1 Punk Subculture: Deep Dive into a Social Phenomenon Sex Pistols concert, CA 1987 2 Table of Contents: Argument .... ............................................................................................. 3 1 History ................................................................................................... 4 2 Characteristics ................................ ....................................................... 6 2.1 Music 2.2 Ideologies 2.3 Visual arts, literature , dance 2.4 Fashion 3 Gender and gender expression in punk ............................................... 10 4 Punk subcultures ................................................................................. 11 4.1 Riot Grll 4.2 Anarcho - Punk 4.3 Straight Edge 4.4 Queercore Conclusion ... .......................... ................................................................1 4 References .. ...........................................................................................1 5 3 Argument From obscure 60s bands to fully blown out mainstream aesthetic, “Punk” is one of the most widespread alternative subcultures, mostly centered on music but including an incredibly diverse set of ideologies, genres, visual art, literature and film. It is characterized by a set of beliefs centered on non - confor mity, anti - authoritarianism, anti - consumerism, anti - corporatism and anti - capitalism. It has been co - opted by different groups and branched out in many directions, advocating many things for many people. Despite its roots in the music industry, or rather in spite of it, it has since developed way beyond that to a defined movement. While it only has around 50 years of recorded history, it has no shortage of interesting developments and events. As a self - identifying punk, I personally find this to be a fascina ting subject and, unfortunately, a commonly misunderstood one. Punk has often been a target of the public due to its complete rejection of tradition and conformity so that is no surprise. I aim to hopefully help fight against the common mental image of the average punk, that of a selfish, pointlessly violent man, and bring to light the individual freedom and self - expression that it is. Along the course of this paper I will attempt to go into its origins, evolution along the years, respective subcategories and history 4 1 History The Punk Subculture emerged in the United Kingdom in 1975. The etymology of the word "Punk" itself is uncertain; some consider it to originate from US prison slang where in it meant a young man coerced into sex. Howeve r this meaning is not commonly used in the UK, where it generally means a badly behaved youth. The late 1960s featured a groundbreaking garage rock revival in the northeastern United States led by mostly uncategori z able bands. While it was never a cohesive movement and didn't have a defined sound they have been tied together in retrospect by a provocative sensibility that didn't fit into the counterculture of the time. Long after the fact this movement came to be known as proto punk. The first identifiable proto punk group was The Velvet Underground whose harsh and experimental yet melodic sound is credited to have influenced bands such as the New York Dolls and The Stooges. On the 6th of November, 1975, a newly formed band called the Sex Pistols were playi ng at St Martin College, an art college in London. Most of the 40 or so people in the room were there for another band, Bazooka Joe, which had been more popular at the time. The death of glam rock in the 1960s left the rock scene feeling stale, and many ba nds were attempting breakthroughs hoping to revitalizing it. The conditions lined up perfectly for the sound the Sex Pistols were bringing to the table that of mod roots influenced by aforementioned bands New York Dolls and The Stooges modernized with a mu ch harsher sound, using provocation as an art form. I set the gig up. I was at St Martins doing a foundation course. (...) over the summer holidays I decided to take the band seriously after John had joined that August, so I gave my place to someone else a nd, as I left, I blagged the gig with Bazooka Joe. - Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols bassist) It would be uncharacteristic for the birth of punk to be a peaceful event but that was not what ended up happening. Sex Pistols's van had broken down, along with their equipment, only having their guitars. Their manager, Malcolm McLaren had asked Bazooka Joe to borrow their equipment. We set up and did a soundcheck and in strolled Malcolm McLaren with the boys. He said: 'We've got a problem, our van has broken down with all the gear in it.' They pleaded with us. All they had was their guitars and they wanted to use our amps and drums. We felt sorry for them, we related to them, it had happened to us before, so we said: 'No problem help yourself, do your soundcheck.' We l eft a couple of guys, our roadies, there and shot off to the Cambridge Arms for a couple of drinks before we played. - Robin Chapekar (Bazooka Joe guitarist) 5 However, according to Robin, a roadie ran up to them while in the pub and told them to go back as the Sex Pistols were "trashing the gear". It was pure punk but I didn't know that at the time. There we were witnessing the birth of punk. We were pissed off! They were kicking the amps, the drummer was trashing the drums. - Robin CCha peka A brawl had broken out by then but eventually the Sex Pistols had stopped playing and left as they were reported to have been frightening the audience. What happened was that we were supposed to use their equipment. At the soundcheck, Bazooka Joe, who were a bunch of rich kid rockabilly types didn't like the cut of our jib and wouldn't lend us their gear. - Glen Matlock It only took a few months after that for the Sex Pistols to build up their reputation. While the audience at St Martin College may n ot have been particularly keen on their sound, the rest of the country didn't seem to think so and soon they were considered one of if not the best live performers in the country. Within a year they released their first single. The sheer energy and wealth of ideas thrown around by what we now know to be punk rock ensured that the British music scene changed forever. Soon other bands would start following suit and thus fashion sense and ideologies would start to form based on the ideas prevalent in punk musi c. Punk had been born as a subculture. After that, in the late 1970s, punk began to diversify itself, leading to a myriad of new subcultures/subcategories such as hardcore punk, pop punk, anarcho punk and so on. Punk music as a whole continued to influence other genres along its development, mo st notably alternative rock and certain subgenres of heavy metal. Although never truly gone, a revival of the punk movement happened in the 90s in the United States, doing away with some of the elements of hardcore punk. 6 2 Characteristics 2 .1 Music Punk, as a music genre, is closest to a loud, aggressive type of rock most often featuring a heavy focus on electric guitars and drums. Background vocals, usually contributed by the other musicians, are also commonplace, typically consisting of pol itical slogans or football type chants. Punk songs tend to be short with simple and perhaps somewhat basic arrangements, only using a few chords. The subject matter is more often than not heavily politicized. Extremely radicalized, punk doubles down hard o n left wing views, commonly anarchism, and is full of vital energy concealed by a hostile and sarcastic facade. However, certain punk songs opt for lighter topics such as partying and romantic relationships. The first record to claim punk as a music genre was in New York, but meanwhile the scenes developed in Los Angles and London as well . While not the only cities with a punk scene ( Canada notably had a few cities with it) these 3 cities became the backbone of the punk sound. These early punk bands were g enerally self - made and self - published, as they viewed music labels as corrupt and money hungry. Unfortunately, they didn't have much longevity, in part due to the promiscuous actives, widespread use of drugs and sometimes power struggles between different ones or even the same members of one. Nevertheless the popularity of the music led to the evolution of punk into an ideology and a lifestyle of sorts. 7 2 .2 Ideologies As a result of the subject matter approached in the usual punk song, the forefront of the punk ideology is its firm anti - establishment views along with individual freedom. This rejection of common consumerism also led to big name stores falling out of favor with the average punk thus a “do it yourself” ethic was adopted. This i s highly noticeable when it comes to their fashion sense but can also bleed into all aspects of life. When it comes to politics, anarchism is the most commonly adopted view point. While a common misunderstood one, anarchism tends to get bad press due to it s relative obscurity in the current political climate. First and foremost, it advocates for the removal of the state (along with its hierarchies), arguing that small groups would be better fit to govern over themselves. While there have been certain groups and individuals that hold neo - nazi or fascist views in the scene it should be noted that they are rejected by the entirety of the punk subculture. These views are entirely opposed to the punk ethos and as such there have been pushed to distance the moveme nt from any would - be white supremacists who attempts to claim the term for themselves. This would be most evident in 2016 at the American Music Awards, when Green Day, a rather modern and popular punk band, would incorporate the chant “No war, no KKK, no f ascist USA” from Texas punk band MDC in one of their songs, as a protest against the election of Donald Trump as president that same year. Not only that but Ken Casey, bassist and singer for the band Dropkick Murphys, is reported to have tackled an individ ual who gave a nazi style salute at one of their shows. Ultimately such a push has turned punk as an extremely unfriendly place for such people. “Nazi Punks F*ck Off”, released by the Dead Kennedy’s (one of the most influential bands when it comes to hardc ore punk), has famously become an anti - nazi anthem, as is probably evident from the somewhat on the nose name. According to Jello Biafra, founder of the band, those specific people didn’t take so kindly to being criticized. They attacked Dead Kennedys show s after that.” Later going on to claim “There were shows and individuals who had been attacked by Nazi skinheads and that still goes on here and there, but the ideological ones haven’t shown up at any event of mine - Jello Biafra 2 .3 Visual arts, literature and dance When it comes to punk, its visual arts are inherently linked to its music again, taking the form of album covers, flyers and colleges of punk iconography, literature, poems, zines and so on glued or pasted together and placed on a wall or other surface. These are usually straightforward, black and 8 white, iconoclastic and sometimes satirical. They are concerned with clear cut political messages, advocating for causes such as social justice and economic disparity. When it comes to literature, punk developed a noticeable amount of prose and poetry. Most of said poets are musicians alongside it. In 1979, “The Medway Poets”, one of the first English punk poetry groups, was founded. The aforementioned zines also take a huge part in punk literature. The word “zine” is short for magazine, however it’s not used interchangeably. Being a zine implies a degree of amateurishness, homemade and always independently distributed. These were the main source of information about punk shows and the li kes back then, also offering little promotions for different bands. But it was not just that, these contained news, music criticisms and sometimes even entire floppy disks with exclusive or as of yet unreleased songs. They were also acting as pseudo blogs and forums back then, with opinion columns present. Many fictional works also owe much to the punk movement, “Love and Rockets” is on the first alternative comics to exist, taking place in the punk scene from Los Angeles. Even further than that, writers to ok punk and adapted it to different settings thus creating the steampunk and cyberpunk genres which are widely popular to this day. Lastly, the dance styles associate with punk are pogo dancing and moshing. Pogo dancing, despite its name, does not include any pogo sticks. It gets its name from the fact that the dancers keep jumping up and down. This is closely associated with punk rock but it can be noticed in any of the harsher music genres concerts. On the other side of the coin, moshing is an especially aggressive form of dancing, the spiritual successor to pogo dancing, it having the participants push and slam into each other, really blurring the line it what it really means to be dancing, broken noses and bruised limbs not withstanding. Both of the abov e - mentioned styles, and other unmentioned less popular ones, have since been incorporated into what is now known as hardcore dancing, a catch - all term for anything you might see at a punk or even other alternative subculture concerts. 2 .4 Fashion Punk’s no n - conformity is best illustrated in the fashion that developed along its many years. Haircuts are at their most dramatic here, dedicated punks often opting for mullets, mohawks or other unnatural shapes such as spikes. These unusual hairdos are more often than not dyed bright hues not normally seen on hair such as bright greens or reds. When it came to clothing, due to the movement’s “do it yourself” attitude, everyday objects are incorporated into it. Regular clothing would be ripped, 9 sometimes held toget her by nothing but tape and safety pins. Leather is a staple along with tight jeans and mesh patterns of any kind. Darker colours are generally employed, however that’s not to say that they don’t have any colour. Band logos, political iconography and gene ral symbols are either patches sewn on or painted on clothes, especially what is known as a “combat jacket”. These are usually jackets made out of denim or leather that are extremely cluttered with patches, paint, pins and sometimes beer bottle caps. As fo r footwear, high cuts are the preferred, army, combat and Dr. Martens boots are the usual choices. Jewelry is a reoccurring theme as well, using razorblades and other common items for it. Chains are especially abundant, usually found on jeans. Certain peop le have made their own out of can tabs. Bracelets are used, mostly multiple on one hand, anything with a spike design is welcome. Dog collar like chokers are also sometimes worn. Piercings of all types are common place, most having multiple ones. Despite a ll this, there are also anti - fashion punks, those claiming that the visual style is irrelevant and that punk should be identified by the ideologies it pushes forward. These tend to wear more practical clothes but they still have their root in working class outfits and street wear. 10 3 Gender and gender expression in punk Punk’s growing popularity during the 70s along with its “anyone can do it” attitude led to a significant rise in the contributions offered by women such as Patti Smith whose music was among the first punk sounds in New York City or Poly Styrene whose influ ence on 70s punk mustn’t be understated. Unlike other alternative subgenres which were generally dominated by men, punk’s anarchic and counter - cultural mindset encouraged women to participate. Previously, women’s presence in the rock scene has mainly been as vocalists, however, this new phenomenon in the punk scene had led to a large influx of guitarists, drummers, bass and keyboard players. That was the beauty of the punk thing,(...) sexual discrimination didn’t exist in that scene. – Chrissie Hynde (founde r and lead vocalists of the Pretender) Rock historian Helen Reddington claims that women at the time were more interested in the ideologies and socio - political implications rather than the fashion, as had been the stereotype at the time. Meanwhile, music h istorian Caroline Coon contends that before punk, women in rock music were virtually non - existent. It would be possible to write the whole history of punk music without mentioning any male bands at all – and I think a lot of people would find that very sur prising.” – Caroline Coon In punk, one’s body is often viewed as a statement, a complete rejection of all that is considered “normal”. As such, gender presentation and gender identity are a big factor to play with. To a certain extent, punk helped in tearin g down the view of gender as a dichotomy and binary, views that now are more common place though still not mainstream. Androgyny, along with any and all forms of gender expression are welcomed when it comes to it. Cross - dressing is common place in the scen e. Be it men wearing distressed skirts or excessive makeup, or, women with shaved heads and oversized plaids. It was not all about defiance of the social norms however, sometimes it was about bringing it up to the surface to an extreme extent. The expresse d itself in women wearing their bra or underwear above their in other clothes, or, only wearing those. While this may seem sexualized to people unfamiliar with the scene, and to a certain degree it is influenced by that, it is mainly merely a way of self - e xpression. In its time a very popular subculture of punk, “Riot grrrl” was one of the main branches of punk to actively discuss gender consistently. 11 4 Punk Subcultures Certain branches of punk had built a specific style with defined sounds, ideologies, fashion styles and so on. As such they have formed smaller subcultures that while belonging to punk, define themselves clearly with different aspects of theirs. 4 .1 Riot Grrrl Riot Grrrl is a punk subculture most commonly associated with third - wave feminism. It emerged in the early 90s but reached its peak sometimes in the mid 2000s. It differentiates itself through the topics most commonly addressed in its music, those being: patriarchy, female empowerment, rape and sexuality. However, it went beyond just music, it had its own set of zines and art depicting or talking about the previously mentioned topics. Perhaps most importantly, the movement had encouraged people to take up political action and acitivism, often in the forms of protests or pe titions. This subculture was often criticized due to not being inclusive enough. Riot Girls were often accused of excluding women of colour or trans women from the movement. Riot grrrl calls for change, but I question who it’s including ... I see Riot Grrrl growing very closed to a very few i.e. white middle class punk girls. - Darms, Lisa, The Riot Grrrl Collection. Feminist Press Riot grll has since mostly died down, being replaced with fourth - wave feminism punk, however a bit of a resurgence has been going on, bringing the better parts of the subculture to the modern days. 4.2. Anarcho - Punk Anarcho - Punk (also known as peace punk) is a bran ch of punk defined by its ideology that emerged from the protopunk bands of the 70s that held anarchists views such as MC 5, The Fugs or Hawkind. These bands set a precedent for mixing radical politics with rock music and established the idea of rock as an agent of social and political change in the public consciousness. 12 Memebers of this subculture hold anarchists views such anarcho - syndicalism or collectivism, though it has often been dissociated from those political currents. Members also universally b elieve in direct action, although that takes many forms, be it nonviolent resistance, refusal of work, squatting, economic sabotage, dumpster diving, graffiti, boycotting or civil disobedience. When it comes to music style, musical delivery is considered l ess important than the overall artistic process and message. In this sense, it could be considered a strange case of performance art where everything from the politcal message to the album cover plays a part. As such, the music is not always pleasant to li sten but that is by design. 4 .3 Straight Edge Straight edge (sometimes abbreviated sXe or signified by XXX or X) is a punk subculture that, in opposition to the excesses of regular punk subculture, refrain from using alcohol, tabaco or other recreational drugs. This sometimes extends to things such as caffeine, prescription drugs and even adopting a vegetarian or vegan diet. The term has been adopted from the song "Straight 13 Edge” released by Minor Threat in 1981. This particular subculture has been particularly controversial due to its politics. Left - l eaning activists have often approached straight edge with skepticism, ridicule or even outright hostility in part due to what they perceived as the straight edge movement's self - righteous militancy. Straight Edge has been accused of not being inclusive or being unsupportive of woman’s reproductive rights. Interestingly, due to this intolerance bent edge was formed by members of Washington, DC hardcore scene who were fed up with the rigidness and intolerance in the nascent straight edge scene to be a counter - movement to straight edge at the time it was starting to gain traction and support. 4 .4 Queercore Queercore as a subculture formed as on offshoot to the punk subculture. It is distinguished by its discontent with society in general, and specifically so ciety's disapproval of the LGBT community. This offshoot was born in the 1980s after a couple of US hardcore bands such as the Dicks and Big Boys, both of which had outspoken gay men as members, released queer - themed songs. As a music genre, it may be dist inguished by lyrics exploring themes of prejudice and dealing with issues such as sexual identity, gender identity and the rights of the individual; more generally, queercore bands offer a critique of society endemic to their position within it, sometimes in a light - hearted way, sometimes seriously. Over time the sound of many queercore bands were influenced by industrial music culture. As such queercore music encompasses many genres and subculture but originates in punk. 14 Conclusion In conclusion, in this paper I hope to have shed some light on the positive aspects of this particular alternative subculture, while not sugarcoating the negative or downright dangerous parts. As a whole I would say, personally, punk ideologies and cultur e have been a net positive on myself, as well as the rest of the world, whether we're talking about political activism or social impact of a culture welcoming of groups which would otherwise not have a platform to speak out on. At the end of the day punk , like many other groups , is a collective of people that have come together as a result of sharing a worldview, a musical taste and most important of all a defiance of the norms , and the sheer value of community mustn’t be understated. 15 References "The birth of punk" THE INDEPENDENT article published Nov 05 2005: https://web.archive.org/web/20060427073129/http ://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/featur es/article324977.ece Punk Britannica entrance: https://www.britannica.com/art/punk Proto - Punk ALLMUSIC entrance: https://www.allmusic.com/style/proto - punk - ma0000005021?1643784438355 The Guardian article "Green Day protest at AMA": https://www.theguardian.com/music/vid eo/2016/nov/21/green - day - protest - at - amas - no - trump - no - kkk - no - fascist - usa - video Los Angeles Times article "Jello Biafra on ‘Nazi Punks’ and hate speech": https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la - xpm - 2012 - aug - 09 - la - et - ms - jello - biafra - nazi - punks - hate - speech - 20120809 - story.html?fbclid=IwAR2K_j thWT0ujt8qtlbm - nmiwOQnxeitACaJcydkvSa5fiV48YlxCzCOgOs Archived website on zines: https://archive.ph/http://mobile.avclub.com/articles/with - zines - the - 90s - punk - scene - had - a - living - history,104206/?mobile=true&fbclid=IwAR2RnZKE0e_t0F2EwoGZW - y1OVKoAeOM_RZWfj6bJZMwIgl1HiH_gogT2Zg Flavorwire article "15 Ess ential Women Punk Icons": https://www.flavorwire.com/199630/15 - essential - women - punk - icons?fbclid=IwAR3fp 8CoWKl5FkkYXnXHcAIzVg4GhoFDrxQtWZIvqNilcHBxi8NKtv1Zuos Archived Ashgate article "The Lost Women of Rock Music": https://web.archive.org/web/20151127075127/http://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637& calcTitle=1&isbn=9780 754657736&lang=cy - GB Website on women in punk: http://www.punk77.co.uk/punkettes/features.htm