Petting the punk train (it will seem better in years)

Interesting coincidence of no consequence that is not actually all that interesting, described in a stream-of-consciousness format because it seemed like a good idea at the time:

One midday as I waited for the train, I listened to the radio on my Walkman for a few minutes. On the radio they (I presume there's more than one person involved in the broadcasts) played a song I'd heard a few times, and at the end the DJ noted the band responsible was called Be Your Own Pet, and mentioned the band was from Nashville (I presume the one in Tennessee). Then just after the train pulled up to the platform and I got on and grabbed a seat, I pulled The Believer magazine and glanced at the letters page, and the first letter I read suggested to the editors that they do a story on new punk bands and youth culture in general, and specifically recommended that the band "be your own PET" (that's how the person put it in her letter). Not that I'd consider them to be a "punk" band from the song that just got played on the radio by them, but I suppose the criteria used for determining who is punk from who is... whatever contemporary rock sub-genre moniker is applicable... may be different in Tennessee than it is here in L.A. Or perhaps if I were a youth these days rather than having been one a couple decades ago I might think of them as "punk" because I wouldn't have the same association of what "punk" means.

Granted, "punk" was probably more the attitude than the specific tempo or chord progressions or aggressive lyrical content. Well, not all the lyrics were that aggressive, really; the Ramones, whom many would consider the ones who set the blueprint for punk, had songs like "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" and that is actually less aggressive, from a lyrical standpoint, than Abba's "Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)"—which is, by most standards, not punk. So, perhaps if BYOP wears leather jackets like the Ramones did, then they may be as worthy of that description as any band.

Heck, the de facto poster boy for punk (in the mainstream), Sid Vicious, wore a leather jacket, and he couldn't even play his instrument; he was nothing but attitude. I'm willing to give Be Your Own Pet the benefit of the doubt that they play their instruments. Being able to play is not necessarily "punk" but I have pretty much come to expect that. Well, depending on what one is setting out to do. I still like the Monkees, and they didn't play their instruments when they were put together by TV producers. (They did play them later, when they toured. Well, Mike and Peter were already musicians before being cast, so to say the Monkees didn't play their instruments was only half right.) And if the criticism of the the Monkees is they were manufactured, well, Malcolm McLaren had a heavy hand in the lineup (and the name) of the Sex Pistols, and they are generally considered punk (I would put them in that category); their bass player never really learned to play bass, so the Monkees could actually get more credit than the Pistols in that regard. However, as we noted, the point was attitude, and in that regard Davy, Mickey, Peter, and Mike couldn't compete with Johnny, Sid, Jonesy, and Paul. Well, at least not with Johnny and Sid.

I still like the songs by both the Monkees and the Pistols (and the Ramones, and even Abba), whether they played on them or not, more than that song by BYOP that got played on the radio, even though BYOP may have a more spotless origin.

That's probably not a coincidence. It's sounds like a cop-out, but it's probably true that I'm too old to take that much of a shining to these new punk groups, whether the magazine ever spotlights them or not. Everything that used to be seems better than what is now, even if back when it was now it wasn't as good as what used to be back then. So perhaps in about 10 to 20 years I'll be all over Be Your Own Pet.

So my advice to young musicians of today: Be patient. I may jump on your train, despite my no longer being your core demographic. However, it may not be until well after you've broken up.

If you're any good now, you'll seem really good down the road.