by J.E. Remy
In the mid to late 1970s, the United States, England and Australia saw the emergence of a youth subculture influenced by the lyrics of the anti-establishment rock music genre, punk rock. The punk music scene first appeared outside of a small underground movement through the music of the Sex Pistols and the Ramones in New York City and London circa 1975. Soon other bands spread the sound to Los Angeles, Brisbane and Boston. Like Romanticism, the punk movement started as a reaction against the generation before it. The New York Dolls even fashioned themselves after French Symbolist poets like Rimbaud: “Rimbaud would write about the monstrous city and the effects it would have on the species,” said lead singer David JoHansen, in John Savage’s England’s Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, and Beyond, “And here it is 1973 and everything is very fast moving and I try to understand how people feel about it, how they relate to the environment. That’s what my songs are about.”
The Sex Pistols enhanced American punk with anger and hopelessness toward their socio-political environment. The Ramones acted like violent, drug-addicted street thugs. Yet each band displayed outrageous and theatrical fashions to mask their strong social and political beliefs. Critical of current society, and inspired by the perception of an individual’s right to freedom, punks embraced individualism, anti-authoritarianism, political anarchism, free thought and expression.
The spirit of the punk movement spread beyond music, first spreading into zines, like New York’s Punk, started by John Holmstrom, Ged Dunn and Legs McNeil in January of 1976. The zines started through a reinterpretation of amateur rock fanzines which, in turn, had been inspired by sci-fi fan fiction fanzines. It wouldn’t take long before the movement came full circle, reaching speculative fiction in the early 1980s.
The suffix “-punk” started to appear in the names of a variety of subgenres of speculative fiction by authors who wanted to break from traditional modes of writing and denote a concurrence between subgenres that makes use of “punk” tools. These tools include the free thought of postmodern literary techniques such as confessional poetry, stream of consciousness, non-linear storytelling, linguistic calisthenics, and literary appreciation beyond the academic. Themes are typically countercultural, focused on underground movements, marginalized groups, and anti-establishment tendencies. However, they can go so far as to become nihilistic in their lack of adherence to clichéd conventions. Settings are gritty, downbeat, and shocking and urban locations where lives are enhanced by technology and information. And the fantastic elements prevalent in speculative fiction are made more realistic, ambiguous, or prosaic and protagonist may take on an individualistic and anti-heroic tone. As author Bruce Sterling stated, “Anything that can be done to a rat can be done to a human being. And we can do most anything to rats. This is a hard thing to think about, but it’s the truth. It won’t go away because we cover our eyes. That is cyberpunk.” This harsh view of reality is prevalent across the whole of the “punk” movement: cyberpunk, splatterpunk, timepunk, and mythpunk.
Some “punk” subgenres have been criticized as being overly categorized and unnecessary. In fact, the movement itself has achieved little more than a cult following, but the nontraditional style has provided new expressive techniques for contemporary literature.
(Go to All Sorts of Punk: Cyberpunk)
(Go to All Sorts of Punk: Splatterpunk)
(Go to All Sorts of Punk: Timepunk)
(Go to All Sorts of Punk: Mythpunk)
In the mid to late 1970s, the United States, England and Australia saw the emergence of a youth subculture influenced by the lyrics of the anti-establishment rock music genre, punk rock. The punk music scene first appeared outside of a small underground movement through the music of the Sex Pistols and the Ramones in New York City and London circa 1975. Soon other bands spread the sound to Los Angeles, Brisbane and Boston. Like Romanticism, the punk movement started as a reaction against the generation before it. The New York Dolls even fashioned themselves after French Symbolist poets like Rimbaud: “Rimbaud would write about the monstrous city and the effects it would have on the species,” said lead singer David JoHansen, in John Savage’s England’s Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, and Beyond, “And here it is 1973 and everything is very fast moving and I try to understand how people feel about it, how they relate to the environment. That’s what my songs are about.”
The Sex Pistols enhanced American punk with anger and hopelessness toward their socio-political environment. The Ramones acted like violent, drug-addicted street thugs. Yet each band displayed outrageous and theatrical fashions to mask their strong social and political beliefs. Critical of current society, and inspired by the perception of an individual’s right to freedom, punks embraced individualism, anti-authoritarianism, political anarchism, free thought and expression.
The spirit of the punk movement spread beyond music, first spreading into zines, like New York’s Punk, started by John Holmstrom, Ged Dunn and Legs McNeil in January of 1976. The zines started through a reinterpretation of amateur rock fanzines which, in turn, had been inspired by sci-fi fan fiction fanzines. It wouldn’t take long before the movement came full circle, reaching speculative fiction in the early 1980s.
The suffix “-punk” started to appear in the names of a variety of subgenres of speculative fiction by authors who wanted to break from traditional modes of writing and denote a concurrence between subgenres that makes use of “punk” tools. These tools include the free thought of postmodern literary techniques such as confessional poetry, stream of consciousness, non-linear storytelling, linguistic calisthenics, and literary appreciation beyond the academic. Themes are typically countercultural, focused on underground movements, marginalized groups, and anti-establishment tendencies. However, they can go so far as to become nihilistic in their lack of adherence to clichéd conventions. Settings are gritty, downbeat, and shocking and urban locations where lives are enhanced by technology and information. And the fantastic elements prevalent in speculative fiction are made more realistic, ambiguous, or prosaic and protagonist may take on an individualistic and anti-heroic tone. As author Bruce Sterling stated, “Anything that can be done to a rat can be done to a human being. And we can do most anything to rats. This is a hard thing to think about, but it’s the truth. It won’t go away because we cover our eyes. That is cyberpunk.” This harsh view of reality is prevalent across the whole of the “punk” movement: cyberpunk, splatterpunk, timepunk, and mythpunk.
Some “punk” subgenres have been criticized as being overly categorized and unnecessary. In fact, the movement itself has achieved little more than a cult following, but the nontraditional style has provided new expressive techniques for contemporary literature.
(Go to All Sorts of Punk: Cyberpunk)
(Go to All Sorts of Punk: Splatterpunk)
(Go to All Sorts of Punk: Timepunk)
(Go to All Sorts of Punk: Mythpunk)
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You might enjoy this exclusive audio interview with LEGS McNEIL, in which he talks about his books, Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk and The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry ; and much, much more.
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