The Grand Arbiters of Punk, Please Rise
Who's punk and what's the score? Also more picks for the week
What’s punk?
A question as old as punk itself. Apophasis in nature, it's hard to define by what it is but rather requires a more negative explanation.
Punk is what it isn’t.
Everyone has their interpretations. I tried to get mine down in writing years ago in a long and ultimately inconclusive way.
That’s what I love about punk as a concept. It’s amorphism. It’s spirit. You can feel it in your nerve endings. But anyone with anxiety knows the nervous system lies.
Shockingly, just because your gut says, “This shit is punk as fuck” does not in fact mean this shit is punk, fuck or not.
One of my favorite things I’ve done with this newsletter is my “Who’s Punk?” series for this reason. People love talking about it. Everyone wants to be an arbiter of punk.
Every couple of mercury retrogrades, clown-shoes start posting on the internet about conservatives being punk. Trump is punk. The Amazon TV Show The Boys is punk (it is a pretty good show doh). I don’t really need to explain why these claims are false because plenty of folks have already explained why but it’s funny to see how wildly widespread this desire to be punk is.
It’s a cliche how often this rhetorical device gets used.
That’s why I like the term, “Orbiting Punk.” I don't claim to be another arbiter of punk music or subculture. I like it. I like to be around it. I know a thing or two about it too. But I think it’s healthy to keep a distance from it as a label. When artists become so concretely labeled as just “punk” in the modern day, they lose some of the spirit that made punk so desirable in the first place.
If we start to pat ourselves on the back and say to ourselves, “We’re so punk” or “We’re so rock & roll,” we become a costume. We lose the human element that makes punk rebellion so universally attractive and cathartic.
That’s how you get dweebs claiming conservatives are punk. People love feeling like they're the victim. The underdog. A part of the resistance. So they don the persona “punk” to trap young folks into believing they’re a part of something new and revolutionary.
Don’t get it twisted. Punk is built on the ideals of the Left and from the voices of the marginalized.
Go listen to Bad Brains, Dead Kennedys or The Clash. If you want something new, go listen to Dead Pioneers, Soul Glo or The Holy Ghost Tabernacle Choir.
That’s punk.
A quick aside:
The music I select each week for the blog is simply the music I’ve been exploring recently. My tastes do naturally lean towards the larger sphere of alternative, guitar music but not everything I share is technically punk. It’s just music I thought someone who likes punk might like as well. And if you can sound punk and not be loud or fast or aggressive or whatever other convention of punk music, you might just be a little more punk than your staple “Sex Pistols” or “NOFX” or whatever other overrated punk band imaginable.
Orbiting Punk Picks
ratbag - “pinky girl” / “pinky boy”
A New Zealand artist who has gained traction on TikTok released two singles as a couple, telling the story of an unappreciative boyfriend and his exceptional girlfriend. It is told from both perspectives as well as by a presumed third party desperately wanting better for her.
“pinky girl” introduces the idea with a dream pop ballad where ratbag sounds almost like Kate Bush especially when she reaches for higher notes—followed by the raucous “pinky boy,” which blasts in with a wall of sound over a dance beat and a pop-punk guitar ladened chorus.
She marries the two tracks with shared lyrics like “you're killing my cat,” and shared samples hinting across both. It’s a neatly packaged vignette that makes me curious how her first full-length album will come together.
The Heartthrobs - “I’m Her”
Toledo, Ohio band self-described as “femo,” this track is another shoegazey grunge single with larger-than-life riffs and a vocalist who can belt creating a hazy and lush soundscape. Reminds me of Momma but with a bit more Superheaven in the mix.
runningwithscissors - “openyoureyes”
Glitchy metal-core from Minnesota that chaotically explores cyberspace. It’s like being caught in a mosh pit stuck between dial-up internet and the physical embodiment of a firewall. For fans of SeeYouSpaceCowboy and Machine Girl.
DED_DEBBIE - “untitled”
This band has been kicking around in the New Orleans underground for years now but they just released a full-length debut last week. I’ve always been a big fan of their track “Mom Kill Dad” for its tortured but admittedly kinda funny refrain, “Mom killed dad in 2006,” which is basically the whole song with a few sick breakdowns thrown in there.
Their vocalist does an amazing job of capturing both a gut-wrenching sincerity and a snotty sardonicism in his voice and lyrics.
“Untitled” opens up with a haunting guitar line before being met by a comedic pronunciation of “fascist,” “Hitler” and “Mussolini” in an almost valley girl tone. But it’s delivered with a cold and direct seriousness that makes the whole track, about the trappings of fascism and how it attracts young men, feel almost like a slower Dead Kennedys song with grindcore sensibilities.
It’s weird, it’s heavy and it’s definitely my thing.
Funeral Diner - “Two Houses”
I love a random emo throwback and this particular track caught my ear for its incredibly varied drums and poetic lyricism about the dehumanization violence inflicts upon people.
Funeral Diner are a legendary first-wave emo band from the Bay Area that I recommend for anyone into bands like City of Caterpillar or Jeromes Dream.
Brutus - “Paradise”
If you met the new Linkin Park with mixed feelings, I’d recommend checking out Brutus. They scratch the itch for grand, emotional nu-metal that sounds built for arenas rather than dive bars.
This kind of metal isn’t usually my thing but this track’s towering guitars imbued with drummer-vocalist Stefanie Mannaerts voice provoked me to listen further. What I found was a story about the constant struggle to find one's happiness.
Walter the Producer - “Little Lies”
A goofy indie pop track with a little bit of country twang and a whole lot of bitterness juxtaposed against the cheerful melody. Reminds me of a glitzier version of MJ Lenderman or Geese.
Don't want to blow a small portion of your piece out of proportion, but this is not the first time I've seen it written that punk is left or punk is progressive, and while I certainly agree that it can be, too many bands even from the very beginning had rightwing views for me to just let it pass.
Johnny Ramone was of course a Nixon Republicans. Billy Zoom from X was known as a Republican back in the day, and Exene these days has taken to parroting that asshole Alex Jones. I read a piece somewhere where John Lydon went off for a page as an admirer of Donald Trump.
Fear were obviously coming from a right wing perspective. Back in NYC, so were Agnostic Front and Sheer Terror. Bobby Steele from Texas, too. Where were Gang Green from, New Jersey? If so, speaking of which, both lead singers for the Misfits.
Ian Curtis voted for Margaret Thatcher, and, um, called his band Joy Division.
Not a conservative or a punk historian, but I promise you there are more. And one thing I should say is: Most of the bands I mention are *good bands* so no 'true Scotsman' argument to be made. You can't talk about LA hardcore without talking about Fear and X.
As an overview let me go back to Lydon. I mean, what about him made me think that he *wouldn't* go off as a Trump supporter? "Bodies" may or may not be an anti-abortion screed, but Johnny Rotten has always made it clear that he's just looking to shock and piss people off. So guess what? He's still doing it.