PISS YOUR JEANS SAY YEAH
Thursday, August 20th, 2009 at 4:30pm by Gary Suarez
Punk is the domain of youth. Over the years its initial rebellious edge has been largely filed down to a nub with the palatable smoothness of an infant’s spoon, yet the fact remains that, even co-opted and corrupted by vapidity and consumerism, it remains young people’s music. Some choose to argue pointlessly and endlessly over the “authenticity” of the poppier strain that one might hear on the Vans Warped Tour, willfully blind to the cold reality: definition no longer matters when a sound becomes this diluted by culture. Outright intolerance of the current state of affairs feels appropriate, yet the alternatives for aging punk fans are tragic and few. Some shell out Ticketmaster-inflated fees to see the retroactively hailed nostalgia acts of their choosing lurch out onto massive stages to run through “the hits” much like the classic rock dinosaurs these very same revolutionaries once disdained. Others choose to support the obscure, forgotten 80s band playing miserable bars a few miles down the road from the middle of nowhere. Lastly, one can stay at home, venturing out only to collect even more irrelevant records for hoarding and occasional listening. To some half-smart kid from out there in America desperate for something to rebel against, it’s ideal. For a grown man like me, living the domestic life with all of its inherent pitfalls and pratfalls, punk is sentimental escapism. Nothing more.
