I'm turning in my punk rock membership card

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I've spent the better part of my life ordering 7"s from the back of HeartattaCk fanzine and preaching the gospel of The Urinals, Jad Fair, and other inept geniuses. I'd come close to blows with members of my college's Zappa-crazed jazz department over the merits of Arthur Doyle.

But these days, I find myself appreciating Steely Dan in ways I never did before, recognizing and respecting the talents and abilities of session players (can't stop watching Merle Haggard's live in concert VHS), and defending some very un-punk artists / groups (see several recent threads).

I used to make records by inviting friends over to play instruments they have never played before and letting the shit fly, now I dream about hiring session musicians to back me up on a solo record.

I find myself less tolerant of grown men squatting on the floor of performance spaces tinkering with toys. I find myself resistant to ad hoc assembalges of scrawny boychicks making a horrible racket under the banner of self expression. My favorite record of the year is Welcome Intersate Managers.

Am I growing up, getting horribly lame, or what? Anyone else go thru a similar metamorphosis?

― roger adultery, Monday, 15 December 2003 03:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I love the Dead Kennedys

― Sonny A. (Keiko), Monday, 15 December 2003 03:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Tastes change, I wouldn't fret. I figure this -- folks like Rockist and Tom Ewing have made good cases as to why they don't listen to music they once loved thoroughly, in terms of how it reminds them of psychological places they don't want to be in any more. That type of change makes sense, as does simple and sheer boredom and the desire for something else. What I might question would be any outright rejection of something you love in favor of something else when the two could easily coexist for you. If they can't, well, it's your call in the end!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 15 December 2003 03:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Well put as always, Ned, but I'm obviosuly not going to stop buying The Wire or anything just because I realize that, ya know, it's nice to hear dudes that can PLAY once in a while, you know? But yeah, there'll always be plenty of space for Jandek and Smegma on my shelf.

― roger adultery, Monday, 15 December 2003 03:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Then yer set and don't sweat it.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 15 December 2003 03:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Ah, but it isn't so easy, Ned. What about connotations? What if I wanted to actually wear a Clutch T shirt? Won't I get lumped in with the clueless? What, heavens, about my beloved rock-crit cred?

― roger adultery, Monday, 15 December 2003 04:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Er? Fuck all that, just pull an Alex in NYC in reverse and drown those who complain in ice-covered water or something. You know, for variety.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 15 December 2003 04:07 (twenty-one years ago)

When was the last time you accused somebody of selling out?

― Sonny A. (Keiko), Monday, 15 December 2003 04:08 (twenty-one years ago)

myself, yesterday

― the surface noise (electricsound), Monday, 15 December 2003 04:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Fucking poseur.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 15 December 2003 04:10 (twenty-one years ago)

vogue

― the surface noise (electricsound), Monday, 15 December 2003 04:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Am I growing up, getting horribly lame, or what? Anyone else go thru a similar metamorphosis?

You're growing up, and you should embrace it. Cross that Rubicon with zeal and the piece of mind that you can happily tell someone to go suck themselves off if they tell you it's not properly "punk" to appreciate ___________ (fill in questionable artist here).

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 15 December 2003 04:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I think the final nail in my coffin was the 1/4 page ad Constellation put out against me, calling me the "William F Bukley of punk, the Rush Limbaugh of indie rock..." shit, and I LIKED that last Silver Mt Zion record!

― roger adultery, Monday, 15 December 2003 04:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Haha! I would consider an attack ad from Constellation a badge of goddamn honor.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 15 December 2003 04:28 (twenty-one years ago)

where/when was that? If I were you, I'd be flattered!

x-post

― hstencil, Monday, 15 December 2003 04:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Current issue of Your Flesh. Funny stuff. I'm debating on whether or not to reply. Would that be childish?

― roger adultery, Monday, 15 December 2003 04:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Just take out a "At least when I eat my French fries I SMILE, motherfuckers!" ad.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 15 December 2003 04:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Also punk is a spirit, not a music genre. By my reckoning, Merle Haggard and Steely Dan are punk, Good fuckin' Charlotte are not.

― pete s, Monday, 15 December 2003 04:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Though the kids like them, sigh. That means they must be accepted.
It's pop law.

― pete s, Monday, 15 December 2003 04:40 (twenty-one years ago)

You'll be back, you're probably just getting choosier. There are only so many GOOD bands of whatever kind playing at any given time.

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Monday, 15 December 2003 06:13 (twenty-one years ago)

haha dude i've known so many people who have gone through the 'steely dan existential crisis' it's unbelievable!

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 15 December 2003 06:15 (twenty-one years ago)

poor steely dan.

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Monday, 15 December 2003 06:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Specifically Steely Dan? Bizarre.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 15 December 2003 06:16 (twenty-one years ago)

ned, steely dan is like the whipping boy for everyone who once put themselves diametrically opposed to "musical fluency" or some shit.

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Monday, 15 December 2003 06:17 (twenty-one years ago)

(and i should know.)

― fiddo centington (dubplatestyle), Monday, 15 December 2003 06:17 (twenty-one years ago)

mine happened in 91, i think? bought every single album on vinyl in like a week and played them non-stop for months. drove my then girlfriend up a wall. i think it was my reaction to grunge.

― scott seward, Monday, 15 December 2003 06:20 (twenty-one years ago)

wait, that can't be right. musta been 92 or 93.mebbe it's a rite of passage.

― scott seward, Monday, 15 December 2003 06:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Very strange, Fiddo! But I think better that than ELP or something.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 15 December 2003 06:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, YEAH. Shit, Ned, nobody's lost their friggin' minds or nuthin.'

― roger adultery, Monday, 15 December 2003 06:31 (twenty-one years ago)

does cracking a woody over lindsey buckingham's fingerpicking skills mean i can no longer be punk?

― the surface noise (electricsound), Monday, 15 December 2003 07:24 (twenty-one years ago)

depends how you feel about billy zoom, tom verlaine, etc.

― bad jode (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 15 December 2003 07:44 (twenty-one years ago)

if television is punXoR then so is steely dan

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 15 December 2003 07:47 (twenty-one years ago)

we already decided steely dan were punXoR

― bad jode (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 15 December 2003 07:47 (twenty-one years ago)

ok good!

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 15 December 2003 07:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Seems to me that your trusting your ears more, and no longer buying into bullshit formulae like "inept = daring therefore good" and "Competant = safe therefore boring". Just don't go to far the other way, and simply swap the words "inept" and "competant" in the above formulae -- remember rather that early Half Japanese and Steely Dan are really good, and that Arthur Doyle and Zappa really suck, and it's not competance/incompetance that makes the difference.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Monday, 15 December 2003 11:34 (twenty-one years ago)

In 2003, when names like Good Charlotte and Avril Lavigne are bandied around as the new face of Punk Rock, the term has practically lost all meaning anyway.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 15 December 2003 11:59 (twenty-one years ago)

That is not happening.......!

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 15 December 2003 12:03 (twenty-one years ago)

arthur doyle does not suck and i enjoy zappa's guitar playing but apart from that you have some good points.

I can't trust ppl who like one or the other so do remember roger that an improvised 'racket' can be a good thing :-)

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 15 December 2003 12:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Julio, I only ever post to one of Roger's threads to remind him just how bad Arthur Doyle really is. And you always defend him. I'm just counting the seconds before stencil arrives and loses his temper.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Monday, 15 December 2003 13:46 (twenty-one years ago)

sorry I'm especially touchy on this 'issue' bcz I've recently heard soem more doyle and its great.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 15 December 2003 13:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm glad Steely Dan were just another pop group I heard as a kid. I avoided that existential crisis. (Actually, I my taste was never close to being punk 24/7, but it was more punk at some point.)

Oh, and Ned, while I have autobiographical/psychological reasons for not wanting to listen to certain things I used to love, that's not the whole story. You stop listening to one thing for a while, and start listening to another, and your expectations and preferences can easily shift as a result (or at least that's what I have found). I am a lot less willing now to make allowances for singers who have almost no control over their voices, for example.

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 15 December 2003 14:41 (twenty-one years ago)

(Just clarifying. Not offended or anything.)

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 15 December 2003 14:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Don't worry. You can get it back. I was getting a little to comfortable myself a few months ago, so I started going to shows, $5 all ages in warehouses, dives, abandoned basements. At first it was horrible, I had totally ignored that screamo stuff but I got used to it and one out of a dozen bands really were unique and awe-inspiring (thank god I saw Japanther, they are awesomeness from another planet) I'm better now. I live in Baltimore, you should come visit. We can stand at the bus stop outside Jason Willet's house and listen to him practice. That should fix you.

― Brandon Welch (Brandon Welch), Monday, 15 December 2003 17:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I drastically cut my clash/slf/damned etc. intake a year or two ago. The last album I bought was Taraf De Haidouks and before that it was Chet Atkins - Another Side of Chet Atkins (which is brilliant, fabulous, like the last ry cooder album done 40 years ago). I have lost my punk taste, my faded t-shirts aren't fading anymore and I'm playing ukelele instead of overdrive. And I'm 18... so it's not a mid life crisis thing, it cant't be.
Steely Dan eh? Never reaaallyy checked them out properly (adds to list). After I buy all the Leonard Cohen albums

― Major Alfonso (Major Alfonso), Tuesday, 16 December 2003 03:23 (twenty-one years ago)

i used to have a d.r.e.a.d. card, i think it was from wrif but i forget what dread stood for.

― keith m (keithmcl), Tuesday, 16 December 2003 06:09 (twenty-one years ago)

I find myself less tolerant of grown men squatting on the floor of performance spaces tinkering with toys.

Fix that one and you'll be set.

― David Allen, Tuesday, 16 December 2003 07:43 (twenty-one years ago)

geeta + jess OTM. sorry, steely dan is indeed the fucking litmus test. if you don't see becker's shadow now, you've got another six weeks of punk rock winter (and live out bill murray's gopher groundskeeper nightmare three chords at a time) until.... the Eagles start to appeal for a midnight snack. signs of the crash course diet begins shortly. a little "mirage", remembrance of a "dream of the blue turtles"... these are symptoms of Maturation, and there's naught you can do about it. If you've ever been in love, truly, you may be a candidate for this condition.
Otherwise, take two copies of minor threat's ep, followed by wolf eyes dread and call me in the morning!

― Dr. Annabel Lies (Michael Kelly), Tuesday, 16 December 2003 08:31 (twenty-one years ago)

"minutemen aren't punk" SHOCKER!!!

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Tuesday, 16 December 2003 10:46 (twenty-one years ago)

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