Davey Destroyed The Punk Scence
Has punk burnt out, or is it here to stay?
MELISSA HIEBERT STAFF
For the entirety of my final year of high school, my everyday attire consisted mainly of plaid pants adorned with patches and zippers, spiked belts, and black combat boots. I played guitar in a very horrible sounding, self-proclaimed “street punk” band (sounding something like the Casualties meet the Devotchkas). At one point, I even decided to spike my hair into a foot-high mohawk. I moshed until I was bruised and battered, occasionally joining my fellow punkers in some incredibly witty chant, such as “fuck the government,” or something equally as intelligent. Yes sir, it was punk or die, and I was punk until the end.
The end of grade 12, that is. Sure, I kept some of the music around, but it’s been years since I’ve decked myself out in combat boots and fishnets. It’s been even longer since I have been able to comprehend how the hell someone can even attempt to justify being an anarchist. But when I heard that one of my favourite punk bands, Total Chaos, was coming to Winnipeg for the first time, I knew I had to revisit my punk roots. So I dug my leather jacket out of the hall closet, and excitedly headed down to the West End Cultural Centre for a fun-filled night of drinking, moshing, and some good old-fashioned punk rawk and roll!
To my dismay, as I entered the West End that Wednesday night I was met by a mere handful of people, the majority of which looked way too young to be out so late on a school night. The singer (now in his late 30s) seemed tired, and the mosh pit consisted of only six or seven souls, all of whom came off as entirely too desperate for a tiny taste of chaos and destruction.
Often I’ve heard the slogan “punk’s not dead,” and believed it, unquestioningly. Now, I’ve started to realize that though punk may not be dead, it really isn’t feeling well. The subculture formerly known as punk has all but been wiped out by the superfluity of indie kids, emo kids, and whatever the hell the crazy youth are listening to these days.
Perhaps it was the birth of icons such as Avril Lavinge and Good Charlotte — manufactured pop-punk legends that have cheapened and commercialized the genre, crushing the raw, dog-faced punk acts that have been around for decades. Or maybe it’s because most of these bands were the very same ones that our parents’ generation listened to when they were our age, and most of them became conformist yuppies anyway.
Punk music spurned from lower-class England in the early ’70s, with the rise of such bands as the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Ramones. At the time,
Now, a good 30 years later, there has been a noticeable shift in punk. “Older punk was rawer, and it’s just not like that any more, I don’t think it could be,” said Jared, who has been a proud punker for years. “In ’76-77 it was such a change, it was so different and it took off. It was like a raging fire — unpredictable. People were afraid of it. Now, it’s watered down.”
Punk may have originally stood as the musical voice of the lower class, though now it seems that the sub-culture consists predominantly of middle-class punkers with $80 Converse sneakers. So what does it really mean to be punk in this day and age? “Punk today is about doing what you want when you want and not caring what others think of it,” explained Jared. “But it’s more than that. It’s about feeling a connection with the music and people, and being independent and doing things for yourself.”
So should we be digging a hole and propping up a tombstone that reads “R.I.Punk” just yet? I don’t think so. It may be the case that some of the original punk ideals have been lost in a sea of misdirected adolescent angst. It may also be the case that the energetic and ever-soballsy punk of the ’70s and ’80s is continually being buried under a pile of bogus acts that slap on a studded bracelet and declare themselves punk. But as long as there is a handful of dedicated punkers that will faithfully attend late night shows at the Albert, brave the metal detectors at the airport, and keep the genuine history and philosophy of punk in mind, punk will survive long past the time when most of us succumb and become conformist yuppies ourselves.
