Sliding in on a conversation with some younger friends, I bid my time and knew my place. It’s weird to be this age, when yes, you can have friends who are nearer your kid’s age than your own.
And when I say, “friends,” I’m not talking about pals who shoot you a beer emoji at half-past-too-late asking “wanna hang?” There’s no crashing on the couch. No goofball nights. No antics for you. No, they have other friends for that, appropriately so. But they’re still friends. They’re part of your life. They’re reliable. Considerate conversations take place with ease. And when commonalities conspire to bring you together at a reasonable hour, it’s always good times.
So I was on the edge of this conversation, a debate between the “new punk” and the “old punk.” I’m thinking, “yes, yes, yes… Green Day vs. The Clash, had this one before.” But to my surprise, the debate had moved on. Theirs was a careful parsing of the merits of new bands like Idles or Fontaines D.C., along with pop acts like Machine Gun Kelly and Olivia Rodrigo who’d leaned into the guitar on recent tracks. This, to them, were various flavors of the “new punk,” versus the classic “old punk” of millennial geezers like Blink 182 and Fall Out Boy.
Of course, my instinct was to drop some knowledge and school these youngsters in a little Rock ‘n Roll History. My mind was already queuing up a playlist covering everything from The Ramones to Rancid. I was ready to spout off a list of required listening, peppered, of course, with self-aggrandizing anecdotes about my personal bonafides and brushes with same.
But with stuttering maturity, I thought better of it. Is that any way to make friends? Who wants a conversation-quashing, know-it-all old man at the table? Instead I asked them for some recs on the new stuff, which I gotta say I enjoyed.
So what is Punk?
Funny how the debate goes on. Is it an aesthetic? An attitude? A style or a trend? When did it start? Has it reached the self-referential end? It’s a conversation I’ve had off and on since I first heard “Fight For Your Right” on a back-of-the-bus boombox. But were the Beastie Boys really punk rock? Are CBGB OGs like Talking Heads and Television punk? Can punk be acoustic? How about Johnny Cash, a man in black flipping the bird at the establishment? Punk enough for you? Hardcore is not punk, though sounds more punk than say, Nirvana, who is often seen as punk, while being most certainly grunge. Though grunge is not punk, and Nevermind was too easy to swallow and weirdly pop to be definitively grunge. And said grunge (sans Nirvana) is basically just 80s West Coast metal heard through a pile of flannel, which doesn’t seem very punk at all.
I might have found an answer here in this book, Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk. However, I’m not sure it was intended. And I’m very much not sure that THIS answer is THE answer.
Legs McNeil, the force behind it, was one of three founders of the magazine Punk, published out of New York City for a few years during the late 70s. Armed with the job description of “Resident Punk,” Legs was deep in the NYC scene, cornering suspects with youthful naivety. He’s continued as a music/culture journalist ever since, and conducted hundreds of hours of interviews to create this oral history of the movement.
Funny thing about the “oral history” genre: Although at first blush it would seem that direct transcripts of eye-witnesses would tell the story most accurately, the opposite is true. By selecting your “characters” (i.e. the candidates to interview), directing the questions towards specific topics, and then playing with the juxtaposition of quotes, an author can mold the narrative to achieve a specific take.
And by refusing to interject – to fact check, qualify, clarify, balance, or give context – the first-hand reports take on a weight they’d be denied in a typical account. Instead of using the quotes to support the proposition, the argument hangs out sub rosa and unassailable. You can’t take the author to task if the author hasn’t said anything at all.
Legs (and co-compiler Gillian McCain) decided to focus on the scene they knew best: New York City. Bubbling up from Warhol’s factory, glittered by experimental theatre, and finding a voice at venues like Max’s Kansas City and CBGB, the squalid flops around the Lower East Side were unarguably the birthplace of punk. In Leg’s telling, it was a gloriously depraved thing, until London came calling and swindled the scene.
Interesting thesis. However, I’m sure other kids have a different take. There’s no mention of the L.A. bands – of X, or Germs, or Dead Kennedys. Yes, the Rust Belt gets its due, but mostly because the MC5 and various Dead Boys and Stooges spent so much time pollinating Manhattan. Outside of few dismissive remarks about The Clash, the Sex Pistols are the only U.K. band to figure into the tale. And no, not in a good way.
Despite being nearly 500 pages, this “History of Punk,” is really the story of one group of girlfriend-swapping, dope-shot friends who lived together, fought together, and somehow managed to crank out some revolutionary art in the weird years between the demise of Woodstock and rise of Reagan. It was a soap opera. It was rock ‘n roll high school. On drugs.
So here’s my answer for today: You wanna be a punk? Make friends. Get in the gunk. Do some noise. No, it’ll never be 1977 again. You’re not going to run into Joey or Iggy or Debbie Harry on a Tuesday. But the next generation needs its heroes too. Who knows? Your town might be up next. It might be you. But it’ll never happen if you don’t listen up, get off the couch, and find your place to raise a fist to that old defiant chant, “Gabba gabba, we accept you, we accept you, one of us!“
(Hey kids! Look it up!)
