Run to the Hills, Run for Your Lives!
You know that feeling when you play an album that you havent heard in years and just fall in love all over again? Last week I blasted some Naked Raygun while I hit the gym. Other than just good damn work out music, Raygun sound as fresh as when I first heard them as a senior in High School and just as fresh as what I imagine a show of theirs must have been like in the 80s. After about 20 years their stuff still is fun to listen to.
Man. High School! Its only been something like 4 years but it seems like a lifetime. I remember how Punk Rock was such a big deal back in Bayside. Although in the purest sense no one really listened to Punk. Yeah there was always the big three (Ramones, Pistols, Clash) as a requirement and hardcore was popular too but just to the extent of Black Flag, Brains, Minor Threat and Misfits. Then there were the Oi kids too, sporting the mohawks and leather jackets, nut huggers (really fucking tight pants usually in black) and those Doc Martins, who proudly displayed Exploited, 999, Cockney Regects etc patches. Yet the idea of punk was really this new MTV band called Blink 182, Rancid, No Use for a Name etc, all who were punk apparently because they played poppy songs really fast, jumped around on stage a lot and sported a tattoo hear and there.
I remember I got into that because punk became the new hip thing in my school, at least amongst us spoiled middle class white teens whom hated our parents for some apparent reason (I actually couldnt hate my parents for the fact that (a) I really wasnt an angry kid at all and (b) my parents found my hair dye and wallet chain humorous rather than rebellious). I befriended a skinny short kid known as Matt(aka "Mohawk Matt" for an obvious reason) who in appearance seemed really hardcore and punk rock but really took the whole thing too seriously. We usually teased him about his impressive 2 foot tall mohawk which perhaps took him at least 3 hours to spike in the morning of which no one was allowed to touch in fear of ruining his do. Yet Matt introduced me to a lot of punk things. My first show was seeing a really serious band that yelled an aweful lot called Anti Flag. I remember coming home at 5am on a school day and my parents threatening to kill me for not calling them during the show. Punk Rock!
Yet I thought I was the "punkiest" of them all. Most of this came from my best bud Tony who hated punk and punk rockers thinking such a fad was idiotic (yet still partaking in its moshing festivities). I remember how he'd always talk about how he didnt need to spike his hair or advertise bands (also about his love of Third Eye Blind). I internalized this in turn yet I thought that my lack of buttons and patches, tight jeans, doc martins was even more punk than everyone else! After discovering Fugazi, Mission of Burma and Post Punk in Senior year and tossing my Rancid and Blink cds, I knew I was light years ahead all the other "punk rockers" and was in fact more punk rock than any of them, which was a big deal in High School. The only problem was that no one else listened to them and my new discoveries and hatred of the warp tour reduced my standing with my fellow punkers. Not even Tony could take the sonic blasts produced by Mission of Burma. Still, I felt like no one could match my punk rock-ness. Jeez, High School was a stupid time.