Related Book Info From Wikipedia (Punk Ideologies):
Punk ideologies are a group of varied social and political beliefs
associated with the punk
subculture. In its original incarnation, the punk subculture was primarily
concerned with concepts such as rebellion, anti-authoritarianism, individualism, free thought and discontent. Punk
ideologies are usually expressed through punk rock music, punk literature, spoken word recordings, punk fashion, or punk visual art. Some punks have participated
in direct action, such
as protests, boycotts, squatting, vandalism, or property destruction. Punk fashion was
originally an expression of nonconformity, as well as opposition to both
mainstream culture and the hippie
counterculture. Punk fashion often displays aggression, rebellion, and
individualism. Some punks wear clothing or have tattoos that express sociopolitical
messages. Punk visual art also often includes those types of messages. Many
punks wear second hand clothing, partly as an anti-consumerist statement.
An attitude common in the punk subculture is the opposition to selling out, which refers to
abandoning of one's values and/or a change in musical style toward pop or more radio-friendly rock in exchange for wealth,
status, or power. Selling out also has the meaning of adopting a more mainstream
lifestyle and ideology.
Because anti-establishment and anti-capitalist attitudes
are such an important part of the punk subculture, a network of independent record labels, venues and
distributors has developed. Some punk bands have chosen to break from this
independent system and work within the established system of major labels.
The do it yourself
(DIY) ideal is common in the punk scene, especially in terms of music recording
and distribution, concert promotion, magazines, posters and flyers.
On religious issues, punk is mostly atheist or agnostic, but some punk bands have promoted
religions such as Christianity, Islam, the Rastafari movement or Krishna.
Specific
ideologies and philosophies
The following include some of the most common ideologies and philosophies
within the punk subculture (in alphabetical order).
Christian punk is a
small sub-genre of punk rock with some degree of Christian lyrical content. Some
Christian punk bands are associated with the Christian music industry, but
others reject that association. Examples of notable Christian punk bands include
The Crucified, MxPx and Flatfoot 56.
Centering around a belief in the abject lack of meaning and value to life, nihilism was a fixture in some protopunk and early punk rock.
Notable nihilist punks include: Iggy
Pop, Sid Vicious and Richard Hell.
Straight edge, which
originated in the American hardcore punk scene, involves abstaining from alcohol, tobacco, and recreational
drug use. Some who claim the title straight edge also abstain from caffeine, casual sex and meat. Those
more strict individuals may be considered part of the hardline
subculture. Unlike the shunning of meat and caffeine, refraining from casual
sex was without question a practice in the original straight edge lifestyle, but
it has been overlooked in many of the later reincarnations of straight edge. For
some, straight edge is a simple lifestyle preference, but for others it's a
political stance. In many cases, it is a rejection of the perceived
self-destructive qualities of punk and hardcore culture. Notable straight
edgers: Ian MacKaye, Tim McIlrath, Justin Sane, and Davey Havok.
Taqwacore is a punk subgenre
centred around Islam, its culture and its
interpretation. The Taqwacore scene is composed mainly of young Muslim artists
living in the United States and other western countries, many of whom openly
reject traditionalist interpretations of Islam. There is no definitive Taqwacore
sound, and some bands incorporate styles including hip-hop, techno, and/or
musical traditions from the Muslim world. Examples of Muslim punk bands include
Alien Kulture. The Kominas and Secret Trial
Five.
Criticism of punk
ideologies
Punk ideologies have been criticized from outside and within. The Clash occasionally accused
other contemporary punk acts of selling out, such as in their songs "(White Man) In Hammersmith
Palais" and "Death or
Glory". Crass's song "White Punks on
Hope" criticized the late-1970s British punk scene in general and, among other
things, accused Joe
Strummer of selling out and betraying his earlier socialist principles.
Their song "Punk is Dead" attacked corporate co-option of the punk subculture. Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra wrote many songs
criticizing aspects of the punk subculture, and he once accused the punk
magazine Maximum RocknRoll of "punk
fundamentalism" when they refused to advertise Alternative Tentacles records because
they said the records "weren't punk".
The Misfits' Michale Graves, a right-libertarian who cofounded the Conservative Punk
website, argued that punks have become "hippies with mohawks".
Author Jim Goad has been very
critical of punk ideologies in many of his writings. In his essay "The
Underground is A Lie!", Goad argued that many punks are hypocrites, and he
claimed that many punks act poor while hiding the fact they come from middle to upper class backgrounds. In
Farts from Underground, Goad claimed that the DIY ethic never produces anything original, and it
allows poor quality work to be championed.
In their book The
Rebel Sell, Joseph
Heath and Andrew
Potter argued that counterculture politics have failed, and that
the punk understanding of society is flawed. They also argued that alternative
and mainstream lifestyles ultimately have the same values.
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock. Punk bands created fast, hard-edged music, typically with short songs, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a DIY ethic; many bands self-produced recordings and distributed them through informal channels.
The term "punk" was first used in relation to rock music by some American critics in the early 1970s, to describe garage bands and their devotees. By late 1976, bands such as the Ramones in New York City and the Sex Pistols and The Clash in London were recognized as the vanguard of a new musical movement. The following year saw punk rock spreading around the world, and it became a major cultural phenomenon in the United Kingdom. For the most part, punk took root in local scenes that tended to reject association with the mainstream. An associated punk subculture emerged, expressing youthful rebellion and characterized by distinctive styles of clothing and adornment and a variety of anti-authoritarian ideologies.
By the beginning of the 1980s, faster, more aggressive styles such as hardcore and Oi! had become the predominant mode of punk rock. Musicians identifying with or inspired by punk also pursued a broad range of other variations, giving rise to post-punk and the alternative rock movement. By the start of the 21st century, pop punk had been adopted by the mainstream, as bands such as Green Day and The Offspring brought the genre widespread popularity.
Characteristics
Philosophy
The first wave of punk rock aimed to be aggressively modern, distancing itself from the bombast and sentimentality of early 1970s rock.[3] According to Ramones drummer Tommy Ramone, "In its initial form, a lot of [1960s] stuff was innovative and exciting. Unfortunately, what happens is that people who could not hold a candle to the likes of Hendrix started noodling away. Soon you had endless solos that went nowhere. By 1973, I knew that what was needed was some pure, stripped down, no bullshit rock 'n' roll."[4]John Holmstrom, founding editor of Punk magazine, recalls feeling "punk rock had to come along because the rock scene had become so tame that [acts] like Billy Joel and Simon and Garfunkel were being called rock and roll, when to me and other fans, rock and roll meant this wild and rebellious music."[5] In critic Robert Christgau's description, "It was also a subculture that scornfully rejected the political idealism and Californian flower-power silliness of hippie myth."[6]Patti Smith, in contrast, suggests in the documentary 25 Years of Punk that the hippies and the punk rockers were linked by a common anti-establishment mentality.
Throughout punk rock history, technical accessibility and a DIY spirit have been prized. In the early days of punk rock, this ethic stood in marked contrast to what those in the scene regarded as the ostentatious musical effects and technological demands of many mainstream rock bands.[7] Musical virtuosity was often looked on with suspicion. According to Holmstrom, punk rock was "rock and roll by people who didn't have very much skills as musicians but still felt the need to express themselves through music".[5] In December 1976, the English fanzineSideburns published a now-famous illustration of three chords, captioned "This is a chord, this is another, this is a third. Now form a band."[8] The title of a 1980 single by the New York punk band Stimulators, "Loud Fast Rules!" inscribed a catchphrase for punk's basic musical approach.[9]
Some of British punk rock's leading figures made a show of rejecting not only contemporary mainstream rock and the broader culture it was associated with, but their own most celebrated predecessors: "No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones in 1977," declared The Clash song "1977".[10] The previous year, when the punk rock revolution began in Great Britain, was to be both a musical and a cultural "Year Zero".[11] Even as nostalgia was discarded, many in the scene adopted a nihilistic attitude summed up by the Sex Pistols slogan "No Future";[3] in the later words of one observer, amid the unemployment and social unrest in 1977, "punk's nihilistic swagger was the most thrilling thing in England."[12] While "self-imposed alienation" was common among "drunk punks" and "gutter punks," there was always a tension between their nihilistic outlook and the "radical leftist utopianism"[13] of bands such as Crass, who found positive, liberating meaning in the movement. As a Clash associate describes singer Joe Strummer's outlook, "Punk rock is meant to be our freedom. We're meant to be able to do what we want to do."[14]
The issue of authenticity is important in the punk subculture—the pejorative term "poseur" is applied to those who associate with punk and adopt its stylistic attributes but are deemed not to share or understand the underlying values and philosophy. Scholar Daniel S. Traber argues that "attaining authenticity in the punk identity can be difficult"; as the punk scene matured, he observes, eventually "everyone got called a poseur".[15]
Musical and lyrical elements
Punk rock bands often emulate the bare musical structures and arrangements of 1960s garage rock.[16] Typical punk rock instrumentation includes one or two electric guitars, an electric bass, and a drum kit, along with vocals. Punk rock songs tend to be shorter than those of other popular genres—on the Ramones' debut album, for instance, half of the fourteen tracks are under two minutes long. Most early punk rock songs retained a traditional rock 'n' roll verse-chorus form and 4/4 time signature. However, punk rock bands in the movement's second wave and afterward have often broken from this format. In critic Steven Blush's description, "The Sex Pistols were still rock'n'roll...like the craziest version of Chuck Berry. Hardcore was a radical departure from that. It wasn't verse-chorus rock. It dispelled any notion of what songwriting is supposed to be. It's its own form."[17]
Punk rock vocals sometimes sound nasal,[18] and lyrics are often shouted instead of sung in a conventional sense, particularly in hardcore styles.[19] The vocal approach is characterized by a lack of variety; shifts in pitch, volume, or intonational style are relatively infrequent.[20] Complicated guitar solos are considered self-indulgent and unnecessary, although basic guitar breaks are common.[21] Guitar parts tend to include highly distorted power chords or barre chords, creating a characteristic sound described by Christgau as a "buzzsaw drone".[22] Some punk rock bands take a surf rock approach with a lighter, twangier guitar tone. Others, such as Robert Quine, lead guitarist of The Voidoids, have employed a wild, "gonzo" attack, a style that stretches back through The Velvet Underground to the 1950s recordings of Ike Turner.[23] Bass guitar lines are often uncomplicated; the quintessential approach is a relentless, repetitive "forced rhythm,"[24] although some punk rock bass players—such as Mike Watt of The Minutemen and Firehose—emphasize more technical bass lines. Bassists often use a pick due to the rapid succession of notes, which makes fingerpicking impractical. Drums typically sound heavy and dry, and often have a minimal set-up. Compared to other forms of rock, syncopation is much less the rule.[25] Hardcore drumming tends to be especially fast.[19] Production tends to be minimalistic, with tracks sometimes laid down on home tape recorders[26] or simple four-track portastudios. The typical objective is to have the recording sound unmanipulated and "real," reflecting the commitment and "authenticity" of a live performance.[27] Punk recordings thus often have a lo-fi quality, with the sound left relatively unpolished in the mastering process; recordings may contain dialogue between band members, false starts, and background noise.
Punk rock lyrics are typically frank and confrontational; compared to the lyrics of other popular music genres, they frequently comment on social and political issues.[28] Trend-setting songs such as The Clash's "Career Opportunities" and Chelsea's "Right to Work" deal with unemployment and the grim realities of urban life.[29] Especially in early British punk, a central goal was to outrage and shock the mainstream.[30] The Sex Pistols classics "Anarchy in the U.K." and "God Save the Queen" openly disparage the British political system and social mores. There is also a characteristic strain of anti-sentimental depictions of relationships and sex, exemplified by "Love Comes in Spurts," written by Richard Hell and recorded by him with The Voidoids. Anomie, variously expressed in the poetic terms of Hell's "Blank Generation" and the bluntness of the Ramones' "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue," is a common theme. Identifying punk with such topics aligns with the view expressed by V. Vale, founder of San Francisco fanzine Search and Destroy: "Punk was a total cultural revolt. It was a hardcore confrontation with the black side of history and culture, right-wing imagery, sexual taboos, a delving into it that had never been done before by any generation in such a thorough way."[31] However, many punk rock lyrics deal in more traditional rock 'n' roll themes of courtship, heartbreak, and hanging out; the approach ranges from the deadpan, aggressive simplicity of Ramones standards such as "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend"[32] to the more unambiguously sincere style of many later pop punk groups.
Visual and other elements
The classic punk rock look among male American musicians harkens back to the T-shirt, motorcycle jacket, and jeans ensemble favored by American greasers of the 1950s associated with the rockabilly scene and by British rockers of the 1960s. The cover of the Ramones' 1976 debut album, featuring a shot of the band by Punk photographer Roberta Bayley, set forth the basic elements of a style that was soon widely emulated by rock musicians both punk and nonpunk.[2] Richard Hell's more androgynous, ragamuffin look—and reputed invention of the safety-pin aesthetic—was a major influence on Sex Pistols impresario Malcolm McLaren and, in turn, British punk style.[33][34] (John Morton of Cleveland's Electric Eels may have been the first rock musician to wear a safety-pin-covered jacket.)[35] McLaren's partner, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, credits Johnny Rotten as the first British punk to rip his shirt, and Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious as the first to use safety pins.[36] Early female punk musicians displayed styles ranging from Siouxsie Sioux's bondage gear to Patti Smith's "straight-from-the-gutter androgyny".[37] The former proved much more influential on female fan styles.[38] Over time, tattoos, piercings, and metal-studded and -spiked accessories became increasingly common elements of punk fashion among both musicians and fans, a "style of adornment calculated to disturb and outrage".[39] The typical male punk haircut was originally short and choppy; the Mohawk later emerged as a characteristic style.[40] Those in hardcore scenes often adopt a skinhead look.
The characteristic stage performance style of male punk musicians does not deviate significantly from the macho postures classically associated with rock music.[41] Female punk musicians broke more clearly from earlier styles. Scholar John Strohm suggests that they did so by creating personas of a type conventionally seen as masculine: "They adopted a tough, unladylike pose that borrowed more from the macho swagger of sixties garage bands than from the calculated bad-girl image of bands like The Runaways."[37] Scholar Dave Laing describes how bassist Gaye Advert adopted fashion elements associated with male musicians only to generate a stage persona readily consumed as "sexy".[42] Laing focuses on more innovative and challenging performance styles, seen in the various erotically destabilizing approaches of Siouxsie Sioux, The Slits' Ari Up, and X-Ray Spex' Poly Styrene.[43]
The lack of emphatic syncopation led punk dance to "deviant" forms. The characteristic style was originally the pogo.[44] Sid Vicious, before he became the Sex Pistols' bassist, is credited with initiating the pogo in Britain as an attendee at one of their concerts.[45]Moshing is typical at hardcore shows. The lack of conventional dance rhythms was a central factor in limiting punk's mainstream commercial impact.[46]
Breaking down the distance between performer and audience is central to the punk ethic.[47] Fan participation at concerts is thus important; during the movement's first heyday, it was often provoked in an adversarial manner—apparently perverse, but appropriately "punk". First-wave British punk bands such as the Sex Pistols and The Damned insulted and otherwise goaded the audience into intense reactions. Laing has identified three primary forms of audience physical response to goading: can throwing, stage invasion, and spitting or "gobbing".[48] In the hardcore realm, stage invasion is often a prelude to stage diving. In addition to the numerous fans who have started or joined punk bands, audience members also become important participants via the scene's many amateur periodicals—in England, according to Laing, punk "was the first musical genre to spawn fanzines in any significant numbers".[49
L7 was an Americangrungeband from Los Angeles. They were active
from 1985 to 2001.[1]
Due to their sound and image, they are often associated with the grunge movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s,[2] though they were
initially a heavy
metal act.
History
L7 was formed by René
Lucas on bass guitar, Donita Sparks and Suzi Gardner on shared electric guitar and shared
vocals in 1985.[1]
A year prior, Gardner had performed backing vocals on the Black Flag song "Slip It In". The punk rock duo were soon joined by
Jennifer Finch on bass
guitar, replacing René Lucas who left the band to raise a family, and Roy
Koutsky on drums. Koutsky left shortly after and Demetra "Dee" Plakas became their permanent
drummer.[1]
The band's name derives from a 1950s slang phrase meaning "square", but is often
mistaken for a reference to the sex position, "69"[citation
needed]. The slang phrase "L7" can be heard in the Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs
song "Wooly Bully"
("Let's not be L7, come and learn to dance..."), in the Rick James song "Bustin' Out" ("L7- just a
little too damn straight..."), and in the Paul McCartney song "C Moon" ("I could be L7 and I'll never get to heaven
if I fill my head with glue").
In 1991, the band formed Rock for Choice, a Pro-Choice women's rights group
which was supported by other prominent bands of that era, including Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili
Peppers, Nirvana,
and Rage Against the Machine.[1]
Their 1992 third album Bricks Are Heavy, produced by Butch Vig, was featured in Rolling Stone's May
1999 list of 'Essential recordings of the 1990s', and was their most successful
release.[3]
L7's fourth album, Hungry for Stink, was released in July
1994 and coincided with their Lollapalooza tour, in which they shared the stage
with many of the era's most successful acts such as The Smashing
Pumpkins and The
Breeders.
Finch left the band during the recording of their next album, with Sparks and
Greta
Brinkman playing bass on their fifth album The Beauty Process: Triple
Platinum, after which Gail Greenwood, (formerly of the band Belly) became the band's
full-time bassist.[4]
The band's most recent album, Slap-Happy, was released in 1999 and did not
chart on either side of the Atlantic. To promote the record, on July 17,
1999, a plane flew over the crowd at the Lilith Fair at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena,
California, with a banner that read, "Bored? Tired? Try L7." The following
day, a second airplane flew over the crowd at the Warped Tour at the Stone Pony
lot in Asbury Park, New Jersey. This banner
declared, "Warped needs more beaver...love, L7." [5] Greenwood later left
the band and was replaced by Janis Tanaka, formerly of the San Francisco band,
Stone Fox. Tanaka would later go on to play bass for the singer Pink, while Greenwood would
later play with the singer Bif
Naked.
However, by 2001 the band was no longer touring. According to the band's
website, "L7 are on an indefinite hiatus. We know that's vague, but that's
just the way it is. The future of the band is a bit up in the air at the
moment." L7 appears to be defunct for all practical purposes, as Sparks is
currently pursuing her own solo career, along with Plakas, and two other
guitarists, in the band Donita Sparks and The Stellar Moments. Finch is working
in a punk rock group, The Shocker.[6]
During their performance at the 1992 Reading Festival, the
band experienced "technical difficulties with their audio equipment" and were
forced to stall their set. Quickly, the rowdy crowd grew restless and began
throwing mud onto the stage. In protest, lead vocalist Donita Sparks removed her
tampon on-stage and threw it into the crowd yelling "Eat my used tampon,
fuckers!". Sparks has remained unapologetic about the incident.[1]
This has been referred to as one of the "most unsanitary pieces of rock
memorabilia in history".[9]
In 1992, Sparks again created quite a stir in Britain when she dropped her
pants on live television, appearing nude from the waist down, during an L7
performance on the UK
variety program The Word.[10]
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