Can you recommend a solid beginner’s guide to punk music? Though I might be doing research this summer on queer theory, anti-sociality, negativity, and all of those topics’ intersections with, and sometimes opposition to, a *lot* of stuff (“leftist communitarian” politics; mainstream and radical aesthetics objects, e.g., film, comics, music, literature; psychoanalysis and postmodern thought; the history of various radical/othered groups; etc.)—which is to say that I will probably wind up doing a lot of research on punk music—I am also just trying to find my way into appreciating punk music. I really enjoy Built to Spill’s Keep It Like A Secret, Cloud Nothings’ latest album, I’m getting to know No Age, Dismemberment Plan is awesome, and etc. But I figure you might have some particularly solid, heartfelt recommendations, seeing as you post fairly frequently about punk music. That coupled with the fact that your blog, in its punk/politics/philosophy trifecta, is pretty terrific, and therefore—in my eyes—a good source of recommendations/commentary on any one of those three things.
— thropless
(Got this very interesting question through Tumblr’s ‘fanmail’ function - yes, outsiders, that is actually its name - which doesn’t allow you to publicly respond. Assuming that wasn’t the sender’s intention, I’m going to reply here, which also has the advantage, unlike the regular ‘ask’ function, that others can directly reblog this post if they have something to add…)
Many thanks for the compliment, very happy to help!
Not sure if it is really a “solid beginner’s guide”, but Nicholas Rombes’ superb A Cultural Dictionary of Punk: 1974-1982 sounds as if it could go really well with your interests, and it’s quite accessible even if it eschews any and all attempts at a traditional account of punk bands. Also his 33 1/3 book on the Ramones self-titled debut is an excellent attempt to reframe the original classic punk album in a cultural theory context, as ‘the last great modern record, or the first great postmodern one’.
Beyond that (and beyond books, which I’ve otherwise found to be very limited on this subject as I’m interested in or see it), I’d have to skip forward a few years to c. 1985 before my knowledge really picks up again (an arguable failing of the Rombes book is that it does end in 1982, essentially before hardcore establishes itself, and thus before all the main forms of punk rock I enjoy today) with the ‘Revolution Summer’ bands in DC and the nascent ‘emo’ movement - so Embrace, Rites of Spring, who politicise hardcore in a newly personal and emotional sense, and thence onwards (and inwards) to Fugazi, who really as a band both embodied and transcended the ‘politics’ of punk as I’d see it, as well as contributing to the expansion of its sound.
Personally, I most identify that post-hardcore sensibility, both musically and lyrically (and thus politically and philosophically) with my favourite band, Hot Water Music, who drew a lot on the earlier Fugazi sound but also went their own, more moderate experimental way with it over the past decade (or two); something like their album No Division would be a really interesting place to start I think with their sort of positive reaction to hardcore and its politics. I’m sure there are more detailed places to start with the intersection of punk and ‘anti-sociality’ (and I’m not even touching on UK or Irish punk here, of which there is a lot and a lot to be said), but aside from, or developing from, my early experiences of stuff from Green Day to basically the entire catalogue of Epitaph Records (and the standard, socially and politically vocal bands like Rancid or Bad Religion), I’ve really more gotten into punk as a positive, progressive and reflective movement, so it’s hard for me not to put that spin on it.
I get the impression from the bands you mention that you like a combination of the melodic and the somewhat abrasive, and probably around that a certain structure of complexity - which is pretty close to my own tastes, although curiously I’m not a particular fan of those specific bands, but that just goes to show that punk, particularly modern punk (or ‘post-hardcore’, and through its influence, much of today’s ‘indie rock’ - to distinguish this in part from music which sticks to punk, or hardcore, as a much more conventional image), is a wonderfully multi-threaded affair. Anybody else able to pick it up from here?
