> Yes, its absolutely right to correlate this scenario with cultural
> post-modernism. Or rather a certain version of it, since many of the
> artists you cite, Alan, were already working through it, in different
> ways, in '77-87.
>
'xackly, my students think punk, post-punk and hardcore are - or were, at least - a particularly variety of sound... which really raises the question of what it was, other than having had enough of Kiss, Genesis, the BeeGees and Bob Seger that we had in common... I've wondered, at different times, if the scene worked as well as it did in large part because it was about openness to a wide variety of DIY-ing - Television to Black Flag, The Residents to The Ramones, The Butthole Surfers to The Washington Squares, Sonic Youth to Michelle Shocked, Los Lobos to Chickasaw Mudd Puppies, Young Marble Giants to Wire, Billy Bragg to Billy Zoom... good times.
The 80s, for me, then turned into "Holy crap, who knew anyone could put THOSE styles together!?", but the 90s felt ever-more fractured as that center WFMU had brought me into in the mid-to-late-70s couldn't hold itself together anymore...
A friend and I went to see Mike Watt's new trio in Grand Rapids last spring... that made me happy... same guy, same work ethic, same creativity... now I want to see The Black Angels, and loud.