Hippies where just loaded people cosplaying as beggars.
Punk is dead and so are we
131–140 of 213 posts
Re: Punk is dead and so are we
#132This is a wonderfully-written piece, and it articulates the paradoxical nature of countercultures better than I've ever been able to. Punk Rock is dead, long live Punk Rock. I think there are real artistic countercultures out there, but they exist on the margins of art and society (as they must, innately). They're hard to discover, and even when they are discovered, they're inaccessible, bizarre, and disquieting (as…
I was listening to the Swans in the 90s, and I never felt they were abrasive, or uncomfortable. I don't have much to add, I just felt it was interesting hearing them described through someone else's lens very differently than I would. When I listen to them I hear beauty, and my childhood.
I'd say some of the post-reunion (?) Swans material is a lot more consistently abrasive/uncomfortable.
Most the 90s stuff to me sounds more like... gothy post-punky vibes?
Re: Punk is dead and so are we
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
If an old punk ethic was 'Do It Yourself' (DIY), maybe the modern punk equivalent would be 'Do It Offline' (DIO.)
Online or offline has nothing to with doing it yourself or not. Social media, websites, etc. makes organizing events, people, projects incredibly easier and more inclusive. Punk isn't sitting over a xerox machine for a few hours printing flyers. It is actually putting a (music, performance art, benefit, whatever) event together at an all ages venue in a town where live nation owns all the venues and keeps shows 21+ s…
It's a slippery slope though, because the corrosive effect of the attention economy trying to skew social platform interactions to their benefit.
Some platforms are less aggressive about it, some more, but they all control their own levers of power and to some degree abuse them.
E.g. Facebook Marketplace being locked into an identity in the rest of their ecosystem
So absolutely, use efficient tools to do more, but also be aware of the opinions and intent of those tools, and what they're trying to do to you.
Re: Punk is dead and so are we
#134I think the author misattributed who the modern era punks would be. At least based on the described framework of what punk counter-culture was about and what it was countering. Given how much of the mainstream is organized around overwrought advertising, influencering, guruing, and being terminally online... it seems like the modern punks would be the counter-culture that prioritizes being offline, being private, and…
Punk rose to prominence, in part, because of their acceptance of technology. They used technology that was once the expensive and in the domain of conservative corporations that was turned into accessible and cheap ways to disseminate ideas. Xerox machines were prominently used to create flyers for shows and distribute zines. Cassette tapes were copied and passed around to anyone who wanted one. VHS was used to recor…
Gopher and Gemini communities with cheap Atom netbooks or Pentium III-IV/athlon era machines.
At least the DIY spirit it's there.
Re: Punk is dead and so are we
#135It is funny to note that “Punk is Dead” came out in 1977, but all the action in the article WRT punk is happening in the 90’s and beyond. The author acknowledges this in a way, though: > the only visible instantiation of a subcultural franchise putting on against-the-grain airs similar to those of the punks and goths of the 1990s (who had all been thoroughly domesticated by that point)[…] Anyway, I’m not sure who the…
>It is funny to note that “Punk is Dead” came out in 1977, but all the action in the article WRT punk is happening in the 90’s and beyond
Well, the 90s "punk" revival was just diggist up the corpse of 1976 punk and taking to the bank. Even dead, if that's possible.
And in line, as you note, with the author's own comments about re-purposing and re-hashing culture in a tamer and more commercial way.
>Anyway, I’m not sure who the “blue hair & pronouns” (as the author puts it) crowd is. If it is actually queer and trans people, I don’t think their motivation was ever to be counter-culture really: they are just intrinsically attracted to or identifying with the opposite gender, and would like to be mistreated less frequently for it.
It is the millions of "I'm not like the other girls" boys and girls knee-deep in whatever this era's mass produced youth culture (and "counter-culture") is. They kind of peopl who in 1990 would be into Vanilla Ice and in 1992 into Gangsta Rap. Actual LGBTQ people are a tiny percentage of those groups (though many more just claim to be non-binary or some such, they way hipsters claimed to love vinyl and fair trade).
Re: Punk is dead and so are we
#136There is a sort of nihilism that emerges when you look deeper at counterculture and it's conformity. Neo recognizing with horror the other neos is a great example. (In that case it only worked out for him because of hollywood's love of love - because he loved trinity so much he was really different from the rest.) I've often wondered how the leaders of the hippie, punk, and more modern movements would compare to clas…
>At the extremes, it can seem like the only 'genuine' counterculture is self-sacrificing civil disobedience (e.g. self-immolation, not blocking traffic) or truly destructive (terrorism), because these are not scalable within mainstream culture. There should be a middle ground...
The middle ground is productive disengagement. It is deciding to abandon the system and build real alternatives outside of it. You see this with hippy communes, some punk scenes, and homesteaders, ect.
It isnt as common because it takes a lot more work and hardship than simply "laying flat", and doesnt provide much social currency in the mainstream culture. There are also barriers in the mainstream that provide headwinds, but I think these are less of a challenge.
For example, it isnt impossible for people to check out and build an eco-friendly socialist commune in the wilderness. However, it is a lot of work and few are willing to sacrifice the comforts of mainstream life, as unhappy as they may be with them.
Re: Punk is dead and so are we
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was listening to the Swans in the 90s, and I never felt they were abrasive, or uncomfortable. I don't have much to add, I just felt it was interesting hearing them described through someone else's lens very differently than I would. When I listen to them I hear beauty, and my childhood.
I'd say some of the post-reunion (?) Swans material is a lot more consistently abrasive/uncomfortable. Most the 90s stuff to me sounds more like... gothy post-punky vibes?
I would agree that it is much more gothy post-punky vibes to me.
The Swans just had a lot of very differing material. Perhaps that's why I don't quite get the description.
Re: Punk is dead and so are we
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
80's Punks were the Tricksters of ancient mythology (eg. Coyote in amerindians culture), it always been the role of those at the margins of Society dealing with uncomfortable other realities, bringing liminal space into our collective consciousness. Punks are not dead, they (or more precisely their archetypal essence) have just shape shifted into another form we fail to recognize as we age while their prior shell hav…
If you want a nerdy sci-fi take on it, then "The City and the Stars" by Arthur C. Clarke is the one to read.
Nice, as I've already read "Childhood's End".
Re: Punk is dead and so are we
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it's mainstream pop culture. As the author alludes it's trendy even for straight people to emulate gay culture.
> No, it's mainstream pop culture. This is highly dependent on context. In much of the world, it's dangerous to be openly sympathetic to LGBT causes, let alone openly LGBT. Even in much of the US, being openly gay is dangerous, and being openly trans is even more dangerous. A non-binary 16-year-old was murdered in Oklahoma this month; meanwhile, nobody's out here killing Swifties (at least, not yet).
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Re: Punk is dead and so are we
#140Did that guy just categorize EBM as pop/soft? That is .. quite a stretch.
No.
> And so the goth clubs move the post-punk and coldwave tunes into a side room while the DJs spin EBM and futurepop on the main floor.
He's saying Nitzer Ebb and Front 242 were more packaged and refined than something like Suicide or Throbbing Gristle. And that seems spot on to me.