About to pack up the laptop in preperation for pre-dawn trip to the airport to be off to Baton Rouge for what should be a nice 4th of July and a wedding. Internet access is a bit shaky, as I'm not even entirely certain where I'll be sleeping any given night. So bearing that in might, a bit of late-night, vicodin perscription-powered bullshit.
Picked up an issue of Alternative Press for the first time in years as a prospective bit of plane reading. Had a thing on the cover about 23 Most Influential Punk Bands or some such that looked interesting. It made me so, so very sad.
Is it just my flawed memory or did Alternative Press not used to constirue actual.... you know..... alternative press? It was pages of bullshit about really shitty, label-molded, loved by adolescent-girls-everywhere bands with tragic haircuts, lists of "The 10 albums Hot Topic Thinks Will be Big Next Month" (HOLY CHRIST I HATE THAT PLACE! THAT VERY SAD STORY WILL BE TOLD HERE SOMEDAY, I THINK.) and a list of "Best 'Disappointing' Albums ever" that happened to be made up largely of bands that very recently released their latest albums. Hell, I had to read reviews that said that The Bell-Rays "made (the reviewer) feel old and in a T.G.I.F." while telling em what an important band My Chemicla Romance is. I think I may just cry
Selling kids shitty music, over-priced clothes, and a sense that punk is something that they can't just find a few friends and some fucking instruments and jus get to doing is not alternative culture. Bands with that consist of guys who look like 13 year old girls, sing about how very sad they are, and sign fucking clothing endorsement deals aren't what I want to be a generations definition of what punk means.
The Germs just decided they wanted to be a band and did it. That was punk. Jawbreaker decided that yea, they wanted to sing about their feelings, but they didn't have to change the songs to jusitfy that to anyone, and that was punk. The Talking Heads said fuck it and showed up at CBGB's in suits and sweater with their synths, and that was just as punk as anything else.
As glad as I am to have seen it become music thats more readily available to people these days, punk as a brand, something to be sold, makes me sad. Punk doesn't really mean anything. It means young people gettign together and dressing however makes them happy and doing whatever they think is fun and making the music they want to make and hear and telling everyone who tells them that isn't ok to go get fucked.
There was a time when I was younger when punk and alternative culture made it ok to be weird or listen to music verybody else hated, or wear my fedoras and suit jackets I'd find in older peoples closets or at goodwill when everyone else was wearing shit they bought at the mall. Don't take that away from kids now that its even easier to get dragged into the no personality-having, hiveminded bullshit that comes with being that age.
Bah. I'm sick of rambling angrily. Can't really focus as the painkiller starts to set in. So have some music that makes me geniunely happy, ok?
My Trusted MOGs
I used to read AP years ago. I can't believe that the top 10 list from Hot Topic actually exists in there. I'm disgusted! What a bogus mag. Also, if it wasn't for Goodwill I'd only have half of my already too small wardrobe.