Tserin Cheesmond
This is what happens “When you come to realize that your well defined universe is only a perimeter” (Cranfield)
How does someone of my generation (born in the 80’s) relate to the punk image, or how does say my sister, a decade younger, lay a claim on the identity of punk rock when much of the perception that is propagated has been manipulated and mutated through the myth of punk? As I try desperately to cling to some sort of authenticity, or ‘realness’ in my own personal relation to punk I am forced to face the questions, how can I define my well constructed identity through the use of the punk rock image, and how does this image reflect, or perhaps not reflect, the audio aspect, the difference between the music and the mohawk, and somewhere in between I hope to find myself.
The word “punk” itself presents many problems. As any word does, it has many different, often conflicting, meanings that are constantly evolving as the world and the way we view the world changes. Originally, a term used in prison- “William Burroughs: I always thought a punk was someone who took it up the ass.” (McNeil, McCain 208), it evolved during the late 1970’s to describe a sub-culture that continues to evolve and affect culture today. Punk forced its way into the mainstream public eye via the Sex Pistols in the summer of 1976. Since then it has become a marketable teenage fashion sold in stores everywhere, the main difference being that in 1976 it still had the ability to “disturb and outrage” (Woljick 7) the public into which it was received, whereas today while it may illicit stares and the occasional comment even the most shocking ensemble has become relatively commonplace. It is no longer dangerous to leave the house dressed as a punk. The image has become so uniform, so absorbed into commodity culture that at Halloween kids can buy the ‘punk rock’ costume kit, complete with studded bracelet, studded jacket with prescribed pins and patches. Punk has been perpetually balancing on the precipice of ‘pure’ versus ‘put on’, as with anything attempting to be new or different, the question of ‘originality’ or ‘purity’ begins to come into play almost at the very conception of an identity as a movement. Perhaps this preoccupation with purity comes from the original un-manufactured sound of the bands, the desire too capture the rawness and the unrefined attitude of the music. This can be seen in the debate over Malcolm Mclaren and his control over the direction, especially the visual image, of the Sex Pistols, he claims to have ‘made’ the band and orchestrated the original movement, in the UK. While his influence cannot be denied, indeed he is historically there; can only one person be responsible for such a great collaboration and explosion of energies and sound? The momentum was set in place far before the arty manager took hold. From the Ramones and the Clash, to Blink 182 and Billy Talent (challenging the notion of authenticity and referencing history by borrowing his punk moniker from the classic punk book/movie Hard Core Logo) the idea of what is “punk” today has changed dramatically, not only musically and stylistically, but also terms of intent and soul.
The problem becomes a search for the authentic, that is, if there even really is an authentic to speak of or find. The experience of being a punk, or maybe better described as choosing to look like a punk today, has very different connotations and consequences then it did only thirty years ago. In his books Chris Walter, who grew up a punk in Winnipeg in the 70’s, describes the feeling of taking your life into your hands when making the decision to shave his first mohawk. I have many (older) friends with stories of fists and chains as a response to just walking down the street dressed in their punk rock attire. Is it, then, any wonder that the scene is associated aggression and violence? The question needs to be asked whether the aggression is a role absorbed into the image of a punk as a reaction to, or a perpetuation of, the violence from external forces or a role intentionally occupied? “ The idea of the degraded, the meaningless, and the forbidden was consistently exposed and glorified, and these symbolic transgressions through adornment stigmatized the wearers as defiled and dangerous” (Woljick 19)
But I digress, the reality remains that in today’s society the experience of being a punk is drastically different then in the days of its origin, but it is no way less real, or less valid. Once to be a punk was to take a risk, it took courage, and while I still believe there is still a certain degree of bravery involved to align oneself with the other, it is far less physically dangerous to dress like a punk today.
Debbie Harry describes “two maniacs running around town putting up signs that said, “Punk is coming! Punk is coming!” We thought, Here comes another shitty group with an even shittier name.” (McNeil McCain, 208) Little did she know that a new subculture had been given its title. The punk movement began at mostly the same time, in the late 70’s, in the UK- focusing around the London scene, and in New York- mainly functioning out of the club CBGB. The outlandishness associated with punk was very much influenced by scene in England. What had been a “much more adult and bohemian rock culture” with poet Patti Smith, Johnny Thunders and Lou Reed, in New York turned into “this crazy teenage thing” as the kids in England emulated their idea of what American punk was. (McNeil McCain 244) Much like the transgression of spitting, which originated in the UK and was brought back to the US, to become a definitive feature of the punk image. Another example can be found in the notion of the ‘pogo’ dance, supposedly invented by Sid Vicious jumping up and down in order to better see the bands, it has taken on its own life in the myth of punk, as it is rarely seen at shows today. Kids in England were trying to emulate the scene in NY, but having a removed, and therefore distorted image of it invented their own fashion that, eventually, took over as the predominant image of punk culture. This can be seen in the styles of dress between the two scenes, for example the Damned and Johnny Rotten from the UK in contrast to The Ramones, Johnny Thunders, and Jerry Nolan, staples of the NY scene.
Punk changed the way we understand music. Punk pushed the boundaries, both musically and aesthetically. When it comes to music, punk took talent out of the equation, essentially making the ‘bad’, as far as mainstream musical standards were concerned, ‘good’ and therefore, marketable. Said in the words of the man who claims to have crated the Sex Pistols, Malcolm Mclaren was searching for a way “to use “bad” and make it work in a way that might ultimately change popular culture itself.” (McCain, McNeil 243) In every aspect punk rock purposely took the ‘good’ out of ‘good music’, and out of ‘good taste’ as well. It made angry yelling and crashing noise acceptable as a form of music, that unlike experimental noise music, for example the recordings made by the Futurists in the early 1900’s, was marketable, able to infiltrate mainstream corporate music. In the mid 70s, an era of hippies, hair and bellbottoms, many people felt that this form of music better described the soundscape of the time, rather than disco, with it’s cheesy grins and shiny lights. The aggressive nature and fast pounding beat mixed with a sense of desperation and an idea of futurelessness, due to class struggle and social unrest, was the perfect audio soundtrack for disgruntled youth.
The Ramones inspired Mick Jones and Paul Simonon before the inception of the Clash, along with many other bands, instilling the notion of “just get out there, you’re as good as you are….just go out there and do it” (Steiner 231) If one looks at the band line-ups in the late 70’s to early 80’s, it reads like an incestuous family tree, as bands formed and reformed. A cover for the punk zine ‘Sniffin’ Glue’ documents the time well, saying, “This is a chord. Here’s another one. Now go start a band.” That is essentially what a lot of kids did. Punk encourages people to be “actively creative as opposed to being a passive fan or consumer” (Woljick 8), in terms of both dress and the creation of music. Effectively challenging the idea of what is considered ‘good’ music and who is able to produce it, “It implicitly challenged elitist notions of what art is and who may create art.” (Woljick12)
The most common image that is brought to mind when one thinks of a “punk” is a brightly colored mohawk, studded and painted leather jacket, and a safety pin or two through random body parts. What began as an audio and visual attack on society and its values was quickly changed into a uniform, and that uniform has been incorporated into mainstream media and culture, distorted into a sugarcoated rebellion driven by the greed for capitalistic gains. Today you can walk into a mall get a mohawk, a lip piercing, and a Rancid T-shirt, and in an hour later walk out looking like a ‘punk’. The day I saw a Le Chateau storefront advertising a “Punk Princess” t-shirt adorned with a safety pin ($ 39.95), as Simple Plan was the day I had to sit down and re-think my affiliation to the so-called “punk rock” scene “punk rock” image. It brings to light the question of what is really original, the kid who creates his own shirt with a sharpie pen or the one who buys it pre-fabricated at an ‘alternative’ store, as they are both buying into the same image as it has been sold to them. In essence, buying their ‘uniqueness’ in order to be a part of a larger community, as described by Calefato “Subcultures have their own uniforms, components of a jargon with which the groups make themselves recognizable both inside and outside their circle, and through which they exchange, as in a communicative grapevine, their passwords regarding tastes, stylistic twists, everyday practices and forms of behavior.”(Calefato) The use of the word ‘punk’ as a label has become so encompassing that within it even smaller segregated groups (such as: gutter punx, emo, screamo, pop punk, hardcore, etc.) have been created, each with their own set of identifying signs. So, where exactly does punk stand, as a culture, and as a musical movement, within today’s society? More importantly, how does punk function?
“The most important thing in life is style. That is, the style of one’s existence…. For if man defines himself by doing, then style is doubly definitive because style describes the doing.” (Robbins 12) What you wear and, sometimes more importantly, how you wear it describes where you fit into society’s tangled hierarcy, not only how others classify you but also how you chose to identify yourself as well. The way one chooses to dress can be seen as a language one uses to visually communicate who one is and what one’s beliefs are. It becomes an expression of personal identity; a carefully selected set of symbols used to define of how one wants the world to view them. It is as artistic and creative cultural endeavor each morning when choosing what to wear, how one want to be seen, “creating a small, but complex semiotic system, valid perhaps for that day only.”(Greco 149) Make no mistake about it, the kid with the patched up pair of jeans and grubby leather jacket has made just as much a conscious decision with regard to fashion as the coordinated teeny bopper whose braces’ elastics match her shoelaces and nail polish, ferociously devouring a Seventeen magazine.
Punk fashion holds the myth of the idea that anything goes, the concept of wear-what-you-want without any regard for style. The main idea was to shock and offend. “Treating so called ‘flaws’ as marks of distinction…by celebrating the uniqueness of individual styles that opposed prevailing idea of good taste, punks implicitly critiqued dominant notions about beauty and” art. (Woljick15) With punk nothing is sacred. The swastika is worn, hair is blue, purple and red, and obscene language is broadcasted on shirts. There are no boundaries in terms of dress, the more ridiculous the better, however, there are unspoken rules and regulations that solidified in the very beginnings of the scene.
A style based entirely on the lack thereof (or so I thought), it exploits different symbols borrowed from many different cultures and social classes. Some of the music was heavily influenced by reggae and the Rastafarianism idea of the destruction of capitalism and oppression (Babylon) was also incorporated. Tribal designs are common as tattoos. Multi colored mohawks mimic those of Mohawk Indians. Leather jacket were appropriated from the ‘rockers’, a preceding subculture of the 1950s. Religious and political symbols are defiled. Bondage and sexually explicit clothing is worn. Military gear appropriated to rebel against the army. Punk is a confrontational montage of cultures and classes thrown together to cause confusion. The bondage clothing, (and belts) are used more to “ threaten, or expose culturally constructed ideas about “deviancy” rather then to entice.” (Wojcik 19) Images of skulls are used as a way to emphasize life and celebrate death. “The image of he skull, grinning or dancing, became a punk icon, an ever-present reminder of death’s ultimate triumph over all, regardless of class status.” (17) The punk ideal is to appear as unnatural as possible, unlike the hippies who embraced nature.
But what happens when rebellion becomes a uniform? Consider the time that is spent studding and paining the ‘must-have’ fashion item of any punk: the oh-so-important leather jacket, one of the most defining symbols of the punk. Or consider the amount off effort required to obtain unnaturally bright colored hair. The skill and effort involved in obtaining a legitimate punk ‘look’ practically goes against the very idea of freedom of expression it claims to represent.
Politics and music cannot be separated just as politics and art cannot be separated, and so forms of dress cannot escape being caught up in the political realm. As always, though, the mainstream corporate manages to absorb an aspect of every subculture. The Punk image is a marketable and sellable style that is mimicked in malls and high fashion. Viviane Westwood, who once dressed the Sex Pistols and had a huge influence on how punk looked, especially the zippers and bondage straps, is now a high fashion designer making dresses for the stars. Even the art world picked up on artists like Raymond Pettibon, who designed many gig posters, most noticeably for the band Black Flag. As this happens the line between bringing down the system from the inside and simply selling out gets imperceptibly thin.
The introduction of punk created a whole new audio sounds cape, making the bad sound good, recording in the garage, on minimal equipment became, not a necessity, but a stylistic choice. Without being packaged and sold as a commodity by a corporation this enable the musicians to hold the illusion of being in control of selling themselves. They are independent of one system…. that of the record companies, but then become reliant on another system in the form of technology and the computer. However, no matter how ‘independent’ the labels, or musicians become they still must rely heavily on things like photocopy machines and the Internet to spread their word, music or message. With the invention of the internet and new technology it is becoming easier to be not as reliant on the system of the state, as seen with itunes and the self recording and cd burning, that is going on all over the world today. Making the music accessible to a larger audience without the backing o f a major label. It is a weird little grey area in which it becomes a very modernist idea to put out indie music, to make the individual accessible to the universal, only it now becoming universally accepted to be individual.
Richard Hell, of Television and the Heartbreakers, described the way in which drug addiction was perceived as a normal part of the early New York scene in ’74, ’75 as, “it still had this “nice” taint of the forbidden, yet at the same time nobody really thought of it as dangerous.” (McNeil, McCain 210). This “taint of the forbidden” is a concept that is extremely prevalent within today’s manufactured idea of punk culture. One can only hope that just as the addictions proved to be more serious than originally perceived, as can be seen in the many deaths or downfalls of numerous punk legends, like Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan, Dee Dee Ramone, Iggy at his worst (or perhaps his best), that perhaps, despite all the fuzzy leopard skin and chromed safety pins, something more dangerous lingers in the shadows of post punk pop, waiting and watching.
Calefato, Patrizia. “Signs of Order, Signs of Disorder: The Other Uniforms” Uniform: Order and Disorder Ed. Francesco Bonami, Maria Lucia Frisa, Stefano Tonchi. Italy: Edizioni Charta, 2000. 195-204
Greco, Lorenzo. “Social Identity, Military Identity” Uniform: Order and Disorder Ed. Francesco Bonami, Maria Lucia Frisa, Stefano Tonchi. Italy: Edizioni Charta, 2000. 145-152
Hebdige, Dick. Hiding in the Light: On Images and Things, England: Clays Ltd., 1988.
Keithley, Joey. I, Shithead: a life in punk, Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2003.
Punk: attitude, Writ./Dir. Don Letts. Freemantle media. 2005.
Robbins, Tom. Another Roadside Attraction, Canada: Ballantine Books of Canada Ltd., 1971.
Steiner, THE REJECTION OF BEATY IN ART
The Filth and the Fury: A Sex Pistols Film, Dir. Julien Temple. Alliance Atlantis, 2000.
Wojcik, Daniel. Punk and Neo-Tribal Body Art, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995.
