I vividly remember being at church one night in 1995, probably a Wednesday, and seeing a poster on the wall with Christian music artists. The poster was one of those that said, “If you like X then you’ll like Y.” Since, over the previous year, I dove into punk rock with the explosion of Rancid, Green Day, Offspring, and NOFX, I immediately searched for … Read More Some of the Most Influential Albums from 1995! Part II
We all know that nostalgia is a hell of a drug, especially as we get older. In our progression towards succumbing to death, we constantly look backwards, finding comfort and solace in the past. Most of the time, we fail to interrogate that past, choosing instead to look at it through rose colored glasses, hoping to recapture some long lost reality that, in all … Read More Some of the Most Influential Albums from 1995! Part I
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been reading some books from the 33 1/3 series, specifically Nick Attfield’s on Dinosaur Jr.’s 1987 album You’re Living All Over Me and Michael Stewart Foley’s on Dead Kennedys’ 1980 album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. Each has been thoroughly engaging, and Attfield’s writing serves, in a lot ways, as a master class on writing about music while Foley’s does an … Read More The Political Power of Punk: Dead Kennedys’ “Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables”
+ dc comics, James Gunn, jerry siegel, joe shuster, nofx, punk, superhero, superman, Zulu
Even before James Gunn’s Superman debuted earlier this month, the right-wing, conservative backlash rose up to proclaim that Gunn’s adaptation didn’t adhere Superman’s ideology, calling it “Superwoke.” I do not want to argue about that here because I have written about Superman’s initial appearances before and how he has always pushed back against oppressive systems and championed immigrants. One need only look at Joe … Read More “Maybe that’s the real punk rock”: Hope and Humanity in James Gunn’s Superman
+ bikini kill, crass, eve libertine, heavens to betsy, kathleen hanna, riot grrrl, sexual assault, the muslims
When she started at Evergreen State College, Kathleen Hanna’s roommate Alle had a poster or the Crass’ Eve Libertine on the wall with some lyrics from “Bata Motel” (1981), a song that directly confronts society’s views of women and the stereotypical image that society projects upon women. The song begins with Libertine pointing out that at six or seven young girls gets asked, “What … Read More “What do little girls like to do?”: Confronting Sexual Violence and Sexual Assault in Punk
Interminable Rambling 