Recently, I've been thinking about the divisions in the punk scene and those who take it upon themselves to determine what is “punk” or not. Everyone, including myself, seems to have their own set of arbitrary rules that they think everyone else should adhere to.
If a band or
person falls outside of these rules they are immediately dismissed
and met with derision. I find it odd that a style of music that was
based on coloring outside of the lines turned into a scene that
quickly chastises a band for coloring outside of the lines.
I always think
back to when I was in high school and the MTV trust fund punks that I
went to school with had the great Rancid v. Green Day debate. Those
bands were on the “Modern Rock” radio station so frequently that
I was worn out on both of them. And neither one of those bands ever
really spoke to me to begin with.
When I gave a bit
of a chuckle and an eye roll at their argument, they looked down
their noses in my direction and asked me what I was listening to. This group of
people that threw the word “poser” around as if it were a slur
gave the blank stare of cluelessness when I said Black Flag.
At that time, I
was working my way backwards from the Rollins Band. Since I was only
eight years old when Black Flag broke up the band was unexplored
territory for me. I had recently discovered Damaged and was
mainlining all thirty five minutes of that record directly into my
brain at all hours of the day. Between “Ruby Soho” and all of
the singles off of Dookie, those songs were not for me and
none of them were any competition for “Rise Above” or “Room
13.”
I was developing a
taste for the extreme and more out there end of the spectrum that was
far away from the radio friendly/MTV informed world that these kids
were living in. These uptight pricks also gave me my first taste of
class war. I didn't know how to give form to the thought at the time
but now that I look back on it, it was definitely a bit of class war. They would come in on Mondays with tales of kayaking, rock climbing
and skiing while I sat in my room all weekend reading, writing shitty
teenage poetry and listening to the CDs that I bought with my lunch
money. Those CDs were more nourishing to me than anything that could
be served in the school cafeteria.
Their dads were
corporate lawyers and plastic surgeons and had no trouble throwing
money at the tuition involved with going to that school. My dad was
a union wage slave that put in several hours of overtime to send me
to that school and for some reason I was looked down on for that. That's when I learned that rich people were fucked and I quickly
withdrew from them. They could keep their spikey jackets and shitty
music, I made my way to the library to hang out with Sartre, Camus
and any poets I could find until graduation.
Years later, the
faces have changed but the arbitrary rules and cliquey bullshit still
persist. There seems to be no way to bridge the gap between the punk
bands in Pittsburgh that are interested in playing shows and building
something sustainable and the bands that have a destructive, scorched
earth approach to playing music.
I have noticed
that there's a part of the Pittsburgh scene that will only pay
attention to bands that exist long enough to play approximately five
shows and put out a demo tape. During those five shows they'll
destroy the venues and PA equipment before they fizzle out. At some
point, no one will want to host these shows and no one will want to
bring their PA equipment to be doused in PBR and stomped on.
The prevailing
attitude seems to be that if you didn't want your PA equipment
broken, then you shouldn't have brought it. Which then leads me to
wonder how there can be a show without a PA. I guess that wasn't
taken into consideration.
If a band is
around long enough to put out more than one record, they usually end
up in a no win situation with the naysaying gatekeepers. If they put
out a record that sounds too similar to their previous work, they get
slammed for putting out the same record over and over. If a band
decides to keep themselves from getting bored and puts out a record
that sounds slightly different they get hit with the “What
happened? They suck now” nonsense of the walking YouTube comments
that only rent their music from some bullshit streaming service and
never created anything in their lives.
And how dare a
band capture a decent sounding recording. If there's anything close to a distinguishable bass line on a record, the shouts of “Sell Outs!!!”
rain down.
It is really
difficult to create something and then to be willing to share it with
the rest of the world. That's why I try not to pass judgement on a
band or a record. I always ask myself the question, “Well, what
band am I in?” instead of saying “Well, that sucked.” Since
these opinions are all subjective anyway, the worst I'll say is “I
guess that wasn't for me” and move on to something that I really
enjoy.
One of the things
that has always bothered me is the hyper competitive nature of music
in Pittsburgh. It's not sports. There's no ranking system. And
don't we all want to get away from the every day jock bullshit that
drew us to Punk in the first place?
After all these
years, I am still most comfortable listening at home. Watching the
needle land in the groove and take off at 33 and 1/3 RPMs while the
music comes pouring out of the speakers is still one the most
satisfying experiences that I can have. It sure does beat catching
an elbow to the head and getting sprayed with some sort of booze
while trying to take pictures.
It's been well
over a month since the last time I went to a show. I have gotten
really good at talking myself out of going to several of them in the
past few weeks. I'll have my bag packed and camera charged to head
out the door but through the course of the day I'll eventually
convince myself that I would be better off staying in than putting up
with the crowds and getting home at a late hour. I really would have
liked to have seen some of those bands but could not bring myself to
venture outdoors.
Not wanting to put
up with the hassle might be part of getting older. Either that or
I'm coming to grips with no longer giving a shit and no longer being
in denial about it. Outside of the confines of my own head, none of
it means anything anyway so fuck it.
I'm not sure what
could be done to close the divides and turn around the attitudes in
the Pittsburgh scene and I'm also not sure if it even matters. I'm
probably the only person that thinks of this shit as if it were
important but the things that keep me alive usually do draw my focus.
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