The DC Punk Scene

Punk rock music has been used for decades to express dissatisfaction with society, government, or any idea common in mainstream media. Yet punk rock is not simply a tangent of the mainstream, it is a dynamic and fluid genre with many distinct songs. Don Letts, a mainstay in the London punk scene during the 70’s and 80’s, went as far to say that hip-hop was essentially “black” punk. While punk and hip-hop music are stylistically different, the fundamental tone of the two genres is the same. Even throughout the decades, hip-hop has sang the same issues as punk, including the plight of the lower class, police brutality, and gang violence.

The 60s were a time of dramatic change for teens. Hippies of all types often expressed themselves by wearing beads, headbands, and lots of denim. They were considered visionary, plastic, “midnight’, and “the freaks and heads”. Folk and Psychedelic rock were the most popular genres of music; as teens generally listened to such bands and artist as The Who, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, The Rolling Stones, and Jimi Hendrix. When it came to style, teens started making physical adjustments such as piercings and tattoos. Teens held rallies and protested against wars that were happening, as their voices were only beginning to be heard.

Punk rock was especially popular in Britain and many people began to become punks because of unemployment and started to form bands then started to sing mostly about political, economic, or social events happening during the cold war. Punk rock stayed popular from 1976 - late 90’s then it started to die down and not many people were forming bands anymore or producing many albums (5). Before the cold war though swing, blues, country, and the big band was very popular. Popular vocalists during this period include Frank Sinatra who sang jazz music, Bing Crosby who sang pop and jazz music, Doris Day who was a big band singer, and Ella Fitzgerald who sang swing, pop, jazz and blues (6). During the 1940’s was when these genes and singers/songwriters became very popular.

The information that has been provided about the subcultures of Hip Hop and Punk shows there are many differences between Hip Hop and Punk and several contributing factors that shape these subcultures but ultimately each one’s existence serves a similar purpose: a form of escape and expression. Prior to research, I was an outsider looking in on the two subcultures. Assumed no similarity at all, but I learned, when you take a deeper look and explore the pages they are different books carrying the same message.

Picture this, you are teenager growing up in Los Angeles, on your way to school and you turn on the radio. “Yo thanks for tuning into to the hottest radio station in the streets of LA. Up next we got N.W.A. with their new single Appetite for Destruction.” That was common for nearly every person who lived in LA and enjoyed hip-hop music. During the early 90s and late 80s, West coast hip-hop was dominated by the gruesome realities of gangster rap and g-funk. Rap at the time was intense, authentic, and unbearable. Ultimately, this wave of “fuck you” sprouted from the injustices that plagued many impoverished communities. Individuals were angered from the oppressive acts that hindered any attempt to reach success, and gangster music within LA served as the platform to express the frustration under such terrible circumstances. Although the sound was revolutionary and taking over the entire nation, still Los Angeles needed a fresh of breath of air to display the artistic talent that came out of Los Angeles. New York could play with both sides of the hip-hop spectrum of light-heartedness to aggressiveness, but unfortunately for LA, they only had one sound. In New York, they had artists from Kid N Play to Public Enemy. If Los Angeles were ever going to snatch the throne from New York, they needed to do so quickly before the dawn of Golden Age ended.

The attitude common in the subculture is the resistance to selling out, which means abandoning one’s values and changing in musical style toward pop to embrace anything that’s mainstream capitalist culture in the exchange for money, status, or power. Punk rocks’ common thinking wasn’t only anti-authoritarism, and not selling out but also non-conformity, direct action, and a DIY ethic. The DIY attitude was pointed towards stepping forward and speaking without any restraint. To fight with warrior qualities to achieve what you were striving for. The kind of thinking and motives for punk rock subjects was to not settle for what society made acceptable and standard but to think and work outside of the box that was holding them in.

“He [Pearson’s father] would freak out when he read the song titles to the cassettes that my friends and I would shoplift from the mall…He was certain that I’d become a Junkie if I listened to that kind of music. But with an alcoholic wife-beater father who didn’t give a shit about his son I was bound to avoid the cliched, nihilist aspects of punk culture” (Pearson 12).

Music, in the past, has often spelled bad news to society at large. It can challenge norms and invoke a sense of hype in places that modern culture may be uncomfortable with, such as sex, sexuality, and drugs. Personally, when I think of punk music, I see a genre that stands to be individualistic, aggressive, and rebellious. Phrases such as ‘anti-establishment’ also come up. This notion comes from many aspects of punk subculture, including dress, music, performance, and my interpretations.

Nevertheless, punk shouldn’t be held to such high standards of influence. It’s influential; it’s something that made misfits feel as though they had a place, but not something to be held to the unattainably high standards. All things considered, it did do something positive, it provided a home and inclusive environment for those who were frustrated and just plain angry.

Punk music is usually defined by power chords, raw vocals and high energy performance. Punk rock is the best music ever created. It is, in short, a thinking man’s rock music. And to some, it’s like God himself ordained punk rock as His preferred music of choice. Why? Because it’s just that good. Hundreds of faithful teens and twenty-something adults pack themselves into basements shows like sardines in a tin, just to have their holy gospel delivered to them by guys with names like “Johnny Rotten,” “Justin Sane” or “Davey Havok.” Punk rock is the best musical style for numerous reasons. The reasons might seem simple, but the difference between punk and mainstream music is that punk is just better. It’s clever, thoughtful and passionate. On

Our world is full of propaganda and unique activities of every sort. There are countless methods of entertainment pushed towards us in an effort to capture our undivided attention. These forms of entertainment are available through the freedoms Americans have - the freedoms derived from our Constitution. Americans enjoy “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” more than arguably every other country; moreover, they will be the first to say so. Americans have little restrictions on expressions and, therefore, many groups feel the need to do just that – express themselves. However, these expressions by such a plethora of actors also is the very reason none of them succeed in holding one’s attention for great lengths. When analyzing “punk” rock as an expression or propaganda, it actually is one of the few which has been able to capture the attention and live through the people for a long period of time – over 30 years.

It is argued over whether rock n' roll is a counterculture or not because it was widely popular amongst children and adults alike at it’s prime and ultimately did not present any radically different ideas, but what can’t be argued is rock n' roll’s seniority and perfected tone. While there is much to be said about the bands that proudly wear the label punk or rock n' roll as a button on their acid washed jean vests, something has to be said for the history and subculture that defines each respective genre. Punk refutes social attitudes that have been perpetuated through willful ignorance of human nature, and rock n' roll is just a trend that people followed because of it’s attractive ideal. If it were not for punk, voices as strong and influential as Billie Joe Armstrong or Sid Vicious would never had made an impact on millions of angry citizens who were surfeited of systematic oppression and capitalistic ideals. Counterculture has always been political and driven by the underground, whether it be the Lolita girls of Japan, the Kontrkul’tura movement in Russia, the Nambassa lifestyle in New Zealand, or the Basque Radical Rock movement in Spain, but nothing quite compares to the raw grit and blood that goes into being punk, the ultimately universal counterculture.

     Punk music has gone through an evolution ever since the punk explosion in the late seventies. Although today’s punk music retains most of the ideology and sound that defines the punk genre, there are some distinct differences between Nineties and Seventies punk. Most of the punk bands to emerge and gain popularity in the nineties mostly hailed from California (Green Day, the Offspring, etc.). Punk vanguards from the seventies hailed from the East Coast and from Great Britain (the Ramones, the Clash, etc.). The Sex Pistols’ "Liar" and Blink182’s "What’s My Age Again?" demonstrates how conditions — social, political, and physical — are reflected in the nature of the music

Punk has been a part of music for quite a while, it didn’t fully emerge until the mid-1970s. It was during this time that punk became a full-fledged movement after the world faced some hard times. To truly understand what forced punk to emerge, one must know the hardships people faced during that time period. The 70’s saw troubled economies across the globe. With the end of the post WWII economic boom and the start of the oil crisis several countries were faced with economic issues, these problems

other locations in the United States as punk became more widespread. It was during this time that, inspired by the rather more aggressive British scene, hardcore punk music began to emerge. This would result in the further splintering of the scene between this new sound and what was the “classic” punk sound. The punk subgenre would see an overall decline of popularity in the nineteen-eighties before a revival in the nineteen-nineties. New wave, ska, post and pop punk would emerge during this period, leading to more accessible, less abrasive and financially successful music. Joy Division and The Cure were among the most successful of the post scene bands from this period of time.