sonic reducer
Some quotes to mull over. I've used some of them in my HCL fics.
"You can't tell who was and wasn't in a band. We did not like poseurs but we liked to pose for pictures. Because we knew there was something about the night that would be remembered even if we couldn't remember it. We were young and naive in a way that seems to be a lost art. We were snotty and compassionate and deliberate and reckless but we knew exactly what we were doing. We were ghosts then and we are ghosts now. We will haunt your malls and catwalks forever. Ha Ha."
Exene Cervenka, We're Desperate: The Punk Photography of Jim Jocoy, quoted in Cruising Utopia by José Esteban Muñoz.
"Depending on who you are and where you are, “punk” can be a lifestyle; cosplay; design element; powerful ideal, lazy cliché; magical realism; badge of authenticity, pantomime social movement; withering mockery; ironclad conviction; lucrative career; vow of slovenly poverty; incubator of brilliance and/or mediocrity; rite of passage; riot of violence; ferocious hokeyness; suicide hotline; sales category; community glue; license to wallow; mass catharsis; a refuge for smart people and/or playground for dumb people; boisterous escapism; marketable nostalgia; belligerent incompetence; self-satire (intentional or otherwise); assault on falseness; or adult-sized, psychic diapers that can be worn until death."
Sam McPheeters, "Mutations: The Many Faces of Hardcore Punk"
"That a scene sharing its name with a slang term term for male prostitutes could be homophobic has long been one of the dumbest things about punk. Men could dress up in fetish gear, spit on each other, wrap their sweaty bodies around each other in the mosh pit—but god forbid they kiss. (Women, as usual, made better records and were ignored.)"
Jesse Dorris, Queercore Veteran Scott Moore on How Gay Punk Has Changed
I punched my fist right through the glass
And I didn't even feel it, well, it happened so fast
The Dead Boys, "Ain't It Fun", We Have Come For Your Children (1978)
Cavale: Johnny Ace. Johnny Ace. Johnny Ace was cool. He was real cool, baby. Just like you. And he came East from Texas and no black guy had a hit record and no rock-and-roll boy had a hit record. And in rode Johnny Ace, from a moving train, pledging his love. That was his best song, man. What a great fucking song. And all the girls would cry when he sang. He sang all them pretty ballads. And one day when all the girls were waiting, when everybody paid their fare to see Johnny Ace in person on stage singing sad and dressed in black, Johnny Ace took out his revolver, rolled the barrel like his 45 record, played Russian Roulette like his last hit record, and lost. Johnny Ace blew his brains out, all the people jump and shout. All the people jump and shout Johnny Ace blew his brains out.
Slim: You think that takes balls, I suppose. Do you?
Cowboy Mouth, Patti Smith and Sam Shepard.