What is the shape of punk to come?

we just play to have fun, and for me to go til i pass out on the drums

Exactly. Whatever punk is, it is certainly a reaction against something. Boring sounds. Lack of politics. Trends. Treading water. Whatever.

But this is one question that is definitely best left to the musicians and not the theorists.

a band that might interest you:
http://www.thebronxxx.com

the singer and the guitarist are in a band called THE DRIPS that you'd probably like even more than the aforementioned. no website. they play in and around L.A. sometimes.

in agreement with KH, such artists as Prefuse 73 (http://www.warprecords.com/ography/WARP83/) are more punk than anything on certain summer tours sponsored by target.

there is a band just up the road from you from coalinga called FAXED HEAD that i think epitomizes the future of punk rock.

their 2nd single is legendary:

http://www.faxedhead.com/discog/art/z_necro_ft.jpg

Recorded 5/1/93 at Coalinga High School Music Room, Coalinga, CA. Thanks to Mrs. Johnson and Mr. Evans.
Mixed by Neck Head 5/1/93 in the Taco Bell men's room, Coalinga, CA. No thanks to the people who kept banging on the door making it very hard to concentrate.

sounds a bit like Fat Day

Fat Day was formed in earnest in 1974 when THIS KID stole Matt's snare drum and
some toys
and shattered our carefree, dream-like childhood growing up together in Lynn,
Massachusetts
This is the only picture we have of all of FAT DAY together after our first
show ever in the spring of '74.
We looked so young back then (Note Arik already passed out)!
We really didn't play out much (except at weddings, family events, high school
stuff)
until punk hit in 1977 (also because we kinda sucked back then).

We were young and rebellious, with weird hair and a lot of ATTITUDE (with a
capital A).

Here is a picture of Matt and Arik at Zak's wedding in 1976 (that's Zak in the
background).
We played a killer set - the parents of the bride didn't know what to think of
"Zak's side of the family" - us!
Matt collapsed after our first show in 1979 at CBGB where we opened for The
Mumps.

Forming the modern incarnation of Fat Day was not easy. It has taken us since
those first tender years in 1974 to really get all the pieces to work. Sure,
we played shows with all the greats,
but we never really got "our sound" until the early to mid '90's.

For example, Doug's dad is a chemical engineer, and pretty handy with
electronics,
so he made us some electronic stuff in the early 80's when New Wave was so big
and which we still use today in the band (its getting pretty old and fragile).

When the Anything Family broke up in 1989 we grabbed this guy Zeke
from them and things really started to cook!

Here is a picture of our famous 1982 show with Deep Wound at the Rat in Boston.
The guy in the Red Suit is Jeremiah (no longer in the band). He broke a chair
over J. Mascus's (the guy from Dinosaur Jr.) back and we were banned from the
place for over fifteen years.
We played the Rat again around 1997.

With Zeke in the band we thought we were complete. The beats were nice and our
sound was real good.
We started to think about going to New York, or to L.A., somewhere where the
music was happening.

But in 1991 Disaster struck. Matt, our keyboardist, came down with a horrible
disease.

Here is a picture of our famous 1991 show at Gilman Street in Berkeley,
California.
A fight broke out and Jello Biafra was hurt (it wasn't during our set).

This has been done before and a lot more interestingly.

they're more likely to be the shape of punk as the industry might like to sell it.

the new punk should be a bunch of awkward nerds sitting and standing in silence while a transvestite cheerleader and goth girl interchange verses of "like a virgin" and "i touch myself" to the sounds of violins burning overamplified and reversed over and over.

yeah, i'd like to see that on the grammys.
m.

no i'm not. I'm not trying to promote my band or anything.
Im really happy with all these answers. I do love lightning bolt, its a shame i dont know enough talented bassists to be in a band of that caliber.

is anyone here a good musician in california's central valley?

Lightning Bolt = Sigfried and Roy
Hella = Ms. Cleo

Investigate and pontificate.

http://www.noize.org/Faux-Real%20-%2013.mp3
http://www.noize.org/Faux-Real%20-%20Zeppolith.mp3

Also, the Blood Brothers are pretty tedious -- can't see what the fuss is about them in some quarters. Jonathan and msp about sum it up.

"Blood Brothers are from yr neck of the woods. Two vocalists: one sings, the other screams. They go at it simultaneously. The music is post-hardcore craziness. Just a barage of noise. Their older stuff was nuts, but kinda careless (download "Siamese Gun," essentially a legal drama in two minutes. Narrates a crime, arrest and trial. Really wild). The new album, though, was produced by Ross Robinson (Korn/Bizkit/AtDi/etc) and is much deeper. More shit going on. Plus they actually write melodies now. It's really, really good. Download the title track ("Burn Piano Island, Burn") or the closer ("The Shame," which is like a U2 anthem hardcore style). Those are the best cuts."

I saw them live for the first time a couple of weeks ago and was bored. Very disappointed, as all the dynamics of Adultery, Electric Children and Burn, Piano Island Burn were nowhere to be found.

"Blood Brothers are from yr neck of the woods. Two vocalists: one sings, the other screams. They go at it simultaneously. The music is post-hardcore craziness. Just a barage of noise. Their older stuff was nuts, but kinda careless (download "Siamese Gun," essentially a legal drama in two minutes. Narrates a crime, arrest and trial. Really wild). The new album, though, was produced by Ross Robinson (Korn/Bizkit/AtDi/etc) and is much deeper. More shit going on. Plus they actually write melodies now. It's really, really good. Download the title track ("Burn Piano Island, Burn") or the closer ("The Shame," which is like a U2 anthem hardcore style). Those are the best cuts."

Also add to the "future of punk" list: My Name Is Rar Rar and Black Eyes.

hella kicks. i'd hestitate to use "<" and ">" next to lightning bolt tho. i think there's some different things going on. and yes, zach hill IS insanely talented. his drumming on crime in choir's album was amazing. not enough to get me to keep the record... but...

i'd watch san francisco... weasel walter is here. the ex-xbxrx brothers are here. rumor has it that matt st. germaine might relocate here. john dwyer seems to always be around. etc. etc. something LOUD and WEIRD has to come from that. there's enough talented weirdos to start a bowling league...

m.

TOUR WITH HOLY MOLAR
April 18, 2003: San Diego, CA @ Che Cafe
April 19, 2003: Phoenix, AZ @ Modified
April 20, 2003: Anaheim, CA @ Chain Reaction
April 21, 2003: Los Angeles, CA @ the Smell
April 22, 2003: TBA
April 26, 2003: Portland, OR @ Disjecta
April 27, 2003: Seattle, WA @ Graceland

To even use the word 'punk' now to describe music...well, it's nothing short of an insult to the originals.

Move on people. Punk died nearly 30 years ago!

Sounds like a pretty good reason to use the word 'punk', to me.

I think reverence was about the last thing the Clash or the Pistols would have ever wanted, so that's very thoughtful.

HOWEVER, the idea that we shouldn't use the word out of a reverence to acts who disbanded 25 years ago certainly seems to go against a "year zero" ethos implied/stated in a punk-rock agenda.

to simplify, if you'd said that the word punk is a waste of time because:

the word punk is attached to people making music that sounds like the music the "original punks" made 30 years ago, which goes against punk's supposed year zero notion.

I'd have agreed (or at least seen where you were coming from). but you implied that we should stop because it was an insult to the old "greats". i have no real attachment to the old greats (and yes, I have heard them).

"We must no longer use the word punk, out of respect to what has gone before!"

The supposed 'punks' now DO have the original punks as a reference point - which of course means that the whole meaning of the punk scene has been wiped away..... punk was new, vibrant, fresh, dirty, unacceptable.... now 'piunk'is merely a lazy journo phrase, or a sad selling point for fat record execs to get rich over.

These supposed 'punks' wouldn't know what real 'punk' was if it came over and gobbed in their eye. Punk's nothing more than another label now. And a label that should be laid to rest, because it's NEVER going to happen again.

Uh... well... OK, that's close enough for now.

Well, apart from rock 'n' roll itself 20 years earlier of course....

"The supposed 'punks' now DO have the original punks as a reference point"

So pretty much like the punks had the original rock 'n' rollers as a reference point....

"which of course means that the whole meaning of the punk scene has been wiped away..... punk was new, vibrant, fresh, dirty, unacceptable...."

Much like rock 'n' roll had been 20 years previously....

"now 'piunk'is merely a lazy journo phrase, or a sad selling point for fat record execs to get rich over."

Much like rock 'n' roll had become by the time punk appeared.

Punk's about as valid and about as revolutionary today as rock'n' roll was before punk came along.

Johnny Rotten got beaten up once, I remember, forshouting at some teddy boys that "Elvis lives in a wooden box"..... so I can't honestly see that there is much connection, can you?

On a musical or cultural level.

Rock'n'roll was a music revolution, not an attitude one.

Eh?

On the contrary, when rock 'n' roll first appeared it was very much a social revolution with enormous political implications in very much the same way that punk was; both the movement and it's followers were attacked and condemned as undesirable, unpatriotic and as an immoral / amorral influence on the nation's youth by any number of politicians, religious leaders, media figures and their followers.

Over the course of the following 20 years, rock 'n' roll lost it's power to shock or to change things and eventually it and it's followers became part of the establishment themselves.

When eventually something new came along, most of the old rock 'n rollers rushed to condemn the young upstarts who dared to challenge the status quo rather than praising a new movement which sought to pursue similar aims to their own, thus demonstrating what a hide-bound bunch of reactionary old farts they had become and prompting those young upstarts to rightly condemn them as such.

I think the analogy's pretty straightforward myself.

i.e. punk rock was revolutionary back in the day, but people who are aping the revolutionaries from '77, 25 years on, have a backward-looking attitude that punk set out to destroy in the first place. you have just pointed out that rock 'n' roll followed a similar pattern.

"When eventually something new came along, most of the old rock 'n rollers rushed to condemn the young upstarts who dared to challenge the status quo rather than praising a new movement which sought to pursue similar aims to their own, thus demonstrating what a hide-bound bunch of reactionary old farts they had become and prompting those young upstarts to rightly condemn them as such."

the old rock'n'rollers in question being the equivalent of today's backward-looking punk rockers.

my "eh?" above just meant that one incident where rotten wound up some teddy boys hardly proved or disproved your point.

I was trying to demonstrate why I disagreed with Russ's assertion that the punks ".... were a truly original breed - NOTHING like this had happened before - ever", because I believe that punk has followed a very similar trajectory to that of rock 'n' roll; a belief which Russ decribed as ".... baffling in the extreme. And quite wrong, too."

"my "eh?" above just meant that one incident where rotten wound up some teddy boys hardly proved or disproved your point."

I know Kilian, I was responding to Russ's point, which was why I began my message with the quote from Russ's message that I was addressing and not with your "eh?".

Eh?

How much longer must we tolerate antinecrophiliacs?

I still think these shitty bands that go round STILL talking about 'punk' are wildly ill informed, though.

Punk is dead - why can't these kids accept it? While I'm in full agreement that we desperately need a revolutionary movement now, it aint ever going to be punk.

lack of food + tiredness = parnoid defensiveness + unnecessary explanations

No, that's not paranoia Kilian; Russ and I really do hate you and we deliberately lured you into a trap because we could tell you were tired and hungry which made you more vulnerable.

Russ, have you been reading some of my rants on: how do you, personally, distinguish between genres [ugh] of punk / post-punk / new wave / etc.? ?!

How sad a day it is when kids think Blink 182 are a punk band..... phew....

If you were to follow my analogy to it's logical conclusion, I strongly suspect that you'd reach the conclusion that, in terms of authenticity at least, Blink 182 are to punk what Showaddywaddy were to the true spirit of rock 'n' roll rebellion.

i'd watch san francisco... weasel walter is here. the ex-xbxrx brothers are here. rumor has it that matt st. germaine might relocate here. john dwyer seems to always be around. etc. etc. something LOUD and WEIRD has to come from that. there's enough talented weirdos to start a bowling league...

eep eep!!!

i'll believe msg might relocate here the day he does.

In Providence, there's enough to start a softball league! ... As long as you have an open definition of "talent."

Ha did you see that list in MOJO called something like 'the greatest 50 punk albums ever'? Some of it provoked great gnashing of teeth and irritation - not for the first (or last) time I'm sure - at it's re-classifications.....and then I got to wondering: is it because music journalism is a young person's game that it can sometimes feel like living through some received-wisdom hipster-ist re-writing of musical history when you read these things, because at a certain point it becomes more and more likely that genres/periods get written about by ppl too young to have either lived through it or to have been there as older than a child?

Journos/Writers on this board - do you feel equally comfortable writing about musics/periods you never lived through?
How does what/how you write change in response?
And at the other end - at what age/point in music journalism do you start picking up currents of 'sod off gramps, you're too old to understand' from editors/colleagues - or does that never happen (or happen later) wrt certain mags ?

oh, i believe it!

san fran's just had an upswing of it...

m.

ps i think i'm using "having talent" as "being effective". so gg allin was a pretty shitty musician by pop standards, but pretty fuckin effective as a performance artist. so i'd say he was talented... even if that meant talented at starting riots and scar(r)ing the shit out of people.

pear

Good question Snowy. I think that's certainly part of it but there does seem to be a constant proces of re-appraisal and revision going on and I suspect that the record labels certain artists are / were on and the subsequent / current availability of those artist's back catalogue - particularly on genre compilations - plays quite a significant part in how those artist's profiles increase or diminish with time.

The Mojo "Top 50 Punk Albums" is indeed a case in hand, including a handful of titles by bands who were great bands and may well have been influenced by punk but I'm sure came along well after the event (Husker Du, Sonic Youth, Minor Threat) plus a couple of other US bands (Electric Eels, Weirdos) who I'm sure very few if any UK punks had heard of at the time (not that that invalidates them of course, but it does make their inclusion on such a list a bit odd, especially since afaik neither of them actually released a proper album during their existences!); and yet The Vibrators (who actually released the 2nd UK punk single and the 2nd UK punk album) are yet again conspicuous by their absence.

Well, I don't think anyone's going to get too shocked or upset these days about some bunch of kids swaggering about being obnoxious and cockily pronouncing themselves to be the most important / revolutionary thing since the Beatles / Sex Pistols, because there seems to be a constant stream of them doing so anyway, and even if old farts like me do sneer at them condescendingly at times, I think most of us know that it's essential for young bands to have that level of self-belief if they're going to do the job properly. I certainly can't see a bunch of old musicians these days getting their pants in a bow and threatening to quit their record label because it's signed some young band who are - heaven forbid - too raunchy and rebellious!

At the same time you have artists like Miss Dynamite and George Michael appearing on The Brits and making a point the like of which only a marginalised minority act like Cr@ss would have been so outspoken about 20-odd years ago (how are George and Tony going to feel about being the father's of several thousand dead, I wonder?)

So that's the old punk's bases pretty much covered - what holes does it leave for the next revolution to come and fit itself into?

Yes, through many conversations about one thing, '77 punk is dead. but really, what would i call my band? fast metal?
punk is a good label for bands that are harsh and fast. teenage kids that are doing the rebellion thing "need" to listen to the stuff their parents wont like or even want them to buy.

Can you really see a group of middle school kids or young high school kids listening to lightning bolt?

For those who have been to any Hella, Lightning Bolt, or any of the other afore mentioned bands, concerts, do high school kids actually go to them?

inhuman

I like the Blood Brothers and Hella, but neither makes me jump up and down. In fact, I can’t think of any recent punk that does. This local band Red Vendetta are fun to watch, but the songs aren’t there yet…

I think I've heard a version of this every year since I got into punk in 1983.

But let’s start with a working definition. To me, punk = whatever the following songs have in common:

Dicks’ "Dicks Hate the Police"; Pere Ubu’s "Heart of Darkness"; Flipper’s "Ever"; Dead Kennedys’ "Halloween"; the Sex Pistols’ "God Save the Queen"; Black Flag’s "White Minority"; Bikini Kill’s "Feels Blind"; Suicide Commandos’ "Complicated Fun"; Minor Threat’s "Out of Step (With the World)"; Husker Du’s "Whatever"; Mission of Burma’s "Academy Fight Song"; Minutemen’s "Joe McCarthy’s Ghost"; the Dead Boys’ "Sonic Reducer"; the Ramones’ "Blitzkrieg Bop"; Heavens to Betsy’s "Me & Her"; the Clash’s "Janie Jones"; Wire’s "Fragile"; X’s "White Girl"; Big Boys’ "Heartbeat"; The Buzzcocks’ "Ever Fallen In Love?"; Naked Raygun’s "Potential Rapist"; The Crucifucks’ "Hickley Had a Vision"; Die Kreuzen’s "All White"; The Couch Potatoes’ "Mobile Home"; Descendents’ "Suburban Home"; Bad Brains’ "Pay to Cum"; Appliances-SFB’s "Bob Hope"; the Replacements’ "Unsatisfied"; PiL’s "Memories"; Fugazi's "Epic Problem"; Talking Heads’ "Mind"(etc.)

Not many, but yes.

Since my sophomore year of high school I've seen Lightning Bolt about 6 times, Arab on Radar about 8, Hella once, Deerhoof twice, Pink & Brown twice, Coachwhips once and dozens more bands in the same scene.

I'm still in high school, by the way; 1 trimester to go, then it's off to sunny Annapolis, MD.

Looking at my song list above, I notice a few things right away. First, they have punk in common--which I know is a tautology (sp?), but each tune is obviously responding to a strain of attitudes and politics that can’t be described any other way.

Then there's the high energy level, physical and creative.

There's also a series of qualities that overlap or give-and-take: outrage ("Dicks Hate the Police," "Feels Blind," "Joe McCarthy’s Ghost"); horror ("Heart of Darkness," "All White"); snot ("Suburban Home," "God Save the Queen"); confrontation ("Academy Fight Song," "Me & Her," "Janie Jones"); disgust ("White Minority," "Potential Rapist," "Memories"); solidarity in depression ("Ever," "Unsatisfied"); commentary on punk rock ("Complicated Fun"); and songs of bad love ("White Girl," "Ever Fallen In Love?").

Most of all, there’s an immediacy of communication and musical attack: The Dicks aren’t writing you a letter, they’re screaming at you on the bus--and you must, must, must listen NOW! Maybe that’s where a lot of modern punk-influenced music stops being "punk" for me: It doesn’t have anything urgent to get across, or doesn’t get it across with any urgency.

Or it isn't artistically intense. Sleater-Kinney are intelligible, but don't have that frayed Heavens to Betsy craziness. They've grown neat and happy to just rock out in their limited style, which is fine, but not even Clash-level punk.

Then again, their clarity is exactly what's missing in most so-called post-hardcore, which is mostly just prog-rock. Dillinger Escape Plan, like Dillinger Four, are righteous, high-energy, and ultimately not getting anything across. Screaming doesn't mean anything anymore: It's just another way of emitting the lyric sheet. Ditto most hardcore (a.k.a. short-haired, political death-metal).

But let's face it, the punk generation are the parents now, so where does that leave the kids to go? And besides, what's wrong with liking "music your parents liked", anyway?

"I think I've heard a version of ["Punk is dead - why can't these kids accept it?"] every year since I got into punk in 1983."

Ah well, y'see Peter, I'd have to say that that's because punk - at least insofar as it meant to the people who were about at the time - really WAS dead by the time you got into it in 1983.

Punk rock as a musical genre has continued undeniably; but punk it most certainly ain't, because punk not only wasn't a musical genre, it was positively ANTI- musical genres.

In fact, if anything, the emergence of punk rock as an identifiable musical genre was one of the biggest things that helped to nail the coffin lid down on punk.

To paraphrase Mr Lydon c. 1978, "what we wanted to do was to inspire loads of people to get up and do their own thing, but all we seem to have managed to do is to inspire loads of people to copy what we're doing"

I guess I think the more-than-a-genre you're talking about keeps getting birthed and snuffed over and over again, and I want another birth.

There's certainly some truth in that Peter; although I still believe that there was a certain [ethos, approach, attitude - call it what you will] that can be traced from Richard Hell, Talking Heads, Pere Ubu through the birth of the UK punk scene and up to about '79 and which has nothing but the most superficial similarity to the "all punk bands must look and sound something like this" dogma which started to emerge between '78 and '83 (which was what led in turn to anyone who DIDN'T fit that blueprint - including Talking Heads and Pere Ubu of course - being re-categorised as New Wave or Post Punk etc. etc. etc.) and which as far as I can see has persisted to this day.

"I guess I think the more-than-a-genre you're talking about keeps getting birthed and snuffed over and over again, and I want another birth."

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here Peter. If you're suggesting that anything of the significance of punk has been birthed and snuffed out again (other than maybe on a very isolated local level) since 1979, then I can only assure that you you're way off the mark. On the other hand, if you're saying that you'd like to see something else of equal significance happen, then I promise you that there's very little I'd like more myself; although, as I said in my first post on this thread: "If punk, or anything remotely like punk, ever does happen again, the one thing that you can be absolutely 100% certain about is that it will not look, or sound, anything like punk did or like you would expect it to do; that would miss the entire point."

Well here's the best response I can summon: http://www.citypages.com/databank/22/1083/article9800.asp

If you're interested, I could also start recommending records.

http://www.gutspieearshot.de/haupt_htm/indexx.htm

punk is an oblique esthetics of materialism in becoming:

"I reject the world because I want to own it"
"As part of the world I therefore reject myself because I seek to own myself"
"Not owning myself I cannot effect my rejection of the world, myself included."
"I can neither reject nor own myself"
"Thus I surrender myself"
"In surrendering myself to the world I surrender the world"
"To the extent I can surrender the world, I own the world"
"To the extent I own the world I reject it"

etc.

B-b-but..."All the Small Things" is better than anything the Clash ever recorded...

*runs away*

"to react i move forward or i move backwards to start over again or I try to turn trash into treasure, combing through second hand stores."

or

"In 1974 General Amin is sad because no loves him enough."

or

"After I stacked the cans of peas to make a display at the grocery store, I accidentally kicked one on the bottom and they all fell on top of me."

or

"I like amnesia. I like . . . something or other."

plus i don't think punks dead. Its still a way of thinking, appreciating the past and looking to the future. Plus not being complacent.

All genres have they're retro sounding artists. Doesn't mean they're bad. A good song is a good song in my opinion.

i personally don't like the bashing the hives/strokes get. i think they're great and make me want to jump around. Who cares about anything else.

And yes there are too many boring pop-punk and fast punk bands around. But thats just a mainstream thing. Look elsewhere.

and one more point: nothing is new..everything builds on what came before. try and appreciate everything, have fun, enjoy music, don't bash bands who are trying they're hardest, just say you don't like them.

I hate cash in bands, but not ones who really appreciate they're influences even if they sounds a bit too similar.

I think scenes are fun but should be built around like minded people/thinking not around a too restrictive style of music. as this always dies out too quickly with over-saturation. I think scenes exist at the moment but are more disparate due to increased access to music.

I think the net will play a big part in the future of music and the increased freedom of information and communication is great for outsider innovation.

Not sure if this ramble made any sense :)

sheet

inhuman

the shape of punk to come is thrones.

http://www.pwgproductions.com/b.j.s%20ashes.jpg

i.e. a pile of ashes. Sad but true, it's over.

No wonder she didn't move around much.

and brody wasnt even that hottt.

Since when do the Distillers stand for the current state of punk?

But anyway yeah, most punk (as in the musical genre, not the philosophy/aesthetics behind) nowadays is pretty damn boring. But there's still plenty of good underground music that is descended from punk in some way.

THATs NOt REAL MUSIC REAL MUSIC IS ONLEY MADE WITH GITARS!

They're crap. Always have been, always will be. I don't differentiate them from Blink 182, etc.

As with bimble, I'm not quite old enough to be an authority. But it seems to me that if punk had never existed before, and the Sex Pistols (or insert great punk band here) were forming today, this is what they'd be about. Anything less would be gutless.

I'm not really a punk and I'm sure there are isolated examples, but the fact that there's doesn't seem to be some kind of popularly noticeable musical countercultural movement forming, as there was in the 60s and again in the 70s, is a little disappointing.

But I should shut up and do something instead of whining about it.

don't you mean that scorces is the new minimalism like minimalism was the new indian classical?

roxymuzak- scorces are a duo who have released an OK LP of folk-ish drone on the eclipse label.

The mighty RHINO was the shape of punk in the distant past, he is the shape of punk today, and he will be the shape of punk to come, for his horn, though fearsome and impressive, is but a cone of matted HAIR!

Many a curious coiffure has topped the human head, but the hair of the rhino trumps them all, for his horn is a deadly WEAPON! Attempt to rob him of his salad, his safety, or his mate, and the rhino will gore you with very little effort or regret.

As you lie bleeding on the veldt, consider this: the rhino is wedded to his horn for life, while our hair is always in motion: a cloud of flies above a mound of rhino DUNG.

forgot the charalambides connection.