not going to miss about working at MTV News  
was the sheer amount of cluelessness and -- again -- revisionism by  
today's crop of bands claiming to be Punk (espec. the pop-punk  
variety ala Fall Out Boy, Good Charlotte, etc.)

I have to confess that I lost interest with hardcore by around  
`89..... I didn't see a lot of progression. Just a lot of band  
returning to the same old ground and grousing about the same boring  
issues without doing anything about it. Bands like NYC's the  
Casualties (profiled in this dumb ass doc) depress the hell out of  
me. They're even more retro than the fuckin' Black Crowes.


But I'm an old fart with a beard, so get the hell off my lawn.

Alex in NYC





On Aug 10, 2007, at 12:10 AM, B. Oliver Sheppard wrote:


> The rampant historicizing of punk nowadays esp. in the endlessly- 

> cranked out documentaries, biopics (Ina Curtis _Control_) and  

> especially books sort of gets to me only because I think it creates  

> the sense that everyone loved punk rock, post-punk, whatever, and  

> younger people don't realize that for a lot of people being into  

> punk was a kind of isolating, bizarre, fringe culture thing that  

> was seen as very antisocial; many people found punk actually very  

> frightening into the late 80s. It became associated with Satanism  

> (the Satanic Panic) and schools I went to began instituting dress  

> codes where you couldn't wear, for example, more than 50% black.  

> The Sex Pistols Nevermind the Bollocks barely broke the Top 100  

> when it was released, and didn't go gold until the early 1990s, in  

> the wake of Nirvana. Members of the respectable media and bands  

> like The Who claimed they hated punk and usually did "scare the  

> public" hit pieces on it, etc.

>

> Now with all this glossy "let's look back" stuff it makes it seem  

> like every one and their mother liked it, and ... sorry, it wasn't  

> like that. People liked Bel Biv Devoe and C & C Music Factory.  

> Where are the documentaries about that? About the morons and  

> idiots? They were the majority. (Still are.) It sucks especially  

> for some of us who were actually physically threatened etc by jocks  

> at school for having weird hair, only to see the same jocks years  

> later moshing and shit, when it became okay and safe to do that.

>

> -Oliver

>

>

>

>

> Leigh Newton wrote:

>> We'd still like you even if you just got into it yesterday,  

>> Oliver. That's the attitude associated with punk rock (or any form  

>> of anything, for that matter) that bugs me the most. The  

>> underlying impression I get from all these recent biographies/docs  

>> is that if you weren't there when it initially happened, then  

>> you're just a poseur who gets all their shit at Hot Topic and is  

>> being ironic. There's nothing better than being an archeologist  

>> and uncovering all these gems from the past. Hell, only a few  

>> weeks ago did I finally get around to checking out Neu!

>>

>>

>>

>

> _______________________________________________

> Gathering mailing list

> Gathering at misera.net

> http://four.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/gathering