... the other Black experience
Rockstar In Training: Punk Writing Radio
I was recently asked to participate in a cool radio show discussion about punk rock music, lyrics and songwriting. Crescent Hill Radio has a weekly show called From The Inkwell which is about all things related to writing. The host wanted to talk about how punk gets a bad rap as far as an art form, and is ignored as a legitimate form of writing. When I heard this I thought, “Hey, good idea!” I was honored that the folks at Crescent Hill Radio wanted to get me involved and have me read lyrics on air. So I printed out some lyrics to some of my songs and headed on over to the studio.Words by Pam Newman
At the recording space, there were lots of animals (no pictures because my cell phone battery died before I got there, so use your imagination), including a cat and two snakes. Sheri, the host of From The Inkwell, let me pet her snake. It was a corn snake, I think. They're kinda cute, and their skin is so soft! If you're looking for one in the woods, it'll be the long red thing with a pulse.
Zoological adventures got put to the side after we got started. I was there along with Erin Fitzgerald who is a member of a local punk group. It was pretty awesome to talk about creating music and writing lyrics, but what I found even cooler was that we were two women talking about our personal experiences with punk rock music. That's totally something that you don't get to hear everyday.
Although the conversation was super comfortable, it was really weird to read my lyrics rather than sing them out. I could see some of the stuff I've written as poetry if you were to stick it in a book. Realistically though, I write lyrics to be set to music. They have choruses and bridges and all those fun music elements which would make most of them kind of weird to read as a poem in a book.Oh and for the record? I totally shouted out Afro-Punk a few times and even mentioned AP OG's Cipher!
In other news... I'm planning on making the trek to Brooklyn and attending the Afro Punk fest next month! I really hope that I'll be able to meet some of you awesome folks who've been keeping up with my Rockstar In Training adventures. I'm working on a recording of a badass single which I'll have with me at the event, and I'll give it to you for free if you come say hi! I'm really friendly. I totally promise I won't bite unless you're made out of nachos or something.
If you'd like to listen to the radio show, it will premiere July 30th at 1pm Eastern Standard Time on Crescent Hill Radio. You can stream Crescent Hill Radio from crescenthillradio.com
Keeping it Awesome Every Day,
Your rockstar in training,
Pam Newman
You can find Pam Newman online on twitter at @pamsbutt, she has a Facebook page for her music http://facebook.com/PamNewmanMusic
Comment
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Comment by Pam Newman on July 29, 2011 at 11:29am -
Right, I feel you & agree! The people will always find a way to express themselves when the mass media lacks an accurate representation of their experience.
Rock on, Ethan!
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Comment by Ethan Alvin Hill on July 29, 2011 at 11:20am -
First, allow me the distinction that Rap is the folk art and hip hop is show business.
Rap and punk are artistic responses to (1) consumer culture cookie cutter conformity and (2) capitalism's displacement of working class people to the margins of society (given brain power and social conformity, rather than muscle, is what's exploited in the age of computer technology).
I'd like to go on with these points, but I want to research more before I drop bombs bombs bombs.
However, when I'd visited cbgb's or would play Grandmaster Flash or "Planet Rock" on the stereo, I sensed that worldwide working class youth knew they were being robbed of the present and the future. Interestingly, both rap-hip hop and punk would become what's called international youth culture, the combination of hip hop and alternative - ebony and ivory, black and white together.
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Comment by Pam Newman on July 28, 2011 at 2:49pm
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Punk is a contribution post-Vietnam, but hip hop, which emerged around the same time (and in the same neighborhoods) as Punk also has roots in DIY. Hip hop & rap don't shout from the rooftops that they are DIY, because I think in the Black community it is automatically assumed that one must do for themself.
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Comment by Ethan Alvin Hill on July 27, 2011 at 8:14pm
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Punk is the soul contribution to art made by the English-speaking world post the Vietnam War. DIY is a praxis that defies consumer culture cookie cutter conformity, and it aligned artists who were't born to the manor or with a silver spoon.
The art establishment HATES PUNK, therefore; so punk has a "bad name". Fuck the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Met (both the art gawkery and the opera house), Poetry Society of America. Long live Basquiat, Grace Jones (Hell with Lady Gaga), and Amiri Baraka.
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