Salon.com > Punk

Why I tried to be a punk

Tue, 21 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Dear Cary,

First, I'd like to thank you for your column. I am continually surprised and delighted by your generosity. I have no doubt that your words help many of your readers, and I hope that you know this.

OK, here goes. I am writing this letter to you as a way to try to respond to your request to punk musicians who are "trying to make a life on the outskirts of mainstream society." Although I am not a punk musician (I am an artist), I believe many artists, intellectuals, queers and anti-establishment types of all stripes share a desire to create a different world for themselves, and, possibly, for everyone.

Some of us have had no choice BUT to do this. Inhabiting the margins is not always a place that one moves to intentionally or consciously. Many find themselves pushed there. Some names that the margin goes by are well known: the reservation, the ghetto, the prison cell, the other side of the tracks. These are some of the names that everyone knows about, but there are many others that are un-named or remain invisible. I know there are many out there whose very lifestyles bear witness to a struggle against the injustices of our society. But how does one battle weariness? How do I, in my exhaustion over my own daily struggle, continue to reach out to other groups and other individuals so as to join in the same cause?

Punk, dance music and drugs

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Dear Reader,

Today, we talk a little about music subcultures, drugs and the human soul. I thought this letter was very interesting, but in trying to answer the questions it raises, I encountered my own limitations in knowledge and insight. I just don't know in detail how drugs influence crowds and vice versa, but do think social scientists can provide clues. And there is also recent evidence of music's own curative powers. My notes on it are a little dry, and a little hazy, and quite unscientific, but I am just a writer, not a scientist or philosopher. In the days to come, I'd like to write about my first experience of punk music and speculate about why it seemed so powerful and alluring.

Dear Cary,

I appreciate your column immensely and I have drafted many letters to you over the years which I have never sent -- as a sort of self-therapy to verbalize my frustrations. Sometimes the act of just putting it into words has helped me see my problems more clearly and enabled me to advise myself. Well done us!

What is punk?

Fri, 10 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Dear Reader,

This letter is not really a question and my response is not really an "answer." It is just the beginning of a conversation that will continue off and on in the weeks to come. -- ct

Dear Cary,

I'm actually pretty skeptical you're going to respond to this. I'm 22 -- so I'm pretty used to being rejected by now; it comes with the territory of "youthful" inexperience. Most people ignore me, some don't -- I try not to take either one too personally. Anyway, I am glad you have recovered from cancer, and I am (sorry? what is the right word for "distantly but authentically sad and empathetic for a stranger whose column you read") about your dog.

You asked to speak to musicians, and I am not one. I am a writer -- I do a lot of things with my writing, but one of them is talk to a lot of musicians. (I could send you my interviews, but it seems tacky to pimp my writing in this letter...)

Anyway, from what I can tell you, this is how young contemporary punk bands work. First, the best ones all live together -- they get a cheap house, they name it something cool, they open it up for informal shows that get pretty wild. I live in Buffalo -- the biggest one (the Turnaround) just closed as the members are moving on and graduating and metamorphosing into beautiful punk-rock butterflies.

Listen to the Beastie Boys in a previously unaired interview from 1985

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:40:00 +0000

David Gerlach's “Blank on Blank” series, produced by PBS Digital Studios, has revived a never-before-heard interview of Beastie Boys, Mike D (Michael Diamond), MCA (Adam Yauch) and Ad-Rock (Adam Horovitz) from 1985, when the group was finding the hip-hop voice that later earned them three Grammy Awards and multiple platinum albums.

In the following animated clip, the group talks to ABC News Radio's Rocci Fisch, telling him about their tour with Madonna, how they're not just "rappers for the suburbs" and the origin of their name "from the good old days."

After threats and intimidation, Kashmir’s first all-girl band calls it quits

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:32:00 +0000

An all-girl rock band in Indian-controlled Kashmir is breaking up after just one show. Not because of clashing egos or the allure of going solo, per usual rock tradition. Instead, the pressure became too much after violent threats received on social media and a fatwa from a top Muslim cleric have turned the band's three teenage members into unwitting political tools in the region's ongoing political and religious struggle.

In a recent interview, the teenagers insisted that they didn't want to be viewed as fodder for a media narrative about “Muslim girls who break down conservative barriers." Really, they just want to play music, they said.

Citing influences like Metallica, Cradle of Filth and Green Day, Pragassh ("fist light" in Kashmiri) first came to national attention after placing third in Srinagar’s battle of the bands. “It was awesome and overwhelming. We were getting all this attention and a standing ovation. Then we got other offers to play,” said Aneeqa Khalid, Pragassh's 15-year-old bass player.

Moscow court frees 1 of 3 Pussy Riot members

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:20:00 +0000

MOSCOW (AP) — A Moscow appeals court on Wednesday unexpectedly freed one of the jailed Pussy Riot members, but upheld the two-year prison sentence for the two others jailed for an irreverent protest against President Vladimir Putin.

All three women were convicted in August of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. They argued in court on Wednesday that their impromptu performance inside Moscow's main cathedral in February was political in nature and not an attack on religion.

The Moscow City Court ruled that Yekaterina Samutsevich's sentence should be suspended because she was thrown out of the cathedral by guards before she could remove her guitar from its case and take part in the performance.

"The punishment for an incomplete crime is much lighter than for a completed one," said Samutsevich's lawyer, Irina Khrunova. "She did not participate in the actions the court found constituted hooliganism."

Dressed in neon-colored miniskirts and tights, with homemade balaclavas on their heads, the women performed a "punk prayer" asking Virgin Mary to save Russia from Putin as he headed into a March election that would hand him a third term.

The music business is banking on your nostalgia

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 17:05:00 +0000

Right now, somewhere in North America, the Canadian band Sum 41 is preparing a tour to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its 2002 release, “Does This Look Infected?” Don’t worry if you don’t know it. The album was a minor entry in the 2000s pop-punk canon, with songs that Entertainment Weekly described as “antiseptic” (if catchy). In fact, the band is probably known more for its singer having once been married to Avril Lavigne than for its music.

Why, then, are we marking the tenth anniversary of “Does This Look Infected?”

Because that’s what we do now. Anniversaries are a big business in pop music, where celebrating nice round numbers means the possibility of cashing checks full of them. From mediocre pop-punk to legendary rock ’n’ roll, seemingly no anniversary goes unremarked — or unmarketed — anymore.

Russian PM calls for Pussy Riot’s release

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 18:20:00 +0000

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday called for three members of the punk band Pussy Riot to be freed, a sign that the women's release could be imminent as their case comes up for appeal on Oct. 1.

The women were arrested for performing a raucous prayer inside Moscow's main cathedral asking Virgin Mary to save Russia from Vladimir Putin as he headed into the election that handed him a third term as president. They had already spent more than five months in jail when they were convicted in August of "hooliganism driven by religious hatred" and sentenced to two years in prison.

Medvedev remains subordinate to Putin. But by being the one to call for the women's release, the prime minister, who has cultivated the image as a more liberal leader, could allow Putin to put the case behind him while not appearing weak.

Medvedev said the women's appearance and the "hysteria" accompanying them made him sick, but keeping them in prison any longer would be unproductive.

"In my view, a suspended sentence would be sufficient, taking into account the time they have already spent in custody," he said during a televised meeting with members of his United Russia party.

Octogenarian restorer strikes again!

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 23:30:00 +0000

Remember the infamous 80 year old who “restored” the 19th century fresco in a Spanish church? Some may think it’s a joke, but we think she’s a genius. Her unique brand of restoration foregrounds the meaning of things. What is a masterpiece? Who decides? Why is a crown of thorns better than a fur hat? And why should mouths have to be drawn completely anyway?

The Punk Restorer™ (from her Grindr account)

Punk rock made me a lefty

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 15:13:00 +0000

Joining a long tradition of right-wing politicians denounced by their favorite bands, this week Paul Ryan was the recipient of a scathing open letter from Tom Morello, activist, proud union member and former guitarist of Rage Against the Machine, in Rolling Stone magazine.

“Ryan claims that he likes Rage's sound, but not the lyrics. Well, I don't care for Paul Ryan's sound or his lyrics,” Morello wrote. “I wonder what Ryan's favorite Rage song is? Is it the one where we condemn the genocide of Native Americans? The one lambasting American imperialism? Our cover of 'Fuck the Police'? Or is it the one where we call on the people to seize the means of production?”

Pussy Riot, new punk legends

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 15:26:00 +0000

There's a great story from the early days of The Clash.

One day Mick Jones showed up to rehearsal with a song he'd written about his ex-girlfriend titled “I'm So Bored With You.” Joe Strummer liked the tune but decided the world didn't need another song about an ex-girlfriend, so he changed the subject to geopolitics, renamed it “I'm So Bored With the U.S.A.,” and a classic was born.

As with most origin stories, that one is probably at least partly apocryphal, but it gets to the heart of the counterintuitive genius of both The Clash and punk itself. Punk culture is founded on the idea that behaving in a way that's aggressively opposite to what's expected of you is inherently righteous, and its very best manifestations have lived up to that.

The Russian punk band Pussy Riot is one of those very best manifestations.

Pussy Riot’s victorious defeat

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 15:18:00 +0000

In a decision as predictable as it was stomach-churning, three members of the Russian feminist punk collective Pussy Riot were found guilty Friday of hooliganism for a protest in a cathedral last winter. The judge declared that they had engaged in "homosexual propaganda" and "imitated demonic attacks." The women, Yekaterina Samutsevich, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova -- who have already spent six months in jail -- received a sentence of two years imprisonment.

The case, which has gained the attention of the world as a litmus test for freedom of expression in Russia, began in February, when the band mounted an unauthorized action at one of Russia's most sacred spaces, Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Performing in their trademark tights and face-obscuring balaclavas, they belted out their "Punk Prayer" to "Mother Mary, please drive Putin away." They were swiftly accused of a "criminal act which violated public order" and "went against tradition and is a great insult to the church and people." All three women pleaded not guilty to the charge of hooliganism, but apologized for their "ethical mistake."

Pussy Riot’s closing remarks

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 15:40:00 +0000

Denied bail in July, lauded for their fearless fashion in August and now awaiting sentencing, the women of Russian punk band Pussy Riot have been through a bewildering ordeal. Arrested in March after performing inside a Moscow church in February, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich face up to three years in prison for charges of hooliganism. On August 8, Tolokonnikova delivered lengthy closing arguments, available in full translation on Live Journal, along with courtroom video footage. Here are a few of her most compelling statements.

We were looking for authentic genuineness and simplicity and we found them in our punk performances. Passion, openness and naivety are superior to hypocrisy, cunning and a contrived decency that conceals crimes. The state’s leaders stand with saintly expressions in church, but their sins are far greater than ours. We’ve put on our political punk concerts because the Russian state system is dominated by rigidity, closedness and caste. Аnd the policies pursued serve only narrow corporate interests to the extent that even the air of Russia makes us ill.