Before I begin, I must once again apologize for my absence in the content of this site over the past couple months. Family problems, friend problems, girl problems and drug problems have all been a massive diversion from skateboarding in my life lately. Furthermore, I think I’d be lying to all of you if I wrote an article about skateboarding at this point. I have no real viewpoint. Instead, I want to take the time to write about something that has been associated with skateboarding for about thirty years; punk music.
I’m a musician, by trade. It’s been the main focus in my life throughout high school and awhile before that. Punk music had an appeal to me for years, me being a young and idealistic little rebellious bastard. At the age of 14, I became involved in local music, to some extent. Attending punk shows and playing on the streets. I was told the idea of punk was community over authority. The relationship of man-to-man instead of master-to-subject, our overall society being of the latter. It was a great ideology, and still is, but as I grew older I began to see things in a different light. It started small, meeting punks and talking to them and realizing this guy had no idea what he was talking about. Noticing that virtually every punk had the same viewpoints. And then it became more blatantly hypocritical. Punks fighting one another, vandalizing houses instead of government buildings. It looked more like random acts of rebellion than a calculated and meaningful ones. Mindless.
I still play on the streets of the city, just to earn some spare cash. I also met some interesting people and heard some cool stories. The hippies were my favorites when it came to tips and conversation. I, for the most part, hate hippies. Hypocrites stuck in an idealistic past. But, when it came down to it, they love music. I was no surprise for me to have groups leave me 20 or 30 dollars at a time, not to mention cigarettes, hemp bracelets and other stuff. They never interrupt the music and are always fun to talk to. Now, the punks on the other hand, are the complete opposite. Loud and obnoxious. Asking to play songs, as in me give them my guitar and hear them play their shitty three-chord Subhuman rip-offs. They never leave tips, they always ask for some of my money. They all dressed in their uniforms of Mohawks, died hair, ripped black jeans and jean vests, equipped with patches of generic slogans/bands. And after all of the annoying, obnoxious shit I have to deal with from them, they always have the same response when I ask why they are here. To support the scene.
So I’ve come to a conclusion. Sadly enough, punk music is dead. It’s all idealists and dress-codes. Suburban kids begging their parents for guitars and basses so they can start bands about rebellion. Hating the police while having never committed a crime. It’s just a look now. Aesthetic over actual meaning. Punk music is beautiful as music, but that’s what it should be left at. Dig deeper and you won’t like what you’ll fine. If you have real beliefs, real problems with society. Real hatred for authority. Real distaste with the social order, make it known. Write it, paint it, sing it, run through the streets screaming it. But don’t ever let a scene tell you how to dress, act and feel. The punk scene is dead. For thirty years they have been posting blame on politicians and authority for all the ills of society. Meanwhile they pollute the streets, vandalize private property that people worked to own, while rarely touching the government buildings they claim to despise so much. Be an individual, hate what you want to hate and love what you want to love, and don’t let anyone tell you you’re right or wrong.
“I know it’s hypocritical to point fingers at the people who point fingers. But when we all march to the beat of the same different drummer, the steps start to come off like clockwork.”- Jeff Rosenstock
