Okay, slugheads, I got bored of that Tripgrass discussion because frankly, I live Tripgrass and as such I have a hard time discussing it objectively. Try having an interesting diatribe on your own blood someday and you'll know what I'm talking about. We will return to that topic at a later date. But it's rainy out and I just ate and I'm feeling more ornery than usual. So I'm going to discuss a more pressing issue at this moment: Pop-punk.
Now let's get one thing straight, Luther. I have no problem with punk music and it's stranglehold on the greater DC music scene. With the exception of Go-Go, punk music rightly dominates the musical soundscape of this area. And well it should. In the past 25 years, scores of legendary punk bands and labels have erupted from basements and churches and underground holdings all over the lower Potomac. Punk as a suburban phenomena has no riper pastures than the Greater Balto/DC Megapolis. It's part of the I-95 school of DC. That part of DC that is connected by its ugly, asphalt umbilical cord to New York and Providence and Boston and the other grey industrial mavens. Punk echos true in these concrete chambers.
Now let's get one other thing straight, Luther. Here in the Kingdom, we stick pretty close to the rivers and as far away from that highway scene as possible. Our influences wash down out of the mountains and edy and pool in green and tidal backwaters.
I don't have a punk bone in my body.
I'm tired and I don't like loud noises. I have other appropriate outlets for any unspent anger and I don't have enough to complain about to fill even a two and a half minute throbbing, two-chord diatribe on hate.
My sister has an Offspring album. I find Green Day amusing. I have a love note penned to me by the drummer of the Red Aunts. I used to live across the street from The Make Up. That's as punk as I get.
My only punk credentials are that Brutal Truth digs tKoL and keeps Gay & Mexican in heavy rotation on their tour bus. And Billboard Magazine described us as "jazz-punk-folk." Go figure.
But, if I were, in any sense, punk, I would be nothing short of offended and disgusted at the abuse of the title and genre by hundreds of weak local bands.
Because of punk's regional dominance, it is damn near impossible for any non-punk band to get any press in this town. But any high schooler with a tape-to-tape recorder can expect a full page feature article about their up-and-coming punk record label. Consequently, in order to fit in and to heap undeserved press attention upon themselves, any band around here with a black t-shirt and a pierced ear refers to itself as punk, or some other sorry punk hybrid.
The worst of which is Pop-punk. What in the hell is that? Is there any worse perversion of the word punk? I'm getting wonked about it right now. If I were, in any sense, punk, I would find these bands, burn down their air-conditioned practice space, smash their well tuned guitars, and bleed on their shiny, matching, factory drum kits.
As both a musical and lingual purist and misdirected idealist I find it disgusting that people abuse any word or genre, particularly one as pure as punk. I'm sure someone is out there right now promoting their tonal weakness as lounge-punk, bossanova-punk, marching-punk, trip-punk, jazz-punk-folk, you name it.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that there was a punk ethic that extended far beyond the five o'clock notch on the volume of your Twinverb. I thought punk meant something more than a couple of windmills and snarls and spiky alterna-haircuts. I thought it was a way of life. I thought it was a religion. I thought punk meant getting up in the morning and still looking like that. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm idealizing. Maybe I just remember punk before it was bastardized by soda commercials.
Maybe I'm completely in the wrong about this. Maybe Pop-punk is so wrong it's right. Maybe punk asked for this when it signed the six-figure silver contract. Maybe I should embrace illogical punk fusions as the wave of the future. Chances are I won't. Whether or not Pop-punk takes over, I'll probably sneak out of town as quietly as I snuck in. But I won't be swayed. I've still got a stubborn sense of Right and Wrong based on nothing but instinct and pentecostal experience. And Pop-punk is wrong.
The short of this, Luther, is as follows: play your punk, play your pop. More power to you either way. I probably won't make it to either show. But play it straight and honest. Or else I'll find you and bleed on your drum kit.
Responses:
"I was just at the Otter Farm reading some rant about the punk-pop
'phenomenon' here in the region. I've only lived in DC for a year, but I must agree to some extent about said situation.
The only thing more disturbing is the punk/funk thing. Known in some circles as white punks on funk. Its getting uglier by the minute. Alas, I didn't write to waste your time on that crap."-David DePippo, Power Lloyd
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