PUNK ISN’T DEAD, YOU ARE (AGAIN)

ITEM: Punk rock is bullshit. 

So declares John Roderick of The Long Winters in a cover story for the Seattle Weekly that is a textbook example of what the children of the 21st century refer to as “flamebait”.

It’s worth pointing out at the start that Roderick isn’t talking about the music so much as the sociopolitical framework of “punk”:

What I'm talking about is "punk rock" as a political stance, punk rock as a social movement, punk rock as a fashion trend, punk rock as a personal lifestyle brand, and punk rock as a lens of critical appraisal. The shadow of punk rock has eclipsed countless new dawns under its fundamental negativity and its lazy equation of rejection with action.

Roderick then spends a good 3,000 words to illustrate his point – and defend it from the two most obvious responses: (1) “It’s supposed to be bullshit!” and (2) “Punk rock made my life bearable!”

My own response goes something like this:

( At length ... )

So, basically, yes, punk rock is bullshit – but that doesn’t mean it served no useful purpose or provided no value to those of us who participated in it. 

Of course, I can’t say whether it still serves that purpose in its current form in 2013. Probably not. But then it’s a different world, where digital technologies and social media make DIY music and discovering the world outside yr hometown even more possible.

Too bad most of it is in the form of apocryphal Facebook memes and hyperpartisan bloggery. Oh well.

I was a punk before you were a punk,

This is dF

THE RECORD OF DOOM!

[Via Boogie Children]

No, not that “Blue Monday”.

It’s from the second issue of Tales Of The Unexpected. And WFMU has the full story here, if yr interested.

It’s just that song,

This is dF