[lbo-talk] Punk Pioneer PD Oedipus Leaves WBCN Boston

B. docile_body at yahoo.com
Thu Jun 3 13:26:21 PDT 2004


Doug wrote:

"Was that ['This is Boston, Not L.A.'] an Atlantics song? I saw some band perform that in Boston way back and it kind of gave me the creeps. What does it mean, really? Is it some sort of chip-on-the-shoulder pride in provincialism and New England austerity? Please enlighten."

The song was by The Freeze, a Boston band on the comp. I mentioned. This is how they explain it:

"The title song is ours and not many people realize it's not about disliking L.A., just the opposite actually as most of the bands we were listening to at that time were from the LA area (Bad Religion, Channel 3, The Circle Jerks, Social Distortion etc.). It's talking to the newly forming Boston scene and saying remember to do your own thing, create your own sound, as a lot of bands at the time were styling themselves directly after other bands (no names mentioned). It kinda sucks, but were still best known in some circles for BOSTON NOT LA."

http://www.dirtywater.com/a2z/f/freeze/

There was a ton of provincialism in the h.c. scene back then. "DC scene vs. Boston," "New York vs. Los Angeles," "Texas vs all of you," etc. A lot of it was friendly, some of it was ugly. It's important to remember that for every song like The Clash's "Spanish Bombs" there was one like Fear's "I Don't Care About You," for every Dead Kennedys "California Uber Alles" there was a Black Flag "White Minority" [pre-Rollins, they later dropped the song].

You prob know punk to begin with was an inconsistent mish mash of right, left, whatever-the-hell beliefs, people playing with shocking imagery, swastikas, etc., but by the mid 80s thanks to bands like the Dead Kennedys, Crass, Subhumans, etc it had pretty much solidified as a leftist "movement," often in spite of the left itself, which seemed to be embarrassed by these unlikely, scary-looking, pimply faced allies. Tipper Gore hated them, most establishment liberals did/do.

B



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