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How Chinese Food Fueled the Rise of California Punk

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Re: How Chinese Food Fueled the Rise of California Punk

#41

Post by PhasmaFelis »

mistrial9 wrote: post #34
noonespecial wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe they're just violent and mad so they sing about it.

yes! I dont think many of these other "outraged" commentators have been sucker-punched or tripped hard at a Black Flag show !! its a complicated thing here, psychological mirror and projection (in the psycho-analytic sense), reinforcement in art, social peer pressures, set and setting, permission by default, enabling behaviors .. many factors. For anyone who lives freedom (and survives it), it is all the more importa…

> yes! I dont think many of these other "outraged" commentators have been sucker-punched or tripped hard at a Black Flag show !!

I did ask which songs/bands you were thinking of that promote violence. You haven't answered so far.

Re: How Chinese Food Fueled the Rise of California Punk

#42

Post by mustacheemperor »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #39
jyrkesh wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I read his comment, the music "invokes" the violence via live shows. If you've ever been to a punk show, there's a lot of violence going on in the audience/pit. I don't think it's a crazy leap to say that people who enjoy beating the crap out of each other in a sweaty pit might be disproportionately inclined towards beating people up outside that pit.

Huh, you think that's it? They're actually saying "mosh pits make you a violent druggie"? That's...actually even sillier, honestly. I fuckin' loved a good mosh when I was a teen, and I was a kid who never, ever started a fight, and froze up when someone started one with me. I know the pit looks like a brawl, but at every show I went to it was more like a contact sport with no points where everyone wins. If someone fe…

I read the post to suggest correlation, not causation.

To your other points, a close friend of mine loved to mosh as a younger man too, and at his last warped tour he tripped and fell. Unlike the shows you described, everyone who saw it kept jumping and smashing into each other for minutes while his companions struggled to get him to his feet. His head was beaten into the ground repeatedly by people's feet, fracturing his skull.

He's still physically scarred and cognitively not the same and years later it seems like that will linger forever. I wanted to share this counterpoint to your post because I think there is validity to your perspective but it is not fully reflective of reality.

Re: How Chinese Food Fueled the Rise of California Punk

#43

Post by stallmanite »

mistrial9 wrote: post #16

the punks were certainly the most health-toxic sub-culture in post-hippy California.. definitely early pain-killer abusers, plus glue or extreme alcohol, etc. not uncommon to hear of deaths, treachery or jail.. SF Fab-Mab ruler Dirk was later found to be sexually using adolescents pretty regularly .. lead singer of Fang on America's Most Wanted national TV for killing a girl over heroin, things like that .. freedom h…

You might enjoy the positive messages purveyed by bands like Operation Ivy.

Edit: Freeze Up and Artificial Life are two tracks from the late 80s containing very prescient and IMO insightful commentary re: man, society, and technology that many on HN could probably appreciate.

It was really hard to resist just spamming the lyrics here but hopefully my description will resonate enough that some readers will check it out. They have something to say and get right to the point. It’s the complete opposite of vacuous.

Re: How Chinese Food Fueled the Rise of California Punk

#44

Post by zrobotics »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #41
mistrial9 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes! I dont think many of these other "outraged" commentators have been sucker-punched or tripped hard at a Black Flag show !! its a complicated thing here, psychological mirror and projection (in the psycho-analytic sense), reinforcement in art, social peer pressures, set and setting, permission by default, enabling behaviors .. many factors. For anyone who lives freedom (and survives it), it is all the more importa…

> yes! I dont think many of these other "outraged" commentators have been sucker-punched or tripped hard at a Black Flag show !! I did ask which songs/bands you were thinking of that promote violence. You haven't answered so far.

Black flag is a band, so your parent already answered your question in the part of the comment you quoted.

Re: How Chinese Food Fueled the Rise of California Punk

#45

Post by PhasmaFelis »

zrobotics wrote: post #44
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yes! I dont think many of these other "outraged" commentators have been sucker-punched or tripped hard at a Black Flag show !! I did ask which songs/bands you were thinking of that promote violence. You haven't answered so far.

Black flag is a band, so your parent already answered your question in the part of the comment you quoted.

Yeah, I know, but I was hoping for something more substantial than "I got hit a couple times at Black Flag shows."

Re: How Chinese Food Fueled the Rise of California Punk

#46

Post by PhasmaFelis »

mustacheemperor wrote: post #42
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, you think that's it? They're actually saying "mosh pits make you a violent druggie"? That's...actually even sillier, honestly. I fuckin' loved a good mosh when I was a teen, and I was a kid who never, ever started a fight, and froze up when someone started one with me. I know the pit looks like a brawl, but at every show I went to it was more like a contact sport with no points where everyone wins. If someone fe…

I read the post to suggest correlation, not causation. To your other points, a close friend of mine loved to mosh as a younger man too, and at his last warped tour he tripped and fell. Unlike the shows you described, everyone who saw it kept jumping and smashing into each other for minutes while his companions struggled to get him to his feet. His head was beaten into the ground repeatedly by people's feet, fracturin…

Fair enough. I'm sorry that happened to your friend.

Re: How Chinese Food Fueled the Rise of California Punk

#47

Post by kjeetgill »

oarabbus_ wrote: post #26
yters wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the difference. Rap music seems to go hand in hand with the subculture. If it wasn't glamorized, I doubt it'd exist, at least to the degree it does. Same with punk. If the punk lifestyle was not glamorized through the music, then the punk subculture would not exist. My point is that it is racist to not hold all people to the same moral standard, because in effect we are saying those we do not hold account…

You are abysmally misinformed on the history of hip hop. >My point is that it is racist to not hold all people to the same moral standard, Ah, in that case you agree that _every_ American slaveowner in the South was a bad, immoral, evil person, right? Same goes for all Germans in WWII.

Not that I think this is an interesting point to argue (and I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at) but yea every slave owner was bad because we're categorizing them based on the bad act: owning slaves. Not every German was a soldier let a lone a Nazi during WWII.

I think there's an Axiom of Choice joke in there somewhere.

Re: How Chinese Food Fueled the Rise of California Punk

#48

Post by peterwwillis »

mistrial9 wrote: post #16

the punks were certainly the most health-toxic sub-culture in post-hippy California.. definitely early pain-killer abusers, plus glue or extreme alcohol, etc. not uncommon to hear of deaths, treachery or jail.. SF Fab-Mab ruler Dirk was later found to be sexually using adolescents pretty regularly .. lead singer of Fang on America's Most Wanted national TV for killing a girl over heroin, things like that .. freedom h…

I was shocked - shocked, I tell you! - to find out that people who wear razor blades on necklaces, get drunk, do front flips onto each other, scream about authority figures, and throw fists while they dance, might have attracted some anti-social people.

Re: How Chinese Food Fueled the Rise of California Punk

#49

Post by hutzlibu »

mustacheemperor wrote: post #42
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, you think that's it? They're actually saying "mosh pits make you a violent druggie"? That's...actually even sillier, honestly. I fuckin' loved a good mosh when I was a teen, and I was a kid who never, ever started a fight, and froze up when someone started one with me. I know the pit looks like a brawl, but at every show I went to it was more like a contact sport with no points where everyone wins. If someone fe…

I read the post to suggest correlation, not causation. To your other points, a close friend of mine loved to mosh as a younger man too, and at his last warped tour he tripped and fell. Unlike the shows you described, everyone who saw it kept jumping and smashing into each other for minutes while his companions struggled to get him to his feet. His head was beaten into the ground repeatedly by people's feet, fracturin…

Was that punk as well?

Sounds more like hardcore/hatecore etc.

Usual punk or metal mosh is full of adrenaline and sometimes too many uncoordinated drunk people, who can be dangerous, but I never experienced people intentionally hurting others.

Re: How Chinese Food Fueled the Rise of California Punk

#50

Post by Epopeehief54 »

Great photos. It's so appropriate that they come out swinging with Alice Bag - the Bags were just the best. I must have seen 50 shows at the Hong Kong - not so many at Madame Wongs, but I did see the 1st B52's LA show there (B52's would be Wongs prototypical band - more "new wave" than punk). But EVERYBODY who was real played at the HK. You would get these fantastic lineups, like the Germs, Bags, Fear and Crowd all on the same bill. Early on, the GoGo's were more aligned with pure punk than pop, and so they played at the HK instead of MW's. Won't get into everybody I saw at the HK (which would be, you know, everybody) but I did see Lydia Lunch and James White there - both from New York.
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