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[littlefallsmets]

I'm in a bad place, yeah, but I think... there's something about the internet that makes me sound like I'm more down than I actually am.

I'm definitely in a cynical place, though, yeah. Yeah.

I am not this negative a person but... the last year has really beaten the living fuck out of me and... it looks like more to come for a good long while. There's only so much any of us can take, I reckon.

Here's hopin' for next Christmas for you guys, too. For me, too.

What's the old Jewish saying... "Next year, in Jerusalem!"? Somethin' like that? Yeah.

...yeah.

[linnea]

We need like a touamb group hug or an open bar, one of those, probably both. The stars are just not aligned this year.

2007 was a colossally bad year for me, too. I sure as fuck hope that 2008 is better.

[Limmo]

Yeah, this year has pretty much been shit. 

Still, OT, we at least have 2008 to look forward to.  Unlike Ike Turner.

[theinevitable]

I mean, I don't really consider the Sex Pistols when I think about punk. They were basically a fake concept. I'm not arguing about this, though. They did the whole thing basically to get famous, and so I would say they were not really very punk at their core.

[Limmo]

So, if you don't consider the Sex Pistols punk....who exactly do you consider punk?

[theinevitable]

um. What I meant is... I guess they are a punk-style-music thing. But when I say I like punk, I mean the whole DIY lo-fi simple music thing, not just the sound.

minor threat, bad brains, Husker Du, the ramones, black flag, dead kennedys, the first clash album, DOA, various other acronym names. And then, all the stuff that called itself punk or came from punk because there wasn't a real definition of punk yet-- proto-punk stuff like The Stooges and Television and Richard Hell and the Voidoids, stuff like early Flaming Lips, Fugazi, Minutemen (SO GOOD), all the british "post-punk" stuff like the Gang of Four and what have you.

I don't know. I guess when I say I like punk, what I mean is that I like the bands that heard the Sex Pistols or Ramones and said "shit, that's easy. I can do that."

There's a story which is probably my favorite music anecdote of all time about the Minutemen. They'd been in a Who cover band for years together, just spending all this time learning to play pretty-good versions of Pinball Wizard and My Generation and stuff. They would read music magazines, and one day they heard about this stuff called Punk (I believe this was the real early stuff-- the first ramones record, Television, etc). They looked at these pictures, and said "huh. it's probably some kind of really out-there shit... all jazzy and stuff."
Then they sent away for a 45, and got it, and said "holy shit! we can play better than these guys, and they have a record out! We can... we can start a band! we can write songs!"
They said that, growing up in a shitty suburb of LA, they thought that rock music was made by people who were born talented, the kids who pick up a guitar and can play it within a week. They figured that they were too Normal to make rock music. They couldn't play ripping solos, they couldn't come up with these insanely complex chord changes. Rock music seemed too far away, it was made by people on TV and on the Radio, not people that lived in the suburbs with their parents. But hearing this music, this simple music, made them realize that they could do it too. And so they did. They wrote some of the best fuck*ng songs I have ever heard. Then, you know, Dan Boone died in a freak car accident, and now Mike Watt plays bass on Kelly Clarkson records.

[CortJstr]

So, if you don't consider the Sex Pistols punk....who exactly do you consider punk?

This reminds me of the Joe Strummer documentary I watched recently. They show an interview with this girl in a leather jacket and like a studded collar and stuff. This is like 1984 maybe. And she says that the Clash aren't punk at all, they're pop. And I'm sitting there watching this thinking, "dude, they're the fuck*ng CLASH. I can't wrap my head around them being anything but punk."

[AlohaDawg]

This reminds me of this friend of mine, for whom every band he had heard of that no one else had was cool.

As soon as they had a breath of commercial success, they were sellouts and therefore automatically sucked.

This sounds a lot like Daniel's idea of punk to me.

[theinevitable]

maybe. maybe. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like plenty bands that are popular. It just seems to me that the Punk genre is pretty ill-defined. The idea of a successful punk band, though, seems pretty nonsensical to me. I mean, I guess I have a pretty US-centric view of punk, as most of my knowledge comes from reading Our Band Could Be your Life something like 5 times. The reason I like punk as an idea is that it provided a structure for people to make music outside of the mainstream record industry. But this version was mostly in the US, in my understanding. In the UK it was much more of a Fad thing, where a ton of bands got signed trying to sound like the Sex Pistols, and then people got sick of it and moved on to New Wave and stuff.


I don't really think The Clash are very punk, either. They blended punk with a lot of other stuff, and that's what made them good. But I would say that... it made them stop really being Punk. I would say they were just rock music. "White Riot" is punk. "London Calling" is really great, but it does not seem very punk to me. The same way that I would say that "Jesus Shootin' Heroin" is a lot more punk than "Yoshimi Battles the Pink *****s." I don't know.
I guess my understanding of punk is mostly based on the Idea of punk as a self-propelled counter-cultural movement. That, and that I really like fast, intense music.
And I hate the idea of trying to narrowly define these things. I also don't like that I am making long posts deciding what bands are punk and what bands are not.
Basically, when it talk about punk, I am talking more about the Spirit of rock music made by amateurs, made for the love of the music or the fun of performing, or just for something to do... not music made to be successful. I guess I need a better thing to call it than punk. But as far as I'm concerned, the Sex Pistols are not really very many of the things that punk is about.

[AlohaDawg]

Punk music played that only 10 people hear is good.

Punk music that is sold to 100,000 people sucks.

Close?

[theinevitable]

well. it depends.

Was this band invented by Malcolm Maclaren specifically to sell records?
Did this band get together with the intention of making music in order to make exorbitant amounts of money?

I mean, I love Kurt Cobain, and he certainly wanted to be famous. But he also wanted to make good music, and strove for that. He struggled with wanting to be famous, and hating the idea of being famous at the same time. Was Nirvana punk? Yes and no.

I wouldn't say that Punk music sold to 100,000 people sucks. I would just say that it isn't very punk if that was the goal. I mean, Green Day? Not punk. Nothing about them is punk save their influences. If 100,000 people go out and buy the first Ramones record, it's still punk.

I mean, really, it's the same old argument about Folk music. Are Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens, whoever, really folk? Their music isn't made by "folks," it's made by rich rock stars. I like folk music because it's pretty, and it's old, and great. But also-- because it isn't made by Celebrities. It's just made by people. It is good music, played well by men.

[KeithHernandez]

Dawg, the bands Inev listed there are all very popular.  Seriously.


Also, I only have four dollars and I just graduated tonight and that kind of sucks, but I am going to find a way to party anyhow.  You all should just party more when you got the chance, you know.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Dawg, the bands Inev listed there are all very popular.  Seriously.


Also, I only have four dollars and I just graduated tonight and that kind of sucks, but I am going to find a way to party anyhow.  You all should just party more when you got the chance, you know.

Congratulations!

[theinevitable]

Dawg, the bands Inev listed there are all very popular.  Seriously.

I am always interested in the perception of these things. My roommates have never heard of any of these bands, and yet most of the people I hang around with socially have. We had a big discussion at the radio station the other day when someone complained that too many people play the same "popular shit" like Neutral Milk Hotel and the Velvet Underground. I mentioned that I had brought up the Velvet Underground in a music class I took, and only 3 or 4 other people out of 40 or so 18-22 year olds had heard of them. I have a tendency to assume everything I like is unpopular and unknown, as my high school friends who were into music were all into newer "indie" stuff. I have a big shock every time I hear "She Don't Use Jelly" or something on the radio here.

This also leads to me developing crushes on every girl I meet who has heard of, say, The Minutemen.

[KeithHernandez]

Thanks man.

Also, I am eating plain macaroni noodles.  I thought life was supposed to get better with a college degree!?!

I didn't make this clear, but Inev is also right that the Sex Pistols are not punk.  Not at all.  In fact, his almost analogy between them and Green Day, as long as it wasn't made just to get himself a can, gets him a can.

I am always interested in the perception of these things. My roommates have never heard of any of these bands, and yet most of the people I hang around with socially have. We had a big discussion at the radio station the other day when someone complained that too many people play the same "popular shit" like Neutral Milk Hotel and the Velvet Underground. I mentioned that I had brought up the Velvet Underground in a music class I took, and only 3 or 4 other people out of 40 or so 18-22 year olds had heard of them. I have a tendency to assume everything I like is unpopular and unknown, as my high school friends who were into music were all into newer "indie" stuff. I have a big shock every time I hear "She Don't Use Jelly" or something on the radio here.

You know, I have thought the exact same thing.  I don't know what the answer is, but that is pretty weird.  It is weird being around people who have the same interests as me who didn't go to high school with me, but, well, they are all over the place, even in Oklahoma.  Actually, my city has produced a lot of well known bads recently, which may be why.