Friday, August 29, 2008

Friday Videos: Punk/Not Punk


Haven't done one of these for a while, so I thought I'd start it up again. This is a game we all like to play, of course:


Punk:






Dennis Kucinich's 'Wake Up America' speech at the Democratic National Convention


I feel slightly uncomfortable butting in on US politics, but speaking as a global citizen, the prospect of John McCain taking on the role of policing the world for four years fills me with dread; and for all of you under a Republican administration who don't want to be under one, you have my sincerest sympathies.

What's impressive about this video is not just the truths being said in it; but the fact that they are, and the way that they are, being said. This probably doesn't fully match up with Obama's 'leading from the center', but it still needs to be there. Most of you probably don't really know who Dennis Kucinich is, and neither do I all that much, but suffice to say he's a bit of a maverick in the Democratic Party (and erstwhile candidate for the nomination).

(Credit to the bloggers over at Organizing Grievances, and also to *#..(brad who posted another link in the comments for the Refused post)



Not Punk:





Crimescene's 'Outcasts', one of the very worst music videos I've ever seen


I'm not much in the business of being negative about bands, not even in my own head (I'm, like, way too Zen for that.) However, this is just some hilariously bad shit. It's not quite as magical as when I first saw it, which only proves that if this was in any way intended as a joke, the novelty will start to wear off. Otherwise, this is just a sad, sad example of how wrong a good genre of music can go (admittedly after a rather lengthy, ahem, creative journey). I first saw this somewhere after my weaning off of Pennywise (an actually rather good surf-rock/political hardcore band a lot of the time) and onto bands like Hot Water Music and Fugazi, and before discovering truly obscure genres of hardcore. Hence I thought of this when compiling my Shape of Punk list below, as a sort of unbidden antithesis in almost every way, shape or form.

My apologies.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh.....my.....i...i..think that video made everything around me seem a lot more punk rock.

cretin said...

i never knew elves could be so hxc

p.w. said...

wtf...? i didn't know something this bad could exist.

Anonymous said...

you must not be aware of....:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUC5kdkduU4&feature=related

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V0FAC4UyJ4&feature=related


and somewhat related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbdh0Qm_5A0

luciferyellow said...

He, he. I had to watch this twice (and yes, the second time hurt even more) because I first thought this was a parody. I don't condone violence in any form, but I try to imagine how it would have been if these clowns would have met a real "hardcore family" like the Boston Crew, or the O.C. Sloth Crew, or guys from the Lower East side in the mosh pit...

gabbagabbahey said...

cretin - 'Disney gnome' is something else I've seen. but if you're so obsessed with physical appearance, you should find a picture of his wife :)

brad - I suppose in the first place there's a certain irony in a band doing a slightly crappy cover version of a song about creating new art... but that Crazytown video [the second link] is just something else. I almost want to watch it repeatedly just to figure out what they're doing to make it so bad... what have they done to the rhythm... where are the lyrics?

however, it's a free world and bands can cover whatever they want, really. Crazytown are just making terrible music, whereas Crimescene have unfortunately put a lot more effort into it than that...

cretin said...

I have seen his wife and frankly, I consider the whole order a tad perplexing. he must have oodles of inner beauty or something.

Zack Thrower said...

Being from Georgia (US), I know these guys through friends. I did not know that this music video existed. These guys are scumbags.

Props on the Kucinich video. I met him last year--super smart and passionate.