take the skinheads bowling
8 Jan 2008 08:38 pm[all posts stemming from the original ‘dear author’ post are tagged with bright lights big city.]
I was listening to the radio yesterday and trying to ignore the semi-obnoxious deejay -- who has to be just out of college, given the comments -- blathering on about the days of “punk rockers”.
I really, really, really hate that label.
Now, there are ‘punk rock’ bands -- I’d say the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Replacements, that ilk, would be at the top of the recognizable-names list. That’s punk, certainly -- often Brit, songs with a punk delivery but under that rough-edged veneer it was really just more three-four time basic rock. I wasn’t a punk rocker, and I was just as offended as my friends if we were called ‘punk rockers’... that was a derogatory term and only tolerable when used as an affectionate insult among friends. Anything else was close to fighting words, an implication that you were ‘just’ a punk rocker, that you were all flash and no substance.
Being called a ‘new waver’ was even worse, though, no matter how good Bowie’s music might’ve been. New Wave meant hair like Flock of Seagulls or Thompson Twins (both semi-pop bands but hello, that hair) -- bleached and permed and dyed manic-panic color (if not several colors at once) -- not to mention the spandex, sometimes ripped and torn, the oversized jackets with sleeves pushed up, and all in bright colors... and it seemed a bigger thing in NYC and LA than anywhere I hung. We didn’t have a lot of new-wavers in the city by the time I came around. The few we had, either had shaded into punk rockers at the edges of the hardcore scene, or were stepping sideways into the proto-goth world (and I don’t mean Evanescence-style neo-goth, but early Cure what-is-this-goth-you-speak-of whiteface and smeared lipstick).
( I was hardcore, not punk rock... and if you're wondering where I'm going with explaining this: ) as someone who actually adores bluegrass, I’d still like a moratorium on all fiddles in urban fantasy, at least until any authors arrive who are willing to contemplate, and incorporate, a solid reason for a fringe environment to embrace a greater distance between itself and the mainstream, rather than the more likely wish of usurpation or at least recognition. And to qualify, I wouldn’t lift that moratorium for any author who seeks to justify the musically-expressed greater distance as a metaphor of “old versus new,” because, hello, DONE.
all the parts ▪ dear [not just urban fantasy] author part I ▪ dear [not just urban fantasy] author part II ▪ dear [not just urban fantasy] author part III ▪ permanent record, pt I: edginess, and street fighting ▪ permanent record, pt II: guns, knives, and making it hurt
I was listening to the radio yesterday and trying to ignore the semi-obnoxious deejay -- who has to be just out of college, given the comments -- blathering on about the days of “punk rockers”.
I really, really, really hate that label.
Now, there are ‘punk rock’ bands -- I’d say the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Replacements, that ilk, would be at the top of the recognizable-names list. That’s punk, certainly -- often Brit, songs with a punk delivery but under that rough-edged veneer it was really just more three-four time basic rock. I wasn’t a punk rocker, and I was just as offended as my friends if we were called ‘punk rockers’... that was a derogatory term and only tolerable when used as an affectionate insult among friends. Anything else was close to fighting words, an implication that you were ‘just’ a punk rocker, that you were all flash and no substance.
Being called a ‘new waver’ was even worse, though, no matter how good Bowie’s music might’ve been. New Wave meant hair like Flock of Seagulls or Thompson Twins (both semi-pop bands but hello, that hair) -- bleached and permed and dyed manic-panic color (if not several colors at once) -- not to mention the spandex, sometimes ripped and torn, the oversized jackets with sleeves pushed up, and all in bright colors... and it seemed a bigger thing in NYC and LA than anywhere I hung. We didn’t have a lot of new-wavers in the city by the time I came around. The few we had, either had shaded into punk rockers at the edges of the hardcore scene, or were stepping sideways into the proto-goth world (and I don’t mean Evanescence-style neo-goth, but early Cure what-is-this-goth-you-speak-of whiteface and smeared lipstick).
( I was hardcore, not punk rock... and if you're wondering where I'm going with explaining this: ) as someone who actually adores bluegrass, I’d still like a moratorium on all fiddles in urban fantasy, at least until any authors arrive who are willing to contemplate, and incorporate, a solid reason for a fringe environment to embrace a greater distance between itself and the mainstream, rather than the more likely wish of usurpation or at least recognition. And to qualify, I wouldn’t lift that moratorium for any author who seeks to justify the musically-expressed greater distance as a metaphor of “old versus new,” because, hello, DONE.
all the parts ▪ dear [not just urban fantasy] author part I ▪ dear [not just urban fantasy] author part II ▪ dear [not just urban fantasy] author part III ▪ permanent record, pt I: edginess, and street fighting ▪ permanent record, pt II: guns, knives, and making it hurt