EmptyBottle.org: Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Wonderchicken, says Stavros at great length. Word is, blogs are like parties. Mmmm. I folla. Not sure I agree. He, of all people, will understand my reference in the title here.

I get the whole blogs=punk rock thing. Part of what made punk valuable was moving beyond punk per se. Here’s a total tangent: punk rock is for old people, I think. I keep waiting for the next thing, the thing that will make me shake my head and wonder what the hell those kids are thinking, and it ain’t here yet. Blogs ain’t it. GWB ain’t it. Halo ain’t it.

Cell phones come pretty damn close, though.

Grey-haired indivizzles who once stood amazed as they listened to Joey Shithead rage and roar and now find themselves bloggizzle may enjoy Stavros’ thoughts. I did.

11 thoughts on “Blog's not dead no it's not”

  1. I saw Jello Biafra speak a few years ago – I think 1999? Were you there? …and he made a good point – punk couldn’t happen again, because punk was DIY. Zines were hand drawn and photocopied. T-shirts were spray-painted. We came up with our own shit out of nothing.
    But, as Mr. Biafra (haha) pointed out, these days kids can do whatever they want and it’s so EASY with computers, that the whole yearning and angst just isn’t possible.
    Does that make sense?
    The high-schoolers with mohawks in the audience looked confused.

    So this Blog movement as compared with punk? No. It’s not as cultural. Blogging is too easy. It’s just this thing that anyone can do and some of us chose to do it, but others don’t.

  2. I gotta agree with “dayment” more or less—my first (and subsequent) imagined images of “punk rock” where of some psycho living in a bombed out wharehouse in cleveland or detroit writing lyrics on a beat-up old typewriter, or better yet scrawling them in lipstick on the wall. using a computer?? out of the question. new
    wave, maybe–but not punk. I mean dow jones and the industrials or devo might use a computer…but the ramones? never.
    so anyhow my answer: blogs=new wave.

  3. haw – Matt you might actually know Dayment.

    I think I can distill her take into blogs ≠ zines, maybe?

    Stavros, I think, is worth reading on this; effort and sweat and passion are clearly important in his conception of what makes blogs worthwhile.

    I don’t think Jello is right in your citation, though: that’s generational reasoning, privileging his (and our) experience of adolescence. Jim Sixteen is still as hormone wracked and angsty as ever; he just has easier access to offbeat pop culture and porn.

    Don’t you remember getting the baby-boomer lecture about how when THEY had long hair, it was a much bigger deal than our green and spiky. You’ve presented Jello as making the same argument, and it was false than and remains so now.

    But are blogs punk rock? Matt’s new wave idea isn’t so far off – blogs have an inherent journal-like quality; Tom Verlaine named himself so deliberately, and writing is an important part of that idea.

  4. Oh yeah, and I fully agree punk rock is for old people. hell, rock and roll in general is for old people. I mean if you’re talking in a “mass culture” context. your average kid in his/her teens or twenties doesn’t even like rock and roll…or if they do it’s some horrid dreadlocked tattooed metal/goth/rave nightmare that I have a hard time allowing into my definition of rock and roll. I realize you guys are ascribing alot more meaning to the term punk rock than just music but that’s all I’m refering to. as a side note I must tell you I saw 3 punk rock and rock and roll affirming rock and roll shows last year both performed by geezers so old that we are babes by comparison 1. the STOOGES 2.the Pagans 3. ROCKET FROM THE TOMBS..the tombs show especially was a taste of true punk rock (my definition anyhow) I mean these guys don’t bow to any conventions–and didn’t in 1974.
    they knew for a fact they weren’t going to get rich or even laid doing this kind of music — punk rock at that time was a term ONLY used by rock crits and fanzine writers. perhaps the fact that none of these guys ever got rich or famous (I’m not really counting the passing and minimal fame of pere ubu, television or the dead boys) has allowed them to keep the edge. anway this show made me (and Mike Hurtt among others there that night) shake my head and say “damn you are never to old to rock and roll.”

  6. yeah cheetah was there. rocket was the band he was in before dead boys…as well as stiv and john mandansky(johnny blitz) stiv couldn’t make the show obviously, niether could peter laughner-richard lloyd (of television)played his parts.
    dave thomas (aka crokus behemoth) was the main attraction, though…kind of like a psycho version of bill weaver…and to see all those songs that eventually made it on the dead boys lps– sonic reducer, down in flames, what love is, ain’t it fun, caught with meat in mouth–done by the original band that wrote them and without the over the top “77 PUNK” attitude of the dead boys. man it sheds a whole new light on those songs…as well as teyh pere ubu songs that started with this band…
    thirty seconds over tokyo and final solution (these came off pretty much the same as pere ubu versions)

  8. Hey I ment it as a compliment! at least that’s the way I would take it!! haha actually after I wrote this I was trying to pick my sadly amnesia plagued mind for the name of the band that Bill was doing around the time I moved to B-ton to go to school say 1985-86. as far as I remember the line up included two of my favortie bloominton people, James Combs on guitar and Toni Akuri (sp??)on bass. I can’t recall who played drums. I believe this was BEFORE Red Snapper. anyway they were great I saw them at several house parties and maybe once or twice at second story? Weaver was very Dave Thomas like. lots of good theatrics and he wore a mask during one song —etc. kinda scary in fact.at the same time
    James combs had another much more telivison/mission of burma/gang of four-esq band with Lawrence on bass the name and exact line-up of which also eludes me. they were very good also. what gods of Bloomington music history can I pray to for enlightenment on such matters?? good times. I wish I could get in touch with some of them people again, mike. I was just in B-ton over xmas and saw John Terrill and Ian Brewer. Ian said he had seen Bill around L.A. and said he was doing great.

  9. yeah…been thinking it over as I paruse the world of “blogging” ….it definatly not punk rock. at least not in and of it self. I mean there might be the small percentage of people out thier who’s blogs reflect some form of “punk” rock style or attitude or what not but 99 per cent is way too self conscious, concerned with various this and thats of the world (politics, what’s new with the latest MACINTOSH do-thingey, LOTR,… let’s face it…most blog stuff is way too geek’d out(not that this is a bad thing, mind you…) to be anything remotely resembling punk rock. well anyway in my book “blogging” is a form of media where-as”punk rock” is a stylistic device or set of stylistic devices in music/fashion/writing and not a media in and of itself…so really you can’t compare the two things on this level. I mean both can be used to express yourself, make friends, and find some sort of self-worth…but you can do this through basketball or going to church, and niether of those things is punk rock…I think people who grew up in our age and were “wierd” …a few of them got caught up in punk or new wave or goth or whatever and so anything else they get interested in or comes down the cultural turnpike gets compared to “punk.” it was like in the 1970’s every new performer that came along, the question was “are they the new BEATLES??” basically nothing has come along to top punk…so it’s still the measuring stick I guess….I guess the only other major music trend of the 1970’s/80’s would be Hip Hop, although it hasn’t died yet (making it both the longest running popular music form AND the longest running non nostalgia based subculture in the 20th/21st century…and really perhaps because of it’s inborn characteristic of using and re-using samples of old music, maybe it never will die??

  11. Punk is alive and well folks and i look at blogging as a means to facilitate it; another tool in a punk’s studded belt. Blogging could never be punk’s replacement.

    Joey ‘Shithead’ Keithley has inspired me to inspire others to start a band. I’m only starting it but you can check it out at http://www.thedevilsbartender.com

    And yes, i realize this post is really old…

Comments are now closed.