Creativity Quote by Greg Ginn

Punk, in Greg Ginn's telling, isn't a sound that got discovered in a studio; it's an argument that got staged in a city. By insisting it "came out of N.Y. as a philosophy" before anyone hit record, he flips the usual music-history script. The point isn't who played first or which riff invented what. The point is that punk began as a set of permissions: you can start without credentials, you can build without industry blessing, you can be loud on purpose because quiet is how you get managed.

Ginn's phrase "intellectual interest" is a small act of provocation. Punk gets mythologized as pure impulse, all spit and volume. He quietly claims it as design, almost like a political experiment: what happens if you treat a music scene like a self-organizing movement? That subtext matters because it reframes punk's DIY ethic as strategy rather than rebellion-for-rebellion's sake. "Grassroots" isn't just a vibe; it's infrastructure. It implies venues, flyers, touring circuits, labels, and the social glue of people showing up for each other when the mainstream won't.

The New York reference is also a subtle boundary-drawing. Ginn, a central figure in Southern California's hardcore explosion with Black Flag and SST, nods to the CBGB-era petri dish while suggesting the real export was a method. Scenes can be copied; philosophies travel. He's explaining how punk became scalable: not a genre you consume, but a template you replicate wherever you are, using whatever you have, right now.