punk silentbob Jeff Ott, Singer of Fifteen: I started going to shows and playing in bands in 1982. At that time some bands were very political and some bands were into being as shocking as possible. At the time I think it was pretty relevant to be as shocking as possible. I guess I`ve looked at it as shock being the outward appearance or punk and the political side of things being the content of punk rock. As time went on things got more compartmentalized and there became genres inside of punk, some bands were just political, some bands were just shock, some were mainly metal, some were mainly pop. This splitting of things was probably inevitable, even if it made the whole less powerful. In time mass media recognized that punk could sell and it started buying it. By the time they started buying it up, there were already bands that lacked the content side of things. These were the bands that got signed and promoted as the new thing in the mass media. By the time American youth got force fed punk rock it was completely void of content. These kids who started attending shows were put under the erroneous impression that punk didn't have content and that has slowly become the norm ever since. It looks more like a frat every year to me. I'm not saying it has anything to do with the bands that signed or the major labels or any of the MRR rules for punk economics either. It's about us. Either we make it political in a very strong way or else the new kids think that it's empty. Those kids go on to make the new bands, just like we did when we were the new kids. Punk Rock was not started in the 70's. It started when the first group of humans on the Earth used songs to create solidarity and movement against their oppressors. Punk Rock is the Blues. Punk Rock is the IWW sing alongs of the early 1900's, Punk Rock is the Spirituals of the Civil Rights Movement. As much as it hurts your ego, Punk Rock is Ritchie Havens, and Sly and The Family Stone talking and singing about resistance to the Viet Nam war. Punk Rock is the Grateful Dead. Punk Rock is Journey donating millions of dollars every year towards marijuana legalization. Punk Rock is Joan Baez singing about the liberation of women. Punk Rock is Black Sabbalth singing about the War Pigs. It doesn't cease to be punk rock because it winds up on Warner Brothers, it's stops being Punk Rock when it is no longer about resisting Racism, Sexism, Homophobia, Destruction of the Earth, Corporate Domination, Imperialism, Colonialism, The Rich, etc. Music has always been a tool for resistance, it's just a question of whether or not we fulfill our generations responsibility to keep it real, to keep it for the people. In my own life I`ve worked on issues that are/have been central to my life. Homelessness, AIDS, Police Issues, Environmental Issues. I used to write/sing songs about these things. I used to DO nothing about them. Once I got sober I recognized that the example I was setting was that of a man who talked about doing things, but not doing things. I started doing things and my life started finally MOVING. I worked with Food Not Bombs and myself and my fellows got fed. I worked on removing an oppressive Volleyball court from People's Park and today it is gone. I worked on defeating the city of Berkeley's attempt to virtually outlaw panhandling, and the laws they tried to pass failed or got passed and were immediately taken to court and never implemented. I worked towards creating a func-tional needle exchange in Sonoma County, and now there's not one but two. I´ve been working towards establishing civilian review of police in Sonoma County and gaining justice for the 18 families of victims killed by police agencies in Sonoma County, and so far we have a long list of multi-million dollar lawsuits and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has come and held public hearings on our prob-lems with local law enforcement. I have done work with one inmate who was shot in the abdomen by Santa Rosa police and then charged with five counts of assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon (which he didn't). He was looking at 18 years if found gullty. We did actions in the District Attorney's office and they proceeded to offer him one year in a dual diagnosis (mental illness/drug addiction, it's what he actually needed) residential treatment facility. He is now out, done with the treatment program and doing weil. What I am saying is that there is a lot of power in one person who is willing to say NO. Oh yeah, by the way, you also have to get over the idea that punks and hippies aren't the samething. 010125 ... j_blue i think maybe the difference between punks and hippies are primarily stylistic and thematic if you generalize activism enough, then they are both the same, but hippies tend to have this whole nature thing, and punks tend to have this whole humanity thing i mean, they both have good intentions, and want to help the world, but their ideas on where people went wrong, and how to fix our problems are a tad different they are 2 different cultures 010126 ... Down Punk isn't activism. Punk is De-activism. Dropping out of the normal mental thought pattern and admitting that you are one messed up individual that likes to break things and be randomly violent to objects that piss you off. Punk is about youth rage gone unconcentrated. Punk is rebellion and destruction. Too many people think that the Clash were punk. The Stooges were punk. They didn't neccessarily shock you or make you think about your life they just helped you unleash the stress and anger and emotions that the week had pent up. Punk is dirty fingernails and foul mouths. Punk is the truth no one wants to think about. But punk is done the day you figure out your purpose in life. Punk is youthful and arrogant sometimes even clever. Punk isn't slogans and fashion and who knows more bands than who. I saw so many people that never got punk because they tried to hard to be "punk" that they forgot to have fun and self destruct a little in order to survive. 010425 ... soia he asked me if I listened to punk I said yeah, why? he said I just didn't occur to him as the type so why did he ask then? oh it was just something about me... This house. 010425 ... splinken i like the aesthetic. i'm slowly turning into a fashion punk. i realize that this in itself is a "fuck you" to punk ideals. i could almost feel guilty about this. 010506 ... silentbob but in one version of the punk philosophy, nothing matters, nihilism, right? so, yeah. dont worry about it, dont feel guilty. do waht you want, molly 010506 ... birdmad "i belong to the blank generation i can take it or leave it each time" --Richard Hell 010506 ... eddie and the hot-rods Do Anything You Wanna Do 010506 ... j_blue self destruction on a more mature scale is still self destruction so what if your violence is internal, if loud noises still make you cringe if you couldnt hurt a fly, but have no problems with making someone cry by telling them exactly the right things so what your still a punk 010507 ... green_tenedril punk on mondays goth on tuesdays a gypsy-goth the rest of the week... such a difficult triple life i lead. 010508 ... nocturnal why all the switching? sounds too confusing to be worth it. seems it would be easier if you either picked one and went with it, or were everything all at once; a hybrid of all those things. 010508 ... bono in lingerie Like me - the ultimate hybrid of all things sexy. 010508 ... nocturnal now I'm gonna puke. you've turned me bulimic. I hope you're happy. just you wait till july 21st. then I will have my revenge. 010508 ... kinkazoid have you ever seen the move slc punk? thats just about the greates movie i've ever seen, those guys with the hair are so cute. 010612 ... moonshine There is a riot in your mind? 011128 ... CheapVodka fuck the police i'm an old school skater party over here, fuck you over there i gotta bag of bud smothered in red hair so much bounce you can feel my vibration easy access for easy penetration what's all this talk about a generation legalize the plant, let's free this nation Kottonmouth_Kings 131025 ... raze "history lesson part ii" by minutemen is the song that always nails me to the wall. it's a total outlier of a punk song — a spoken word piece with clean electric guitar arpeggios, soft drums, and a bass line that's so pretty and so perfect it almost seems like it shouldn't exist. its simplicity belies its depth. it's about friendship and the way families can be found and forged through music. d. boon sums it all up right here: "mr. narrator this is bob_dylan to me my story could be his songs" it isn't just about anger and noise. in its purest form, punk rock has always been a very personal kind of folk music. 210925 ... raze (that attempted — em dash — didn't quite come off, did it? i better stick with copying and pasting it from blather from now on instead of grabbing it from random places on the internet like i've been doing. lesson learned, point taken, everybody roar_bacon.) 210925 ... raze (shit. now they're not working at all. oh well.) 210925 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Folk punk from the mean streets of Concordia University: what_the_fuck_am_I_doing_here 210925 ... tender square was making dinner about an hour ago and listening to sirius xm's indie 1.0 channel when something caught my ear that i hadn't heard before. i turned on my phone to see what is was. the screen showed: "history lesson part ii" by minutemen. 210926 ... raze (i swear, the musical synchronicity is off the charts right now. it's unreal. and you just fixed the em dashes that were question marks in red diamonds, turning them into real em dashes! yesss!) 210926 ... raze (and then by posting what i just did, i changed them back again. i think this blathe just doesn't like me and my long dashes.) 210926 what's it to you? who go blather from