#379

I have a friend here visiting from SF whom I won’t name. He is really secretive. He used to be in charge of editing the MRR book review section but the moment he stopped to do it he started this struggled to get his name out of the list of contributors and shitworkers. The reason why I like spending time with him is that we can have all these serious, nerdy, embarrassing, awkward conversations about punk. International punk conference is on!

            We sit around and talk about every aspect of punk—joking, naming bands, discussing ideas and approaches and attitudes in punk, sounds, and the way people relate to music—basically everything connected to this world that is held together by band patches. As we get older, it becomes much more fun, because many times if I stop for a second and try to envision myself from the inside, I can do nothing but laugh. Because, after all, like, who gives a fuck? What we do should be secret, otherwise we will be “thrown into the loony bin” for being obsessed with such a lame topic. But having him around is great, especially in these times when everything in my life is great except for punk.

            Not my punk, because it’s stronger than ever. I do feel like I’m the last punk, or the last one I know for sure. But it’s strange how not so long ago I thought the only thing I was good at was doing my punk and now I’m having success in normal, boring life, with promotions and my company’s trust and an increasing salary and a perfect relationship, while I suffered through this year with bands, promoters, clubs, crowds, band members, my own laziness. The other night, we played a show and I had a nervous breakdown in a car (I sounded like Meat Puppets’ In a Car). If my girlfriend Anna hadn’t been there with me to take control and save my ass, some serious shit would have happened. In the end, everything went alright but I’m just done giving blood, sweat, and tears for this thankless job where everybody feels fine and free except me. That’s the only thing that matters for me now—I wanna keep my punk as fun as it can be, not a duty I have to serve. Right now I feel like I’m forced into the role of a fool and I’m blamed for everything no matter what I do.

            My strategy to survive this is not to fade away or give in and go mainstream (= grow up, get fucked). I’m gonna grow a thick skin. My idea is to go more radical in order to be able to play on my own terms. I’m done being that guy who has to be the only one who solves all the bullshit that could spoil us all at any given time. I’m done with it. To live is to be confused, and try to fight against it, but I do want the privilege to be confused a bit too.

            Alright, whining stops here.

            Basically, I’m about to establish my one-man secret society. I do other projects with people but I like my punk these days as I shelter my brain and my hours with noise and nerdy punk thoughts, rather than caring about any of the bullshit others create. I wanna fill every one of my hours with good things. It’s not some new age hippie bullshit but I don’t have time for things that bother me, do something different or shut up. Enough talking about myself. It’s not a diary; it should be a diarrhea of amazing sounds.

            I still get goosebumps when I blast No Trend while heading to work. That band is just another level of evil awesomeness. Their guitars, the powerhouse restrained grooves, that cynical voice of the singer. Of course pre “we are artists” era. Somehow they sucked at doing that. Not sure why, but America is kind of failing at progressing their ideas. As in, they suck in fabricating World Peace and Freedom version #2, they are also bad when bands like Die Kreuzen and Saccharine Trust figure out they should do something more and go far out into experimenting.

            Ruidosa Inmundicia live three hours from my town and it was such a bummer that they had never played here before. They finally did and we had an eventful weekend with them, which was mostly saved by their cool spirit, constant party mode, and the way I was able to get into my meditative state when I shook my head to their crushing sets. Busy minds look around and organize to arise.

            I started buying records on instinct and it does not disappoint. Spinning my newly arrived Shoes This High LP is something like next-level punk heaven. They sound evil and noisy and this totally calms me. New Zealand was already good at creating sounds that are hard to pin on an exact emotion but unlike the dreamy sounds, this band brings on the nightmare chills.

            Speaking of nightmarish sounds, I just received my Fottutissima Pellicceria Elsa LP, a band that follows no rules. Creativity in total chaos, they make space for guitars to play out whatever they want and these mutant jam sessions placed into raging punk songs are amazing. It’s always the best when anger opens a platform for creativity. The live recordings gave an extra flavor to this on the loose sounds, so many layers melting into each other. All in all, it’s just a heartfelt record driven by enthusiasm and not giving a fuck at all. So good. They remind me of United Mutation, in a way. A band that is constant in my life—their sound is something I have to give time to every month, sitting down and rediscovering what was hidden in the complex form. Even their band photos contain this mystical magic of mutant minds—there is something else there that is more than life. It feels as if they have figured out what punk should be, then they made it and disappeared. Their cover art, lyrics and everything are just unbelievable.

            This approach to punk is a total component of the Vixens LP. Girls from nowhereland playing Void-worship blaspheme punk with a cover and package art that blows my mind. Hope they are still a band, and if not, I hope they are working on new projects with the same quality. This is why I love Hysterics, too. One of the few contemporary bands that doesn’t follow the codes and rules that are mistakenly thought to dictate some territories of hardcore punk. I have been sitting on an interview with them for an embarrassingly long time now, but I loved it when they told me how they didn’t know the whole history of hardcore punk and that they just simply started playing this amazing blasting music. ’Cause after all, this subculture is for the freaks who would rather have visions and ideas than a codex written in stone. Stones are good for throwing at cops, but you should write to fanzines punx!

            Ladies are winning me over this month with their extravagant sounds. I got Sida’s 7”. No idea about this band but they are probably from Spain or Japan. The record sleeve tells me no info on this (or I wasn’t looking closely enough). They play repetitive, feverish paranoid music, something that could be Kim Gordon’s revenge on the world; all amps switched on, tuned into the wrong level and just played out at maximum level. Bad trips, evil vibrations, burn your surfboards because even the desert of your mind gets freezing cold at night and you need that extra heat.

            For real, everyone out there, do yourself a favor and spend your useless nights in front of your computers checking out new bands. You’ll realize punk is this bottomless pool of universal anger and creativity. Just because everyone is bored, talking about cool bands or too clueless to know what is the best shit, there are millions of bands whose existence is forgotten, even by their ex-members, who deserve your attention. The more music you listen to the more you will learn about music, and music is a form of communication so music is basically people.

            Ideas.

            I could still spend hours thinking about the idea that our society is fucked because we watch each other too much, thus we are afraid to express our true selves because of the fear of failure. On the other hand, in punk everybody is purposely making mistakes, which will later be recorded, archived, consumed, adored, and collected. This is why punk is the best.

            There was this old punk guy who said you should start to learn to live for the inside. He might have been right, because those who only care about public stunts are empty as fuck. I can appreciate the results of listening to shitloads of music and reading lots of books and keeping these things for myself. It’s not as if I envy my own perfect taste (which is basically developed after reading who says what in this magazine); it’s that to get into things and not give a fuck about other people’s ideas could benefit you. If you build up your own little world, the outside will never tear you down or let you feel embarrassed or awkward. It’s like the Zouo 7”. That thing should never have existed at all, because it makes no sense, as to what the meaning was before they released that 7” in question and yet still there is such a document and it’s just another perfect example of all the marvels this world can produce.

            One night, I had a conversation about the age before everyone was able to learn about anything in seconds and how people then were forced to listen to bands who are now considered ridiculously mediocre, washed out bullshit, but who then sounded interesting because no one knew where they were gaining influence from. One could feel now that one has wasted months or years of one’s life on things that are now laughed at by the youngsters. But for me this is another great thing in punk, because this scene is full with fallen idols. Because it proves that nostalgia is only a great excuse for bad taste and laziness. It’s not about getting stuck in the past but about always learning new things and picking out the best. There were great bands who either broke up early, or turned into total shit, and there were times when we were just listening to terrible music and luckily we have grown out of it. The present is now and if you feel embarrassed by your past that means you are smarter now.

            Also we tend to think that some countries and eras were unable to produce amazing punk bands but for fuck’s sake just do what I have told you: sit on your ass and learn about the nonstop coolness of punk if you are a devoted fan. Most likely the harder times with their obscure bands are much more interesting, because they give you that extra flavor of secret society, with their efforts to go against the grain. That’s a bit self-indulgent, but come on, there has to be some pleasure even for us.

            There is a thing I hate. Hipsters are gone. I thought they were idiots because, for some reason, they felt like they had to adopt everything that seemed cool, and because they were unable to relate to anything but the coolness, they used irony and cynicism to blend in. I hate it when people like a band because that band looked or acted strange. It’s their music that’s supposed to dominate, not the other bullshit. The Clean looked like total office workers and Hoax proved to be more than just a bleeding forehead.

            It’s pretty tiring that, while I think I’m the lamest person, at the same time people around me force me to feel that what’s happening in my surroundings is hip. It is the best thing ever for sure, but it is only so because we know what the worst thing ever is: normal life. What is more normal than to base a subculture on the chase of doing cool things, on worshipping a format over content? I don’t like when these normal life things get mixed with my world.

            But the fun is over, hipsters have grown up and they have become self-proclaimed experts. Everybody is raving about how much they know about everything and how perfect their taste is and they try to see even listening to music as just a set of rules that could be mastered. While again I feel embarrassed and awkward for not saying more, and while their life is just this constant self indulgence, mine is working at feeling like shit less. It’s that “I know the more I learn the less I know” thing. But at least I know that I’m real and that feels good for sure.