Journal of a Journalist

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Posts tagged punk

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Abrahamic Rockers: Punk Jews and the Bulletproof Stockings : The New Yorker

I just saw the excellent documentary Punk Jews, about… yup, you guessed it.

Highly recommended. It isn’t perfect—at times it feels like a series of really cool, short biopics rather than a coherent film—but a fun time was had.

If nothing else, you can learn about Hasidic oi!/hardcore bands and Yiddish guerilla street theatre. Apparently they actually are out there.

Filed under punk jewish

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Pragmatists and Idealists Clash Over the Future of 924 Gilman

Great @SFWeekly article on the future of legendary Berkeley punk venue 924 Gilman. The short story of it is that old-guard 924ers and DIY purists are upset that Gilman now lets major label bands play, no longer screens bands for sexist/homophobic/racist content, charges higher door prices, and no longer gives headlining bands the same cut of the door $$ as opening acts.

I grew up in the hardcore/punk scene and was at 924’s NYC counterpart, ABC No Rio, nearly every weekend when I was a teenager. I was a teenager, well…. a while ago. This article raised a lot of questions for me, not just for music venues, but for institutions. Do institutions have to retain the value system on which they were funded, even when it means going out of business? And what happens if they decide to abandon those values, even if it’s out of pragmatism?

Filed under music punk berkeley 924 gilman

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jasonotraeger: MAXIMUMROCKNROLL COVER DRAWING PUNK ROCK SOCIAL NETWORK SAN FRANCISCO 1988 I drew the cover of MAXIMUMROCKNROLL magazine twice. This one from August of 1988 is the better of the two. […] It is my contention that as enthusiastic participants in that scene in that era my fellow compatriots and I had the privilege of taking a test drive of a Beta version the technologically-facilitated, hyper-connected future that would arrive in the popular imagination in the 90’s and would change the world in the Oughts. I remember being 17 years old, backpacking cross country and organizing shows/finding crash pads via Maximumrocknroll, BYOFL, and Slug & Lettuce. How this underground network would find you new friends in Atlanta, vegan pizza in Chicago, and show spaces in San Diego. It amazed me that this worldwide network existed, and was available at the dial of a phone or by dropping off a letter. Little did we know that the internet would be this network x1000… and that it’d change everything even more then we imagined.

jasonotraeger:

MAXIMUMROCKNROLL COVER DRAWING PUNK ROCK SOCIAL NETWORK SAN FRANCISCO 1988

I drew the cover of MAXIMUMROCKNROLL magazine twice. This one from August of 1988 is the better of the two. […] It is my contention that as enthusiastic participants in that scene in that era my fellow compatriots and I had the privilege of taking a test drive of a Beta version the technologically-facilitated, hyper-connected future that would arrive in the popular imagination in the 90’s and would change the world in the Oughts.

I remember being 17 years old, backpacking cross country and organizing shows/finding crash pads via Maximumrocknroll, BYOFL, and Slug & Lettuce. How this underground network would find you new friends in Atlanta, vegan pizza in Chicago, and show spaces in San Diego. It amazed me that this worldwide network existed, and was available at the dial of a phone or by dropping off a letter. Little did we know that the internet would be this network x1000… and that it’d change everything even more then we imagined.

Filed under zines diy punk internet

23 notes

DIY University

Had a great chat this morning about how many journalists and crazy project people (entrepreneurs, creative folks, etc) learned their chops in the punk rock/DIY scene. Ian MacKaye, zines, basement and VFW shows, all that stuff taught a lot about hustle, initiative and getting stuff done. The fact that we were operating in an independent community where everything had to be done for ourselves because noone would do it otherwise—what bar owner would put on shows for a bunch of 16 years olds who can’t legally drink? What label would put out songs by a sloppy grindcore band with a love for nuclear war imagery?

Making your own zines, booking shows via word of mouth/BYOFL/Slug & Lettuce/MRR, and creating our own art galleries and record labels turned out to be a crash course in life skills we never could have imagined.

Filed under journalism diy business punk