Nicholas Langley

October 19th, 2011

Nathan Pieplow

Literature Review

Introduction

Punk rock is tough term to define. There is no one answer to the question 'what is Punk?' It is a

philosophy, a fashion, a genre of music, but those parts do not add up to the whole. Punk is about the

people involved, the fans and the musicians, who embrace it. While Punk's foundations lie in self

expression, the DIY (do it yourself) mentality, and the coming together of like minded outcasts the

movement quickly gathered a reputation for violence, antisemitism, and misogynous behavior. Anyone

who loves the music of Punk or simply interested in the lore behind a unique movement in music

history will have something to gain from learning the true meaning Punk.

What are the founding philosophies of the Punk movement and where/who do they come from?

The origin of Punk is hard to pin down because it is rooted to firmly in the DIY movement. DIY

means 'do it yourself' and it reached out to a group of people who didn't believe they could play rock n' Commented [N1]: You’ll want to use double quotes here. The
only time we typically use single quotes in American English is for
quotes inside quotes.
roll. As Ian MacKaye says in DIY or Die, “I thought god I'd love to be in band but it was obviously Commented [N2]: Is “reach out” the best word here? Only
people can reach out, right?
completely out of my reach. It was for professionals really it wasn't something... it was not something

that I would be able to do because I couldn't play guitar, ya know I was not trained. And besides as

anyone who grew up in the 70s knew that rock n' roll was like this gallery of princes and princesses, it

was like royalty, you had be anointed by god to play music” (DIY or Die). And the people were drawn

to this scene shared come traits such as Greg Graffin states, “The punk scene of 1980 was full of Commented [N3]: Seems like you need a little more of a
transition from the prior sentence to this one – how did people get
over the sense that only those “anointed by God” could play music?
tolerant, earnest kids who were interested in current events and weren't afraid to challenge the norms in How did they become convinced to do it themselves?

Also, you seem to be missing some words right here, or perhaps you
ways that were intellectually and artistically provocative. ...punk's original values, like individuality, have some extra ones.
self-expression, and artistic creativity.” (Graffin) and in the same text, “The punk rockers, who shunned

the mainstream and were despised by most high school kids in L.A. Punk at that time was as much an Commented [N4]: Something about the sentence structure here
doesn’t work with what comes before and after. Remember that
sentences with quotes in them have to work grammatically as though
aesthetic and philosophical stance as a musical genre. It rejected authority of all kinds … it also seemed the quotes weren’t there.

to welcome the anarchy that characterized my life in California” (Graffin).

This message of self expression and challenging the norms, especially the government comes

through in the lyrics of the original Punk bands of the late 70s and early 80s. From Bad Religion's high

school EP there is a song called Politics which says, “The guy running the government's another jerk

/... / What is right and what is wrong, government decides / You don't have to like the laws as long as

you abide / We're all being oppressed by the upper-middle class / The government you vote for is the

one that you possess” (Bad Religion). From the same album we get 'World War III' which takes a

stance against current events that these early Punks disagreed with, “'Forget it' came from the

presidents door / I'll make us have another world war / It doesn't matter what the people think / We

have to save our precious brink / Here I go I'll push the bomb. / It's headed straight for Guam” (Bad

Religion). Music was an outlet for people who didn't feel they had any other voice in the country.

While Bad Religion was at work in Los Angeles the Ramones, in New York City, were also challenging

the same ideas as we see in Havana Affair, “PT-boat on the way to Havana / I used to make a living,

man / Pickin' the banana / Now I'm a guide for the CIA / Hooray for the USA!” (Ramones). And the

unhappiness with the government, really an issue with norms that didn't apply to these early punks

stretches across the sea to their U.K. counterparts, the Sex Pistols who's lyrics were largely anti-

government. In 'Holiday in the Sun' we see the Sex Pistols taking up musical arms against the same

actions as Bad Religion in 'World War III', “I didn't ask for sunshine and I got World War three / I'm

looking over the wall and they're looking at me /…/ Gotta go over the Berlin Wall / I don't understand

it.... / I gotta go over the wall / I don't understand this bit at all....” (Sex Pistols). Both bands are taking

aim at excessive government force in the name of peace.

Punk was not only concerned with the government but also society, which they felt excluded
from as Graffin stated above. Bad Religion's track 'Drastic Actions' speaks out against suicide, “Heard a

word, suicide / Not from one, but from thousands that tried / … / And there are those, there are those

who think / That drastic actions will make them unique / It's really all the same / That no one's happy

and nobody's to blame” (Bad Religion). Another L.A. based Punk forerunner the Circle Jerks speak to

Punker's desire to be unique and to fight the status quo in 'Beverly Hills', “Beverly Hills, century city /

everything's so nice and pretty / all the people look the same / don't they know they're so damn lame”

(Circle Jerks).

Punk had a message and they were serious about it. Bands that signed deals with major studios

were quickly labeled sell-outs and many of the bands went on to form their own labels, Bad Religion is Commented [N5]: In addition to facts, you’re making a lot of
claims in this paper, like these two. Can you attribute these claims
to sources? If they come from you, they position you within the
signed to Epitaph Records which is owned by Greg Huston, the original guitarist for the Circle Jerks conversation. I want you to position yourself outside it, looking in.

who joined Bad Religion in 1983 and Minor Threat's guitarist and singer Ian MacKaye, one of the

largest proponents of the DIY movement founded Discourse Records. MacKaye had this to say on the

subject of record labels, “The thing is they didn't take into a count was... Im coming from ya know the Commented [N6]: account

early 80s, like for me it was no fucking joke. It was like this a radical point of view and I feel what we

created was something like, and I don't mean we the band, or we the label, or even we washington d.c.

I'm talking about we like all these people, all these kids and young people around the united states who

created this network, we made something in spit of major labels it was a parallel community. It was Commented [N7]: spite?

legitimate authentic music that didn't have to do with all that nonsense, it was not something that was

for sale.” (DIY or Die).

What is Punk is always going to be a hard question but Greg Graffin sumed it up well in his Commented [N8]: summed

book when says, “Punk rock, at its best, embraces an openness to experience, a reliance on reason and

evidence, and a questioning of received wisdom.” (Graffin)

Where does the violence in Punk originate? What is a skinhead?

In order to understand why Punk attracted a violent subculture it is helpful to understand the
roots of another movement that will later become intertwined with Punk, the skinhead. The term has Commented [N9]: Why the future tense here?

huge negative connotation, however, skinheads have not always been violent, racist, people. As the

article 'Skinheads in America' says, “The first skinheads emerged in the late 1960s as just one of the

many distinct youth cultures that flowered in postwar Britain. Taking elements of English "mod" and

Jamaican immigrant fashion, these working-class London youths crafted an identity in self-conscious

opposition to the middle-class 'longhairs'” (“Skinheads in America”). Much like Punk, skinheads find

their origin in less privileged individuals who wanted to express them selves uniquely. However, their

soon became a split in the movement as their tough, working class style attracted racism, the same

article goes on to explain, “a split between racist and non-racist skinheads was apparent and began

deepening soon after the style was born. By the early '70s, skinhead attacks on South Asian immigrants

in London — the infamous sport of "Paki bashing" — had become an international news story. These

violent skinheads had not yet acquired the trappings of neo-Nazi costumes and ideology” (“Skinheads

in America”)

Racist skin heads started to use music to spread their ideology and you see the forming of Hate-

Rock bands such as The Dentists, The Vetz, Tragic Minds, White Boss, Romantic Violence. As these

two movements, Punk and racist skinheads began to merge the scene at Punk concerts began to change.

Graffin talks about an incident between some skinheads and a gay couple, “Later, news reports said that

the gay man dies from head injuries after a fight with punk rockers on Santa Monica Boulevard. That

was a pivotal moment in L.A. Punk history. It reinforced a reputation for violence that growing rapidly

in the punk community. Skinheads and other groups with a propensity for violence had begun coming

to many shows. The police exacerbated the situation by cracking down on the bands and their fans

who, in turn, lashed out at the police” (Graffin) and Nehring wrote, “Whatever the musicians’
Commented [N10]: You’ll probably want to paraphrase the
intentions, an increasing level of violence in the audience is evident: the pogo had become slam- majority of these quotes – quote only the parts where you really need
the author’s original words. Also, note that you’ve captured a few of
the original authors’ transitions – that is, their references to
dancing and stage diving that would ultimately evolve into the mosh-pit, which, however cooperative something earlier in their own text, like the word “later”, that
become confusing when quoted out of the original context. Keep an
eye out for the original authors’ transitions and make sure to begin
its male practitioners found it, had the effect of driving young women away from punk altogether” and end your quotes in strategic places so as to exclude them.
(Nehring).

How has Punk responded to the violence surrounding their music?

Punk was less than a decade old before it was already falling apart. Graffin comments on this, Commented [N11]: Note how you’ve set this up: you make a
claim and then you allow Graffin to comment on it. Instead, let
Graffin make the claim so you can maintain your neutrality.
“By that time – the fall of 1984 – the punk scene was pretty much dead in Southern California. I loved

the music and the performing. But I was traumatized by the violence surrounding punk and deeply

disturbed by the constant association of punk with nihilism and hatred” (Graffin). This sentiment was

felt by many bands who called it quits early when they saw what their music was being used for. Commented [N12]: Whose claim? Evidence (examples)?

Punk responded in a few ways, some gave up and moved on, Graffin writes, “Most of my

friends who were in punk bands in the early 1980s gave up trying to make punk viable. But a lot of

them still loved the music, and they continued to play in bands. Usually this entailed growing and

teasing their hair, putting on women's makeup, and singing with high, squealing voices. The 'hair metal'

of the 1980s began to flourish at the time of the demise of the punk scene” (Graffin). Some bands, like

the Dead Kennedys continued to embrace the Punk philosophy and struck back musically, their song

'Nazi Punks Fuck Off' exemplifies this, “Punk ain't no religious cult / Punk means thinking for yourself

/ You ain't hardcore cos you spike your hair / When a jock still lives inside your head / Nazi punks /

Nazi punks / Nazi punks-Fuck Off!” (Dead Kennedys).

And as for the skinheads, they fought back as we see in this Chicago Tribune article, “They

grew out of what we are-the punk scene-so it`s up to us to combat them,`` said Corky Fields, a member

of the Chicago skinhead Anti-Racist Action (ARA) crew. ``We have more responsibility than anybody

else to bring them down” (Myers). Commented [N13]: It’s not clear to me who the “them” is in
this case. And what kind of action was Fields advocating?

Conclusion

There is still a he amount of research to be done on this topic. While we see in this review a

great deal of first hand accounts and responses to the violent neo-nazi movement there is still almost no
research out there on the specifics of when, where, and why the Punk movement attracted violence so

quickly. There is also more research to be done on the division of the skinhead movement into two Commented [N14]: It seems you’ve ended up making this into
the focus of your paper. It’s a fine choice – you’ve written a very
interesting paper here. I’d love to see you incorporate another
wholly opposite sects. scholarly source or two – seems like there should be some more
scholarly info out there on the link between the punk movement and
violence, if you look in the right places.
 Works Cited

American Hardcore. Dir. Paul Rachman. Sony Pictures, 2006. Film.

Bad Religion. Bad Religion. Epitaph, 1981. CD.

DIY or Die. Dir. Micheal W. Dean. Music Video Distributors, 2002. Film.

Graffin, Greg, Ph.D. and Steve Olson. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World
without God. New York: It, 2010. Print.

Group Sex. Circle Jerks. Frontier Records, 1980. CD.

In God We Trust, Inc. Dead Kennedy.Alternative Tentacles, 1981. CD.

Myers, Linnet. "War of the Skinheads." Chicago Tribune [Chicago, IL] 11 May 1989. Print.

Nehring, Neil. "The Situationist International in American Hardcore Punk, 1982–2002." Popular Music
& Society 29.5 (2006): 519-530. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 10 Oct. 2011.

The Ramones. Ramones. Sire, 1976. CD.

Sex Pistols. Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols. Virgin Records, 1977. CD.

"Skinheads in America: Racists on the Rampage." Southern Poverty Law Center. Southern Poverty
Law Center, 2011. Web. 19 Oct. 2011. <http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/skinheads-
in-america-racists-on-the-rampage>.