Punk Rock Academy Fight Song – Hopeless Romantic

Every Punk is a sap. I would like to take credit for this revelation but alas it was my wife who made me aware of this fact and it is a fact. While listening to Social Distortion she turned to me and said “Mike Ness is a total sap, all he writes are love songs …all you boys are a bunch of saps” and instead of getting defensive about the statement i found that I had no choice but to COMPLETELY agree with her. Not because she’s my wife but because she hit the nail on the head. We are all pure, unabashed sentimentalists. Some people wear their hearts  on their sleeves but we wear them as badges and flashing neon lights hanging over our heads. Love, passion and romance are the true foundations of Punk rock. “What the hell? What about anarchy, dissent, nonconformity, youthful alienation, straight up anger at the system! Black Flag didn’t write no love songs! Has this dude gone totally EMO on us” Well before anyone suffers a brain aneurysm… take a deep breath and keep reading.

If any one remembers the dreaded E word is short for emotional and Punk rock at its very core is all about pure raw emotions. As far as I’m concerned anything worth doing has to be done first and foremost out of love. If you don’t love something then your in it for the wrong reasons. You can fake attitude you can fake anger but you can’t fake love. Most of us got into this because Punk spoke to our emotions and we continue to do it because we love it. So I’m not really talking about boy meets girl LOVE SONGS, am I? Well yes and no. Because some of our best loved bands most revered songs are indeed love songs. I mean check out the Buzzcocks, Descendents, Screeching Weasel the list could go on forever. All of them purveyors of love songs but still loud fast and occasionally pissed off.

Without passion and romance we wouldn’t have had The Clash and if we didn’t have The  Clash who knows where any of us would be. Every garbled word that was ever spit out of Joe Strummers mouth was formed from passion and romance. You could tell he not only meant everything he ever sang, he felt it in his soul. Every guitar lick laid down by Mick Jones was obviously the work of someone in love. Safe European Home sprang from a romanticized version of Jamaica held by four white kids in London. Stay Free and White Man in Hammersmith Palais are true love songs by any definition. Underneath the politics, rebellion and sloganeering beat an actual heart. So while few of us have ever slow danced to Clash at the prom, its obvious they were all about love. Yeah they shouted Hate and War but but the conviction with which they shouted it came from a different place.

In the end it all boils to the human condition. You have to feel. You have to bleed. You have to know heartache. This is why we exist, this is why we root for the underdog and the outcast. We get knocked down and we dust ourselves off and keep going. We still believe in silly concepts like justice, equality and yes true love. It’s why we wrote song lyrics on notebooks in high school. Its why I went back and read Great Expectations and finally got it. We all know about how close and yet so far that girl in the front of room is. We are not just saps we are hopeless romantics. And I’m sure Henry Rollins would agree. Here endeth the lesson

 

-Daniel N-

 

 

Punk Rock Academy Fight Song – Self Destructions Got Me Again

Nihilism. No Future. Smash it up. FTW. Live fast and die young. What do all these phrases have in common. Sure a couple are song titles and lyrics. That’s the easy part. But what do they really have in common? They all seem to be the foundation upon which Punk rock was built on and they at one point or another were rally cries for how we chose to live our lives.

Oh and if you cant find irony in the fact that a movement that was originally based on the converging ideals of suburban boredom, urban decay, impending global war and destroying the aging avatars of mainstream rock is still going strong then you might of missed the point altogether. Punk rock was originally intended to slash and burn the establishment and then brilliantly flame out. Our founding fathers  were a rogues gallery of misfits, miscreants, delinquents and junkies with what seemed liked every intention of dying before they got old. Many of them did. Luckily a lot more kept going and were able to pass the torch to subsequent generations. That’s right we’ve got multiple generations flying the flag-who would’ve thunk it back in the 1975-for selfish reason I use 1975 as the starting point(It’s when the Ramones started playing and the year of my birth). So now that I have rehashed Punk rock 101 in a little more than a paragraph what’s my point.

Everybody has heard the myths legends and rumors a thousand times over and frankly they do seem a little tired. Frankly I’m tired of the myth that our lifestyle was built upon the false assumption that self destructive behavior is to be encouraged and is an irrefutable part of being Punk. Now I am not claiming to be the fun police and I’m not preaching the gospel of straight edge or any other such agenda. To me hypocrisy is a far greater sin than knocking back a couple of beers in the parking lot before the show. I’ve engaged in my share of self destructive behavior in the name of Punk and so have many of my friends. Most of my reckless behavior was ultimately harmless but also purposeless as well. No great end was achieved by my youthful jackass shenanigans, sure it was fun but it also could have led to some big trouble. I remember the fist time I smoked a cigarette, after calling them cancer sticks and harassing my smoker friends about their “filthy habits”, my friend called me out on my change of heart to which I replied “well if they’re okay for Keith Richards...” Obviously Keef is the exception to just about every rule in the book so following his lead isn’t really suggested to anyone interested in longevity. But this is where I tread dangerously close to edge of hypocrisy which I have tried to avoid but must now confront with the favorite tools of the parent and educator of which I am both and those tools are the famous do as I say not as I did.

Yeah it might be a cop out but it’s a pretty good one in my opinion. If I can prevent someone from making the same mistakes I did I’ll call it a victory. One of my students brought up this very theme and asked me if I regretted my youthful actions and my response was I don’t really regret things I did I regret the things I wasn’t able to do because of my previous behaviors. Then again I’m one of the lucky ones several of my friends have been through the dreaded jail rehab cycle, some are doing great, some I haven’t heard from in years. The truth is Punk rock is alive and well almost in spite of itself our earliest heroes destroyed themselves early whether intentional or not. However we still keep going because instead of going down in flames some decided to keep carrying the torch. Self destruction and Punk rock do not have to be synonymous. So maybe I am preaching a bit but as an older Punk I’m allowed strictly for the fact that I am getting older. Yeah whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger but we don’t have to speed up the process. Here endeth the lesson

 

-Daniel N-

 

 

Punk Rock Academy Fight Song – Fun, Fun, Fun

Lets get right to the point for this one. Its the first day of summer, I just saw the The Queers play last night and I LOVE the Beach Boys. No intellectual analogies and no apologies either. I flat out love this band. now when people talk about the Beach Boys two things usually come to mind-its either a bunch of middle aged white people in Hawaiian shirts at a fourth of July barbecue drunkly shouting out the lyrics to “Sloop John B.” or its music snobs blathering on about intricate melodies, shimmering harmonies and the revolutionary us of the therein on “Good Vibrations”.

Luckily I don’t fall into those two camps so allow me to explain why it is that I find those guys in matching Pendleton’s from Hawthorne so amazing. I have always loved surfing, surf music and those damn Beach Blanket Bingo movie. Unfortunately I grew up in lovely San Gabriel California-a place known for smog, killer Chinese food and a crumbling old mission and a good ways away from the ocean. So on those sweltering days with stage one smog alerts I dreamed of driving a hotrod to beach and meeting my own little surfer girl and it was all because of Brian Wilson. The beach boys were sort of my gateway drug into surfing and  to me the Beach Boys have always represented the idealized version of summer and the pure innocent fun that comes with it. That’s right I said the F-word. F-U-N. All too often in our crazy lives we forget about just having a good time. We start taking ourselves way too seriously, we get mired in our responsibilities, fears and obligations. Who has time for fun when you’ve got a mortgage and North Korea is aiming a missile at Hawaii? Well sometimes it has to be about fun. I spend 10 months of the year trying to keep kids out of trouble, listening to their problems and browbeating some of them to get their grades up. After all that Its nice to listen to songs about fast cars, cute girls, and catching waves.

Now this all seems to do little justice to the true musical genius of the Beach Boys and would tend to lump me in to the afore mentioned Hawaiian shirt gang. More importantly I haven’t even mentioned anything about rebellion, revolution or nonconformity. The Beach Boys arent dangerous, they are beloved by people in the Midwest hell they even had John Stamos play drums for them at one point. They weren’t trying to tear down the establishment and no one will ever mistake Mike Love for Joe Strummer so what the hell i am thinking including them in a column about Punk rock. Well that my friends is a quite simple. Punk rock was and has always been about putting the fun back in rock n roll. Sure its political at times and most of our heroes tend to be on the anti-authoritarian side but part of the danger came from having fun. Two minute burst of pure, uncompromising pop fueled fun. So its summer time grab your girl, grab your board, hit the beach and crank up “Surfin USA”. Oh and if don’t think the Beach Boys have anything to do with punk rock then you probably have never heard of a little band called The Ramones. Here endeth the lesson
 

-Daniel N-

 

 

 

Punk Rock Academy Fight Song – Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten

A wise man once said everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten. Well I don’t really know who said it and it does seem like cheap bumper sticker philosophizing but I recently realized there may be some truth to this statement. You see I’m one of those people that believes that there are events in our lives that deeply impact the formation of our values and beliefs without us being aware of it. The little things we hear and observe that we initially don’t make too much of but wind up being important touchstones in our development as individuals. There are two such events in kindergarten that I believe were keys in shaping my personality and leading me down the path I chose. The first one was my placement in the “Elephant Group”.

Before I go any further I have to say I am not angry at my kindergarten teachers nor do I think they traumatized me any way. As a matter of fact I think they were great people. However my placement in the elephant group had to do with the fact that they might of the thought I was a little slow or different  because the kids in the other groups had cool names like the lions or owls but I was an elephant, a big dumb elephant. Truth be told I kind of liked it because we mainly got to do a lot of art and play with the blocks. But it also helped me realize that I was different and I embraced that fact-I was a bit of a misfit from the get go. As it turns out I wasn’t really slow just a little awkward and by the end of the first grade I made my way into the Blue Birds-the highest reading group in the class but I still felt different and I was cool with that. The second circumstance is the fact that my favorite song in kindergarten was “This Land is my Land”.

Every morning we would recite the pledge of allegiance and then chose a different patriotic song. I always chose This land is my land. I loved that damn song. Maybe it was the simple little tune or the fact that you pointed at your friends during the chorus. Who knows but I loved it. So what the hell does this have to do with Punk rock. Well many years later I discovered that song was written by Woody Guthrie, the great folk singer, activist rebel, and quite possibly the true godfather of Punk. That song was an anthem of inclusion and acceptance, no matter who you are there’s room for you here. Now obviously I wasn’t aware of all of this as a five year old, that would make me one down right pretentious kid but there has to be some reason why that song always resonated with me. Then about a week ago I was watching Fuel TV and Mike Vallely is showing off one of his decks with the slogan “This Machine Kills Fascists” inscribed on it the same quote that Woody  Guthrie scrawled on his guitar in the 1930’s and ‘40s. It hit me like a lightning bolt and it all made sense. Sometimes you chase your influences and sometimes they slowly, subconsciously shape your character and help form your ideals and when you get older you are able to connect the dots. I always knew there a was a reason I loved that damn little folk song. here endeth the lesson.

 

-Daniel N-

 

 

 

Punk Rock Academy Fight Song – When It Began

Once you’ve arrived somewhere its always a good idea to see how you got there. I remember reading an article somewhere where Lars Frederiksen from Rancid says that nobody was born with a mohawk. This is a pretty succinct way of calling out those people who seem to think they have some kind of cooler than thou status on being Punk and have never listened to any other kind of music. None of us has any native claims to this music we love we are all immigrants to it. We all had to start somewhere until that one defining moment when we realize that everything else that we had heard blaring from our stereo or headphones was completely irrelevant.

For me it was always good old rock and roll- Chuck Berry, Elvis, the Beach Boys-that’s right that Beach Boys but that’s a discussion for another time. But being a kid in the 80’s I was also exposed/subjected to new wave and mainstream pop-and if you remember 80’s pop then you know subjected is the right word. In elementary school I loved Billy Joel and Huey Lewis and The News. To this day I still love “Uptown Girl” and “The Longest Time.” However I also realized early on that I was different from most my friends back then and that the music and fashion that they were into did nothing for me. Hell, I was the one kid in my class who didn’t like Michael Jackson’s Thriller. This wasn’t me being pretentious- in elementary and middle school its called being weird. However the moment everything changed was when i was thirteen and my older brother Dave lent me his tape of Social Distortion’s “Mommy’s little monster”. Nothing I had ever heard up until then could even compare to the blast of unfiltered raw energy that exploded out of my walkman that afternoon. At thirteen my life was changed forever, I knew that this was the music for me and I realized that it was okay to be an outsider and have your own opinion.

I realized there were other people out there who didn’t care about what the popular kids were wearing. Even if I didn’t know what the hell methadrine was back then, I did know that this music spoke to me and that I didn’t want to be “a doctor or a lawyer and get fat and rich”. At that instant I knew that this sound was going to be the blueprint for the rest of my life. A friend of mine in college once asked me what specifically it was about punk that I liked over other types of music and I couldn’t answer him because sometimes you cant explain a thirteen year olds feelings.  Now the whole point of this is not to establish my cred but instead I just hope that people realize why they got into the music in the first place and what it means them. I hope people remember how they got to where they are at today. I hope people remember who they were before the mohawk. So give someday a copy of your favorite album and don’t forget to thank your big brother. Thanks Dave. Here endeth the lesson.
 

-Daniel N-

 

 

Punk Rock Academy Fight Song – “You do what for a living?”

“You do what for a living?”

That’s usually the response I get from most people when I tell them what I do and it’s usually followed by “that’s pretty damn cool”.  Not that my job is that fascinating or unique but rather it’s the fact that somebody like me does the job that I do. So what is this mysterious occupation that elicits so much curiosity? Presidential advisor? Bomb Disposal Technician? Dog Catcher?

Nope. I am a high school counselor. It is my job to mold and guide the minds of teenagers. I also happen to be a heavily tattooed Punk rocker that still rides a skateboard and loves to get in the pit every now and then and works as a high school counselor. My life experiences tend to be just a little bit different than most people in my line of work I know everybody and their moms have tattoos these days and that by itself doesn’t make you a Punk, nor does riding a skateboard. For most people those things are just accessories and a hobby but for me it’s been my life since I was a teenager and it’s not a phase I plan on outgrowing. I just had to figure a way to keep my passion for this lifestyle going well into adulthood. A lot of us grow up, settle down, get “real jobs” and move on to more mature pursuits (yeah right). Some of us keep flying the flag and damning the man in our own different ways. And then a lot of us spend a lot of time trying to figure out a way to do both. Believe me there was a long list of jobs I thought I'd have and counselor was never really on that list.

Throughout high school and college my main job requirements involved my being able to dress however I pleased and not working in an office. I was all about rebellion and the outward appearance of rebellion. The idea that I would some day be some kind of authority figure still boggles my mind but I like to think that I’m trying to teach and inspire these kids that you can be successful on your own terms. I like to call this my SLC Punk theory. At the end of the movie the main character cuts his Mohawk, puts on a suit and decides to go to law school with the idea that sometimes it’s better to try and change something from the inside than fighting from the outside. Here endeth the lesson- I stole that from Sean Connery in the Untouchables

-Daniel N-



 

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