Refused.

[O Drones]

don't know where to begin re: that interview! Yuck!

I wouldn't buy so much as a pack of gum from Urban Outfitters if it was literally the last store on earth. Its sins are legion and I've never set foot in one and never will. What group has it not offended? East Indians, check. American Indians, check. Palestinians, check. Women, check. Jews, check and check and check... I think they've had no fewer than three "Auschwitz uniforms" on their shelves. Every time they say they didn't notice the similarity. Mm-hm. They scour every fucking nook and cranny of the globe for cultures and subcultures that they can dumb down, repackage, and sell to teenagers who don't know better. For me that place is like the nadir of society. You can't be less punk than Urban Outfitters.

So for the singer of what a lot of people consider to be a real punk band to espouse or even be indifferent to that shit is just anathema to me. I never liked Crass at all (as you can probably tell, I think punk began with two dudes named Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto in a city called Washington). But I respected their fans. And he just shit all over his fans, there. To characterize this group of devoted, awesome people whom he energized and inspired as "ripping him off" is just a slap in the face and frankly, if I was a Crass fan, I'd feel like I'd wasted a fuckload of time on them. Punk used to be about making shit, changing shit, doing shit, smashing shit, ANYTHING but going into an Urban fucking Outfitters store and paying $300 for a piece of shit jacket "decorated by hand" by Indonesian kids probably, when you could have gone to a thrift store or raided your dad's closet and decorated it yourself, in the process creating something and at no point selling your soul to some major corporation.

I'm not perfect. I drink Starbucks. I drive a car. I use an iPhone. I'm not saying that you should or could pull out of consumer culture, wholesale. But neither did I build my career on standing in opposition to those ideas and things. For Penny to say those things is just bullshit. He can say he's "spreading ideas" or whatever but I think anyone with half a brain can see he's got the dolla dolla billz on the brain and he's rationalizing why his band is now scarcely more than a marketing ploy. And you're right... I have no right to tell him how to live his life or oversee his music, but fucked if I have to give him so much as a dollar, and fucked if I have to listen to it.

If you don't stand for SOMETHING, you will fall for ANYTHING. Cliché? Sure, but obviously what happened to him, and what happened to Refused.

Refused were not just a punk band, they were THE punk band that broke up BECAUSE they had become too commodified. They were the band that dared to be "fucking dead." And as far as I'm concerned, that was self-fulfilling prophecy, because they're fucking dead to me. And that's my prerogative, I guess!

I like listening to bands who make music that means something not just to me, but to the musicians making it, and I like knowing that tomorrow they're not just gonna throw everything I loved out the window in a hateful display of enmity towards everyone who got them where they are...

Just my two cents...

I drank a lot of vermouth before i wrote this LOL

You do realise that Mackaye gave the go ahead for Minor Threat shirts to be sold in Urban Outfitters? http://pitchfork.com/news/51717-ian-mac ... at-shirts/

Also, Crass are 10000000 times more important and better than Refused and any other band that's like Refused.

[neonblack]

That makes me happy.

Can't wait for the response from casecandy.

[lordgalvar]

I will chime in a bit...I know people involved with Crass/Southern/o.g. anarcho stuff. I will do a full write up in a bit. It's more complicated than what Penny said or what influenced punk, etc. (I have actually written quite a bit about the current Penny interviews and their meanings combined with his current actions from Yes Sir I Will until now...let's just say I love everything that Crass did but there is quite a bit of bullshit going on). It's going to take a minute and I need to get food. I've been avoid this topic like the freaking plague, but I have to say something now.

I will say this quickly (and support later), punk never moves on....everytime something new is introduced, it just makes the whole thing bigger. Crass is still as important as they were in 1980. Discharge is still as important today as they were in 1985. Spazz is just as important as they were in 1995. This stuff is too regional and punk is always a nostalgic mass that it takes a long time to move on (and it usually doesn't). Shit, I still see bands trying to sound Cock Sparrer all over the damn place. I will get to the Refused too (noting that they are not even in the top 10 of good Swedish bands...but that is another story).

I'll add some more in a bit.

[D.o.S.]

Cock Sparrer

Great post but holy shit what a reference

Anyway, I think a lot of the people on ILF in general (including everyone posting in this thread) is more or less on the same page on the macro level. We're all into the buying local parts of the pedal community, a lot of us do DIY releases, I'm sure we've all played a house show and/or a squat or five thousand. I think it's safe to say we're all into the idea of musician controlled music that is interesting, new, and somewhat principled (i.e. none of us are trying to sell a billion records by being the next Nickelback). Where we differ, I think, is in the details.

This is turning into a very interesting thread. Props to all that are contributing to the discussion, no matter what side.

[casecandy]

A few responses to previous posts (too lazy to do all those quotes in BBCode)...

I know about Ian and the t-shirts. I said he started the kind of punk I like, but I didn't say he's not a huge tool. I knew it when I went to see The Evens in... I think... 2007. Yupp. I had nothing for him to sign. But then I realized I was wearing Chucks and, hey, canvas takes permanent marker well enough! "Sign my shoes Ian!" He looked at me stoneface and said, "Fuck no, I am not signing your shoes. I'll sign a handbill." So I got him to sign a handbill but knew in that second, he was a tool LOL

Second, I was JUST completely coming to terms with you not liking emo, D.o.S., and saying, "Ha! He's a different person that me, that's all. That's cool. It's just music, LOL"

And then you say you like Fugazi?!

HOW DO YOU LIKE FUGAZI AND NOT BRAND NEW AND THURSDAY ETC.?

That's like saying, "Yeah, I dig Black Sabbath but I don't really care for St. Vitus, Sleep, Electric Wizard, etc."

You like the band that (*with a handful of other bands) started the genre and the aesthetic but you don't like the genre itself... to me, Fugazi is like the stepping stone, the starting point, before bands like Refused and At The Drive In really properly started doing it up right

Anyway

Also I stand by what I said. In the immortal words of Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip, "Crass? Just a band." I'm just not into the classic punk stuff. I respect it a lot but that's kinda where I draw the line. I do like Dead Kennedys quite a bit, the first few Misfits records, but even Black Flag, meh

ANYWAY

Yes this is a very good conversation

[blindrabbit]

I like this thread!

[D.o.S.]

It's because Fugazi (and Minor Threat) are good, while Brand New and Thursday are not. A vast part of it has to do with the absence of whingy vocal performances screaming bad metaphors at me.

Also, what, sign your shoes?

[O Drones]

It's because Fugazi (and Minor Threat) are good, while Brand New and Thursday are not. A vast part of it has to do with the absence of whingy vocal performances screaming bad metaphors at me.

Also, what, sign your shoes?

This, basically. I honestly don't hear how Thursday and Brand New are even similar to Fugazi. Literally no one I know likes either, but almost every person I know who likes music loves Fugazi.

[neonblack]

I want to be a part of this conversation, but it's way more fun from the sidelines.

[christianatl]

[casecandy]

But Brand New's metaphors are not bad. They're extremely sophisticated. I'm an English teacher (fun fact) and have a college English degree and all that jazz, braggity-brag-brag-humble-brag, anyway, there are very few artists whose lyrics make as full and proper use of literary devices, including metaphors, that well, and most of those are hip-hop artists, anyway.

A few examples off the top of my head:

"They say that the captain stays fast with his ship
Through still and storm.
But this ain't the Dakota
And the water's... cold.
Won't have to fight for long."

The natural rhyme for "storm" ought to have been "warm," but the water isn't warm, it's cold, and you're going to drown in it. The break in flow in the rhyme scheme simulates the shock of entering the freezing water and drowning. These sorts of jarring breaks in expectation are a Jesse Lacey trademark. Elsewhere, we have the needle pulled off the record at the end of the acoustic ballad "Soco Amaretto Lime," simulating the abrupt ending of youth: the song mocks its own refrain, "We're gonna stay 18 forever."

In doing little things like this he makes the song itself a metaphor, which is a more holistic and compelling approach than simply using a metaphor in the lyrics (he also does this in spades; the shipwreck described above is a metaphor for losing a loved one).

I can think of other really good examples of this but in the interest of brevity, let's move on...

"Oh, we're so
C-c-c-c-c-c-controversial.
We are entirely smooth.
We admit to the truth, we are the best at what we do.
And these are the words you wish you wrote down.
This is the way you wish your voice sounds.
Handsome, and smart.
Oh, my tongue's the only muscle on my body that works harder than my heart.
And it's all from watching TV
And speeding up my breathing.
Wouldn't stop if I could.
Oh... it hurts to be this good."

That's the best self-parody I've ever heard on a rock record. They're sniping at their own involvement in the BN:TBS feud and no doubt at Jesse's well-documented shitty prima donna attitude. And yet, even though it's a joke, it drips swagger. Swagger like, "Miss You"-era Rolling Stones swagger. To accomplish two opposite goals with one verse (tearing yourself down/bragging yourself up) is beyond impressive in my books.

But my all-time favourite Brand New lyrics are actually back in the metaphor department, in "Jesus."

"Well, Jesus Christ, I'm alone again.
So... what did you do those three days you were dead?
Cos this problem's gonna last more than the weekend."

It's a bird... it's a plane... it's a self-deprecating joke, and yet it's deathly serious. Many have compared depression to a living death, but whereas saying something to the effect of "I might as well be dead" would be trite and maudlin, Jesse finds a way to infuse the sentiment with humour, and in doing so, masks with a joke what is clearly a cry for help, specifically, to be saved.

Anyway, just a few of my favourites. Another one, apropos of nothing, that impresses me, is where he delivers the following lines all at the same time using overdubs (kindof hard to convey in print but you can listen here).

"Out of cash and I owe you.
Out of cash and I've got you.
Out of cash and I've got desperate desires and unadmirable plans."

Pretty cool...

[neonblack]

viewtopic.php?f=150&t=46289

[casecandy]

I saw and read that thread, and commented on it, some time ago... good times... FYI I love AbsolutePunk and write for it once in a blue moon.

[neonblack]

I just meant that its probably a more appropriate place for that rant, haha.

[casecandy]

Ah, well, D.o.S. was saying they have bad metaphors.