Be a Punk in Bondage

Lorna Doom

This came via Julia via Metafilter:

How to Look Punk

It is filled with pinup boys and girls galore. And, apart from being an amazing artifact, necessarily free of any punk rock revisionist history, it also reveals the secret of how to do your eye makeup to look like The Go-Go's back in the day. Me, I'm still working on figuring out "smoky" eyes, but I've got this bookmarked now.

Does anyone remember in the '80s when kids used to dress up like punk rockers for Halloween? Little 11 year-old Wendy O. Williamses dousing themselves in glitter and spray-on hair color and running around demanding candy? I think kids still do that but now they dress up like the Hot Topic version. Anyway, it's become a cherished memory for me.

On a largely unrelated note, I heard that socks and platforms were going to be the rage. I've got these on hand. But nowhere to wear them. I'm afraid I have this obsession with dressing for the weather and the occasion and my next big night out centers on skee ball. It just isn't in the cards. Oh, well. They were a gift.

But enough about the challenges of my life. I came across this interesting post on The Gaurdian's website while cadging images for this post:

Punk's Not Dead - It Just Emigrated

It makes tantalizingly brief mention of different punk bands in politically and culturally repressive countries and I'd like to see it expanded. It's a bit of a stub. Maximum Rocknroll is a good source of information on this sort of thing but I still always want to hear more about music scenes in places where it is dangerous to be a band. I've touched on that in these posts:

Bleeding Ears, Heart

No One Knows About Persian Cats (Now playing. Get the soundtrack: No One Knows About Persian Cats: The Soundtrack That's an order.)

I do think the writer of The Gaurdian post is a little quick to dismiss the relevance of punk rock in countries that have democracy and capitalism. But it's a little embarrassing how easily talk like that can get me to wad my panties up. So, instead of opening that particular can of worms today, I'll leave you with the words of my wise friend Erik:

"Punk is dead. But sometimes it's fun to dress up and play dead."

And if you're feeling nostalgic for times you may or may not have even been alive for, this giant coffee table book is full of tasty nerd candy:

Live at the Masque: Nightmare in Punk Alley

And Glen Thrasher has some interesting and recent thoughts on what it was like to be listening to cool records in the late '70s.