Originally published at: "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Punk Rock Stars" satirizes aging punkers | Boing Boing
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Aw, man, I missed that news about The Sex Pistols. I’m bummed.
Good song. Pokes the right people in the eye.
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Who wore it better Sid or Johnny?
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Well, to me punk was the raw energy of youth at a time when no fucks had to be given. It was never a fashion statement even if it was for some people. It had - has - an ethos. But, it’s hard to be punk when you’ve got kids to raise and a mortgage to pay.
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Ah, it’s good to see a new generation of punks conforming to the traditions laid down by their elders.
“Railing against the olds” and condemning the politics of your parents generation is around step two in the manual. They’re well on the way to being different just like everyone else.
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I thought John Lydon had sold out when he made butter adverts
but them I realised that you can’t sell out if you never believed to begin with.
There are a lot of anarchist punks, but the Sex Pistols were never among them.
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Malcom McLaren basically engineered the Sex Pistols to sell punk fashion, so yes in this case it was a way to sell t-shirts.
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Ok, yah, sure there, you’ve got it all sewn up, you betcha.
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It’s so weird and sad. Somehow most of my friends went some degree of conservative. We used to party all the time. I’m not trying to hang on to youth dreams, but I don’t get the aging herd shuffling towards settling and giving up and looking the other way.
I feel like punk rock was about having fun and being inclusive and being whatever I thought free was. So many people are still not having fun or feeling free.
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Also, as a counterpoint, Bad Religion still exists.
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So it looks like these kids, trying to monetize their bottom line, know scant about the Dead Kennedys. You know, that band, who sued Jello in court and won all the rights to the name and content. Their goal was to be able to make lotsa money selling rights to their songs for advertising and make lots of dough. If you want a classic template for the insidious opposite of the punk culture while posing as one, look up U.S. Chaos. One of the band members, who I knew personally, drove around town (Clifton, NJ), in one of his dads dealership BMW’s. Right wing AF, those guys.
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I’ve wondered if they weren’t meant in the same spirit. Problem is, the early British punks wearing swastikas was a very dumb teenage “let’s piss off mum and dad” bit of rebellion not so long after the war, where that symbol had a different impact on older generations that lived through it. The “MAGA” shirt ain’t none of that.
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Punk bands like the Dead Kennedys and Sex Pistols didn’t really have a coherent political message, other than “the system is fucked (for us), let’s burn it all down”. This is some fundamental way is not too different from the MAGA mentality. Bands like Crass and even The Clash fought for anti-racism and anti-poverty in a way that still feels relevant today.
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For aging punks I prefer the very silly Sid Life Crisis…
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You mean my favorite mainstream punk bands are TOO mainstream? They sold out to and and conformed to not just the recording industry but conformed to society as well? (big shocked look)
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I enjoyed this very much.
much better than that young punk just Nozin’ Aroun’
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My issue is that these mainstream “punk” bands get their popularity from an image and it’s just that, an image, not what they really are.
I mean, look at famously “pop-punk” Green Day. May have been more punk-y when they were playing Berkeley parties for beer $, then got famous and the $$$ started rolling in.
I saw an interview with Billy whatever his name is, and when asked if his big musical was “selling out” or “not punk” he got super bitchy and pissed off and insisted that he was punk as F (instead of saying that he was laughing all the way to a bank, and as a new Dad, could provide for his family like nobody’s business, and didn’t care whether people thought it was “punk” or not…). When the “establishment” starts handing out the really big rewards, it becomes harder and harder to rail against that system eh?
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I saw American Idiot on Broadway in 2010 and it was suuuuper shitty. I don’t blame Billy Joe for getting paid but, I wish he would have demanded better from the show.
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At any given time, whatever was cool 30 years ago is Dad Rock
What was cool 30 years ago?
1991 was Peak Punk, there was even a movie about it
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same as it ever was, same at it ever was.
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