sufi

lala
That last line of the article was a surprise to me, but i guess SR put some thought into it.
Punk has always been like a special moment, but history is a one way street
 

CorpseysEvilTwin

Well-known member
Really enjoyed reading this, lots of good personal anecdotage and nifty inversions/plays on words e.g. "commodified the explosion", "inimitable and irresistible to imitate".

I just wish it had been longer and allowed for more discussion of punk's place in today's world -- the idea that offence is now what the Right does, for example.

It's ironic, too, and presumably again cos of space limitations that after saying the author of McClarens biography only glancingly describes "Anarchy in the UK" that Simon (who we all know can describe the fuck out of music) only has space to glancingly describe it's "sound storm". But then, perhaps there's not all that much to describe when it comes to the Pistols?

I must say all the situationist stuff about the boredom of modern life still resonates with me. What I found particularly interesting about McClaren as Simon writes about him is as a figure who wanted to rebel but slowly but surely was completely absorbed into the establishment (and perhaps always wanted to be there).

I personally feel this is what's happened to me. Not that I was ever a rebel, but you know - the job, the rent or mortgage, the nice TV and all that. And all the while the thrilling intensity of life disappearing into the rearview mirror.

Dearest brother, why aren't you listening to those Milton Babbitt records I lent you?

Prog rock was elegant and ostentatious. Conservative and refined.

Whereas punk, my dear brother, only objected to progs grandiosity. It was never the voice of the streets, neither was it a genre of petty vandalism. It was a kick up the establishments proverbial backside to get their act together. Much more of a safety valve than rave, you see. I told you when we had to sleep in the bunk bed together when we were age 12 to dispense with these preoccupations.
 

CorpseysEvilTwin

Well-known member
Corpsey has an evil twin!? With a differing musical taste!?

Indeed. In general I believe popular music entered an extremely sharp decline after the baroque period. If one is to dispense with the intellect posthaste, then would it not, my fellow interlocutor, be extremely logical for one to partake in the pleasures of listening to the sounds of lavatories? After all, excreting faecal waste is mans most important bodily function, is it not?

I will hear none of this idle chatter about the dopamine hit, the carnal physicality of music. stringent mathematics!

My brother, however, must be admonished.
 

forclosure

Well-known member
yeah perhaps that is Reynolds' point - these things should be judged on some other standard than a 40+ year old mum-and-dad-baiting youth movement
yes and not only that but if we're really going to try and keep punk going the people who are going to inject any lifeblood into it are people who've got greater concerns than just "mum and dad"

i mean i'm the fabled under 46 person that @Corpsey its looking for so sod it my man should go ahead and ask me
 

forclosure

Well-known member
i mean shit even somebody like David Thomas out of Pere Ubu whose of the same age as alot of punks "first wave" would say that "the real punk rock" was more stuff like Henry Cow and that lot rather than the adverts n whatever

I mean there's punk scenes still and as far as london there's still spaces down like manor house and south bermondsy where they still do punk gigs and Static Shock Festival happens every year etc and as always with scenes like this they're just as frustraitingly interconnected as ever with everybody inna everybodies business yet they still keep to their own cliques and that.
 
Last edited:

forclosure

Well-known member
tbh even talking about that era of punk is just part and parcle with talking about the Jubilee coming up , if you ask me it's all because the old biddy is near death's door so people have gone into overdrive to show how much apparant adoration there is for the old woman it's just become part of the same force

and if i'm keeping in a buck the whole "event" just disgusts me to my core at best i don't care at worst i basically want to vomit and after that declare armed insurrection

btw i tried watching Derek Jarman's Jubilee not that long ago in relation to something i'm writing up its not good and affirms why i can't quite love his art the way alot of people do
 

forclosure

Well-known member
i've hinted at it in the past but i could tell you about my time around people within this scene but i'd end up making everybody miserable

but i'll say this i ended up being in and amongst the London punk crowd because of a friend of a friend and i didn't start hanging around them because of any sort of ideological awakening or anything like that its just because i thought the music was good and that i'd found my "niche" after previously failing a few times to find one
 

forclosure

Well-known member
me personally @Corpsey i think where you fuck up completly is by using the term "punk spirit" cause all that does is reaffirm the long trotted out tired statement that punk was year zero like people weren't making independant and/or bratty unpolite music before punk and they did it out of necessity because alot of the top labels wouldn't give them any oppertunities, now as grime is big people music you see people who thought it was shite at the time bring up how punk it was and i can tell you straight up punk was not on my mind listening to any of that.

it's corny to compare it to rap because beyond the surface these comparisons never hold up and rap has a unique double edged sword in that the older and younger generations reject each other and the youngers do their own weird thing. Problem i they tend to have no mentors as far as making them aware of the pitfalls of the industry or how to develop their sound (also groups being less of a thing everybody is a solo artist) so they end up repeating the same mistakes the previous generation did aswell as trying to find answers to questions people already debated over decades ago.
 

forclosure

Well-known member
but if you want to find something that has that surface punk spirit then yeah man its in soundcloud rap its in fuckin drill, its in all the soundcloud subgenres like plugnb,tread,rage music and all the other shit that sounds like nobody mixed it and the bass is completly blown out its the maximalist lolicore breakcore shit that gnasher was on about although i beg to differ since that stuff is so geared towards bombast and "maximalism" one of my least favourite buzzwords (funny how you man want @gnasher to come back now)

its in people making bandcamp emo shoegaze where they drown everything in reverb or people listen to Skee mask and Black midi,who still think Animal collective are a big deal

shit the current love that emo rap/ pop punk shit is getting is weird cause the only thing that's really changed about the music is the race of the people making it but its still very much a suburban sound
 
Top