IGGY POP - NEW VALUES @ 45

 

Released in July of 1979, Iggy Pop's third solo studio LP, New Values, turns 45 years old this month. After a duo of relatively successful "come back" albums produced by David Bowie during his "Berlin" era in 1977 (The Idiot & Lust for Life), Iggy opted to work with former Stooges collaborator, James Williamson, as producer for New Values. Iggy had last worked with Williamson on the Kill City album, which was an attempt to revive the Stooges that kinda burned out before it could really catch fire, albeit it has since become a cult favourite in Pops catalogue. Though Williamson was previously known for his guitar work, that job would predominantly land in the hands of former Stooges piano player, Scott Thurston. Both Williamson and Thurston would contribute to the songwriting on the album. Their collective efforts would result in an album that won a lot of critical praise, but its commercial appeal lagged behind what Pop had achieved with his two Bowie produced prior LPs.

New Values was my gateway into the world of Iggy Pop, thanks to seeing the videos for I'm Bored and Five Foot One on The Midnight Special. Those were enough to get me to pick up the album, and once I did, I was further psyched by its ferocious title track, which remains one of my all time favourite Songs by Iggy. With its blistering guitar riff and ambivalent lyrics, it was perfectly apropos of the era's burgeoning "Gen X" sense of disconnection with the morals and priorities of a world that was about to dive head-first into a decade of "Reaganism" inspired greed and sociopathy.

IGGY AND THE STOOGES - RAW POWER @ 50

 

Released on February 7th, 1973, Raw Power by Iggy and the Stooges is celebrating half a century on the shelves today. Despite struggles to get a proper mix of the album, it continues to stand as one of the most ferocious proto-punk albums of all time. It’s fierceness and savage intensity have made it a high water mark for aggressive rock & roll and kept it as a template for bands who aspire to ascend to its brutal heights.

By 1972, The Stooges were in a shambles. With their first two LPs failing to garner any serious record sales, the group had fallen into despair and substance abuse, with Iggy slipping deeper and deeper into his heroine addiction. The group had functionally ceased to exist and Iggy had gone off to London to try to dry out under the wing of David Bowie. Bowie had long been a fan of Iggy’s and was appreciative of the Stooges’ song writing abilities, far more than most of Pop’s peers of the time. While in London, Iggy was planning on working with guitarist James Williamson, who had handled second guitar duties on the last Stooges tour, and Pop had even negotiated a solo record deal with CBS. As he and Williamson began to try to get the ball rolling in the UK, they soon found themselves struggling to put together an acceptable rhythm section from the local talent available to them. It was at this point that Williamson suggested recruiting original Stooges, the Asheton brothers, Ron and Scott, with Ron reluctantly agreeing to move over to bass so that Williamson could handle all the guitar duties. This effectively reconstituted the Stooges, albeit in a modified configuration, but the solo contract with CBS would still necessitate the band being identified as “Iggy and the Stooges”.

With Williamson on guitar, the songwriting took on a different feel than the first two albums, moving away from their funkier grooves into a more anthemic hard rock kind of sound, though the label insisted on including two “ballads” on the new album to act as counterpoints on each side of the record. Recording took place at CBS’ London studio, occurring from September 10 to October 6, 1972, with Iggy acting as producer. After this, an initial mix of the album was done by Pop, but the results of that were rather botched as he mixed most of the instruments into one stereo channel with the vocals mixed into the other, with little regard for balance or tone quality. Because of budgetary constraints, they had little to work with to remedy that situation, but they were able to hire David Bowie to come in for a day and do a mix of the album. Bowie recalled:

“(It was) the most absurd situation I encountered … the first time I worked with Iggy Pop. He wanted me to mix Raw Power, so he brought the 24-track tape in, and he put it up. He had the band on one track, lead guitar on another and him on a third. Out of 24 tracks there were just three tracks that were used. He said 'see what you can do with this'. I said, 'Jim, there's nothing to mix'. So we just pushed the vocal up and down a lot. On at least four or five songs that was the situation.”

However when Morgan Neville's documentary film on Raw Power was released in 2010, they demonstrated that each individual instrument was indeed recorded on its own track on the original multi-track tapes, suggesting that Bowie was either mistaken or working with a copy that had mixed down the instruments on to the same track, likely the rejected mix Iggy had done before Bowie’s arrival.

What Bowie achieved with those limited resources has always been debatable, with some liking it while most found it murky and lacking in low end. Thus began the long, sordid story of alternate mixes of the LP. The original rejected Iggy mix was eventually released as “Rough Power”, and then, in 1997, Iggy himself created a brand new mix from scratch using the original multi-track tapes. This version, while addressing some of the issues with the Bowie mix in terms of lack of bottom end and buried drums, ended up creating its own issues as Iggy brought back in a lot of bits Bowie had cut out and pinned the levels on everything to such an extent that it introduced a layer of digital distortion which unsettled many purists and fans of the original LP’s mix. Personally, I find the Iggy mix more listenable overall, though the saturation caused by the excessive loudness does obliterate any sense of dynamics in the recordings. Therefore, it remains a flawed album no matter how you slice it, but a landmark, nonetheless.

Upon its release, the LP received a lot of critical high praise, but commercially, it was simply too extreme for any radio play and barely grazed the bottom of the top 200 LP charts in the US. That failure was a final nail in the coffin for the Stooges and, though Iggy and Williamson did attempt what would become another aborted project together, subsequently released as Kill City (1975), Pop would end up returning to Bowie’s care for a far more successful solo career with his back to back albums, The Idiot and Lust for Life (1977). The legacy of Raw Power, however, like the previous two Stooges LPs, would grow over the decades to enshrine all three of these albums as precursors to, and fundamental foundation stones for, the punk revolution to come.

IGGY POP & JAMES WILLIAMSON - KILL CITY @ 45

 

Celebrating its 45th anniversary this month is Kill City by former Stooges band-mates, Iggy Pop and James Williamson, which was released in November of 1977. The material was originally recorded in 1975, after the Stooges split, as a demo to try to secure a new recording contract, but there were no takers at the time. Williamson subsequently managed to get funding and generate some interest for the material after the release of Iggy’s two Bowie produced solo LPs, The Idiot and Lust For Life, which were released earlier in 1977. With an advance from Bomp! Records, he went into the studio to remix the tracks and add some overdubs of guitars and sax. Pop’s vocals had been recorded in 1975 during day passes from the asylum he’d checked himself into while trying to kick his heroine addiction.

After the release of the original green vinyl version of the album, the master tapes were lost for many years and all subsequent reissues had to be mastered from a copy of that poorly pressed LP, which resulted in a rather murky sound for the material. However, in 2010, the masters would resurface and Williamson, along with engineer Ed Cherney, remixed the album once more for a cleaned up “restored” reissue.

Critically, the album has been widely praised and features some material which originated before the Stooges breakup. The original 1975 mix of the album has never been heard with the exception of three songs which have appeared on various compilation albums.

IGGY POP - LUST FOR LIFE @ 45

 

Marking its 45th anniversary today is the sophomore solo LP from Stooges front-man, Iggy Pop, with Lust For Life being released on September 9th, 1977. It followed closely on the heels of his debut solo release, The Idiot, which was issued in March of that year. After touring to support that album, Pop and David Bowie, who’d produced the first album and toured with Pop’s band on keyboards, returned to Hansa Studios in West Berlin to work on the followup.

While Bowie had exerted significant control and influence over the first album, writing many of its songs, Iggy was adamant that he have more creative input on this one. Iggy wanted to take on that task now that the process of cleaning up from drug addiction was further along and his musical juices were flowing. Bowie still helped out with some arrangements, but even here Iggy had a greater hand. The result is an album that cleaves much closer to the kind of proto-punk that Pop had done with the Stooges rather than the cooler “Krautrock” influenced detachment of the previous record.

The album was recorded throughout May and June, utilizing essentially the same band which had toured to support The Idiot. Brothers Tony Fox and Hunt Sales held the rhythm section on bass and drums, respectively, and guitarist Ricky Gardiner filled out the band with Bowie returning on keyboards. Bowie & Pop were assisted with their production duties by engineer Colin Thurston. As previously stated, the music took on a harder, rawer tone and was, overall, more favorably received by both critics and fans, who felt Pop had returned to something closer to the raucous persona they were expecting from him.

After its release, Pop became frustrated with RCA and finished off his contract with them by issuing a hastily cobbled together live album. He furthermore moved away from working with Bowie for his next studio albums, not renewing that working relationship until later in the next decade. The legacy of Lust For Life has left both the title track and The Passenger as seminal songs in Iggy’s musical canon.

IGGY POP - THE IDIOT @ 45

 

Issued on March 18, 1977, Iggy Pop’s debut solo album, The Idiot, is celebrating 45 years since its release. As well as re-birthing Iggy’s career, it also marked the beginning of what would become known as David Bowie’s “Berlin” period, even though the bulk of the album was recorded at the Château d'Hérouville, France.

By 1976 both Bowie and Pop had abused themselves sufficiently with drugs, cocaine and heroine respectively, that the two artists found themselves in a position where they were ready to do some self maintenance and clean themselves up. Their friendship had brought them together to go through this process as a team and they set about putting their ships to rights by getting out of the US and heading to France where they figured they’d be able to better buffer themselves against temptation. Arriving at the Château in June, they spent the next two months working there until relocating to Musicland Studios in Munich in August to finish off the album. Production on The Idiot somewhat dovetailed with work on Bowie’s Low album, which was recorded back at the Château through September & October of 1976. Though Low was recorded after The Idiot, it was released first in January of 1977 so that The Idiot did not distract from the Bowie release, at least as far as the record label was concerned.

The Idiot, insofar as it’s a solo album for Pop, should really be considered a collaboration between Bowie and Iggy. Bowie’s participation on the album is significant, writing most of the music and performing much of the instrumentation, which included guitars, keyboards, synths, sax & backing vocals. Its style is very much part of the direction Bowie was going with his own music at the time, taking in the influence of Germanic experimental music like Kraftwerk and the general Krautrock aesthetic. Iggy and Bowie even managed to have themselves name-checked in the Kraftwerk song, Trans-Europe Express, after encountering the group while visiting in Germany. This influence pushed Pop away from the proto-punk thrash of The Stooges and into a more subdued, restrained sound, something which alienated him from some of his fan base. Some considered Bowie’s influence here too overwhelming and that the album is less than representative of Pop’s true character and style.

Production wise, it may have suffered a bit from neglect as recounted by Laurent Thibault, the owner of the Château. Bowie bonded with him while they started work on the project and the former Magma bassist was asked to play on the album. He recorded bass, engineered and hired Frenchman Michel Santangeli to play drums on what he thought were demo recordings. After Bowie dismissed him from further work, he realized that the recordings were actually going to constituted final takes for the album and has since expressed dissatisfaction with the end results.

Despite the mixed responses to the album from critics and fans, in the long term, the album still contains numerous classics. Songs like Sister Midnight, Nightclubbing, China Girl and Dum Dum Boys have established themselves as essentials within Pop’s solo canon. Nightclubbing was also covered by Grace Jones, who had a major hit with it, as did Bowie with his version of China Girl. While it may not be completely representative of Iggy’s raw essence, it still demands acknowledgement as an innovative and forward looking album that set up both artists for success throughout the remainder of the decade and beyond.

DAVID BOWIE - LOW @ 45

 

January 14th marks the 45th anniversary of David Bowie’s 11th studio album, Low, which was released on this date in 1977. It marked the beginning of his “Berlin” period, an era of his work which would come to be considered the most challenging and ambitious of his career.

This phase didn’t actually begin with Low, however and didn’t start in Berlin, but rather in France where he and Iggy Pop had relocated with the intention to dry out. Bowie had spent the previous few years in LA, becoming a serious cocaine abuser and living the rock star lifestyle to the point that it nearly took him down. After becoming the emaciated “Thin White Duke”, complete with questionable politics, he recognized his trajectory was purely self-destructive and that he needed a major course correction. Pop was in the same boat with his heroine habit, so the two set about cleaning themselves up and working on Iggy’s first solo album, The Idiot, on which Bowie would co-write most of the songs and contribute significantly to the music. Tony Visconti came in to help with production and the stage was set for Bowie to start working on his own new album after The Idiot wrapped.

Some of the foundational work for Low started in 1976 when Bowie was working on the film, The Man Who Fell to Earth, for which he was initially planning to provide the score. That plan failed to come to fruition as director Nicholas Roeg didn’t like where he was going with the demo music and Bowie abandoned the idea completely. But the direction he was going was something he still wanted to explore, which is where Brian Eno comes into the picture as a collaborator for the new album. They’d both become enamored with the German “Krautrock” scene and bands like Tangerine Dream, NEU!, Kraftwerk and Harmonium, whom Eno had worked with. This influence became central in guiding the direction for Low as it lead them in the direction of experimentation with electronics and new compositional approaches which would become central in creating the sound for the album. One of the key ingredients, technology wise, was a bit of gear brought in by Tony Visconti, the Eventide H910 Harmonizer, which became a vital tool for achieving the album’s bizarre, electronic drum sound.

While most of the album was recorded in France before eventually moving to Berlin for final production, overdubs and mixing, the general mood was easy going. There were no schedules or deadlines looming over their heads, so the musicians could relax, try out unusual ideas and explore fresh approaches. That wasn’t immediately appealing to some, like guitarist Carlos Alomar, but even he eventually got onboard with the vibe and started to appreciate the creative freedom. But things in France were not all peachy as the skeleton crew staff at the studio were often neglectful of their guests and the cooks were bad enough to give the band food poisoning on at least one occasion. This made the move to Berlin something of a welcome change, one which would find Bowie rooted there for both Iggy’s next solo album, Lust for Life, and two more albums of his own, “Heroes” and Lodger. Collectively, that set of five albums by Pop and Bowie can be seen as the complete arc of the Berlin period. The album cover for Low, which was also a modified still from The Man Who Fell to Earth as was the Station to Station cover before it, was something of a visual pun as it showed Bowie in profile as he appeared in the film. The gag being that Bowie was being “Low profile” (insert rim-shot).

Once the album was completed and presented to RCA records, their executives were pretty much horrified by the results. After the massive success of Young Americans and Station to Station, the label had hopes for more in that vein and were not expecting the level of experimentation nor the emphasis on instrumental tracks that was integral to Low. They were so taken aback by it, they delayed releasing it for 3 months and, even when it did come out, refused to promote it. Bowie didn’t help as he wouldn’t tour to support the album and, instead, went on the road to support Iggy as his keyboard player. The miraculous thing about all this was that the album STILL managed to be a hit! It peaked at #2 in the UK charts and #11 in the US and remained on the charts for a considerable number of weeks.

Critically, the album split the press into a fragmentary array of those who didn’t understand it, those who thought it was an insult or a move of desperation or those who thought it was sheer genius. In terms of its legacy, it became a launchpad for virtually the entire post-punk scene as bands from Joy Division to Human League to Cabaret Voltaire read the signposts Bowie had planted in his music and duly set course for the strange waters he’d charted for them to explore. The confusion it inspired upon its release has since given way to the recognition that it represents a turning point, not just for Bowie as an artist, but for pop music as a cultural component as it set the standards for pushing boundaries and setting examples which others have used for their own ends.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - THE STOOGES, FUN HOUSE

Recorded 50 years ago (May, 1970), The Stooges sophomore LP was not my introduction to Iggy Pop, but it was the album that got me to turn my gaze to the past for challenging music and not just look forward. I'd read about Iggy and his antics in various music magazines like CREEM and Hit Parader a couple of years before I bought any of his records, but it was his 1979 appearance on The Midnight Special that got me ready to pull out my wallet in a record store. I think it was the episode hosted and curated by The Cars where they played two of his latest promo videos for his recently released New Values LP. Both Five Foot One and I'm Bored were aired that night and that was all I needed to become a fan of Mr. Pop.

At the time I bought New Values, my attention and interests were firmly forward facing in terms of looking for new music. I wasn't at all interested in what had come before. The zeitgeist of the times, with "punk" and "new wave", was to blast away the past and focus on the future. That said, when I kept reading references to The Stooges and how they were the "first punk band", my obsessive collector nature kicked in and I decided to roll back the clock 9 years and dip my toe in with The Stooges second album, Fun House. I decided to start there because I wasn't quite ready to abandon the current decade and step into the 1960s with their debut, though that would come to my collection soon enough.

Fun House appealed to me, at least superficially, thanks to the insane looking album cover. Iggy looked like he was on a slide, heading into the bowels of hell. The fiery color pallet and posterized graphic style gave the album a look of intensity and the contents didn't disappoint. Within its grooves was a kind of raw rock & roll which was nastier than any heavy metal, and sleazier than what I'd found to that point within the punk/new wave sphere. This was pretty scary music made by disreputable people who probably did questionable things in seedy places. Definitely not the kind of fellows the parents would invite over for dinner. It was stripped down and bare and edgy and way ahead of its time. It also took chances, like the manic finale freak-out of LA Blues, a song that felt like it left your turntable in ruins.

Once I heard this music, my mind was opened up to the reality that challenging music wasn't only happening in the present, but that there were precedents for it in the past and that it was worthwhile for me to turn at least some of my attention in that direction and understand some of the roots of the music with which I was obsessed. From this vantage point, bands like The Velvet Underground, CAN, Silver Apples and many others became fair game for exploration and helped expand my understanding of the way the past influenced the present. It helped me understand that these new bands I was falling in love with were standing atop some pretty impressive shoulders and those needed to be appreciated as well.

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.