"Punk Rock Is Bullshit"?

Dead Kennedys & Fishbone shared on social media this opinion piece from Seattle Weekly: "Punk Rock Is Bullshit". Check it out, we'd love to hear what you think. + What is your definition of being punk today?
Excerpts from the article: "Punk taught us to rebel against authority until "authority" included everything: piano lessons, fire insurance, (...) and, ultimately, growing up."
"A happy childhood [was] an unthinkable transgression. These personality disorders were just punk in practice.
It's time we stopped disavowing happiness and measured pride, we punk survivors, wrapping ourselves in itchy thrift-store horse blankets thinking that only discomfort is honest."
"What I'm talking about is "punk rock" as a political stance, punk rock as a social movement, punk rock as a fashion trend, punk rock as a personal lifestyle brand, and punk rock as a lens of critical appraisal. (...) What started out as teenage piss-taking at baby-boomer onanism quickly morphed into a humorless doctrine characterized by acute self-consciousness and boring conformism."
"Punk only tells us what it hates. It has never stood for anything; it stands against things."
"It's time we stopped hating ourselves, our ambition, and our sincerity, guarding our integrity credentials in fear of interrogation by the secret punk police."
"Self-indulgent screaming and narcissistically purposeful out-of-tuneness seemed like dangerous political statements" (...) "The idea that poor kids from Kitsap County, like their heroes from Southern California and northern England, were somehow immune from being pretentious by virtue of their underclass nobility was a cultural lie that had run its course elsewhere, but we never saw the second half of the telegram".
"The truth is, if there really was an Illuminati bent on controlling the world through a secret government, they couldn't have done a better job of defanging the youth movement than by introducing the self-negating, (...) lethargy-celebrating, divisive and controlling, fashion-based ideology of punk rock into the mainstream."

Tags: Anti-Establishment, Movement, Politics, Punk, Rock, Social

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Comment by Lar Mizell Jr on March 16, 2013 at 6:58am: doe bay dave barry

Comment by Dallas on March 13, 2013 at 8:43pm: Their comments are DEAD ON in the context of which they're speaking. The above clarified their statement, by specifying the period AFTER punk was re-injected into society by the mainstream media. Henry Rollins said something very similar in one of his rants way back when. The origins of punk are still the same and NOT in question.

As a recap, the origins were that musicians who didn't goto school and or classes for music theory and the lot were NOT seen as musicians. You weren't seen as relevant unless you had such schooling and/or tutelage under your belt. How can this be so? How can you deem someone's musical creation irrelevant because they lack schooling some unknown entity deems acceptable? What if you can't afford said schooling, but have something to say? Punk originally was a rebellion against that notion. People with untrained voices and 3chord repertoires, were belting out tunes to others of their ilk. They couldn't play the mainstream clubs, so they played where they could. They were the outcasts, the un cool, the unwanted of society. So they banded together and basically said "you don't want us over there? We'll create our own society/scene over here and YOUR ilk will be the undesirables!" So initially it was all good, but things went a little over-board. People were so against mainstream society entering their enclave, that it turned ugly and violent. Instead of a peaceful underworld society created for the "unwanted" they started attacking mainstreamers adhoc! This was in small numbers at first, but then the mainstream media got a hold of it and focused on that small, splinter group. They put it out the masses that punks were all violent trouble-makers. Then the fun really started when people who wanted to get in on the revelry joined the ranks. Originally, it was peaceful even though the music was full of angst and violence. By the time the mainstream media told the story, there NEVER WAS that peaceful period. That's why the view of the general public of Punk Rock is so skewed. . .

Henry Rollins spoke about Punk being self-defeating. If you do anything long enough, you get better at it. He wanted his band (Black Flag) to start using more complex rhythms and incorporating other influences into their music verses staying with the same 3-chord mantra of old. I wasn't "selling out" it was evolving. The notion that evolution is bad because it mirrors mainstream society, is its downfall. But that's why there were/are so many splinter groups in the Punk community. Hardcore, old-skool, ska, skiffle, etc. Some felt the RAMONES were too progressive and therefore not "true" punks and they grandfather'd it ALL! I'm still a fan of Punks' origins. Not what it turned into later, but its origins. But I agree with Henry, that it's self-defeating if you shun progress in favor of playing poorly for the sake of playing poorly. That's just silliness. I'm 10x the drummer I was back then. If I were to revisit those tunes with my practiced techniques of today vs. muscling through the songs adhoc, they'd sound more "polished" Does that make them less "punk"? Henry and I say NO!

P.S. the attorneys and I entered a corporate battle of the bands. Everybody in your band, has to work at the same company or firm. We made it to the regionals and are playing some place in NJ in June. If we make it to the finals, we'll be playing at the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame in Ohio. Me and the lead guitarist are from old Punk bands in the Philly scene. Are we less punk that he's a lawyer and I'm an IT guy working in mainstream America? We both STILL feel like outcasts and both shun/rebel in subtle ways the trappings of society. Some of them I do embrace, but I don't feel this compelling need to "fit in" Never will.

Comment by Lightning Pill on March 8, 2013 at 5:53pm: Back when Mancouch was active, I wrote on the reason punk rock seemed...not ridiculous, but has its moments of either hypocrisy and irony due to conformity. Maybe when I get home, I will look it over and post it. Perhaps, even post it here, after some kinks get worked out.

Comment by Mamadoc on March 8, 2013 at 4:05pm: I can understand where they are coming from and maybe it's because I can understand that they're describing Punk from their perspectives and Punk more than a couple of decades ago. It was all about rebelling and being "different" which was probably freeing for some and for others not necessarily more than trying to fit in with a group they admired or hang with the cool kids - who by the way were working hard at not being cool. lol.

To me, punk has a different definition today for many youth while on the other hand, it's the same for just as many others - a way to rebel or fit it with someone or to express their difference from the norm.

Comment by Chaoscycle George on March 8, 2013 at 3:29pm: well said craig, When i was a kid I use to think punk was a cetain style of life and living (colored mohawk spikes etc.), but truth be told i believe punk to be the truest sense of being your self weather that be a suit and tie or nothing but underware and a mohawk. Perhaps a person who takes something from mainstream and applies it to their own style or nothing from mainstream. Punk is the collection of the expressions you have combined over year which make you who you are

Comment by Craig on March 8, 2013 at 1:30pm: Last summer was my first time attending The AfroPunk Festival. I never identified myself as "punk", only like some of the music some may indentify as punk in passing (if at all), and, generally consider myself somewhere between moderate and conservative in my style and thinking. What I consider, of course, is subjective to what other people consider. Amongst some of my friends, my waist length dreadlocks and penchant for late night parties and club crawls make me the picture of anti-establishment. Amongst others, the fact that I prefer to live as an artist, subsisting from one freelance gig to the next, as opposed to joining the club and keeping a 9-5 with bennies makes me an enigma. My black friends question how and why I have so many friends of different colors and backgrounds, instead of staying within the comfortable environs of my own "tribe". So, as a forty-something dreadlocked, photographer, filmmaker, claiming residence in three cities, I am all of those things and more. But, first, I am myself, and without question, true to myself. The label of punk may or may not apply, but that doesn't matter, to me. It only matters to those in need of labels. My first time at AfroPunk kind of taught me something about that. Everywhere I looked, someone that looked different caught my eye. There were many colors and hairstyles, orientations, religions, practices - whatever. But, we were all the same. Out of many, I saw one.