The Red and Black

Issue date: 2/21/08 Section: Out & About

JOSH D. WEISS

I got a punch in the nose the other night at the 40 Watt Club.

No, it wasn't from one of those mohawk-sporting, skinny jean-wearing punks who slam dance. And it wasn't from some loudmouth drunk trying to prove something. Rather, the punch came from a sudden realization that the culture I'd long embraced had a dark secret. As I stood there, aghast, I wondered how it'd come to this.

It started in high school. Like religion and drugs, punk rock was addictive. Lyric sheets were my bible and shows were my heroin.

The music was terrible, but it consumed my life. It served as my teacher, my friend and my sometimes lover. The lessons inside each song were more important than anything taught in school. Punk served as the voice of reason when I was depressed and was my date on weekends.

Punk taught me many lessons. It taught me to think for myself. It taught me to speak my mind. But most importantly, it taught me to never compromise my ideals.

Punk spoke to me. At least, I assume it did. Honestly, I wouldn't be able to understand half the lyrics being screamed at me if it weren't for those lyric sheets. In the end though, it didn't have to make sense.

It was mine. As long as there were other people who felt the same way, that was all I needed.

Not everyone felt the same though. Every now and then I'd run into someone who would tell me "punk is dead." "Punk never died," I'd throw back. The evidence was all around me even if I didn't exactly understand what their argument meant. It didn't matter though, they'd continue on with their life and I with mine.

As high school ended, I took the lessons I learned and brought them to college.

I sought out others who shared that punk rock spirit. I didn't find them though. Instead, I found something else. I found hypocrites. I found people with no ambition. I found disappointment.

Was I changing or was the scene? I didn't remember it like this.

My image of punk unraveled faster than a frayed sweater with every macho, self-absorbed jock I met who waved the punk flag. I tried to keep the faith, but it proved harder and harder. I decided to cut my losses and focus solely on the music. The message was what was most important after all. The shows were still church and the bands were still my priests, even if all the parishioners were morons.

Whenever faith was almost lost, there was always hope waiting at a show.

So I stood at the 40 Watt, watching the uniform-clad punks dancing and the band playing songs off its recent major-label debut. As an older, more familiar hymn emanated from the stage I turned my attention away from the pit.

The pleasurable auditory tone turned to a deafening screech in my head.

Out of nowhere, I noticed a once biting line of social commentary had been completely rewritten to be inoffensive. As if the Pope removed Jesus from the bible, the so-called saviors of punk abandoned the steadfast, no-apologies attitude I had fallen in love with all those years ago.

I was taken aback. That wasn't the punk rock spirit I remembered. That wasn't the message I'd been taught and lived by the past few years of my life. Shockingly, no one else noticed the change. They kept dancing, blissfully unaware that the rules had been changed without their consent.

Later that night, I was still in a state of shock. I realized it wasn't the first time the clergy had been caught, pants down, being serviced by the music industry. The Ramones, The Clash, The Sex Pistols - they all were signed to major labels while singing about sniffing glue, fighting the man and anarchy. The hypocrisy was always there.

I thought back to those people who told me punk was dead. They were wrong. Punk rock never died. It was stillborn.

- Josh D. Weiss is a senior from Roswell majoring in newspapers.

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