How and when did you "become a punk"

i was messed up in the head from having mormon parents and i was sick of hearing pointless metal and screamo bands to channel my anger and pop rock on the tube didn't do shit for me so luckily in my age i had the internet to search bands.. i started doing the illegals late middle school and just found people to kick it with who believed in the ideals i was thinking. OI TO THE BADASS BEGINNINGS.

everything i hated.. sexist racist parents, rich popular kids, rehabs in utah, and cops for always questioning when i was doing legal things. but also alcohol haha

i was sick of greenday and bussed it to the adicts when i was 15. funeral dress, vice squad and 80s hardcore mainly

luckily there were other kids at my school in the scene and we shared music (flux, naked aggression, crass, bikini kill). I started promoting anti-war rallies and feminist events at my school with my good friend.. and then i got obbsessed with antischism antisect apple and nausea.


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I grew up in the Seacoast area of New Hampshire, so basically an hour north of Boston and an hour south of Portland, Maine. Both had pretty punk scenes in full effect. My first tapes were by the Misfits, GBH, Black Flag, etc... all the obvious bands, and this was in about '94 I'd say. I liked the Misfits for a couple years prior to that because Metallica covered them (at least I'm being honest!).

My first show was in December of 1995 at the Rat, Boston's most legendary punk dive. The Pist, Tunnel Rats, the Unseen (early version as a three piece) and I think two or three others played. It definitely changed my life and left me daydreaming about shows every waking second I had. Situated two towns over from me directly between Boston and Portland was the Elvis Room, a bar that did shows in Portsmouth, NH. My second official show was the Bruisers with some forgettable bands, followed by the Queers a couple months later but the highlights were the Varukers/Casualities/Unseen gig, Pinkerton Thugs playing at least once a month, traveling to Manchester, NH to see the Unseen, Discocks and Tom & Boot Boys. We were sheltered in a sense, but if you made the effort to find out what was going on you definitely only had to travel an hour or so to see great shows at most.

Tribal War, Two Tone and Slug & Lettuce all helped me find out about bands and get stuff I wanted. We used to just look at people's patches at shows and then try and find those bands and if we liked them then we were set. But the biggest highlight for me show wise prior to turning 18 (I was 15 at the time actually haha) was Aus Rotten, Stratford Mercenaries, the Unseen, The Afflicted, Broken and one or two more at the last Rat sunday matinee ever. The place literally closed down the next day and was full of 700 punks going apeshit.

 

When I was 14 a friend of mine was listening to Anti-Flag and I gave it listen and it was like nothing I had ever heard before. From the first chords of "Turncoat" I was hooked. Been listening to punk ever since. (about 6 years)

Other than that one friend i didn't know anyone who listened to punk so it was really just me searching for new bands on my own, trying to discover it for myself. Came at a perfect time as i spent most of high school sick and depressed, so it really gave me an outlet and helped me deal with everything.

Anti-Flag, NOFX, Ramones, No Use For A Name. Pretty much every band on Fat Wreck Chords.

Subhumans and Conflict. After I heard these two bands with just how fast, loud, and abrassive they were, the stuff I had been listening to just didn't cut it anymore. I got really into the english anarcho bands and bands here in America like Aus-Rotten, Witch Hunt, and Behind Enemy Lines. All those bands really inspired to begin reading about political and social issues and to read about Anarchism and get more involved in the world. It's why right now I'm thinking about majoring in journalism so i can write about these issues. It completely changed my life and changed it for the the better.

 

I'D say High school maybe when i was about 16 or so. Bought a couple of those Punk-O-Rama cd's and got hooked on rancid. As the years went by Rancid,led me to the U.S. Bombs.The Bombs led me to the pistols,which in turn sent me into the goth scene via The Cure,The Cure led me to gothic metal,which then went to black metal.I wanted something with the rawness of black metal but the message of rancid...hence i found discharge...the rest is history.

 

I have to admit Iv'e evolved pretty fast.Stopped listening to Slayer and music of the like around 1.5 years ago then somehow stumbled upon Misfits then took a time machine back to Ramones then Clash and then started looking deeper into Dead Boys and music of th like looked for modern stuff of a similar sound and sped forward to find Rancid. Took another time machine back to the 80's found Dead Kennedys Black Flag Bad Brains etc., found Crass and The Germs thought they sounded like garbage while i continued to listen to trash like Rancid I then found Op Ivy which lead me to Choking Victim Choking victim started sturring up the word "autonomy" (up to this point I had been an outspoken advocate of the green party) in my mind so I looked into anarchy and then I looked back into Crass and decided I had judged them as well as The Germs far to quickly. Fell in love with there sound and then discovered the style of punk listed on this sight. Still looking to learn more about this sub genre and the activism i can perform to keep its word alive (besides what Iv'e already been doing) and thats how i learned to love punk rock.

 

Dig the murphys and the oppressed,The murphys always put on a brilliant live show. And ive been listening to Oi and NYHC for a long time. And although i am a fan of underground & Independent Rap/Hip Hop such as Immortal Technique,Sage Francis,Sabac Red Etc ,artists such as jeezy and Cube definately make no secrets about being in it for the money. Not just this but alot of Cubes lyrics are questionably racist Such as these

ICE CUBE-Black Korea

"Twenty D Energizers."
"Twenty, C Energizer?"
"D, not C, D."
"B Energizer?"
"D motherf**ker, D! Learn to speak english first, alright? D!"
"How many you say?"
"Twenty, motherf**ker, twenty."
"Honey..."
"Mother-f**k you!"

[Ice Cube]
Everytime I wanna go get a f**kin brew
I gotta go down to the store with the two
oriental one-penny countin motherf**kers
that make a nigga made enough to cause a little ruckus
Thinkin every brother in the world's out to take
So they watch every damn move that I make
They hope I don't pull out a gat and try to rob
they funky little store, but bit*h, I got a job
("Look you little Chinese motherf**ker
I ain't tryin to steal none of yo' shit, leave me alone!"
"Mother-f**k you!")
Yo yo, check it out
So don't follow me, up and down your market
Or your little chop suey ass'll be a target
of the nationwide boycott
Juice with the people, that's what the boy got
So pay respect to the black fist
or we'll burn your store, right down to a crisp
And then we'll see ya!
Cause you can't turn the ghetto - into Black Korea

"I do f**k you!"

I'D suggest checking out Immortal Technique He's not an anarchist (Describes himself as a socialist) but none the less his music is very politically and socially charged and very intelligent. Also Try Sabac Red,Much like immortal technique only not quite as complex.

 

I was a girl. I didn't want to "look beautiful". I was listening to Dead Can Dance, The Cure's "Kiss me kiss me kiss me" album. I had friends in High School who were punx. I was anti-racist. I listened to Slime! I got into PUNK!

Slime is just not to overstep! They are a legend..

 

At about 13 all me mates at school were gettin into the mainstream rock of the time, like Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, KoRn etc.

From there I discovered The Distillers and TSOL on a compilation I got free with Kerrang! and also a band called AMEN that made me question a lot of my values and put me on a path that would eventually lead to becoming an anarchist.

Anyhow, I was still very heavily into rock but started spikin my hair into fauxhawks and shit and was listenin to more punk than before. It wasn't really a conscious decision, just a natural progression. Anyway, I went to the first Download festival when I was 14 and ended up skippin all the metal acts to sit at the Deconstruction stage and saw old punks in thrash pits and got to meat Jack Grisham after their first ever UK show which was awesome. And then walked in the pourin rain to a CD tent and bought Punk O Rama 5. After that I quickly moved onto stuff like Crass and got into Oi! and foreign punk music and by the time I was 15 had a big leather jacket, couple piercins and a mohawk, the latter of which didn't go down too well with the teachers at school as I was still doin me GCSEs but they were used to my antics by then.

What I got from punk was an inner strength I adn't ad before. The nature of metal and rock music seemed to be an outsider mentality, self-pitying and all about feelin miserable and gettin beat up. This was all I'd felt like in life up until this point and I was sick of feelin that way. Punk gave me the balls to stand on my own two feet and not give a fuck about what other people thought of me. Made me an army of one, no other kids at my school were listenin to the same shit or dressin the same way, though after a while a lot started askin me to burn them compilation CDs and still listen to punk now, which I think is really awesome.

When people say punk rock saved their life, I can totally relate, it changed my outlook and persona entirely. It's 7 years since I first discovered it and I don't dress in the same cliched way and I listen to other shit as well but some of the lessons I gathered from it ave definitely stuck.

 

Listening to John Peel one night , he put on a record by a new pop combo-sex pistols , anarchy -an that was it...............

 

actually started out as a skinhead, so punk music was always *there* anyway. I got sick of the politics and ethics I didn't believe in anyway and matured out of it. Started actually questioning the way the world around me works, met some different people, started listening to different things. I started to realize that I should listen to what I like, not what others tell me that I should like/listen to. I don't even know if I'd call myself a "punk" now. I just know what music I like, and that happens to fit in with the general view of punk. Don't really have strong enough political involvement to consider myself an anarchist, but I enjoy the music occasionally nonetheless. I just like drinking and listening to stuff I like. Pretty simple, really.

first bands? oh the usual stuff that most people in this thread have said. exploited, the causalties, the distillers, the unseen. kinda moved onto crust and "harder" stuff.

 

I first discovered punk in the early 80s, when I used to hang around the old Bull Ring shopping centre in Birmingham, UK. There were a number of shops run by rastas, and I loved chilling out there...the smells were quite intoxicating

Anyway's, one day I heard an amazing piece of 'white reggae', and was told that the song was called Bankrobber, and by a band called the Clash...so I went out and bought some albums, and it's been a downward spiral ever since

 

How and when did you become a punk? I was listening to this 'alternative' music which kept mentioning punk, when alternative became lamer than lame gen and punk was being repackaged i went back to the start and found my calling, 1995?
What influenced you? shit music, shit times
What is the first bands you discovered? The Clash sold me
When and how did you become more anarcho? fuk knows, bout the same time i got sum zines i got some pamphlets, i argued i went hey yea, when experience teaches you that the world is how you see it then you begin to say i have a brain i have a choice i can have life and i can have hope and i can do it and steal words back from the mouthes that lie lie lie and i my friends/and the person next to me across the bored still didn't get anything, zombies anyone, fight or die, it empowers all and does not impose and is realistic, the more u find out that its been coopted u know thats its just right, even the enemy thinks so, they just wrapped it up in bullshit, isn't it time we learn wat we know without coppin out and giving it back to the those who should be making 'progress' in REALITY, WORK then dance THINK ORGANISED LOVE, PEACE, REA LIES

 

In the time I spent being anti-social and alienating myself from a high school student base I had grown weary of, I discovered in my search for some new music a little band called the Sex Pistols. After multiple listens to Anarchy in the UK and Sid's rendition of My Way, I was hooked. From there I discovered other 77 bands like the Damned /the Clash / the Adicts.

The lyrical sense of disillusionment with society in general, the urgency for change, the rejection of the social norms. It was all relevant.

Again, the Sex Pistols. They were loud, mean, and nihilistic. Before I'd heard them I'd been raised on classic rock radio stations and audibly bombarded by a number of plastic-sounding commercial "emo" acts, or whatever at the time was supposed to be cool like metalcore, none which had attracted my attention.

Probably around the same time after discovering the excess of quality hardcore punk bands to emerge from the US in the 80s/90s. I never got too into some anarcho bands or ideology because of how seriously some of the involved members would take themselves, at times they were sucking the fun out of punk and I missed that aspect in the music/culture.

 

I don't know if I'm really a punk yet. I believe in anarchy as a better system and listen to punk music. I'm 18 now.

I've always enjoyed 90s pop punk bands like offspring, blink 182, I always had many of the views that are considered punk. But it was only when a punk friend of mine started introducing me to anarcho-punk that I realized that there are other people that think the same as I do. The most important thing my friend told me was: 'Punk is a state of mind, not a fashion'. I've kept that in mind but I still like punk fashion because I think people who enjoy punk music often just like the fashion as well.

First anarcho-punk band I really liked was Crass and I still love them.

I think I answered q4 with q2

 

I started listening to grindcore and Metal bands like Napalm Death, Bolt Thrower, Slayer, Mayhem, Burzum, Terrorizer and Death at a young age (8 I think), I didnt know what real punk was at that point but i knew that what i called punk - Sex Pistols, The Ramones, etc. - sucked. Around age 15 i met and started hanging out with the only punks in my town. Eventually they exposed me to Doom and Extreme Noise Terror (a band ive known for years but never thought of them as a punk band) and other crust bands and thats what really sucked me into the punk lifestyle. My political beliefs around the same time so i naturally got into the more political bands. To this day i wouldnt even call my self a punk I still dont like proper punk bands or most hardcore punk bands and anarcho punk I listen to but not that often (D-beat on the other hand im a fiend for). Im all about Crust and Metal, Napalm Death, Dystopia, Catheter, Noothgrush, Doom, His Hero Is Gone, Fall Of The Bastards, SSORC, Sodom, Electro Hippies Darkthrone and so on

 

I grew up listening to a bit of punk my bro had(it was only a phase for him) starting with sum41(not rely punk) and shit like that then later got into pink floyd but it all got old for me then i got into rap beucase i grew up with nuthing but drug abusing wangsters in my poor naberhood
tired of being force feed relgion that i had no faith in, hateing the preps and rich kids at my skool and seachring for were i fitted in then i stumbeld across billz and the exploited from there i started rely getting into punk and then got into anarchy and decided that i dint want to fit in with the scum of my amercain schools. my life changed listening to the pist and chocking victem, potinal thret,crass as well as subhuamns and things like that i met a punk kid i did alot of acid with and that had alot to do with me getting into punk as well he passed away and i stopd doing drugs and rely took on my belfies in autonomy

 

I'm still not a punk, can anyone help me become one?
(sarcasm)

 

I became punk recently, after I started being myself, listening to the music I wanted to listen to and not dressing like everyone else. At first I was into hard rock and Metal. After a couple of years in school I started getting into rap. Then a couple of months ago I decided to do what I wanted to do.

I wasn't really influenced by anything. I started listening to System of a Down, Tool and Rage Against the Machine. Then I started listening to Green Day. I kind of liked them and the I heard they were "punk", so I looked up other punk bands.

Now I wouldn't consider Green Day punk, so the first bands I discovered were the Sex Pistols and the Clash.

I became more anarcho after I listened to Crass. I listened to Anarchy in the U.K. so then I started looking up anarchism. After that I started listening to more anarcho-punk bands and other punk bands that incorperated anarchy in their songs.

 

Becoming a "punk" (I still don't really call myself that) was kind of a transitional thing. It's taken years to get where I am today, but the defining moment was when I dropped out of traditional high school and started going to an alternative school. The teacher was a hippie who didn't care what you believed in as long as you were passionate about it. My second year there, we got a new pottery teacher. She was a riot grrrl from DC who grew up listening to Bikini Kill and Kathleen Hanna. Once we got to know each other, I learned that there are other angry lady's out there who want to change things.

 

they too often angrily want to change others who don't need it generally, pass that on, we're innit together ala no divide and conquer or nihilism here we come, a concert about nothing pretending to be something can also be just that