smoe.org mailing lists
ivan@stellysee.de
| From | Road Angel <samsmith@colorado.edu> |
| Subject | Umm, just a quick note about Punk.... |
| Date | Sun, 13 Jul 2003 15:50:06 -0600 |
[Part 1 text/plain us-ascii (2.9 kilobytes)]
(View Text in a separate window)
>
>
>> and those disposable heroes have all but disappeared. I see the Sex
>> Pistols are planning another >tour.Not only is Johnny Rotten an
>> ignorant,despicable excuse for a human being but he is a
>> hypocrite as well.He always used to criticise commercial artists now
>> he is another prostitute to cash ! What a braindead idiot !
>
>
> He never ONCE said that commercial artists were bad because they were
> rich....he just thought they sucked because they were CORPORATE
> schills. Sounds like some revisionist, almost-history talking there.
I'm not going to go all grad-school on anybody here, but people who
bitch about the Pistols, or ANY OTHER PUNK BAND, on the topic of selling
out or commercializing or prostituting or whatever are REALLY failing to
understand a core tenet of punk (and I am aware of the fact that there
are a lot of self-indulgent punk bands fall into this category, too; but
what the hell, I just live for irony). To wit, punk was at one very
important level a critique of capitalism, of the system, that sought to
point out its corruption BY SELLING OUT TO IT. The great rock & roll
swindle, right? Had he been able to pull it off, Lydon (and maybe I
should say McLaren here) would have signed deals with 35 different
labels. Sort of a double-reverse, tongue-firmly-in-cheek spoof of the
system, if you will, and that's why Lydon/Rotten was the perfect figure
for the movement. He was a consummate satirist. Still is. A lot of
people lambasted the Pistols comeback tour a few years back and heaped
bile on the new, sparkling Lounge Pistols (it was sure as hell
punk-gone-Vegas), but I enjoyed the show as much as anything I'd seen in
years because it was so completely logical. Johnny Rotten as Vegas Elvis.
Which is why I've always loved Green Day. Billy Joe knows the scoop, and
religiously refused to get caught up in the "you sold out" bullshit that
followed them around after they hit the big time. In a show here in
Denver he said "we're not a punk band, we're a melodic California pop
band." Beautiful.
So anyway, let's just make sure we're not engaging in too much
revisionism. I probably hate what punk has become as much as anybody, so
I won't tell you not to hate punk. Just do it for the right reasons.
--
___________________________________________________________
Sam Smith
1020 Jersey St. #2
Denver CO 80220
303.321.0515 /h | 303.981.4398 /c
orb@colorado.edu | sam@lullabypit.com
http://www.lullabypit.com
...it's a lonesome thing to be passing small towns with the
lights shining sideways when the night is down, or going in
strange places with a dog nosing before you and a dog nosing
behind, or drawn to the cities where you'd hear a voice
kissing and talking deep love in every shadow of the ditch,
and you passing on with an empty, hungry stomach failing
from your heart.
- John Millington Synge
For assistance, please contact
the smoe.org administrators.