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Baby Party - 2005-03-14 10:54:24
Ben Lee (and everyone else who didn't read it in college) should read Dick Hebdige's Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979) for a more nuanced view of the origins of punk, including a look at the way British punk borrowed symbols and forms of musical expression from other subcultures, including Rastafarianism and working-class culture.
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2fs - 2005-03-14 11:32:53
A sort of philosophical question: if someone thinks it's "punk rock" that allowed them to feel more free or whatever, isn't it? If for some reason, they didn't feel that before they discovered punk, and then after discovery they felt that way, and made a connection between punk and the new way of thinking, then it *did* have that effect for them. But that's someone's subjective reaction to a phenomenon - not something inherent in the phenomenon itself (i.e., punk rock might have made someone free, but that's not because punk rock makes people free). I mean, yeah - who knows what-all subconscious phenomenoodles were going on that allowed punk to play that role - but as a surface trigger, there it is.
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Paula - 2005-03-14 11:46:27
but as a surface trigger, there it is
Yeah, I s'pose. I am reminded, though, of the scene in The Office where David says something to the effect of "I'm expressing my punk-rock, counter-cultural ways by, you know, coming to work every day at the paper plant." It was a brilliant moment (wish I could remember exactly what he said) because it captured his self-deluding, excuse-making persona.
I dunno, I guess you caught me in a cycnical moment.
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Baby Party - 2005-03-14 14:30:37
I don't think you're being cynical, Paula. (Cynical is what the Bush administration is when they assume everyone will believe their lies.) It's not cynical to call attention to the romanticization of a musical form or subculture. (I love punk rock, by the way.) Ben Lee quotes Mike Watt as saying that, in the beginning, punk had no form or style, but was about pure freedom. That's pure-dee bullshit. Ben Lee might not know that, since he was born in 1980, but Mike Watt is guilty of extreme romanticizing. He's filling little Ben's head with silliness! It's true that any response Ben Lee had to punk rock is valid, but you know, it could just as easily have turned him into a fascist.
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Paula - 2005-03-14 14:44:15
punk had no form or style, but was about pure freedom. That's pure-dee bullshit

Yes. That's the line that started my hackles a-risin'.
I think, also, what irritated me is that I resent the fact that men can strap on an acoustic guitar, sing about their feelings, and somehow call it punk rock, but when women do it, it's "Lilith Fair."
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dc punk (emeritus status applied for) - 2005-03-14 16:53:59
first off: i don't think it's useful to compare punk in the uk to punk in the us. apples and oranges, the bicontinentality of the dolls notwithstanding. but there IS a way in which i think punk is about freedom without having styles applied to it -- to whatever extent the DIY aesthetic is punk (and i think DIY is pretty damn punk, because at its core DIY is about rejecting the options offered by the marketplace). Consider, the Ramones and Minor Threat -- assuming we can agree both bands were punk despite thier political and social differences. There are at least two different messages about punk that you could take from that combo -- one is that punk is about playing fastfastfast with lots of distorted guitars and whiplash snares [aka "MRR punk"], and the other is that punk says it doesn't matter whether your music (or art in the broader sense) succeeds by **OR EVEN PLAYS BY** the rules that society has established for the form -- and that's the side of punk that is free of any particular stylistic conventions or uniforms. [aka "PunkPlanet Punk"] given all that, i don't think b. lee is particularly "punk" no matter how much harDCore shows in my hometown would often have people of assorted genders playing acoustic guitars, and there was nothing lilith fair about it. lilith fair (imho) isn't at all punk because it's about coloring within the lines. and however laudible its goals of more exposure for female artists may be, it doesn't do a damn thing about changing the money flow into male pockets on the back end. (and that's why ladyfest is punk, to boot) punk informs his aesthetic. his first band "noise addict" was at least somewhat less un-punk, i'd say.
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dc punk (somewhat less incoherent!) - 2005-03-14 16:57:51
okay, some of that got garbled. lemme try the last para. again here .... harDCore shows in my hometown would often have people of assorted genders playing acoustic guitars, and there was nothing lilith fair about it. lilith fair (imho) isn't at all punk because it's about coloring within the lines. and however laudible its goals of more exposure for female artists may be, it doesn't do a damn thing about changing the money flow into male pockets on the back end. (and that's why ladyfest *is* punk, to boot) given all that, i don't think ben lee is particularly "punk" no matter how much punk informs his aesthetic. but i'd say his first band "noise addict" was at least somewhat less un-punk.
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Chris T. - 2005-03-14 17:17:16
I'm enjoying this commentary and thought I'd throw my hat in the ring (with my head still in it - now THAT'S punk!). What first sold me on "punk rock" was the learning curve: one didn't have to be a virtuoso to express one's self. You could go down to the basement TODAY and bang out a song. It might suck, it might rock: it didn't matter. You got it out of your head, out of your system, and into the world. Whatever we think "punk rock" is, it eased the process by which pimpled square pegs became comfortable with self-expression. Perhaps that's what Ben Lee is getting at. All I can say about Ben Lee is at least he's not Jack Johnson, the "surfing musician". Jesus Christ on a bike! I caught his "act" on SNL this weekend and talk about going far on little or no perceivable talent! He owes his "career" to Sorority sisters sucking down too much Jager. And is his skull HUGE or what? Far be it from me to wish ill on anyway but my hope is that Mr. Johnson does more surfing where shark activity is high.
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2fs - 2005-03-15 12:00:09
I think the "punk is freedom" thing makes sense, or is worthwhile, only in a certain context. One of those contexts is, if you thought that in order to make the noises you hear in your head you needed to be Rick Wakeman or have access to $10^3s worth of equipment, punk said no, go ahead. However: that in itself can't make the results compelling to anyone else - although at that time (the mid-70s), just being able to hear stuff that wasn't about 32nd notes and 64 tracks of gloss was refreshing and eye-opening. Now? In a way, we're due for another round of low-tech, low-gloss music, given the state of the charts...but it's hard to call it "punk," since by now, "punk" just is a style - either the "real" punk that requires a beat-up leather jacket, or the pop-punk that's sold in the malls. It'll have to be something else - at least in name.
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ex dc; still contentious - 2005-03-15 20:18:17
why does it need a new name? i'd rather reclaim "punk" from the mall punk crowd. That safe, denatured, pro-establishment shopping mall stuff -- even though I like a little bit of it -- isn't punk (by my definition) no matter how many tattoos, spikes, or mohawks it sports, and one of the things that bothers me is that it even pretends to the name.
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Bob - 2005-05-18 00:12:22
Late-breaking semi-defense of someone whose music I probably have no more use for than Chris does, but since it hasn't made any impression on me I wouldn't even know:: Jack Johnson already does enough surfing where tiger sharks kill about one person a year, and is actually a seriously talented surfer with good style... so don't shoot him or anything.
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