Where is the true spirit of punk now.....

Ha ha ha no never mind. Feeble attempt at humor there. Actually if there's anything out there that reminds me of the sort of twisted, fucked-up American Nightmare epics of the Dead Kennedys or Pere Ubu, it's El-P's Fantastic Damage. "This is for kids worried about the apocalypse..." just about sums it up.

OK I kind of assume that a 'new punk', if such a thing could exist, would be sort of like the Messiah in that 99% of the people who were waiting for it wouldn't recognise it. Or like it. So nothing really fits the bill.

If people are listening to the right stuff, who knows what might happen in the future if one or more of them picks up a guitar/sampler/sequencer?

it was the sulkiest public sulk evah!! DIS WOZ MY DAY AND it iz S-SPOILED!!

so that...

So punk= just another 'sound'. Thanks for that. Ver useful!

Has anyone questioned whether we need the 'spirit' of punk anyway? isn't it far better to get an ENTIRELY new 'attitude', or an entirely new way of looking at things.

I mean: why can't we ditch the guitars and pick up pots and pans and kazoos and start mumbling poetry instead. the world might become a better place.

nothing, but the original punk bands never did such a thing (any idiot can muck around with sound). It was rock n'roll but the politics were more militant (mostly in a cartoonish sort of way).

''punk is an approach to sound and also a reaction to the mainstream.''

maybe at the very beginning, but it was absorbed by that mainstream because the music was conventional.

''so, it's possible to be nostalgic for it some way is against what it's about.''

damn right! i don't want another punk or rave-punk or any nonsense like that. It's got to be something completely different. This is precisely what i mean abt 'a new way of looking at things'.

Suicide, by all accounts, were hated. And again, did they really 'muck about'. I think the music was well thought out actually. Same goes for pere Ubu, whom i like as well (will track down von lmo and destroy all monsters someday).

"muck about" -- my shorthand for experimenting and throwing things together to see what happens and then turning it into songs or compostions or whatever.

it's not punk if it doesn't believe it can change the world: "rejection of the mainstream" too often = secret underlying resignation towards the implacable changelessness of the status quo, courtesy some little pay-off Krafts Korner deal, an attitude that (to be fair) i don't think significantly existed in us OR uk punk prior to c.1983: when ubu began they thought they would be HUGE, and always played as if it was only a kind of oversight that they weren't

punk in the uk was OBSESSED with (singles chart) chart-placing: "pub rock" AND "art rock" AND "prog rock" were all the enemy because they settled for a mere flaccid hermetic self-congratulatory PORTION of the world's attention, and made a prissy virtue out of not being in the charts...

yes yes this is contradictory, so what? punk is abt transforming contradictions into hooks

certainly chart success and the Eye on the Top Of The Pops is a significant distinction between Brand USA punk and Brand UK punk (up to a certain point until watered down cartoon forms that the US Labels could finally get a handle on and market more ably presented themselves in the 90's for chart success). Certainly, I have come to understand even better through the ILM and British conception of Indie (especially Tom's explanation -- thank you sir).

i agree that ubu though they would be huge -- that they break through and change the mainstream -- but they didnt. they weren't marketable. david thomas wasnt cute enough. their sound wasnt easy enough to peddle at the pop bazaar. in the 80's in the US, the fact that a "punk" band wasnt going to break through was a realistic fact of life -- so why bother? To break through means then meant watering down one's music, to make accessibility the highest value (a side note: ever page through the New Trouser Press Guide and notice how in many entries "accessibility" is heralded as an important breakthrough in the right direction?) -- by accessibility, I don't mean one should just be difficult to be difficult -- by accessibility I mean changing what one is doing purely to expand an audience, artistic considerations put by the wayside (see Husker Du's 2 unsuccessful Warner Brothers albums in the US). In my conception and what I believe -- punk is about creating one's own sound irregardless of the exterior pressures to be "commercial" or "conform" what is deemed acceptable. punk is about ignoring popularity -- bread and circuses (though many succumb). at the same time. because one travels this road, it doesnt also mean one's music is good. Punk can have hooks. But Hooks are not the end all.

"and did you see (pete) shelley clear?" cousin, i DID: onstage at shrewsbury music hall in 1978, w.penetration supporting (he had a bad headcold)

Ned, did you kill-file Tim up there? Or is there actually a band called Plonk?

to me, punk doesn't mean 'true rebellion in the music world'. the most exciting thing about punk IMHO was Elvis Costello's story about being on the tube the morning after the Pistols being on the Grundy show and seeing all the red-faced, angry businessmen. the fact that some portion of the UK thought that punk presented a legitimate threat to their way of life, and were afraid of what might happen if it actually took over their kids. i don't think cultural moments like that come along very often, and they certainly don't last very long. at any rate, until there comes a situation (economic, social or otherwise) like that again, i doubt that any cultural / youth movement will be able to really claim to do what punk did.

Not to my knowledge. Wanna start one?