Is Punk Dead?

[Guest]

I'm the antithesis of punk. Hell, I'm more like Hank Hill. But having a sibling that was into that scene (and the recent Dead Milkmen thread), I've always liked a lot of it. 

But it led me to wondering what are the kids listening to these days that's loud, aggressive, and against the mainstream? Anything? If you're a 16 year old kid who hates your old man what are you rocking out to? 

[G650 14273]

Punk will never die. There's always going to be kids playing loud snotty music. In garages, living rooms, empty halls...

[locodos 5390]

After Gen X, Rap became then new Punk...  Youthful anger, anti establishment, provocative lyrics designed to enrage, the olds hate it.

 

This is not my original idea, I heard it in an interview and my first reaction was "tha fuck it is!"  but the more I've thought about it the more true it feels.

Edited August 24, 2023 by locodos

[G650 14273]

4 minutes ago, locodos said:

After Gen X, Rap became then new Punk...  Youthful anger, anti establishment, provocative lyrics designed to enrage, the olds hate it.

 

This is not my original idea, I heard it in an interview and my first reaction was "tha fuck it is!"  but the more I've thought about it the more true it feels.

It was about 20 years ago. The olds are the ones listening to rap now.

[locodos 5390]

3 minutes ago, G650 said:

It was about 20 years ago. The olds are the ones listening to rap now.

True, I have some Pop Smoke on a few playlists.

But I hear punk music at respectable establishments now.  I remember stopping dead in my tracks hearing the Muzak version of Holiday in Cambodia.  I think it's clear now that Punks failed just like the hippies.

[Guest]

I can see rap taking place for punk for younger kids, but it just doesn't seem it would hit the same.

[locodos 5390]

15 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

I can see rap taking place for punk for younger kids, but it just doesn't seem it would hit the same.

Yeah, it's not the same.

The VERY limited amount of rap I have heard is more of a slow grind build up and to G650's point is somewhat older.   

 

[G650 14273]

1 hour ago, locodos said:

True, I have some Pop Smoke on a few playlists.

But I hear punk music at respectable establishments now.  I remember stopping dead in my tracks hearing the Muzak version of Holiday in Cambodia.  I think it's clear now that Punks failed just like the hippies.

Yeah, I mean our punk is totally in the old person category. Hell I even heard someone call Slayer dad rock lol.

 

But there's definitely kids still doing real punk. It's like, I dunno, 7th or 8th wave punk at this point. Everyone moaned punk was dead in like 1978 too, and obviously that didn't happen. There's always going to be kids pissed at authority who want to make loud noises.

[Celery Man 20996]

What is punk anyways? Obviously "punk" the style of made by people looking at the overpolished rock and stale hippy shit in the 70s and saying "fuck you" is now stale and has already completed the whole cycle of evolving into Creed and Nickelback twenty five fucking years ago.

I'm not nearly connected enough with the children to intelligently comment on what punk rock kids are creating and listening to now but I have no doubt that they continue to exist and continue to do punk rock things. By which I mean, make raw creative anti authoritarian music that sounds fresh to them. 

[Celery Man 20996]

i'm firmly a neighborhood dad at this point but I did some digging on who wrote the song for arguably the most punk rock comedy sketch of the year...

which turned out to be Turnstile, who I think is actually one of the bigger current hardcore punk bands. Very different than the hardcore punk stuff that was around when I was coming up and definitely also true for you fuckin sst/dischord geezers but I kinda dig it

 

[G650 14273]

4 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

sst/dischord geezers

I resemble that remark.

[G650 14273]

So an actual true story, I convinced my parents to let me go as a punk rocker for Halloween when I was younger, which to their credit they were totally down with. This is when the second wave was just taking off, and big hair, leather and shit were in. I ripped up some baracuta type jacket I had, dyed my hair pink and made a mohawk. This was early 80s, I'm sure the neighbors thought we were all going to hell. We all got full into punk when Pennywise hit the scene, which was around junior high for me. Being all surf kids down here at the beach, the SoCal punk scene became pretty big here, not sure if @locodos was still here at that point or not.

[locodos 5390]

28 minutes ago, G650 said:

So an actual true story, I convinced my parents to let me go as a punk rocker for Halloween when I was younger, which to their credit they were totally down with. This is when the second wave was just taking off, and big hair, leather and shit were in. I ripped up some baracuta type jacket I had, dyed my hair pink and made a mohawk. This was early 80s, I'm sure the neighbors thought we were all going to hell. We all got full into punk when Pennywise hit the scene, which was around junior high for me. Being all surf kids down here at the beach, the SoCal punk scene became pretty big here, not sure if @locodos was still here at that point or not.

Yeah left in '85...   That town always felt like it was plucked out of Cali (or wanted to be anyways) may or may not have pierced my own ear with a safety pin in '83.  (fuck I was stupid) 

The DC punk scene was legit for east coast and we got a lot of that ...  But then again everyone got a lot of (Henry Rollins) Black Flag, Bad Brains, Minor Threat

I was into Social D, DRI, Kennedys, BF, Circle Jerks... but I think my favorite was 7 Seconds.  I didn't like heavy, I liked fast.  Disliked metal-ish vocals.  So I was late to Misfits and the metal influenced groups.

One thing I will say about Hardcore/Punk groups, the music was mostly shit.  Seems like each band only had like 3 good songs and the rest were just filler.

 

Here's a modern group that feels more Punk than Grunge to me anyway.

 

Edited August 24, 2023 by locodos

[G650 14273]

5 minutes ago, locodos said:

(or wanted to be anyways)

 

Yeah more of this, though I say San Diego and VB are basically the same city, sans weather.

 

5 minutes ago, locodos said:

Social D

 

I may or may not have Skelly tattooed on an arm.

[locodos 5390]

8 minutes ago, G650 said:

I may or may not have Skelly tattooed on an arm.

Before it became clear, that SD was going Rockabilly, I was at one of their shows with some friends.  Maybe the Cameo Theatre IDK...  Anyway Mike comes out before the opening act and talks to the crowd a little bit.  Then laughs and as he's walking off stage says "let's see you guys slam to this!"

The opening act was a country band.

Audible groans.

It's clear to me now that he really liked the band and brought them along, but oh man, read the room.

[jimmyjazz 46091]

I've made a conscious effort to stop (or at least slow) my hyping of this band, and you might not consider it "punk", but it sure seems like a packed roomful of kids in fucking Louisville KY dig it.  I think music is more diverse now than ever, and young people like a wider cross section than ever.  A kid can dig Jason Isbell and Kendrick Lamar and Royal Blood and The Beatles and nobody gives a shit.  When I was a teenager, there were clear cliques and you were definitely judged if your tastes were too broad.

Plus, Pat Smear and Jack White and Keith Morris and Donita Sparks and Kathy Valentine and Amy Taylor are big fans, so there's some punk credibility.

 

Edited August 24, 2023 by jimmyjazz

[G650 14273]

19 minutes ago, locodos said:

Before it became clear, that SD was going Rockabilly, I was at one of their shows with some friends.  Maybe the Cameo Theatre IDK...  Anyway Mike comes out before the opening act and talks to the crowd a little bit.  Then laughs and as he's walking off stage says "let's see you guys slam to this!"

The opening act was a country band.

Audible groans.

It's clear to me now that he really liked the band and brought them along, but oh man, read the room.

 

Ha, yeah. When Mike put out Under the Influences it was not a shock.

 

To be fair I love a lot of that stuff, but kids at the time were a bit nonplussed. Social D came through it all with an amazing amount of cred though. I haven't seen them in quite awhile. They are coming in a month or two, but I'm not sure my old ass will make it.

 

12 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I've made a conscious effort to stop (or at least slow) my hyping of this band, and you might not consider it "punk", but it sure seems like a packed roomful of kids in fucking Louisville KY dig it.  I think music is more diverse now than ever, and young people like a wider cross section than ever.  A kid can dig Jason Isbell and Kendrick Lamar and Royal Blood and The Beatles and nobody gives a shit.  When I was a teenager, there were clear cliques and you were definitely judged if your tastes were too broad.

 

 

Punk AF in my estimate Jim Bob. This is why I know the punk spirit lives on

Edited August 24, 2023 by G650

[jimmyjazz 46091]

8 minutes ago, G650 said:

Social D came through it all with an amazing amount of cred though.

I've seen them exactly once, ~ 1990 when they put out that first major label album.  I liked 'em, but even then it felt like some rockabilly was creeping in (which I was totally cool with).

Plus, his guitar tone kills.

[G650 14273]

11 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Plus, his guitar tone kills.

I'm a, uh, slight fan.

 

[Rudiger 1168]

Fat Mike is 56, so punk rock probably has two or three years left at least. 

[G650 14273]

15 minutes ago, Rudiger said:

Fat Mike is 56, so punk rock probably has two or three years left at least. 

He's just combining with Pennywise like a punk rock Voltron, stronger than ever.

 

 

 

[Biff Tannen 45712]

5 hours ago, Celery Man said:

i'm firmly a neighborhood dad at this point but I did some digging on who wrote the song for arguably the most punk rock comedy sketch of the year...

which turned out to be Turnstile, who I think is actually one of the bigger current hardcore punk bands. Very different than the hardcore punk stuff that was around when I was coming up and definitely also true for you fuckin sst/dischord geezers but I kinda dig it

 

Turnstile is good, though I think they have a more grunge edge than punk.

[jetsfan76 721]

NOFX is on / just finished their last tour. Rancid just put out an album, but who knows if Tim just mailed it in. Less Than Jake is playing the Mohawk in a few days. Social D still playing shows in Cali.

[Guest]

14 hours ago, jetsfan76 said:

NOFX is on / just finished their last tour. Rancid just put out an album, but who knows if Tim just mailed it in. Less Than Jake is playing the Mohawk in a few days. Social D still playing shows in Cali.

So it's not dead, just ridiculously old.

[G650 14273]

5 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

So it's not dead, just ridiculously old.

Goes to bed at a reasonable hour is the preferred nomenclature

[jimmyjazz 46091]

Eh, I think the overriding ethos behind punk is still alive.  It might not be a pushback against Nixon-era governmental fuckery in the US and the UK, but that sense of being "outsiders" still permeates modern youth culture.  Times change.  Anger doesn't.

[G650 14273]

Bingo

[trza-hawk 269]

When you listen to contemporary pop music, you will hear basically zero influence of the punk rock sound. The best of the decade lists that get churned out for clicks from various websites and get updated/redone every few years, each time having fewer punk releases listed as "the greatest" of the decade or period of time or whatever. The generational cohort group has grown up, the artists have grown old and their opinions change with time. Similar thing with alternative music, when the circumstances change and kids don't know what it was every an "alternative" to, it ceases to be culturally relevant. The recent punk rock museum is a good example of a place that just sells nostalgia to a certain market of people.

[Celery Man 20996]

Everything “alternative” and therefore everything “modern rock” is punk influenced. So is everything in the next “indie” wave of alternative, and the subsequent things influence by that.

[ajax 2620]

8 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

Everything “alternative” and therefore everything “modern rock” is punk influenced. So is everything in the next “indie” wave of alternative, and the subsequent things influence by that.

Agreed. 

Rick Beato has a video called the Y2K Curse, where he talks about bands that were popular in the late 90s that kind of faded away after Y2K. The post-grunge era of music got super mellow. Bands like 3rd Eye Blind, Hootie and the Blowfish, Creed, Big Head Todd, etc. They still put out music after Y2K but faded in significance. They probably strayed too far from punk and hardcore roots. Beato talked about how rock got decidedly harder and heavier after that. Mainly was talking about nu metal, but if you look at the current Spotify rock list, you see a lot of bands that have hardcore roots.

Basically any "blank"-core band has roots in punk - deathcore, metalcore, mathcore, etc

[G650 14273]

Jesus fucking christ. Talking about fucking Beato in this thread. Maybe punk is dead

[ajax 2620]

10 minutes ago, G650 said:

Jesus fucking christ. Talking about fucking Beato in this thread. Maybe punk is dead

Sorry

[Celery Man 20996]

My point is more that... Creed may suck but you can draw the line from punk through pearl jam to them. You could draw a box around something and call it "the punk sound" and declare it dead but it's silly. There's a musical punk to pop gentrification cycle that just brings more and more punk in all the time. Jimmy made the super salient point above about how diverse young people are now in what they listen to - maybe you could argue that "rock" is dying but I think even that is missing what's really happening.

[G650 14273]

27 minutes ago, ajax said:

Sorry

That's a marvelous sign lol

[G650 14273]

24 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

My point is more that... Creed may suck but you can draw the line from punk through pearl jam to them. You could draw a box around something and call it "the punk sound" and declare it dead but it's silly. There's a musical punk to pop gentrification cycle that just brings more and more punk in all the time. Jimmy made the super salient point above about how diverse young people are now in what they listen to - maybe you could argue that "rock" is dying but I think even that is missing what's really happening.

 

All I can tell you is I vehemently disagree. You can draw a line to a cliff, jump off the cliff, maybe scrape up the body and do a Frankenstein or Robocop, run that over with a train, pull a Jurassic Park in some DNA, and then maybe you have an indirect route to some poor guy that wandered into a Creed concert unknowingly, then realized he made a huge mistake, but maybe stayed around because he was trying to get laid.

[Celery Man 20996]

We could argue about it, but it would be silly. The shitty early 2000s modern alt rock sound evolved directly from grunge, which evolved directly from the 80s alternative and hardcore bands that evolved out of the 70s punk scene.

[jimmyjazz 46091]

Well, we need to put a lot of blame on Eddie Vedder for spawning the yarling movement among "singers".  I mean, it's kinda OK for Eddie, but Jesus Christ what an abominable turn of events it turned out to be.

I'd argue that it's even worse than the 'verbed out "hey ho" backing vocal insanity in the aughts' folk-pop movement, and that was plenty awful.

Oh yeah, back to punk -- Pearl Jam had a punk outlook.  All that yarling shit had nothing of the sort.

[G650 14273]

33 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

We could argue about it, but it would be silly. The shitty early 2000s modern alt rock sound evolved directly from grunge, which evolved directly from the 80s alternative and hardcore bands that evolved out of the 70s punk scene.

This is the problem, what you wrote is a gross oversimplification, which I'm not bagging on you for, I'm prone to it juat like any other human, it's what we do. But there was no unified influence on the Seattle bands, you can't just say they were influenced by <insert thing>. It didn't work that way. Take the big three, Soundgarden, Nirvana and Pearl Jam. These were three vastly different bands. And I mean way different. As hateful as it sounds, Creed and Pearl Jam had waaay more in common than PJ and Nirvana or Soundgarden. Pearl Jam was not a punk derived band whatsoever. Jeff Ament has as much hardcore cred as any dude alive, enough to carry the whole band, but that wasn't their jive. They were a 70s rock band through and through, go listen to Mother Love Bone, they were straight glam at that point. Mike McCready was a reformed metal head. The drummers don't even count because they changed them like underwear.  Contrast that with Nirvana, which was very much post hardcore. All the dudes in the band were punk rockers. Soundgarden was off in left field, they had the most unique thing going.

 

If you want to draw a line from Pearl Jam to Creed, go back to Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin. 

 

As an aside, I have a lot of good books I could recommend on the Seattle scene going way back. It's vastly more complicated than most of the popular recollection, you really have to reach back to the Sonics then get into the U Men, and then Green River and that era to see how it evolved. It was a lot less homogeneous than is perceived now.

This is also why Rick Beato is a raging moronic douche who has no fucking idea what he is talking about

[jimmyjazz 46091]

I honestly think Nirvana was as much a pop band as a punk band.  Their melodic and harmonic structure was WAY more sophisticated than the average grunge band.

[Celery Man 20996]

To be clear, I said “directly influenced by”, not “only influenced by”. I don’t think it’s straightforward 1-2-3 at all, just that you can both trace that and find it in the sound.

[G650 14273]

1 minute ago, jimmyjazz said:

I honestly think Nirvana was as much a pop band as a punk band.  Their melodic and harmonic structure was WAY more sophisticated than the average grunge band.

Oh I agree. I mentioned that in some thread awhile back an several people were incredulous I called Nirvana a pop band. Kurt was a mega fan of 70s pop..

 

I really hate the term grunge because it gave licence for people to just lump a bunch of disparate things together without to much critical thought.

[G650 14273]

2 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

To be clear, I said “directly influenced by”, not “only influenced by”. I don’t think it’s straightforward 1-2-3 at all, just that you can both trace that and find it in the sound.

Oh I get that, I'm literally saying Pearl Jam was not really directly influenced by it in any notable way, and there is absolutely no meaningful line to Creed.

 

To be totally honest, I find it kind of incredible someone could listen to basically any Pearl Jam song ever, and think man these dudes must have listened to punk rock. This isn't aimed at you btw, just a general thing. PJs music was basically middle of the road classic rock, the dudes just happen to be wearing flannel, which was the style at the time. Two bees for, wait.. Anyway, you have to remember their songs are Alive, Black, Glorified G, Daughter, Corduroy, Elderly Woman etc.... Really think about those and the arrangements and structure. Then think about Nirvana playing Sliver. It's wildly different.

[AnotherUTFan 9771]

I live down the street from a non-profit coop punk record store that puts on BYOB punk shows in the small basement most weekends. One of the coolest places in SF IMO.. Believe me, punk is by no means dead. Just underground where it belongs.

[Celery Man 20996]

Pearl Jam to Creed is the easy obvious comparison due to vocals but perhaps is a bad example. You could easily say that virtually all popular rock after Nevermind was influenced by Nirvana. Which of course is an even crazier oversimplification but it is fairly true. My main point is that the “punk rock sound” has not disappeared - it has been folded into mainstream music over and over again.

[G650 14273]

4 minutes ago, AnotherUTFan said:

I live down the street from a non-profit coop punk record store that puts on BYOB punk shows in the small basement most weekends. One of the coolest places in SF IMO.. Believe me, punk is by no means dead. Just underground where it belongs.

I feel like an ass, I totally we have one of the best punk rockers among us in AUTF. Fuck I'm sorry bro

1 minute ago, Celery Man said:

Pearl Jam to Creed is the easy obvious comparison due to vocals but perhaps is a bad example. You could easily say that virtually all popular rock after Nevermind was influenced by Nirvana. Which of course is an even crazier oversimplification but it is fairly true. My main point is that the “punk rock sound” has not disappeared - it has been folded into mainstream music over and over again.

Hey, I'll buy that man. It certainly has.

[ajax 2620]

I still think the point of my post, regardless of the <redacted> reference, still stands. Rock music got a lot more hardcore after 2000. 

Look at the Spotify rock charts I linked. At #5 and #8 is Bring Me the Horizon. At #2 is Bad Omens.

They may not be exactly punk but they have some roots in punk/hardcore.

Early BMTH:

 

Early Bad Omens:

 

 

 

[jimmyjazz 46091]

I know almost nothing about Pennywise, but that video seems to show thousands of fans totally stoked by a band that clearly values their audience.  Looks like punk rock to me.

[G650 14273]

6 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I know almost nothing about Pennywise, but that video seems to show thousands of fans totally stoked by a band that clearly values their audience.  Looks like punk rock to me.

I can remember to this day when my best friend across the street brought over a dubbed cassette of Pennywise's first album, and was like you gotta hear this shit. I wanna say 91 or so. To me that really signified the next wave of punk hitting the scene.

[DougO 5256]

It died with that fakeass Billy Idol punk pop bullshit, and Green Day.

[Buzzrock 14936]

What is punk anyways? Obviously "punk" the style of made by people looking at the overpolished rock and stale hippy shit in the 70s and saying "fuck you" is now stale and has already completed the whole cycle of evolving into Creed and Nickelback twenty five fucking years ago.
I'm not nearly connected enough with the children to intelligently comment on what punk rock kids are creating and listening to now but I have no doubt that they continue to exist and continue to do punk rock things. By which I mean, make raw creative anti authoritarian music that sounds fresh to them. 

I have two teenagers and they largely listen to pop and terrible new rap. At our high school football games it’s all mumble rap.

My senior daughter likes various forms of rock (guitar bass drums vox) thanks to me. But she says none of her friends listen to anything like that.