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[MadassAlex]

Hey guys

I've been wondering for a while - what is really so good about punk rock and its inspired genres and what does it provide that other genres can't? I am probably just insanely ignorant and for this I apologise, but what does punk do that rock doesn't? I have never been a big listener to punk music, mainly rock and metal and so far I've been unable to come to a conclusion as to what makes punk conclusively punk.
Hardcore, for example, is easy to spot since it is kind of a halfway point between 80s rock and thrash metal, and post-hardcore is easy to spot because it is like hardcore except that most of it is really shoddy.
I talked to some musician friends about it and they just told me it was basically power chords and heaps of distortion. I don't really believe that's true and either way that's not the kind of answer I'm looking for.

In a nutshell:

1. What seperates punk from rock
2. What it offers that other subgenres of rock don't
3. How the hell a cool subgenre spawned a kind of shoddy one.
4. Why the hell do metalheads and punks kind of have shots at eachother guys it is kind of confusing

Thanks for any replies. Any opinions within this post are representative of... my opinions.
No, I do not like post-hardcore, good day. But I can go for some D.R.I once in a while.

[David_Dovey]

*sigh*

[öde]

Surely you should be able to work this out for yourself.

Have you listened to any punk?

[Spinless]

The thing about Punk is that it can be ANYTHING.

Two girls with a casiotone keyboard singing like frogs? Punk.
Skinny kid with greasy hair whining about his ex girlfriend over an accordion? Annoying, but punk.
A guy who can't sing with a band that can't play, singing about oral sex between children is also punk.

Anybody can do punk. Punk is anything you want it to be, it's about freedom.

I am a punk. Are YOU?

[imapiratearg]

That'll do.

[Johnny C]

I always thought a punk was someone who took it up the ass.

[öde]

I'm pretty damn punk.

[Oli]

I'm so punk I threw-up in my girlfriends mouth.

[Thrillho]

Punk, true punk, to me, is just standing out from the crowd (ironically enough considering modern punk). My favourite punk band is the MC5, because their music was almost a decade ahead of its time, and yet wasn't really copied until that point.

[schimmy]

Tommy, do you keep a collection of the essays you write? I'd love to read more of them.

edit: Oh yeah, the appeal of punk. I used to listen to what a lot of people would describe as 'Punk', bands like Crass, Anti-Flag, The Ramones, Rancid, NOFX, The Dead Kennedys, Peter and the Test Tube Babies, Vice Squad, etc. There were a few reasons it appealed to me:
The idea of rebellion, not really from my parents, but from other teenagers definitley helped my self esteem at the beginning of high-school.
The political aspect of several of the bands was also a draw, it made me feel clever, and also links in with the idea of rebellion above.
It sounds good. To this day, I can derive a huge amount of pleasure and emotional release from listening to a musically aggressive song.

[Clobbersaurus]

punk is rejecting structures you know are wrong for the world and making an effort to make a change for the better.
punk is DIY.
punk is honesty.
punk is the underdog willing to fight to the bitter end for what they believe in.

punk isn't about whining, bitching, crying, moaning, or sitting still.
it's about getting off your ass, rolling up your sleeves, and raising your pirate flag.

punk is a hyena fighting for a lion's share.
(blatant rancid reference)

punk and pop are two sides of the same coin. sometimes one in the same. they need eachother:

punk can be anything.
pop can be anything.

punk is pointing out what's wrong with the world and rejecting it.
pop is pointing out what's right with the world and celebrating it.



my two convoluted cents on the matter.

[Hat]

Definitely convoluted, but I actually really like those last definitions

[Gridgm]

i'm feeling an overwhelming urge to post the lyrics of dinosaurs will die here

[Ernest]

Goddamnit guys, NOFX is not the band to start quoting here.  Don't make me go on about how they screwed Propagandhi (I may tell this story anyway when I'm done watching baseball).

[ImRonBurgundy?]

Hardcore, for example, is easy to spot since it is kind of a halfway point between 80s rock and thrash metal

I don't really see the connections being made here.

[Spinless]

Hey, Flaming Ostrich, tell us the story anyway.

[Ernest]

I've told this story once quite awhile ago.  Here it is:

Alright, here's the whole NOFX/Propagandhi thing:  Fat Mike asked them to be on his craptastic compilation "Rock Against Bush."  They said they would as long as Fat Mike knew that they hated both candidates.  Now Fat Mike was in cahoots with this billionaire named George Serose who (in Fat Mike's words) ". . . makes his money screwing over third-world countries. . ."   Now that's some pretty shady business right there.  Anyway, George Serose hates Bush too so he was going to have his company send out hundreds of thousands of e-mails advertising Rock Against Bush (essentially spamming).  When Propagandhi sent in their song they insisted that next to it on the track list on the back of the album it would say "This message not brought to you by George Serose."  Fat Mike declined and refused to let them be on the album.  So basically Fat Mike chose to be loyal to a character almost as bad as(if not worse than) Bush rather than a band he had been friends with for well over ten years. 

On Propagandhi's most recent album, "Potemkin City Limits," which kicks the shit out of anything ever released by NOFX they have a song called "Rock For Sustainable Capitalism" which references (among other things) what a hypocrite Fat Mike is.

[imapiratearg]

:[

Still, "Dinosuars Will Die" is an awesome song.

Anywho, punk appeals to me, because it's fun to listen to.  It's fast paced and in your face (cheesy?), and mosh pits are fun as hell.

[Ernest]

It's fast paced and in your face (cheesy?), and mosh pits are fun as hell.

I regret to inform you that you have the wrong idea about punk.  Please re-read some of the earlier posts in this thread.

[imapiratearg]

punk can be anything.

Therefore, it can be fast-paced.  I know, it can be slow as well.  But i still like mosh pits.  And uptempo music.

[Heijoshin]

Coming from a philosophy background myself, and in fact, only really truly embracing the punk rock movement after getting into Deconstruction and Derrida, I'm going to have to agree with just about all of tommy's wall of words. Generally when I answer this question though, my response is much simpler:

Punk is the new Folk. It's music by the people for the people.

[ScrambledGregs]

Anybody ever read Lester Bangs's essay on the origins of punk?? I think he traces it back to a French prostitute, which is god damn hilarious.

[MadassAlex]

Thanks for those who gave me good, honest-to-proper, I suppose punk-inspired answers.

1. Punk Rock is more feasible to the average kid in his garage with a cheapo guitar and a crappy amp. He can learn three chords and start a band.

Makes sense.

2. Nothing. It's just a matter of each to their own. The two types of music I listen to the most are Punk and Jazz. The music sounds good to me and I guess to other people too.

This I guess was my main question. I'm an amateur musician, and I was referring more to how it differs musically to standard rock. Which was answered above I guess.

3. What is the shoddy genre? Do you know what is meant by the term Homogeny? Maybe this is an example of that.

It sounds to me like post-hardcore is a step back from hardcore. That's just me though, I kind of equate post-hardcore to black metal. It just strikes me in that nonsensical way and kind of makes me giggle.

4. People tell me there are stereotypical types of people who listen to one genre but I don't meet them. Why are two people ever hostile to each other? Same reasons.

It is kind of like that. I have never really felt threatened by or angry towards anyone I've met through music.

I don't really see the connections being made here.

Are you a musician? I am thinking in terms of what's used and what influences are drawn on to create music and play it, so my ideas could be alien in some regards to people who don't play music. If you do play music, I'm a dolt. D'oh.
What I meant was that hardcore isn't as heavy or fast as thrash metal, but it uses a lot of the same devices, basically.

New set of questions:

1. So does technicality within the music stop a band from being punk? I'd think not, personally, considering that punk seems largely based on attitude rather than music. I am just saying because after a while that kid with three chords does become better at his instrument.

2. How did punk become so broad? I mean when you look at rock bands today, it's hard to find one that is truly "rock" - most fall into punk or metal, usually punk. So punk has appeal to Jimmy with the Strat copy, sure, but what empowers it beyond the realm of rock and metal? I'm referring 100% to the actual sound rather than the lyrical content right now. My current observation it's that it's really balls-to-the-wall and doesn't let up. It strikes me as a similar concept to heavy metal - different lyrical content and purpose of course, but it shares the fact that it just does not let up and it determined to blow your face off.

3. Is punk as it was known, dead? There are plenty of post-hardcore and pop-punk bands kicking around for sure, but are there any modern bands in the style of early punk that I should check out?

4. If you drop a punk and a metalhead from 10m, who hits the ground first?

punk is rejecting structures you know are wrong for the world and making an effort to make a change for the better.
punk is DIY.
punk is honesty.
punk is the underdog willing to fight to the bitter end for what they believe in.

punk is a hyena fighting for a lion's share.
(blatant rancid reference)

punk is pointing out what's wrong with the world and rejecting it.
pop is pointing out what's right with the world and celebrating it.

The problem with that is that most of those can be applied to many movements of rock. Post-rock isn't going to become punk just because you're not gonna take shit from anyone.

Or does it?

Basic point here is that according to that definition, a lot of punk isn't actually punk and a lot of not-punk is actually punk. See: the music of today.

Surely you should be able to work this out for yourself.

Not possible, especially considering that the only answer I got that really explained what needed to be explained was tommy. According to most people in this thread, rock should be a subgenre of punk rather than the other way around.

*sigh*

Thank you; this reply was ever so helpful and communicated a number of insightful and intelligent comments.

Dude, what the hell?

In other news, Johnny made me laugh far too hard.


So this seems to be the definition of punk that is being communicated:

A subgenre of rock that is inspired by adolescent drives, communicated agressively through overdriven guitars, basses, drums and vocals during the early movement(s). Usually concerned with politics and social issues. It is any rock music that displays a DIY, fight-for-the-underdog attitude that embraces musical simplicity. Later movements of punk have been known to merge with pop music to create a less agressive sound that communicates issues less based on politics and wide-spanning social issues, instead focusing on personal problems.

Anybody ever read Lester Bangs's essay on the origins of punk?? I think he traces it back to a French prostitute, which is god damn hilarious.

I laughed very hard at this.

[Tago Mago]

Anybody ever read Lester Bangs's essay on the origins of punk?? I think he traces it back to a French prostitute, which is god damn hilarious.

Yes, and what he specifically calls attention to is the stupidly proud romanticization of punk. In this, he was incredibly prescient, given that 30 years later lots of people still can't seem to get over this image of punk as music's grand reawakening. OK, 1976-1977 was a great moment in history for the spontaneous synthesis of art, pop, and politics, but that doesn't mean that lots of radical free music wasn't being made both before and after the new wave. If the very basis of punk's philosophy was creative liberation through destruction, then nothing deserves to be destroyed more than punk itself.

[öde]

4. They hit the ground at the same time because they're the same person.

[MadassAlex]

4. People aren't genres of music. Genres of music are ridiculous in themselves and the idea that you can belong to a genre of music is pretty silly right? It's about the Music We Like, regardless of what it sounds like.

I think the idea here that you belong to a genre of music doesn't so much apply so much as the spirit of the music belongs to you. A "metalhead" for example is someone who primarily listens to heavy metal - it doesn't matter if they wear lots of black shirts, have their hair long or whatever. Using these labels is a convienient way of grouping people who like similar styles of music.
So when I see someone as a rocker, I see that they like rock music. They might also have longish hair and the desire to party for 30 hours straight until dragged back home by their siblings. Maybe. Chances are, however that they are going to bed at 10pm, getting up at 7am just like everyone else to go to school/work.
My point here is that I think you associate certain levels of social danger with labels based on music, which is entirely understandable. I think, however, taken from the perspective that music belongs to people rather than the other way around, these labels are harmless when used by people of intelligence.

Stupid people will think that I am stupid for listening to heavy metal, whether I call myself a metalhead or not.

The correct answer is that they land at the same time, of course.

Also tommy, since you listen to jazz as well, could you reccomend some of that? Off topic I know but I've taken a keen interest in jazz as a style of guitar playing, so if you could reccomend me some stuff that uses a lot of guitar that'd be awesome.


RECAP: So punk is one big, huge, rocking festival of reversals?

4. They hit the ground at the same time because they're the same person.

I have no idea what is being implied here. Heavy metal is very seperate from punk, based on the thread's definitions. For one thing, it seems to be somewhat constant.

Clearly there's a joke here I'm not getting, and thus it makes me sad.

[öde]

A person cannot be a punk and a metalhead?

[öde]

No guitars, but awesome.

[Misereatur]

I have to recommend John Scofield and Pat Metheny's I Can See Your House from Here. What an amazing guitar work. Definitely a must have for Jazz guitarists.

Then try Metheny's Rejoicing. Metheny, Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins playing some Coleman and a few originals. I think you shuold get it just for their version of Horace Silver's Lonley Woman.

[Soidanae]

Guitar work?  Go back the source.  Django Reinhardt.

I recommend Djangology.

[asyluman]

This is a really good oral history of punk.  I highly recommend it.

[MadassAlex]

Guitar work?  Go back the source.  Django Reinhardt.

I recommend Djangology.

What an asshole that guy was.

Could play with only two fingers though. Pretty awesome he is.

[Johnny C]

This is a really good oral history of punk.  I highly recommend it.

This cannot be emphasized enough. In fact the above quote from William S. Burroughs was one I found in the pages of this book.

Stories include Nico being jilted by Lou Reed and subsequently declaring that she would "no longer make love to Jews," Wayne Kramer being busted by a cop twice (and the second time is so hilarious I'll let you read it for yourself) and Iggy Pop reconsidering his attitude towards life only to be nearly hit by a truck and respond by jumping up, screaming, "I am the future of rock'n'roll!" So great.

[Johnny C]

After you're done all that, do yourself a favour and watch 24 Hour Party People. When you know the characters in it then suddenly it becomes a lot more fun to watch.

Incidentally, Legs McNeil has released another oral history: namely, of pornographic films. Apparently it's less entertaining and more about depressing fuckups. The people of the early punk movement may have been fuckups, but at least they were fuckups with a lust for life.

[grrraham]

the world is fucked up. maybe all you can do is look around at all the shit, and dream of an ideal, of how things should be.
hold up that ideal, oversimplify it, and then scream it until you're coughing up blood.
it won't fix things but for a brief moment you won't feel awful.

[Ernest]

Are you hoping someone quotes that or something? 

[ScrambledGregs]

Are you hoping someone quotes that or something? 

ZOMG IRONY