puntiniCAZpuntini

See Ajeje, look at the fitting example of what I was telling you, look here "rocknrollsuicide" who calls me FASCIST because I think punk sucks. And am I wrong to say that punk ruins the minds of kids by inserting millions of bullshit into their troubled heads? Bah. RNRsuicide, the Dead Kennedys are nobody, they haven't done shit that's good, they haven't personalized anything, they're just one of those many damn punk bands, that's it.

Well, this is a bit of a strange discussion since it touches on the fence of a group that really cares about sound, or so I've heard from those who have played with them. And the Du are certainly not the worst example provided by Punk, but since you don’t want to separate melepunk from perepunk, calculating everything as "fruttapunk," then you're telling me that punk is the least committed and polished genre, right? You see? By not separating melepunk from perepunk, you lead me to say that all fruttapunk sucks just because 90% of the types of fruttapunk are terrible (if not 95%). Which I don’t find in other genres; prog metal is a great genre tainted by Dream Theater, rock is a great genre tainted by Bruce Springsteen, while punk is a shit genre with a few good bands. There’s a difference, and a significant one, indeed.

Yes, I'm all about technique, but I don't mean classical technique, like "if you play it with your fingers it's good, otherwise not." I mean Technical Side in every sense of the word. For me, Sonic Youth is a technically valid band; they work on their sound, they sweat over it, and they care about the details. I couldn't care less if the sound comes from their fingers or from a pedal because in the end, it comes from your head anyway. I mean the commitment and the desire to create a work of art, something that you put yourself into. Therefore, the Velvet Underground, whom you rightly cited as a non-technical band in the classical sense of the term, are in my view a highly technical group that cared about what they did, unlike Husker Du, who (I believe) got drunk like pigs, stumbled into the studio, and that was it. I'd tell the Du, "Good first take, my ass; it sounds like crap, do it again. And do it right; the drums don't sound right, your distortion doesn't tear my ear apart, it sounds like a radio signal coming in poorly, not a guitar distortion... go work, you idiot!" What annoys me is the fact that they don't put in the effort; if you do something half-assed, you end up with a half-assed product, there's no mistaking that. And again, I don't expect solos played by GT Turbo fingers; I couldn't care less about HOW you produce the sound, but it MUST BE A NICE SOUND, otherwise it’s crap, at least for me.

But in fact, I take the Minuteman out of the herd, I don't know the Gun Club. That's why I was saying I'm in favor of subproto-genres. Fine, the Minuteman because of their punk-experimental (?) but fuck all the stereotyped punk. If we talk in "broad genres," you never really get to a point; usually, by taking submovements, you tend to catalog better.

It's quite irritating to see how everyone says "metal is right-wing! = GROSS" when there are 6-7 bands that say something political, while no one talks about the crap that punk blasts into the ears of young people, nonsense like BOYKOTTA or ANARKYA, and all the rest of the shit that spins in the heads of those four idiots with spikes and mohawks. There are millions of them, and they spew millions of BULLSHIT, but there are so many that you become numb to it, and you don’t even point them out as fools anymore. But damn, don’t come and tell me they are artists or musicians because I see them as just four idiots who have neither the intelligence nor the desire to achieve anything in life.

It is equally undeniable that when it comes to Fantasia, they are at zero, just as it is equally undeniable that their "let's do things (sound quality and recording) haphazardly because it’s so punk" feels more like "let's do things haphazardly, we'll stress out and work less, and we’ll mask it under this crap that feels so punk." Moreover, they are all shamelessly politically extreme and keep shooting bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit bullshit bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit after bullshit bullshit after bullshit after bullshit about "how the world turns," and this really annoys me and gets on my nerves because four failed, drugged-up assholes who spend their evenings making chords in a garage don’t understand a damn thing about the world and the political situation; I’d rather listen to the mental journeys and delusions of metal, at least they know how to shoot imaginative bullshit.

In other words, it works like this: In the 70s, music was reaching peaks of perfection that not all ordinary mortals could touch, so high schoolers with no talent gave birth to the "genre-revenge," the "gnègnègnnè-musical," or punk, to be able to get on stage and say, "we can play too... we can play too... cicca cicca... pappappero." Since they weren't capable of making music, they became capable of making punk. Then it’s undeniable that the more "human & down-to-earth" attitude brings sympathy toward these people, but don’t come to tell me they are musicians because that's not true, nor artists, just "funny idiots." That's it.

But I also think the comparison can be made perfectly well; in fact, I'm the first to say that punk, compared to the rest, is a silly genre with little substance, adolescent and without artistic purpose, a worthwhile outlet for musicians who are eager to express themselves; too bad they don't know how to do it through music. (I might be exaggerating a bit, but since this is a site that is full of punkers, it’s nice to stir the pot. Anyway, punk is the first step of musical evolution, in the sense that it sits beneath all the others.)

Then, my point is not that you can't compare on a level of taste, but I was just explaining what criteria a record must meet to make me dislike it, criteria that can be found in California punk, power metal, California rap, and other scattered groups. Criteria that are not applicable to an entire genre but only to certain currents; for example, I listen to Black Flag but not Husker Du, long live Cathedral and let’s burn DIO, God bless Company Flow and lightning Snoop Doggy Dog. Despite being paired Punk-Metal-Rap, there are differences that lead me to buy the former and vomit on the latter. Let's say it's an "incomparable level of quality" rather than a technical one. The discourse on films is complex since a movie always has the same setting: me sitting watching TV, so it’s easier to give a rating. With music, though, I put on Fu Manchu at 4 AM as a lullaby and I hate it, but I play them in the morning on my way to work and I’m headbanging for two kilometers; it all depends on the moment. If I had to rate A Kind Of Blue played at a summer beach party, I’d give it 0/5, but that doesn’t mean it's a 0/5 album; it just doesn't fit a beach party at all. Instead, California punk or even 90% of punk bands never fit in; they lack that something which other genres have. It’s just a compression of many things that you find "better explained" elsewhere.

Well, I certainly don't know Zen Arcade by heart, with a slightly cheerful anger I messed up the intensifying adjective, it was better "desperate little fury" :D, the point is that they aren't thoughtful enough to be listened to when I want something thoughtful, nor that furious when I want fury and so on, as I said before, they don't have a why. There are so many records to discover that one lifetime won't be enough, I see Husker as a wasted time.