THEY BUILT THIS CITY FOR SOMEONE ELSE

I've lived in Vancouver, BC, since October of 1982.  I came here by way of Powell River after leaving my home town of Thunder Bay, ON, in August of 1982.  I remember coming into the downtown on a gray, rainy day, but for me, the city shone like the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz.  I was 19 years old, I'd just left home and this place seemed like it might have some possibilities for a young man just starting out on his own.  It's been my home ever since then and it has generally felt like home for most of that time, but the last few years have made it feel more like a place being built for someone else and not me.

I've noticed it primarily in the boom of construction which has erupted in the West End and across the city in the last few years.   So many towering luxury high rise apartment buildings are leaping up into the sky, it staggers the mind to think of all that real-estate propagating so quickly.  But I don't know who is going to live in all of these places.  I don't have any relationship with the people who are building these structures nor the people who will live in them.  I only know that I won't be one of them.  I'll never set foot in any of these places and I'll never know anybody who lives in them.  Somehow, I got left out of this new city.  It's not being built for me and it has no interest in me or my welfare, regardless of what I might have to offer. 

You might ask what makes me think this way and, to be honest, I'm not sure how I know this, but I am as sure of it as I am that the world is round (though even that has become debatable again, somehow).  What is certain is that I've been disconnected from the economy which is driving this construction and growth and there does not appear to be any means of interacting with it in such a way which would make it possible for me to even conceive of living a lifestyle which would include inhabiting one of these steel and glass stacks.  Whatever it takes to earn the kind of money that one needs to rent or own one of these homes is completely beyond the scope of my abilities.

I'm not at all certain of how I got to this position.  In fact, I was gainfully and relatively affluently employed for many years, but even then I was somehow not able to work myself into a position where accessing this level was possible.  Even when I was pulling a high five digits for my annual gross income, I was only ever able to indulge little beyond splashing out for a bit of takeout food and a few tech toys here and there.  I never owned a home or a vehicle and never had a family to support.  Yet I didn't even have enough to get my damn teeth fixed, something which now poses a serious health risk to me and also, aesthetically, means I can't present myself in public with any confidence, given that a gap-toothed, dingy yellow smile is nothing less than a stamp of impoverishment.  16 years working "professionally" still left me with no foothold by which I could maintain even a modest lifestyle.  

While I may not be in possession of formal accreditation in any field, I worked professionally in technology, including documentation, testing, design and implementation, long enough to merit those qualifications based on experience alone.   I am in possession of ample natural talents and acquired skills to enable me to perform exceptionally in many different fields and applications.  Yet, none of that bares any weight anymore and, going into application or interview processes, I can sense, intuitively, that I am automatically excluded from consideration the moment I present myself.  There is some factor involved which shuts the door to all avenues of potential for me.  The days when friends and family networked together to help each other secure employment seem to have vanished.  Even with social media, it seems that the process of using personal relationships to remain connected to society have broken down and ceased to function.

In some regard, I suspect my age, being over 50, has played a significant role in this.  My ongoing health issues may factor in as well, though they are neither obvious nor chronic enough to be apparent without actual knowledge of my medical history.  Whatever the case is, I'm certainly the "potato" that's fallen off the truck and there doesn't seem to be any way to get back on.  The city that is re-inventing itself before my eyes most definitely has no role for me to play in it.  This place is now a playground for the wealthy and nothing being built here is manifesting with any intent to create communities or social infrastructure. 

What we have is purely driven by economics.  It's about money and nothing more.  These places are investments, not homes.  They're tools for laundering illicit cash flows.  It's just a means to an end - busy work for the sake of "growth", but without any conscious goal where the lives and well-being of people are in mind.  When I walk around certain areas in the West End, particularly along Coal Harbor, there's a faint sense of emptiness as so many of these properties sit vacant, purchased by people who aren't there and may only show up once in a while, if at all.  These properties are no more than line items in a portfolio of assets.  No dramas will play out within their walls.  No events of lives lived will haunt their interiors.  Only the movements of soulless automatons calculating interest rates will disturb the dust as it settles in these lifeless abodes.  

This flurry of activity flies in the face of the looming ecological and climate crises which lurk at the threshold of the "day after tomorrow".  It's so close to landing on our heads, but the busy bees keep working, oblivious to the futility of their efforts.  I think of the "ghost" cities of China, built for no one.  They were driven by the myopic obsessions of hyper-capitalistic investments with no human condition perceived within their planning.  Money disconnected from benefits other than increase.  

I've lived in my building since 1986, nearly 33 years.  I've somehow managed to maintain my existence here by the skin of my teeth and through sheer force of will.  I dangle on a precipice, only needing the occurrence of a property sale to trigger the "renoviction" process which has consumed so many low income residents in the past few years.  I'm in a prime location for something like that to happen.  I've seen building after building torn down across this city only to be replaced by greater, grander structures with price tags exponentially higher than what was there before.  None of this is meant for so-called "regular" people.  Only those of extreme affluence are welcome here and I don't know them at all.  I don't know who who they are, I don't know what they want, I don't know where they think they're going with all of this.   

It's like aliens have landed and taken over.  They have no interest in our existence.  We are a mere inconvenience to them.  We will be eliminated in time.  So I hang on to what little I have left until I can do no more.

BELIEF IS FOR THE BIRDS - BIRD BOX ANALYSIS

A while back, I watched the Netflix film, Bird Box, and wrote out a few thoughts.  This is less a review and more an analysis of the themes and symbolism used in the film.

There was a lot of chatter about this movie when it was released and I can see why.  It's one of those films which is just vague enough to illicit speculation and varying interpretation while giving enough specifics to ground it in experiences that anyone can relate to.  Personally, there were some things about it that I found a bit frustrating as someone who generally likes to know what's going on and why. Also, the practical logistics of all this suggest some massive plot holes in terms of how anyone could survive this scenario at all.  However, when you're dealing with allegories, sometimes its best to put practical considerations aside and deal with what's being presented with a certain suspension of disbelief.

Allegory is certainly what this presents the viewer, but which allegory is where interpretation may vary as I can see a few possibilities cropping up.  I saw some comments before watching this which theorized it's about racism, so I went into it looking for those references, but honestly, I don't know if that's really very pertinent to this tale.  For me, the most obvious conclusion to draw from this story is that "ignorance is bliss", given that the main contention here is that what you don't see can't hurt you.  From there, I suppose the question is, what could one ignore to the point where it would be advantageous to one's survival?

In the film, "seeing is believing" takes on a new meaning as each individual goes through their own reaction, though these reactions tend to break down into two main variations. Either one becomes suicidal and self destructive or one becomes a "convert" to whatever this menace is and attempts to ensure everyone around them is exposed to it as well. The "converts" seem to be able to continue to function in the world in some sense while the others seek nothing beyond immediate and irreversible annihilation. What's left are those few who remain ignorant or unexposed as long as they don't see what's in front of them.

When I consider the symbolism, I can't help but see a connection to the current political climate, particularly in the US.  People who get wrapped up in the madness either feel hopeless and helpless or they become part of it and try to encourage it. Those who refuse to get absorbed by it seem few and far between, but maybe they're the ones who are best off. I don't know. This idea that being blind to something can protect you from it seems counter-intuitive to me.

Since watching it, the interpretations I've come across have focused on Mallory and how the story is about her connecting with people again after starting off as an isolated, detached character afraid to love or commit to relationships. I'm not so sure that's the real point of what's going on here either.  I don't know how the act of cutting off perception of the world around you is supposed to help bring people together.  I've always felt that the opposite of that was true.

I guess where that leaves me is confused as to the moral of the story given that we never find a way to exist in this world without being restricted in a very major way. Though the main character finds herself discovering her ability to care about others and create relationships, she's still trapped in a world where exposure to it leads to destructive and devastating consequences. It's a place where, ultimately, the people who are most adapted to it are those without the ability to perceive it. Truly a case of "the blind leading the blind".

After considering it for a day or two, however, I finally hit on something that made sense to me.  The key is looking at the basic metaphysics involved here and the question of whether what's happening is "natural" or "supernatural".  The answer to that, for me, is obviously the latter.  This is not some virus or man made contagion or invasion.  This is some kind of divine judgement.  This is what happens when humanity sees that there is no "God".  

Most people can't deal with it and, faced with an indifferent, uncaring universe, implode and self destruct.  Some, the "atheists", embrace it and want everyone to see what they see.  They go around trying to make everyone look at what they see.  The "monster", for them, is beautiful and they're shown as godless heathens.  The "believers" that remain spend the movie trying not to see the "truth".  They end up trying to survive in an isolated enclave run by "blind" people, those who are incapable of seeing the truth of a godless universe and continue to live in ignorance. They survive by ignoring the evidence of their senses and clinging to their belief.

This is what religion offers.  It's an excuse to keep your eyes closed and not see the vast indifference of the universe and how it swallows us up in its enormity.  Those who embrace this knowledge are characterized as fanatics and insane, when the reality is that the believers are really the ones who are locked away from understanding reality.  Ultimately, this film is an endorsement of ignorance as a means of security and safety.  It tells the viewer that seeing is a curse and that blindness is a blessing. 

DON'T BRING ME DOWN - THE VEIL OF DEPRESSION

 

I've lived with periodic depression, to varying degrees, most of my adult life.  There are times when I've wondered whether or not it was "clinical".  Recently, I requested a referral from my doctor to a psychiatrist to see if that might be the case.  After two sessions with him, he concluded that I did not appear to be suffering from any particular pathology and that I would likely benefit more from counseling rather than medication.  The premise here is that my emotional state is based on my world view and that by changing my perspective, I could alleviate my symptoms.  Thinking about this, however, I began to wonder why the onus was on me to change my attitude and why my environment and the world around me had no role to play.  Why is it so unreasonable to think that the world really does suck?   Why wouldn't this be a fair justification for someone to feel depressed?  Why am I not allowed to feel negatively when the world around me is in a tailspin, hurtling into an abyss of annihilation and catastrophe? 

Depression has recently become perceived as a symptom of mental illness or else the result of simply having a poor attitude towards the world around you.  I never see any health professionals cop to the idea that maybe things in the world really are awful and that responding with negative emotions is actually a healthy reaction to an untenable situation.  We're always being told that we must have a "positive attitude" towards life, yet my direct experience of it is that this approach is more likely to create psychological discord than responding honestly with anger, frustration or disappointment when surrounded by situations where injustice, inequity, cruelty and criminality are the order of the day.  

I feel like I've been mourning the death of the world ever since I was old enough to perceive the fatal trajectory upon which humanity had thrust itself.  Nothing that I've seen around me during that time has done anything to assuage this perception that we are all plunging at terminal velocity towards an impact which will leave us with no out.  For nearly 40 years now, I've borne witness to one atrocity after another, stacked upon a mountain of madness laid down long before I ever existed.  

I can remember quite distinctly a day when I was no more than 13 when I was suddenly overcome with this sort of grief at the realization of the hopelessness of humanity.  It was the quintessential "existential crisis".  The Buddhists refer to this as the "trance of sorrow" and see it as a first stage of enlightenment.   But it also ties in with the classic description of the "five stages of grief"; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  When I look back over my life, what I see is myself going through each of these stages as I've matured and aged.  

What I've also realized about these "stages" is that they don't occur like people think, as discrete steps where one goes through each and then leaves it behind for the next.  It's not like passing through a series of rooms where each response remains distinct and separate.  It occurs to me that it is much more like the building up of layers, like when sediment settles at the bottom of a river or lake.  You don't move beyond these reactions, they just get buried under the next.  My anger is still present, but it's hidden under the layers of bargaining and depression that have built up over top.  

In my youth, I struggled against the inevitable finality looming off in the distance.  I latched on to idealism and fantasies of a future where technology and science would solve our problems and propel us to the stars.  Then, the angry young man took over, rebelling and bucking against the restraints of the society of which I was a part.  Eventually, I became a part of that system and tried to work within it.  Through years of pursuing a career and achieving some success, I felt like I could work out some kind of a deal.  As I began to slip into greater maturity and dealt with losing my career and my health, the depression took hold and drove me down into the depths of despair.  Now I face the inevitability of this doom and feel the sediment of acceptance, or rather, resignation, building up the final layer.  

Yet I'm supposed to "think positively" and be optimistic about tomorrow.  Despite the visions of doom and destruction that lurk in my mind and parade themselves across every vista I observe, I'm supposed to pretend they don't exist and that it's all going to work out somehow.  That is what is considered "mental health".  To me, it feels like delusion and self deception.  In my core, I know that this approach is a lie and the kind of stupidity which lays at the root of the cancer growing within our species.  I'm supposed to pat down that top layer of "acceptance" and smile while the weight of it crushes me, but what I want to do is dig up that dirt and uncover my rage and my denial again.  I want to rail against this acceptance.  I want to scream out my refusal to give in to this hopelessness.  

I don't want to feel good about this world because this world is a disaster and a crime scene and it needs to be called out for its abuses.  I don't want my emotions to be a deception or a mask covering up the truth of my existence.  I want to face it honestly and truthfully.  If I'm feeling depressed, it's not just because of some chemical imbalance or unfounded attitude.  It's because I'm seeing the sadness that surrounds me and I'm responding to it in the way which nature intended.  If there's even a slight hope of escaping this nightmare, it will only happen because people truly become horrified by what they're witnessing and are no longer willing to "accept" it. 

We shouldn't be asked to tolerate this.  We shouldn't have demands placed on us to be "positive" in the face of the desecration being perpetrated against this wonderful, beautiful planet and all the amazing life that resides on it.  We should feel awful about it and express those feelings. And if that makes some people uncomfortable, GOOD!  They should be.

IS MUSIC A DEAD ART?

 

Let's begin by defining what I mean by the term "dead art". In essence I'm referring to an art form which is no longer capable of significant technical or conceptual progress and no longer has the capacity to instigate change on a cultural level. An example of what I would consider a "dead" art would be painting, at least in the sense of something hanging in a traditional gallery somewhere. Perhaps it can be said that certain forms of graffiti still manage to trigger controversy and commentary. A practitioner such as Banksy is an example of someone able to inspire discussion and make political statements through their art. Street art aside, I don't see anything happening in that particular branch of the visual arts world which is likely to cause much of a stir or inspire anything to happen beyond its canvases. At most, paintings now simply decorate a room.  Perhaps the work of Warhol may have been the last time paintings had any particular impact on the larger cultural landscape other than, for example, soliciting outrage at the expense of a "stripe" on a canvas.  

I"m old enough to have experienced at least three major cultural shifts within my lifetime which I can say were, more or less, directly linked to a particular musical movement. In my childhood, the late 1960s, there was the psychedelic explosion. Though the primary impetus for that change was a narcotic, specifically LSD, its route through western culture was entirely paved by music. It was rock & roll bands who were sounding the clarion call and it was songs about altered perception which seduced the youth of the era into "tuning in, turning on & dropping out". Without bands like The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead and others, the word would never have been able to reach as many people as it did.

In my adolescence during the late 1970s, it was the three headed Cerberus of "punk", "new wave" & "industrial" music which broke kids out of their doldrums and got them thinking, dressing and behaving in new ways.  It was a rebellion against the status quo and conformity which had set in after the comedown of the hippies left their parents dropping the love beads and packing up the station-wagons that drove them out into the bland mediocrity of the suburban landscape.  

In the spring of my adulthood, the final revolution came about through the entwined twins of hip-hop/rap music and electronic rave culture spearheaded by acid house and techno music in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  Starting in the early 1980s, before the cancerous spread of gentrification and rising property costs, the warehouse was the scene where exploration and experimentation could happen.  You could get a cheap space for a couple hundred or less per month and pay for it by selling unlicensed booze at weekend parties a few times a month.  Designer drugs, mobile sound systems, isolated locations and trance inducing music sent youth back into tribal states of ecstasy and transcendence. Though a callback to the spirit of the 1960s in the case of the rave scene, the hip-hop crowd veered into the raw street rage of gangster culture.  It shone a glaring light on issues such as police brutality, racism, class discrimination, poverty and injustice.  In either case, it was again a time when adults were afraid of what their kids were getting into.     

Outside of my own personal experience, music as a driver of cultural influence practically only goes back to roughly the beginning of the 20th century.  Before that, you only had folk and traditional music available to the general public and those forms tended to reinforce and sustain existing norms rather than drive changes to them.  On the other extreme, with "classical" music, you might have some influence within the upper crust of society, but very little beyond it.  Religious music, like folk music, tended to sustain tradition rather than spur innovation.  It's not until the advent of recording technology that the idea of true "popular" music comes into play as the populace gain access to mass produced music mediums and playback systems accompanied by radio broadcasts.  Also, the push to innovate, driven by the industrial revolution and its technological advances, begins to trigger changes in music technology and techniques, and consequently, culture.  

The first popular music form to trigger controversy in the general public comes with the birth of jazz.  Elitist art movements like the Futurists and Dadaists may have inspired extreme experimentation with sound, but it was not something that noticeably effected the masses and remained a novelty of the galleries and wealthy art circles.  Jazz, on the other hand, came up from the black communities and was entirely driven by the "grass" roots (pun intended).  This was music that was accessible by the average person and was one of the first times music was seen as being a degenerate influence on youth.  It impacting dress styles, dance, sexuality and social issues.  The ideas of losing one's inhibitions and free expression were built into the very DNA of jazz and these have been a recurring theme throughout every musical epiphany and paradigm shift which has occurred since. 

In the 1950s, there was the birth of that great BEAST, rock and roll.  Here was a hybrid between white western swing music and black boogie-woogie blues with a backbone borrowed directly from native American aboriginal music, thanks to the Creole merger of Louisiana post-slavery blacks and "Indian" blood.  This combination proved combustible beyond anyone's imagination and sent the entire north American continent into a spin, one which would ultimately bust out onto the world stage and influence youth around the globe, from Europe to Africa to Asia.  Rock & roll was the proverbial "Pandora's Box" and, once that lid was open, all manner of wicked spirits flew out.

When you line all of these movements up, you have a 20th century popular culture which was continuously and repeatedly impacted and influenced by musical movements.  In each case, these changes were derided  and dismissed by conservative, "adult" overseers as subversive, perverted and destructive to the moral fiber of the youth and the nation.  There was a sense of threat and menace perceived by the "powers that be" which drove them to do whatever they could to stifle and inhibit the spread of these movements and, without exception, those efforts not only failed, but likely resulted in even more popularity for whatever it was they were trying to stop.  

Throughout the 20th century, there was also a marked and obvious change in the styles, techniques and technologies used to create music.  Something that was popular in the 1950s sounds completely different from something popular in the 1960s.  Take any decade or even the span of a few years and a major evolution could take place.  Anyone with even a basic familiarity with 20th century popular music can listen to virtually any tune and peg, fairly accurately, when it was made.  The style of playing, the recording techniques, the way it was mixed - all these clues tell the tale of when that recording was made and often where and by whom.  

Flash forward to the 21st century and things seem to have reached a kind of impasse in terms of forward momentum and cultural significance.  Since the 1990s, I can't think of any significant cultural shift which has been driven by music.  Technological changes such as computers, internet, smart phones and wireless networks have had far greater impact on our lives than any art form.  The machinery of the popular media has become so efficient at assimilating creative product, that nothing seems to be able to upset the cultural "apple cart" these days. 

Stylistically and technically, music has essentially plateaued.  We're two decades into the new millennium and I can put on a recording from 1995 and put it next to something form 2015 and only the most sophisticated, knowledgeable listener would be able to distinguish their origins.  For several decades, beginning with the unfortunately termed "Krautrock" of the early 1970s, electronic music was at the forefront of innovation and experimentation.  From the "motorik" rhythms of Kraftwerk and Neu to the ambience of Cluster & Eno to the pulsing sequencers of Tangerine Dream, the German music scene blasted the lid off and broke away from the rigidity of American blues archetypes.  After this, experimentation flew off in all directions through post punk, industrial, techno and a plethora of sub-genres, constantly evolving throughout the 1980s and 1990s.  But it all kind of stalled out after that.  Beyond the shifting of tempos between drum & bass and dubstep, the genres seemed to stabilize and consolidate and, with only minor variations since, they've remained relatively constant and consistent.

Culturally, no one gets upset about what a music personality does these days except for the most trivial and sensational issues of bizarre conduct or eccentric individual behavior.  Today, when Kanye West stirs up the media, it's because he's boasting about himself or proposing some laughable indulgence.  The days when politicians would discuss a Johnny Rotten in parliament or a president would put a John Lennon on a subversives list are long gone.  Rap music is more concerned with money and status these days than social justice, for the most part.  At least that's the kind of content that ends up in greatest rotation and gains the highest profile.  And those who do seek to make critical statements are commodified to the point where they are no threat to anyone in the establishment.  They are all neatly and safely packaged and peddled to the appropriate pauper for consumption.  

It seems that most art forms go through a similar arc in terms of their evolution.  They begin in primitivism, as an expression of the masses, evolve into more refined, classical complexity in the hands of the elite and then expand into more experimental realms such as abstractionism, surrealism, modernism and impressionism before ultimately culminating in various forms of post-modernism, which creates hybrids between all of these various branches.  Once you get to the stage of post-modernism, works tend to become self-referential and the commentary becomes an internal dialogue.  That point where the art is able to interact with and influence people and culture on a large scale begins to diminish and disappear.  The medium then tends to fade into the background as mere decoration or embellishment. 

This is where we seem to have arrived at in terms of the art of music.  It now seems to be no more than a structural component rather than something that stands on its own.  People spend less and less time sitting down and listening to music anymore or taking any kind of message or influence from it.  It's mostly just something that's happening in the background. It's no more than a form of "wallpaper" or distraction and not a primary focus of attention.  It's not that that there's anything intrinsically wrong with that, but for someone who grew up with music that made revolutions, I can't help but express a sort of lamentation for the loss of that capability.  Parents don't get scared by their kids records anymore.  Sure, they may not like them or find them objectionable for aesthetic reasons, but they rarely worry that their kids might join some subversive movement because of whatever is hiding in those grooves.  Even that terminology is irrelevant now as most people don't use physical media anymore except as a fetishized object for some hipster sense of nostalgia.

It's not that no one is doing "good" music.  As subjective as that may sound, there are very real standards which can provide a sense of value and quality for any piece of music.  Talented artists are creating quality recordings and performances.  It's just that the sense of a sharp, cutting edge has gone.  I can't look out there anywhere and find anything that gives me that quiver in my gut feeling that something "dangerous" is going on. 

If there is any art form remaining which can get the hackles up of the establishment, I'm not sure I know what it is or where to find it.  I suppose the most dangerous, subversive medium on the planet these days is the dark web, but this is more a place of criminals and perverts than revolutionaries.  If they do exist there, they're doing a pretty shitty job of pulling the pins on this nightmare we're all trapped in.  At a time when we are staring down the barrel of extinction level global catastrophes, we need that revolutionary voice now more than ever.  We need something that can wake us out of this zombie like trance that keeps us lumbering ever closer to the precipice awaiting our final stumble.  If it's out there, I have yet to see it. 

POP DOES PUNK - IGGY'S FOUR STEPS TO CREDIBILITY

The following reviews were originally posted on my Facebook timeline, but I figure they're a significant enough bit of writing to warrant a more permanent placement here on this blog. As I've been editing and reading through these, I've done a bit of work to fill things out and fix up some things that may have been fine for social media, but don't really cut it for this context.

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I recently watched the new Iggy Pop produced 4 part docu-series, PUNK. Watching it brought me back through a lot of the music of my youth, which inspired me to write down a few thoughts.

The first episode starts things off by covering the genre's American roots in Detroit with bands like The MC5 and The Stooges before moving over to the east coast to The New York Dolls. These bands set the stage in the late '60s & early '70s by breaking away from the fuzzy freakishness of the hippie era and delving into something much more dark and primal. Among the three of them, you have the Stooges bringing the rawness and simplicity that would be the foundation of the sound, the MC5 laying down some political awareness and the Dolls bringing in a warped sense of fashion and outrage. Pretty much the perfect building blocks of what was to come.

From there, we move into the CBGB's scene with artists like Ramones, Blondie, Wayne/Jane County and Richard Hell. There's a few references to The Dead Boys and Dictators as well, but, disappointingly, no mention of Suicide, Talking Heads or Patti Smith. This, unfortunately, leaves a few noticeable holes in the narrative, but what they do cover is dealt with well enough. The interviews are generally very informative and give a solid sense of the evolution of the scene.

This first part culminates with the failed attempt to revitalize The New York Dolls by Malcolm McLaren and ends with him hightailing it back to London to try to put a band together utilizing the scruffy boys hanging about in front of his clothes shop. Obviously, they're building the bridge to the second episode by showing the migration of influence from New York to London. I suspect the producers are trying to show a chain of causality from one scene to another and, indeed, there is some lingering controversy in terms of who influenced who and who originated "punk". And though it can be said that NY/US scenes came first, there's something else I got from all of this laying of groundwork.

You can see how the scene in NY was so much a case of a lot of fuel piling up, but no spark to ignite it all. All this stuff was going nowhere by the mid 70s and this is stated as much in the first episode. It was only known by a small group of local hipsters and had no national presence. If it had ended there, if there had been nothing happening in London, I suspect we would never have heard of bands like Ramones or many of their contemporaries and people like Pop and the Dolls would have been no more than mere footnotes in the history of rock & roll. There just wasn't any "buzz" to drive a national, let alone global, awakening towards this music. It's not until the Sex Pistols come along and capture the attention of the global mass media that the match is put to the woodpile and the flames really go up.

This brings us to the second episode, which puts the focus pretty heavily on the Sex Pistols, as expected. However before that, there is a wonderful bit that deals with the role of women in punk and that was a real treat. The Slits were the main focus, which featured interviews with founding members Palmolive and Viv Albertine, who both offered unique insights into their involvement and evolution within the scene.

As an aside, I must add that it's surprising how many people didn't get interviewed for this, but I suppose you get who you can in this sort of production. The Damned and the Clash also feature significantly with Dave Vanian offering some perceptive contributions, but only having Terry Chimes representing The Clash was a bit disappointing. He was never a particularly significant member and didn't frankly care much about the politics or the deeper themes the band were known for. Either Paul Simonon or Mick Jones would have had a much better understanding of the band and their impact.

However, as I said, this second installment was very much the Sex Pistols show and with good reason. It's hard to comprehend how weird it was for a band like the Pistols to create such a media frenzy. Not that we aren't saturated with sensationalism now, but to have it driven by a bunch of guys with guitars is nothing short of surreal. Nobody really cares about musicians these days. Sure, you've got people like Kanye driving tabloid sales, but it's all no more than a trash fashion fixation and not that sense that the world has been seized by the "anti-Christ", which was a very real perception of Johnny Rotten in some circles. The fact that this little band could spend a week in America at the beginning of 1978 and upend the music industry in the process is rather inexplicable and unprecedented. That crazy little tour made "punk" a household word. John Lydon does most of the talking for this particular piece of the punk puzzle and, while he can come off as rather arrogant in some instances, more often than not, the points he's making are quite valid, if you take the time to look at things objectively. And while this second episode didn't have quite the narrative cohesion of the first, it did eventually work its way into the death throws that were the Pistols breakup and Sid's self destruction, which wrapped it up with a tidy, though bloody, bow.

Episode three shifts the focus back across the Atlantic and to the US scenes again, starting in NY, moving to DC and finally LA, with a welcome aside to good ol' VANCOUVER! I was very happy to see DOA feature so prominently and deservedly for their pioneering work establishing touring resources and routes for many other bands to put to use in those days. We also have representation from groups like Bad Brains, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys and a few others. However, this is the part of the story where my interest drops away pretty steeply as the emphasis on violent male aggression becomes the primary calling card of the day and leads far too quickly into the whole "skinhead" and white supremacy cultures.

This is the slippery slope you slide down when you are perceived as an excuse to kick heads instead of kicking ass. It is clear to me that people like Henry Rollins and Jello Biafra are true intellectuals who are capable of understanding and insight and I love hearing their perspectives, but I can't help but express some kind of frustration and disparagement for the way that what they did paved the way for Doc Martin wearing racist thugs to give voice to their hatred. I don't want to put this all at their feet, but some of it has to land there given the types of crowds they attracted.

But I also can't point the finger only at the punks for allowing this faction into the fold. The Industrial and Neo Folk scenes are just as guilty of inviting this sort of rubbish along for the ride as anyone else. Shock tactics, violence and extremism offer ways to jolt people out of their complacency, but they're a double edged sword and people are often too seduced by their sadistic impulses into treating these things as sensational ends in themselves rather than a means to alerting people of the dangers of herd conformity and ignorance.

It becomes destruction for its own sake, but the true spirit that started this movement was about breaking down walls and restrictions in order to move forward. This is why the majority of the originators of the sound moved on to more experimental and investigative approaches after the initial rush of nihilism had blasted a path clear into something new. But those who chose to stay in the rubble and keep smashing at the fragments only managed to dig themselves into a hole of brutish self destruction. You can't simply be content with that one act of rebellion. You have to be able, and willing, to build once you've knocked something down.

The fourth and final episode brings things home by starting in the early 90s with the shift from "hardcore" to "grunge" and then examines its infiltration into the mainstream music industry and finally wraps up with the decimation of the industry caused by the internet and pirating. Again, we have a much welcome section at the start which looks at the significant role of women as the grunge scene counteracted against their seeming exclusion by the often misogynistic hardcore culture. These forays into the feminine contribution, while welcome, also serve to highlight how desperately we need a documentary series that focuses on the ladies and their contributions to alternative music. I'll put it out there to the universe that someone like Patti Smith needs to do a take on this.

The overarching theme to this finale, however, comes down to that fine line between art and commerce, for as much as "punk" wants to be rebellious, it also wants to succeed. If the Ramones had been able to crack the marketplace the way Green Day did, they would have been thrilled for it. They ALWAYS fancied their songs as hit singles. You can't tell me they wouldn't have been on cloud 9 if they'd had a hit like Dookie. The fact that their songs eventually became iconic, finding eternal life as sports anthems and the like, only means they were right about the accessibility of what they were doing. Their timing was simply off.

Success can also be a curse, however. Fame is often poison for the soul. Popularity creates a kind of insulation around a person where they're suddenly surrounded by parasitic "yes men". Once that happens, reality warps into some distorted fantasy supported by people who will never tell you the truth or say "no" to whatever you ask for. As is pointed out, when "cool" things become popular, they lose their "coolness". It's a challenging balancing act to be progressive without being trendy. It's the difference between those who are true seekers on the edge of experience vs those who merely seek validation for the act of being ahead of the curve when they really have no understanding of why that has any value in the first place. Are you cutting a new path or just sweeping up the discards of those who have trodden one that's already well worn?

Beyond this, there is this essence of wanting to break free. I've seen it repeat itself the past 50 years, over and over again. Whenever there's an awakening to the realities of oppression and restraint and a desire to break free, this spirit crops up again.  Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam, is a wonderful documentary that gives an excellent example of this process happening in the Arab/Islamic world and shows how intrinsic it is to human nature.  I think, as long as there's someone trying to keep a lid on the human spirit, there's gonna be some kids somewhere who are going to pick up a guitar or a synth or a microphone and say "fuck your bullshit". It'll take new forms, but that desire to smash through the walls will always find some expression somehow.

All together, I think this series does a pretty commendable job of showing the origins, evolution, history and future potential of what has become (sometimes regretfully) labeled as "Punk" rock.  It gives us a clear insight into an elemental aspect of human nature unique to the 20th and 21st centuries.  It's something which is a response to our industrialized, technological civilization which, on the one hand, seeks to advance humanity while, simultaneously and conversely,  trying to stifle it and force it to conform to a kind of artificial homo-geniality which is contrary to its basic nature and therefore inspires rebellion and protest.