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Et tu, punk
The Explosion, Clint Conley, and Hilken Mancini find their own way
BY ROBIN VAUGHAN

Were Television punk rock? Or was it only Richard Hell? It was a little embarrassing to find myself entrenched in a debate about this in a bar recently. The conversation began with a few innocent remarks, in the wake of Joe Strummer’s passing, about the Clash’s contribution to punk. Never mind how it got stuck on the Television question — once you broach the subject of punk, you’re asking for a tangle, even when the person you’re talking to is your age and doesn’t think it all began with Green Day. I mean, is it even punk to argue about what punk is? Does it matter whether it began with ’60s garage bands or the Ramones? How far back do you have to go? Should we all just agree, for practical purposes, that simple chord progressions played fast and loud by disenfranchised youth in raggedy clothes à la the Ramones are the punkest of punk? And where does that leave the Sex Pistols? Not to mention the kids in backward baseball caps pumping their fists for Blink-182? After all, they have some sense of moronic irony that is inherently punk. And, finally, is punk even worth talking about anymore now that Strummer and Joey and Dee Dee are dead and there’s better punk rock on TV ads than on the radio? You might as well mosh, dude, because there is no future.

In Boston, at least, there’s no question that however you define it, punk rock remains very much alive and well. Clint Conley, Hilken Mancini, and the boys in the Explosion represent a relatively broad definition of how punk has manifested itself in and around the local scene. Conley’s seminal post-punk alma mater, Mission of Burma, fit the description or not, depending on where you stand. Former Fuzzy frontwoman Mancini is a founder of Punk Rock Aerobics (is it punk or not punk to exercise?) and a guitarist in the fast, loud Count-Me-Outs. The loud, fast, and political Explosion, who signed to Virgin a few weeks ago after a stint on the emo-core label Jade Tree, would satisfy almost any checklist of credentials. Yet despite their differences in age and orientation, all three discuss punk in similar terms — less as a musical genre than as an ideology of integrity and self-reliance. By that yardstick, a word that once meant " a foolish argument " (according to my 1938 Webster’s) and a few other not-so-lofty things over the years, in jails and elsewhere, now stands for something parents should want taught in schools.

" Yeah, I’ve been a punk-rocker, but there were many years I wouldn’t admit it to certain people, and probably still, " says Conley, whose current outfit is Consonant, a trio with a less aggressive take on angular post-punk. " Because people’s perception of punk is from the old days — mohawks, swastikas, chains, and stuff like that, which of course is not what it means to me. " Perhaps a few of Conley’s colleagues at Channel 5, where he’s been a Chronicle producer for the past 12 years, wouldn’t understand, but Conley is " very much a punk-rocker in his heart of hearts, " as he puts it.

" But what does it mean? " he continues. " I think it used to mean something quite specific, and over the years it’s come to have a more broad-based meaning. I was reading an article last week about Greg Brown, the folk singer. He’s wonderful, and he’s very punk rock. Of course, if you ever said that to his face, he’d probably point a gun at you. He’s just an independent musicmaker who couldn’t give a flying you-know-what about what the music industry expects of a performer.

" I’m old enough to remember when punk rock referred to the Strawberry Alarm Clock. The term was in use prior to Punk magazine, prior to New York. Garage was called punk because it was unsophisticated. It was sort of a backward-looking term later, after rock had been on a progressive trajectory for a number of years . . . and then there’s punk rock, this unsophisticated, youthful, exuberant music. "

Mancini says she sees punk as " a way of life. " A self-taught musician, aerobics instructor, and DIY entrepreneur, she’s had experiences in almost every aspect of the punk world. " It’s just having an idea, and even though you have no skills to do the idea, you just do it. I think that’s punk rock — to take something you say you want to do and create it. "

Where did it begin? " It’s such a weird argument, " Mancini responds. " People will say that punk started in England. No, it started with [Punk editor] Legs McNeil — he invented the word. I feel like MC5 started punk. They were a totally anti-establishment, fuck-the-system, kick-out-the-jams-motherfucker kind of thing. "

Explosion guitarist Sam Cave, who’s just 22, says bands like Operation Ivy and Rancid opened his ears to music in high school. And he followed those outfits back to punk’s source material. Yet as obvious a mark as the Clash and Buzzcocks have left on the Explosion, Cave’s time line reaches back well beyond the class of ’77.

Who was the original punk-rocker?

" Chuck Berry, man, " Cave responds.

What does it mean to be a punk-rocker?

" I’m gonna quote one of my best friends: ‘No rules.’ I mean, hopefully you can also play some chords and get along with your buddies in the band to some degree. "

Explosion drummer Andrew Black puts it this way: " Punk is stuff that comes along at a right time that blows everything else out of the water. "

Conley, who remembers high-school visits to Max’s Kansas City in the mid ’70s, recalls a punk that " was transformative, totally and completely, like aliens had landed on the earth. This new reductivist æsthetic was taking hold, but it was still sort of glammy. When I saw Television, it was just mind-altering. I remember seeing them on the same bill with Talking Heads at CBGB’s — I couldn’t speak, I was so blown away. I happen to think Television is very much part of punk, because punk to me was such a profound new way of looking at rock music, it could encompass various styles. "

Explosion guitarist Dave Walsh thinks of punk as " more of an idea and an energy. I think it started with jazz musicians, with people who just don’t give a fuck, pushing the extremes. "

" John Cassavetes is punk, " Cave interjects.

" Especially in this age of supermedication, " Explosion bassist Damian Genuardi muses, " like Prozac and psychotherapy, anger is a gift. I think asking questions is valid and important. What punk rock said was, ‘Fuck this, we can do this too.’  "

Mancini takes into account the commercial offers that came her way when Fuzzy first signed to Seed/Atlantic, in the early ’90s: " You can’t be a bullshitter. You can’t be a poser and a fake. That mattered a lot to Fuzzy. " Then, as if to highlight the complexity of the issue, she switches gears: " Fuck that! That’s not who we are. And now, in retrospect, it’s like, ‘Why didn’t we do a commercial?’  "

" I have less objection to selling your song to a commercial than having some big banner behind you saying who you’re sponsored by, " Conley points out. " That’s just too cozy. When they used Iggy Pop’s ‘Search and Destroy’ on a Nike commercial, I was thrilled to hear it on TV. But certainly you don’t want to feel locked into to some corporate-image campaign. "

The Explosion’s decision to sign with a major had a lot to do with Dave Wolter, their A&R man at Virgin, whom they regard as a peer who will both respect and protect their integrity. " I think with Virgin it’s more like a partnership, " Genuardi explains. " We had ideas and goals and they were like, ‘Okay, we want to help you do that.’  "

" You hear the good stories and the bad stories, " Cave explains. " We’ve toured with some bands who’ve been around the block. Seeing it from their perspective, it’s like, ‘Wait a minute, you guys put out a record on Atlantic, but now you’re not on Atlantic? What happened? It must have been horrible!’ And they’re like, ‘It happened, we did it, we’re still a band, and we’re still friends.’  "

" As long as they were gonna put Fuzzy on tour and give us radio play, we didn’t care about whether we were on an indie or a major, " Mancini admits. " The only thing I didn’t want to do is like, ‘Go over and talk to that guy, he’s from so-and-so radio. Go be nice to him and kiss his ass.’ [Singer/guitarist] Chris [Toppin] and I wouldn’t do it — we’d just be like, ‘Fuck you!’, and then we’d go in the bathroom and make fun of the guy. They would tell us what songs to do first in the set, and we’d be like, ‘Okay.’ Then we’d do whatever we wanted. And maybe that’s why we didn’t get airplay for the second single. But the point was, we weren’t going to work hard just to have this . . . jock, this sports fan, who had no idea where we were coming from, tell us what to do. "

" I don’t think punk has to be overtly political, but I would say that the very act of making independent music is a political act, " Conley offers. " I used to think of Mission of Burma as political even though there was nothing literally political about us. We were just inherently subversive, fucking with a form and exploding ideas about what a song could be. "

Conley still sees the current commercial punk trend as " a curious little cul de sac in the music business. I’m glad it’s there, but it’s hard to imagine it having the vitality of when that stuff was new. A lot of these retread things are pretty good — the Hives, the Strokes. But for that to be the dominant æsthetic kind of depresses me, because it’s been done. It’s good to a certain extent, but it shouldn’t be dominating the underground scene. "

Explosion drummer Black points out that " there’s an æsthetic to traditional punk that people are claiming today. Avril Lavigne — she’s an example that’s safe to pick on, I guess. It’s like the powers-that-be decided to slip her into this punk outfit and market her like that. "

" Kids may look at her and ask, ‘Is that punk?’  " , Walsh says. " We have a little more knowledge about what it is. I’d like to carry forth some of that to the same kids who are looking at Avril Lavigne and wondering, ‘Is that punk?’  "

" People say, ‘Aerobics means taking care of your body — that is so not punk rock,’  " Mancini chimes in. " We get e-mails from kids that are like, ‘Fuuuuck yeeew! You don’t know what it’s like to ska in the mosh pit, you losers!’ These people get really angry about what they think punk rock is, and then people who really know what it’s about respect what we’re doing. It’s just the idea of taking something and making it your own. "

In other words, after three or four decades, punk is still what you make of it. And the prospect of coming to any kind of consensus — even in Boston — is no closer now than it was back when mohawked teens were arguing over whether it was the Ramones or the Pistols who started it all.

Issue Date: March 20 - 27, 2003
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