Quotations

“The punks ruined it, it became just another uniform.”

-Johnny Rotten, (1956 - ) “The Filfth and the Fury” (2000)

I never try and get caught up in a conversation over what punk is or what punk isn’t. To me, once you try and define it, you defeat the purpose. Whether it’s a music, an attitude, a style, when, where, and how it started, doesn’t matter. But if there were a unifying characteristic to punk ideology that I’d always admired, it was the unapologeticness of being ones self, individual self expression against the collective, any collective. Now “punk” itself is more about conformity, assimilating to a rigid set of rules established by a mob that can never be satisfied, like some religious cult. “Look like us, act like us, think like us, be like us.” That’s not what punk rock is to me, I don’t give a damn what type of music you listen to, how you dress, how many tattoos you have, how many shows you’ve been to, if it’s not a true expression of ones self, than who is it really for?