"Punk rock really came out of N.Y. as a philosophy before the groups were ever recorded. I had a kind-of intellectual interest in the idea of creating a new scene that could be a grassroots thing"
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Greg Ginn points to New York as the place where punk first cohered as an idea rather than a sound. Before the records that canonized it, there was a way of thinking: radical accessibility, minimal means, anti-elitism, and a refusal to wait for permission. In downtown clubs like CBGB and Maxs Kansas City, and in fanzines, flyers, and word of mouth, a template spread: start a band even if you barely play, write your own rules, press your own singles, build your own audience. That intellectual core preceded the artifacts that later defined the genre for most listeners.
Calling his interest intellectual is revealing. Ginn is often associated with the ferocity of Black Flag and the birth of American hardcore, but he also approached punk as a system to be engineered. If the industry would not open its doors, then new doors could be built: independent labels, all-ages shows, volunteer-run venues, mail-order distribution. SST Records was this philosophy put into practice, as were the relentless van tours that linked basements, VFW halls, skate parks, and small clubs into a national circuit. The emphasis falls less on a sonic formula than on infrastructure, on the mundane but revolutionary labor of booking gigs, stapling flyers, and answering letters.
Situating the genesis in New York underscores how the movement first circulated as a set of practices and attitudes among artists like the Ramones, Television, Patti Smith, and Richard Hell. The music press, zines, and scenes spread the ethos across the country, where figures like Ginn adapted it to the sprawl of Southern California. Grassroots is the operative word: a community built from below, reproducible anywhere, immune to the bottlenecks of mainstream culture. Punk becomes not just a style or a slogan but a method for making culture happen, transforming alienation into collective action long before a record needle drops.
Calling his interest intellectual is revealing. Ginn is often associated with the ferocity of Black Flag and the birth of American hardcore, but he also approached punk as a system to be engineered. If the industry would not open its doors, then new doors could be built: independent labels, all-ages shows, volunteer-run venues, mail-order distribution. SST Records was this philosophy put into practice, as were the relentless van tours that linked basements, VFW halls, skate parks, and small clubs into a national circuit. The emphasis falls less on a sonic formula than on infrastructure, on the mundane but revolutionary labor of booking gigs, stapling flyers, and answering letters.
Situating the genesis in New York underscores how the movement first circulated as a set of practices and attitudes among artists like the Ramones, Television, Patti Smith, and Richard Hell. The music press, zines, and scenes spread the ethos across the country, where figures like Ginn adapted it to the sprawl of Southern California. Grassroots is the operative word: a community built from below, reproducible anywhere, immune to the bottlenecks of mainstream culture. Punk becomes not just a style or a slogan but a method for making culture happen, transforming alienation into collective action long before a record needle drops.
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| Topic | Music |
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