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AUTHENTICALLY_STUPID

                                              December 3, 2005


Okay, so the book "Please Kill Me"
struck me as a great read, and I           PLEASE_KILL_ME
really like the way it provides
ammunition against the "punk began
in England" types...

But it dawns on me that there's another
axe I have to grind and this is a book
that tries to blunt that edge:

  The original punks
  were not stupid.

  Punk, despite it's embrace
  of crudity, was a movement           It was a reaction against
  by and for the intelligent.          the really stupid shit
                                       that was going on at the
        When people asked me           time: stoner rock, slick
        "what do you like              pop, and disco...
        about punk rock", I
        responded "the lyrics               DISCO_SUCKS
        are better".

           There were other things
           I liked about it of course:
           the fast beat got the energy
           up, the "we're so nasty"
           schtick could be funny, the
           cheap, populist fashion was
           definitely appreciated...       But those didn't
                                           seem to be key.

  Patti Smith                                 From "Please Kill Me",
  Richard Hell                                quoting Eliot Kidd:
  Tom Verlaine                                "The only thing that made
                                              the music different was that
                                              we were taking lyrics to
            For that matter, even Ramones     places they had never been
            songs had an ironic edge to       before."  -- p. 260
            them missing from any of the
            boozin' and ballin' rockin'
            that was going on.                 "Beat on the brat/
                                                Beat on the brat/
                                                Beat on the brat/
                                                With a base-- ball-- bat--/
                                                Oh yeah ..."

    So there I am reading
    "Please Kill Me", presented
    as the Truth of the origins,
    told in the form of quotations
    from all the players, big and
    small.  It names all the names,
    and takes things back to their
    roots touching on all the
    contenders for First Punks:               FIRST_PUNKS
    The Velvet Underground,
    Iggy Pop, The New York Dolls,       And the points of contagion
    Patti Smith, Television,            between New York and
    Richard Hell...                     England are carefully
                                        documented.  Unlike some
                                        people they don't write
                                        McClauren out of the story.
Then there's this quote from
Legs McNeil himself:                             PISTOL_WHIPPED

  "... because at the that time,
  punk was still just the magazine,
  the Ramones, Richard Hell,
  Johnny Thunders, Patti Smith,
  and the Dictators.  There was
  only about a hundred people
  hanging out at CBGBs.  And half      And the people from
  of those people were not punks,      the "art world"
  they were from the art world,        probably didn't take
  inspired to come to the Bowery       long to understand the
  by the yuppie whine of David         concept of being
  Byrne."  -- p. 232                   intentionally crude.

    Uh oh. Another defender                There was no "punk painting"
    of the bastion of the                  to go with "punk rock",
    True Punk.                             because that had all been
                                           done decades before.
    We're at a point in history
    where CBGBs has begun to
    roar, and no one has said
    one word about Talking Heads.

    There's interviews with             The first Talking Heads
    every drummer, band manager,        record is a fine
    and groupie you can think           example of a punk LP.
    of, and they didn't bother          I've never liked
    to ask David Byrne's opinion        "Psychokiller", myself,
    about anything?                     but consider the song
                                        "No Compassion":

                                              "Talk to your analyst!
         So, what's going on here?             That's what they're
                                                  made for..."
         What's behind this drive
         to write the Talking Heads
         out of history?

         There are two possibilities:

         (1) The old gang is jealous                 (Later in the book,
         of Talking Heads later success.             Eliot Kidd mentions
                                                     the forbidden name,
                                                     on p.260)
         (2) They're pushing the idea
         that punk is populist: the
         triumph of lower class white
         trash stupidity, and the "art
         school" crowd doesn't fit into
         their thesis.


                       And this leads into what may
                       be a rant for another day, but
                       a few points in outline:


                          Populism good,
                          elitism bad?               populist = socialist?

                          Why?                            But socialism isn't
                                                          all that popular,
                          Stupidity = Authenticity?       and socialists have
                                                          traditionally been
                          Are you sure?                   recruits from the
                                                          privileged.


                                                  NEOPUNK


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