The Bronx Saves Punk Rock

(More retroblogging here. This was from sometime in February destined to be posted on Distracted by Movement, but I just didn't post it. But now you kids get to read it here!)

Sometimes, punk is a hilarious and great genre of music. People claw and get mad whenever a band "sells out" or sounds like crap...which is pretty much determined by the fact that they sold out. In short, it's created a mess of a genre. Any band that sounds like old school punk is readily ignored, because old school punk is terribly crafted music. And pop-punk is plain annoying. But somehow, "hard punk" with pop sensibilities (i.e. catchy choruses and such mixed in with vocals that don't sound like a man's pants are on too tight) is exactly the perfect recipe to save the genre. The Clash, The Ramones, and etc. were poppy bands that managed to sort of rock while they also talked about rocking the casbah, blitzkrieg bopping, and being sedated.

But maybe one band called The Bronx figured out that silly simple rock is exactly what the genre needs. Now when someone says a band is simple, it's usually pejorative. They're trying to slam the band for making songs that are skin deep, that mean nothing deep in any sort of sense. And admittedly, nothing The Bronx talks about in a band is anything I can really legitimately relate to or are about anything particularly deep, not even the desire to kill one's friends is a sentiment that's really deep in any way, shape, or form.

But that's exactly what punk rock at its core should be. When Johnny Rotten acted like a blooming idiot in 1977, all while his bandmates praised the awesomeness of anarchy and even with the awareness that they really hated the Queen, they still were pretty intellectually voided. Even when Johnny Rotten made up for it with the inventive Public Image Ltd. later on, none of the Sex Pistols' sentiments were deep. No, they were simplistic, they had no subtext to them. They liked anarchy and hated the Queen of England. They wanted to be crazy and stupid and overthrow authority.

While I can't say The Bronx is all about anarchy, they relish in being "not deep." They are about laughing about silly things and laughing at the silly people in their silly town of Los Angeles because they can. Now you may say, "Isn't that like every other punk band?" Well, yeah. I guess so, in a way. Except Against Me's now being concerned about war, Green Day's being purely retarded about war, and most of The Bronx's contemporaries aren't nearly as charming at being stupid. They know how to play instruments, and they know how to hate a record label, and they sip cigars and smoke wine.

The band has released three full length albums, with only the second being a dalliance with a major label. (And while I don't believe that major labels always make a band suck, The Bronx (II) isn't as good as the other two. So maybe there's truth to this, in a way.) The first and the third record are almost complete soundalikes, which is also usually a pejorative comparison. But once again, this is exactly how it should sound. They should be a perfectly fine hour-long punk song that has very brief stopgaps. Almost all of the songs should be three minute blasts that bring on the same sort of subject matter, whether it be insecurity and anger on Bronx (I) or insecurity and anger on Bronx (III). The only difference between the first and the third record has to be that the third record is a huge rant on the music industry. "Digital Leash" from Bronx (III) doubles as a massive apology to those who hated the second record and as a great rockin' album closer that inexplicably has two minutes of silence on its end.

A Piece I Wrote Months Ago.

(Context: This was planned by me to be submitted to my local campus' newspaper around mid-October of 2008. This was weeks before the historic election, and so on and so forth.)

"Continual prejudice enshrouds American life"

On October 15, 2008, a group of vandals ransacked 200 copies of this fine newspaper by changing a column title from “Obama fans rally at Gorgas” to “Obama fags rally at Gorgas.” They did this to send out a clear message: that they thought changing an "n" to a "g" was hilarious and that they associate emasculation and the "alternative lifestyle" with Presidential candidate Barack Obama as opposed to the manliness and steady power of Senator McCain. Of course, that's what they intended to do.

Instead, they more or less made a statement about the silly bravado of American culture. For a country so dedicated to saying that we are united and that the 300 million of us can take on anything in the world, we seem to deeply hate each other more often than not. America has struggled through a political season filled with pure vitriol of the views, decisions, and ultimately, the followers of the other candidate. Everyone seems to be in the spirit of hatred of their fellow man merely for supporting two people that they feel should lead the country. This is not even getting into the vast topic of prejudice and how much the country seems to give a care about others' sexual orientation. Does it just look silly if our brawn is sullied by another's choice, or must it be about the muscle-headed nature of the people of this country?

Worse yet, these ingrates also re-affirmed the misguided stance of the South's prejudice towards other kinds of people. While it doesn't seem as worse as say the past century or so on the surface, there's still a black eye given to any concept of even being close to gay, especially among males. The word "fag" (regardless of intention oftentimes) is meant to sting the person in public, like the phrases "geek," "goth," "nerd," or "spaz." And to say that the state is the most tolerant state of other lifestyles is ridiculous, as anti-Christian culture is often immediately classified as "devilish" and homosexuality considered a sin, despite the fact that the same hallowed book offers up the point to "judge not, lest ye be judged."

The South and America reach the fun paradox that keeps the country focused despite our own self-hatred: we are too stubborn to change, even when that change is probably the correct choice. America simply never wants change, and it makes no bones about this. Lack of change could be as small as not wanting to convert to the metric system or as big as thinking that white people and black people should have separate bathrooms, and prejudice be damned on any need to change as a region or as a country because it's the "right thing to do" or because it's the proper thing to do. Keeping a steady path does not always lead to a good end.

Ultimately, what October 15th's incident displayed is the continual ugliness of American culture. This is not to say that our country (and to a lesser extent the South) is entirely filled with bigots, sexists, and generally horrible people, but that those people actually exist. An obvious statement to make, yes, but one that at the wrong times everyone seems to be depressingly oblivious to seeing.