Sniffing Glue

So, that post earlier today about the Murder City Devils/Kenneth Anger connection was originally intended to be an essay on punk in the '90s, but obviously, something else was on my mind.

First off, go get the Exploding Hearts. Do whatever you can do to find this record. I don't care if you have to download it, just find it. Especially if you like the Buzzcocks or the Boys or the poppier stuff from the Ramones, you'll love this rekkid.

I read a short journal posting from an acquaintance earlier in the week and it got me thinking. She was talking about how she recently re-discovered the album "Clumsy" from Samiam.

If you're around my age, 28, and you were ever into punk-rock, there's a good chance that you know what I mean when I say '90s punk, or "New Punk." Think of labels like Epitaph, Fat Wreck Chords, and Hopeless. Bands from these labels quickly bring to mind shouted lyrics, protruded neck muscles, forehead veins poppin', air guitars all around. This stuff was a very important part of my life for a long time. (Maybe my difficulties with women come from me ignoring them and paying attention to punk rock instead? Eh, that'd be good for a later post - after I've hugged the Fat Bastard)

Now, don't get me wrong, I was introduced to '80s punk at the tender age of 12, and I fucking loved it. Couldn't get enough. I would sit in my room for hours listening to the Descendents, and Social Distortion, and Black Flag. Was I miserable because I listened to pop music, or did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Neither! I had punk rock. I was happy. Back then, I had an idea that the '80s stuff wasn't even the beginning. I knew Black Flag wasn't the beginning or the end, but I did know that Dez Cadena was the best singer they ever had.

Then, Nirvana happened. Unfortunately, I'm not talking about spiritual bliss, I'm talking about 1991's biggest contribution to society: the word 'alternative' became a marketing tool. In 1991, Sonic Youth made a short film titled "1990: The Year Punk Broke." I really didn't get it back then. By 1991, I had discovered '70s punk like Crass, the Clash, Stiff Little Fingers, and the Dead Boys, and as far as they were concerned, punk was stillborn. Dead on arrival. I still didn't get it. Why would Crass sing "punk is dead" in 1977 if bands like NOFX and Screeching Weasel were punk and they just started making records in the early '90s? It didn't make sense to me.

I spent most of the '90s in junior high and high schoool. Even then, I was a record dork. I would read everything I could find about music - and punk rock. Every time a reviewer referred to another band in a record review, I would go out and find that band and buy a record. That was how I started figuring out how everything fit together, and why the Clash and NOFX could both be called punk bands. But the lines were still a bit blurry. Even today they are, but I know much more of the story.

For one thing, I read even more than record reviews. I read books like "England's Dreaming" from Jon Savage, which is all about punk and England in the late '70s. Of course, the perfect companion to that was Johnny Rotten's (aka Lydon) biography, "No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs." Early in college, in the late '90s, I became interested in the connections between artistic movements and radical politics, like the Surrealists and the Communist Party, for an example. A great book on this topic is Greil Marcus' "Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century." Honestly, the main reason I picked up this book was because when I was in high school, I always read the political articles in Rolling Stone, and Marcus wrote many of those articles. I respected him as an author, and here he was writing about something that interested me even more than politics, so why not? His book has everything to do with punk rock, yet nothing at all. The real goal of the book is to show how the Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren viewed his creation of the band as a 'Situationist' joke. Unfortunately, the Situationist artistic movement had been dead for years by the time Sid Vicious walked into McLaren's "SEX" shop in London. The book actually pities McLaren for his pathetic attempt at art. Lastly, you absolutely must pick up "Please Kill Me" by Legs McNeil. Legs McNeil was involved in the original underground newspaper "Punk," which existed mainly in the early to mid '70s in New York City.

This movement I'm discussing owes it's name to the newspaper "Punk." No question about it. At the time, punk was a slang term for a gay man, or a junky. "Please Kill Me" is an oral history of punk. No, it's not a book on tape. It's a collection of quotes, some are pages long, some are as brief as one sentence. The book moves chronologically from the Doors to the Velvet Undergroud to the MC5 and David Bowie, right up to the Sex Pistols and the early '80s CBGB's scene with bands like Blondie and the Talking Heads. The bulk of the book centers around CBGB's, Max's Kansas City, and the rest of the New York City scene from 1970 through the mid '80s. This book is probably the one you need if yr lookin' to buy only one. It's also the easiest read, considering the others get fairly academic at times.

So, did any of these books help me figure out why "punk is dead?" No, not at all. It's taken years for me to begin to grasp what it means. In the past six years, I've heard so much music. All different kinds and styles. From the craziest avant-electro weirdness to the darkest, roughest, painful pits of hell vomited out guitar amps, I've heard it. I'm at a point now, where I don't have to think to myself "would this be considered punk?" It's not that it really matters if it is punk, what matters is that I'm fascinated by the way people choose to categorize music.

Now, it's 2004, I have a good sixteen years of this shit under my skin. When I was a teenager, I was so worried that I'd get old and forget about punk. There ain't a chance, because punk has nothing to do with your sound, or the way you dress, talk, eat, fuck, or play guitar. It has nothing to do with piercings that stretch your earlobes down to your shoulders. Multi-colored tattoos up and down the forearms also do not make a punk. The "punk-rock uniform" of piercings, tattoos, wallet chains, dyed hair, and baggy shorts is a total misnomer. That idea can only exist because of the excessive marketing that music suffers from. Ideally, there would be no uniformity or conformity within punk rock, because it's all about saying what you want to say and being who you want to be.

Dare I say it? Is it possible that being punk is related to enjoying the urban tribe culture (discussed a few posts down)? Is it possible that choosing to live your life your way is what punk is all about?


FOOTNOTE: I also highly recommend that you check out the film "24 Hour Party People," which gives a good version of the story of Joy Division. That isn't the focus of the story, though, the main theme is the history of Factory Records, but their stories are inextricably intertwined. You can't tell one without the other. Also, if you can find it (good luck), check out "Decline of Western Civilization," a documentary about punk in LA in the early '80s. And, of course, you must see "Suburbia," featuring members of the Vandals and Fear. Then there's also "Velvet Goldmine," which is a fictionalized account of Iggy Pop and David Bowie's 'relationship'. Most of it's BS, but it's entertaining. There's also "The Filth and the Fury," an excellent Sex Pistols documentary which utilizes all available footage. Of course, there's also "Sid and Nancy," the fairytale of Sid Vicious (of the Sex Pistols) and his wife Nancy. Unfortunately, Courtney Love is in this film. Ironically, she was probably Kurt Cobain's Nancy. And...there are a million more, I can't think of them all right now. I'm drunk. Too many fat glasses of the Fat Bastard.