[Chyld]

Nowadays, you hear the entire world and its dog declaring "Punk Is Dead", and th other... entire world declaring "Punk's Not Dead!" Yeah yeah yeah, but neither side, I'm sure, knows what punk is. And Socrates always said; you can't comment on something without knowing what it is.

So, he said, calling on the scattered punk-loving elements of the board, what is it?

You could argue "the sound of three chords". After all, our friends the Ramones were punk, they were a three-chord spectacular? Blink 182 are not punk, there's no attitude...

Dress sense? Nope, don't see the Ramones coated in metal bits, slashed jeans and fuck knows what.

Is it based on "selling out"? The Sex Pistols were supposed never to have sold out, nowadays that comment is worth half an hour of laughter. Besides, there's probably a shedload of bands which are punk, that are on major labels.

Simply to piss people off? Heccubus' sig, until very recently, was Johnny Ramone commenting on why he dedicated his speech to George Bush "I did it to piss people off, that's how I am". I can't see the anti-establisment siding behind ol' Georgey Boy just to annoy everyone, they're against him to a.) annoy the establisment b.) protest against his policies.

Pissing off people shouldn't be a goal, people should be pissed off for a reason. And herein lies a lead.

The Sex Pistols (I don't care what you actually think of the music, leave it a while) wrote "God Save The Queen", initially, because they objected to the monarchy. I assume. Pissing people off was naturally going to happen. If it was the other way around, I'm stuck for examples.

We'll start with "Do what you feel is right, damn the consequences." Its not the right definition, I don't like it, but we shall allow the tides of debate to scuplt an answer. Get to it...

[Heccubus]

Punk doesn't mean anything to me. It's just a word that was taken from its original definition and used to describe a genre of rock music. All of these kids that I see walking around with patches that simply say "PUNK" (safety-pinned, of course, because god forbid they should pick up a needle) just make me laugh. If you asked them what "punk" meant, they'd all say the same things; fast music, attitude, originality, etc. To me, that isn't "punk", it's just reciting rules. I don't know, punk is hard to get into. On one hand, it all claims to want to fight the system and abolish rules, but on the other, as soon as you deviate slightly from these rules (which is what they are, like it or not), you're ostricized for it.

[SimeSublime]

I've always pictured the word punk to refer to a large bikie guy with a mohawk who wants to hurt me and steal my wallet. As such, when somebody describes a song that I like as punk, I get a bit annoyed. To me punk means Vivian from the Young Ones, and that's someone I would definatly not like to meet.

[Heccubus]

I think me 'n' Vivian would be cool until I made fun of the stars stuck to his head.

[SimeSublime]

Come to think of it, I couldn't stand being around any of them.

[Icey]

"Do what you feel is right, damn the consequences." Has always pretty much been my view on punk. And being anti-establishment at the same time because the man is holding us all down!!! The man truly is!

I would like to consider me punk and that my ultimate punk moment (in the not so distant future) would be when my boss would ask me to work over the weekend and I'd just give him the finger, say "eh!" and walk out.

[Chyld]

"Do what you feel is right, damn the consequences." Has always pretty much been my view on punk. And being anti-establishment at the same time because the man is holding us all down!!! The man truly is!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Always been a good description to me. Unfortunatly, it usually gets taken as drooling inanity, as opposed to antiestablismentarialism...

[FastEddie]

"antiestablismentarialism" Nice word!!

It's a bit difficult to define punk these days. Because society has changed so much since sex-pistol days, punk music is no longer extreme. See good charlotte. See simple plan. But at the same time you have bands like rancid, who are punk to the extreme. But then you have tim armstrong from rancid starting the transplants and writing songs for pink. And you go 'what the fuck?'

I think being 'punk' is no longer recognisable as what it used to be. For instance, dressing punk means absolutely nothing. Everybody does it. But punk isn't about a certain look or style, it's more about being an individual. And with societys current interpretation of punk, nobody really gets it.

Or something. Fuck but that reads like a load of shite.

[Chyld]

What's wrong with the Transplants?

[FastEddie]

Nothing wrong with the transplants. I was trying to make the point that tim armstrong is behind both the transplants and rancid, who fall into pretty different genres, he writes tunes for pink, but he's still punk. Hence, it's not so much the music, its the idea behind what you do.

Bad example maybe.

[Reader]

Punk:
Q: What is it?
J: A Joke.

Dead serious? Circumlocuting? Do I even know anymore?

[jariten]

Punk is a term thats pretty much up for grabs for what ever media mogul wants to use it to their own advantage. Starting with the sudden (and strange, they still sound like a Headcoats cover band to me) fame of The White Stripes, suddenly guitars, writing your own songs and being GENUINE came back in style. Over here in England, we've got various REAL BANDS which are really the old type MANUFACTURED BANDS dressed up in safety pins and NoFx patchs, peddled to the kiddies as true punk grrrrrr look theyre jumping up and down and everything. so i suppose Punk is what you make of it then. Personally the phrase has become embarrasing. In my mind, I like punk, but this onlt encapsulates the usual suspects- discord records, x ray spex, television...

[Heccubus]

I've never heard the White Stripes equated with punk rock, but it might be different over there. However, they wear their influences on their sleeves (the Sonics, Loretta Lynn, Bob Dylan, etc) and don't claim to be anything that they aren't. They do what they want with their music, and I'd say that's more "punk" than someone being stubborn and insisting that everything they do remain untouched and stagnant, which most punk bands seem to be doing nowadays. All I know is that it's music, I don't care who started it or who's playing it now, all I want is for it to sound half decent and have something to say. That "something" can be anything (girls, politics, whatever). It doesn't matter. If Good Charlotte want to poke fun at themselves and look like mopey goth kids, then that's fine. They're still doing whatever they want to do with their material, which equates them pretty well with the basic "values" of punk rock (the whole DIY thing and so on).

[Shawnathan]

When I hear the word punk, I think of Skateboarding faggots that watch "Dude where's my car" everyday after lunch and babble about Linkin Park endlessly.

I think I heard one "The White Stripes" song that I actually liked. I'm pretty sure it was called 'Seve Nation Army" or something. Then the song was played endlessly on the radio, it lost its qualitly after that.

This post has been edited by Shawnathan: 06 December 2004 - 05:53 PM

[Heccubus]

When I hear the word punk, I think of Skateboarding faggots that watch "Dude where's my car" everyday after lunch and babble about Linkin Park endlessly.

You mean the same ones who call people "faggot" all the time then?
Not a term that I appreciate in any context.