songs about whats killing hardcore are killing hardcore

i had a really interesting conversation at work the other day with an acquaintance of mine who is from the netherlands. we mostly talked about the cultural differences between amsterdam and minneapolis/st paul, but we spent a good chunk talking about the punk/hardcore scene. about a day later i sent off a rant to a friend of mine in cincinnati regarding a certain band he said that he enjoyed that i happen to loathe. while snarling about rockabilly douchebags and how irrelevant and lame i think they and the whole hellcat records, warped tour, hot topic end of things is, i threw in the observation that punk, hardcore, crust, grindcore, ska, emo, screamo, etc could all be said to be equally irrelevant. all of them have a fashionably anachronistic, cookie-cutter element to them and its just personal taste that keeps most of us from just writing the whole fucking mess off.

my basic beef was that during the early 90s a lot of "hardcore" punk rockers got so upset about things like bad religion signing to a major label, old punk bands "reforming" in order to make money, and an influx of young kids who came up on green day, rancid and blink 182 who didn't have a clue about what our version of punk was all about that they stopped going to/setting up all ages shows and hightailed it for internet message boards, zine columns, and cheap beer night at whatever bar where they could complain about stupid kids, sellouts, and "crusties" (now usually referred to as jitters). the result is that most kids never knew that there was an alternative to the mainstream, commercialized, and generally apolitical end of punk rock that ended up on the radio and mtv. the really sad thing about it is we did it to ourselves, by being snobs and having a chip on our shoulders about how much better shit was back in the day and that these milktoast little babies from the suburbs just didn't know how easy they had it. this lame ass "harder core than thou" mentality happens with each generation of punk, the older kids look down their noses at the younger kids and the younger kids think the older ones are out of touch, snobby scenesters and kids burn out really fast. add the fact that older punks burn out as well and don't want to run the diy space that dumb kids from the burbs and jitters constantly fuck up and you get mainstream labels, hot topic and clearchannel stepping up to market a slick, accessible parody of hc/punk as an identity to kids who don't know any better. its like animals who mimic the appearance of a more dangerous animal to survive, but in this case the genuine article is being killed off and replaced by fashion punk pod people.

the whole thing just kills me, bands like the casualties sell out large halls, its totally ok to be an openly christian band (weren't the krishnas bad enough?!) and we end up with bullshit like conservativepunk.com. how the fuck did that come about? now i will be the first to agree that there has always been a creepy right-wing element, especially in hardcore and oi!, but shit has gotten way out of hand. what the fuck have conservative politics ever had to do with punk, granted, its all about thinking for yourself but how do you even reconcile that. hmm...lets see, i support the republican party, i'm way into jesus, and i firmly believe that preemptive military action is totally justified as long as it is against "terrorists", yep, sounds like hc/punk is the place for me.

before anyone gets their skivvies in bunch i'll say this. if you are a christian and you keep it to yourself and don't get preachy, its just what you happen to believe to get you through the day, fine, i don't care. its just these fucking jesus surfer bands and their fucking brainwashed fans that get up my ass (and not even in a fun way!). "hey , jesus was a gnarly dude who was way into jump kicks, punching the floor and having feelings", whatever gets you through the day. the thing is that there are all christian venues where your lame ass metalcore bands can do their chugga chugga brand of youth ministry where the rest of us don't have to hear it. the last thing i need at a show is some straight, white, christian dude espousing his archconservative views on anything, especially not women's rights, gay rights, contraception, sex, public schools, his personal faith, pretty much anything actually. i am officially fed up, you want to evangelize so fucking bad, go to fucking seminary and become a priest. by the way, this applies to all religions, faith is (or should be) some thing personal so lets keep it to ourselves. i dont want to hear that yahweh, allah, buddha, gaia or cthulhu save anymore than i want to hear that jesus does.

another thing, this whole "love my country fear my government", all american, "try burning this one" thing has got to go. seriously. what the fuck do you have to be proud of? do you do anything to make this country a better place to be? no. you were just born here. your parents fucked here and you happened. end of story, shut up.

now i might be screaming in the wilderness on all of this, really, i might, but i'm pretty sure that i have a point. i know that the whole country has taken a swing to the right (you would think that would spawn a shitload of good political hc/punk) and everything has gotten more commercial and mass marketed...i'm posting this on myspace for fuck sake. i just wonder sometimes if we aren't all missing a great chance to use myspace and other shit that wasn't around 10 or 15 or 20 years ago to build a nationwide (or maybe international) network of cool houses, squats, all ages spaces and venues, and to promote the shows at them. maybe even use it to hip younger kids to bands from the underground that laid the groundwork for all of this, to let kids know about cool bookshops, collectives, coffeehouses and spaces that they can support and/or get involved with and that there is an alternative to warped tour and shitty clubs.

then again maybe i'm just an asshole.