Is it weird that I get into Bad Religion, and punk music now at 23, then I would at 13
deathtokoalas
you don't really get it at 13. you might think you do, but you don't. this was always the real "college rock". i'm still listening at 33...
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deathtokoalas
no, i was about 13 or so when i started getting into punk. but, your comments indicate that you must have been an exceedingly smart kid to understand the topics being discussed - or that you still don't understand it.
it's not a question of "appreciating it" (like it's some kind of abstract art...) or being "narrow minded" (as though the topics on the record don't have a high school diploma as a pre-requisite to understand them).
i mean, if you think being open-minded means you don't have to learn the high school curriculum before you take on the university curriculum, that's fine. personally? i consider that stupid.
lots of good beats though, right, james? lots of fun to skate too, eh?
fwiw, i was a smart kid. i consistently tested at the 99th percentile on standardized iq testing until they stopped doing it near the end of high school. say what you will of these things regarding race and class and whatnot, but when you score in the highest 1% it indicates you're a smart kid. and, i came out of a low income neighbourhood, fwiw. i went through gifted/enriched programs. etc.
...and i can look back and realize i didn't fully get it. i could connect with broad themes. i had a sense of social justice. but, i didn't have the life experiences necessary to put the presentation together properly. which isn't a question of intelligence so much as it's one of maturity.
it's one thing to be able to read above your grade level. it's another to be able to place what you're reading into a valid context that is defined by the sum of your life experiences.
it's not just punk rock, either. i read the grapes of wrath for my tenth grade independent study. i got the themes and the plotline and everything. sure. but i reread it recently, after spending a few years homeless, and can state that i didn't fully get it in the tenth grade.
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deathtokoalas
and, now we have an entirely irrelevant response.
but, i'll give you some advice: it is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
if i were you, i'd tend to keep my mouth closed.
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deathtokoalas
typical corporate/jock response. yeesh.
you're in the wrong place, james. i believe you should be listening to slayer.
i repeat: what you ought to learn from this is to not randomly criticize people on youtube.
now, fuck off.
and go away.
Ivan Wind
I'm 13 listening to this pennywise misfits nofx rancid T.S.O.L. dead Kennedys and many more i cant name then occasionally listening to the offspring or green day
deathtokoalas
forget about misfits and rancid, though. green day is fun, and there's nothing wrong with having fun. but pay attention to jello - he's proven himself prophetic.
misfits were a very right-wing band with borderline fascist politics, while rancid were pretty much just cashing a pay check. whomever gave you those discs is doing this wrong. there's nothing worth remembering there.
it kind of demonstrates the point, though.
"i like dead kennedys, misfits and rancid" indicates that you don't really understand what they're talking about....
that's true of a lot of people older than 13, though, too.
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deathtokoalas
actually, i think i can make some reasonable deductions.
you probably pulled those discs out of one of your parents' libraries. maybe an aunt or uncle. if you're thirteen now, your parents are probably about the same age as i am.
i obviously don't know your parents. but i think i can state with a high level of certainty that they grew as people as they aged. whether that was the right way or not, i can't say - i don't know them. but their record collection is going to reflect that growth. i know my dad had a collection that ran through 60s rock like the who when he was a kid, into progressive rock in the 70s and a lot of blues in the 80s. i pulled a lot of stuff i liked out of it, and a lot of stuff i didn't. it's maybe a little unusual to see robert cray listed beside robert fripp. but, people grow as they age.
my progression through punk rock was something like rem (when i was a precocious child in the mid to late 80s) --> nirvana -> offspring/green day (always found rancid a little tepid...) --> dead kennedys/bad religion/black flag. well, i got into stuff like skinny puppy and ministry at the same time as the 80s socal stuff. it was a rejection of 90s culture, in favour of the underground music of the 80s. i didn't reconnect with the present tense until the very late 90s, when i started getting into post-rock bands like gybe!. but i wouldn't have known who the dead kennedys were without that spoken word introduction to the fourth offspring disc.
the point i'm getting to is that if your parents have a bunch of 90s "pop punk" alongside a slew of 80s hardcore, chances are they were listening to green day when they were your age and got into the older stuff as they aged and understood it. that might not be obvious to you as you're sorting through their library.
Ivan Wind
ok even if they don't have a good point in their music, they still sound awesome just like NOFX. No, my dad is thirty grew up as a drug addict and with no parents just 2 sisters and 3 brothers. I do get the music. But thats not always the only reason to listen to a band. You can listen to a music just for sound. Like, even SUBLIME. Sublime is awesome and they don't really have that kind of topic in their music. So no, I will not stick with those two or three, and I will spread through all punk rock ex: Black flag guttermouth descendents
deathtokoalas
nofx kind of sometimes have a point, though.
i smoked two joints with sublime a few times...they could have been a little less shameless in the hendrix rips, though.
there is of course a whole group of punk fans (and the descendants are an early example of it) that'll argue that punk shouldn't be political in the first place, it should just be fun. and again: there's nothing wrong with having fun.
it's still weird to me that you're listening to music that discusses topics that were current twenty years before you were born, though. the whole rock against reagan thing was a long time ago. i guess a lot of the same bands showed up for rock against bush, but even that was a long time ago, now. there's not a lot of newer punk bands that make music in the old socal vibe anymore. it's all gone through an emo filter. i can't help but think you should be listening to touche amore or something. but a current band you might want to check out is night birds. they tend to mix up the misanthropy of the misfits with an early kennedys sound.
anthony Hehl
Fat Mike has nothing worthy or Relative to say. He just spews shit. You want meaningful lyrics? Listen to PROPAGANDHI.
deathtokoalas
meh. they're kind of too doctrinal, not really very free thinking. it's more about brainwashing people into the collectivist hive than trying to instigate a process of individualist thought. not really the kind of thing you want to give a thirteen year-old kid, unless the aim is to have them grow up as a maoist...
it's the general problem with the second wave of hardcore.
i mean, you can't call yourself an anarchist and try and tell me what to eat at the same time. sorry.
anthony Hehl
i know wat u mean , for some bands the preaching can be too much but their not really anarchists. Freethinking is also about change and shedding light on the fact that most of what were taught in school, media, and mainstream culture is false. If you look at the overall message its very enlightening and darkly comedic.
deathtokoalas
oh, i wouldn't argue that propagandhi are anarchists. rather, i was suggesting that they're very explicitly not, that they're even directly opposed to the general crux of anarchist thinking and (for that reason) it's not the kind of thing you want to give to a kid.
propagandhi exist in the bluntly scary point where the authoritarian left meets the populist right. historically, this kind of "right wing collectivism" has been a necessary component in building fascism.
is the bulk of what they say worthwhile? i'd argue it isn't. their pop marxist analysis of systemic hierarchy mostly draws on the anti-science perspectives coming out of critical race theory, which makes it largely worthless coming from an anti-establishment rock band (and worthless all around, because it's total bullshit). that is, listening to propagandhi doesn't get you out of the government enforced scholastic narrative. propagandhi is the government enforced scholastic narrative.
now, i'm not arguing you should steal all your kids' propagandhi discs and burn them as fascist propaganda. the kid has to figure it out on their own. but, for fucks sake, don't give it to the kid from some place of authority and tell them it's good shit.....
it's really not.
they've addressed some of this in the past in their songs, but they've just demonstrated the validity of the accusations, in my view.
