Shelby Monita: Are you noticing a growing curiosity among younger readers discovering your writing and zine, wanting to know what they missed out on?
Erick Lyle: Hmmm…. Maybe. (I’m assuming you mean the Black Flag issue of SCAM with this question). I think there’s been a growing interest in The Old Days of punk for many years. Punk started getting self-conscious about its past, I think, as far back as 1991 when there were a couple pretty important seismic shifts in what was then clearly an underground subculture. Nirvana broke as a huge mainstream rock band and threw open the doors to the major labels for many longtime underground punk bands that had struggled through the long dark 80’s. At the same time, as punk started to appear on MTV and in the mall, there really was also a sort-of underground renaissance taking place. There was lots of new energy in DIY punk in spaces like Gilman Street and ABC NO RIO and a general shift away from the bummer so-called “Crossover” years or the late 80’s NYC hardcore/metal and straight edge stuff that seemed violent and stupid to many of us in the rest of the country. Personal zines became really huge at that time and much of that punk literature in many ways looked for inspiration back to the earliest days of punk before things had got so pro-rock or violent or metal in the late 80’s. Zines like Cometbus were the first to really explore punk – something that was always about “no future” and living in the moment – as something that had a history. But when Nirvana came along, some of that self-consciousness about punk history – about, lets say, that eternal question, what is punk?—was also about maintaining punk identity as oppositional in the face of the cooptation of punk style by major labels.
I think in recent years with the rise of the Internet, the clear line between “mainstream” and “underground” has almost completely disappeared. As my pal, Becca says, what we do is NOT secret! The mainstream has continued to mine subcultures for every last shred of commodifiable authentic spark. Punk is in the museums and the academy. Punks feel free to post what were once punk secrets online for all to see. I mean, here in NYC, many “all ages DIY spaces” more closely resemble for-profit rock bars that happen to be run quasi-illegally in warehouses and the shows are listed in the New Yorker! So the cat’s out of the bag. Folks know all about it. With the Black Flag reunions, we even see the pathetic sight of mainstream publications like Rolling Stone trying to now cover the band with a knowing tone, to make up for all the years they completely ignored the Dark Matter of the US punk underground that was all around them. So there’s a market for books about The Old Days and many of those old days stories are, of course, really quite great so people read them.
Its possible that the current obsession with the Old Days represents punk’s anxiety about its own authenticity in the new place in the culture it suddenly finds itself in. Black Flag once could not play a show without LAPD starting a riot. Now the Black Flag reunions will play at large outdoor festivals this summer in many cities and the reunions are covered in NY Times, LA Times, Rolling Stone – evenForbes.com! Black Flag and punk seems to have partially won the battle with the larger culture. So what happens to punk now? The question seems to me, then, how to take it back from being a commodity or how to make it dangerous again in some way, or is it just time to do something else?
If anything, I’d say, though, that most of the mail I’ve received from younger readers seems to be in agreement with the zine’s postscript that addresses punk and its current increasing retreat into nostalgia for its own glory days. Kids have written me, complaining about what they perceive as a hierarchy of cool where the Old Days are presented as something inherently better than now. They say knowing every detail about the old days or having all these old records is part of some currency that they feel is gross to accrue when punk to them was supposed to be about no rules and doing what you want and challenging the status quo. So there might be a backlash against nostalgia where it really counts – in the young kids who are making and reading zines and making new bands. But, this is hardly scientific. I’m only talking about a handful of letters.
I would also say that “missed out on” is perhaps the wrong way to look at it. While bands like Black Flag and their SST contemporaries seem to me to be among the best bands ever and I can only imagine what it was like to see them in their prime, I DO know what its like to be part of really amazing scenes and communities and to be at really amazing, life changing shows. Everything that is old is new to people who find it for the first time and that spirit of rebirth is part of punk. Look at the Minutemen documentary. In it you see footage of this band that is now considered legendary enough to make a film about, but they were playing live in 1983 to, like, three very puzzled skinheads in a completely empty room! A lot of The Old Days was really like that. Which is to say it’s the same as now: small groups of committed and excited and probably weird people inventing something together out of sight from the rest of the world in remote unknown locations. The Old Days are happening live before your eyes so make the most of it while you’re in it!
SM: In the postscript of SCAM Issue #9, Damaged, the story of Black Flag’s first album, you wrote about what happened, happened and can never be recreated. For what now (through younger naïve eyes) seems to be such a romantic period in music, do you feel that such genuine passion can ever be created again without the same social restraints?
EL: Well, I suppose the aesthetics or formal aspects of punk music have lost their shock value or have come to signify something else in the culture, if that’s the kind of “social restraint” you mean. You’re probably not automatically going to get harassed for having a mohawk in most places these days. But the riot police are still on hand to attack any large group of folks who are inventing together their own autonomous culture that’s against the prevailing social order. Look no further than Occupy Wall Street, which suffered from intense surveillance, infiltration, and violent physical attack – much of it illegal — from US law enforcement in Occupy camps across the country. I was working on the first interviews for the Black Flag zine during the short Occupy era and felt there were obvious parallels between the joy people were finding in Occupy and what it must have been like for kids who were discovering – and creating together – punk in SoCal in that summer of 1981 I was writing about. Everyone was saying how “the energy is like nothing else that’s happened before”, etc. So, yes, I definitely think new, genuinely passionate culture can be created right now!
SM: Do you still feel the same connection to punk rock as you did when you were a teen in South Florida?
EL: Yes and no. In many ways I feel a greater connection because punk rock has been my whole life since then. When I was a kid in South Florida, I was dreaming of starting a band, doing a zine, booking shows, traveling around the country on tour, etc. and now I have done all of that many times over. It has been so much of my focus for so many years and has brought me really deep connection with so many wonderful people and experiences all over the country.
On the other hand, when I was a teen, I saw punk rock as a total universe that could meet all my needs in life. It’s now been years since I felt that way. After a time, I realized that it was too small a world to contain all my interests. First, I started to feel like activism within punk was very limited and that for real change to happen, I would need to connect my activism with people outside of the punk rock world. Later, as a reporter or when I got involved in curating art shows, I started to feel, too, like my curiosity was taking me beyond the bounds of punk.
But I think this is good. You should get inspiration from wherever you can. As the saying goes, punk rock saved my life. I think this is true for many others. But I’ve seen over the years that many people who felt that great promise from punk in the beginning later get bitter when they see punk isn’t perfect and so they leave the scene. In particular, I’ve seen it with kids who become activists and start to find punk to be too apathetic or privileged so they make a sharp break with it and feel condescending toward it. I never wanted to quit punk, though. I think its possible to make a contribution in many areas and not expect one thing to meet all your needs.
SM: What do you feel is the best reward for living a creative life?
EL: Creative satisfaction! That, and living in a way that you can continually discover new things, experiment, find new people to collaborate with or to have conversations with, etc. Also, it can be good for you to not have so much security sometimes, to not know where the next month’s rent is coming from. It keeps you on your toes, puts some spice in the mix… It’s all work but it’s worth it to me, the hustle. It feels good to rely on yourself in life.
SM: I read your interview in Beached Miami where you spoke of the overdevelopment and housing issues in Southern Florida. In Toronto, we are facing similar issues as Miami. People with lower income are not treated with respect, government housing and historical buildings being torn down to make way for dysfunctional condos for the rich and cooperation’s being preferred over small business. Is there anything you witnessed in Miami that could be a cautionary tale for other cities like Toronto?
EL: Ha ha ha… Well, I can’t imagine anything as insane as the completely fucked universe of Miami ever happening in Canada! Also, Toronto’s a much larger and more sophisticated city than Miami and I’ve met a lot of cool activists from Toronto over the years, so I’m sure folks there know what to look for. In Miami, specifically, I was writing about the city’s claims that Art Basel and all the art world money that it brought to Miami were going to at last bring money and jobs to Miami’s poorest neighborhoods, when actually the city and developers are just cynically using art money as an engine to inflate real estate values, grab public lands for private art museums, and to displace low income tenants from huge swaths of Miami’s poorest inner city neighborhoods. I would say, in general, its good to be cynical about pre-fab “arts neighborhoods”. Genuine arts communities tend to form organically in remote corners of cities where there’s abandonment, crime, poor city services, low rent, etc. Not so much in brand new condos on the waterfront – even if they’re now covered in developer-sanctioned “Street Art”!
SM: Any words of advice for the next generation of writers and zine enthusiast, who only want to write and never want a job?
EL: YOU CAN DO IT!
SM: What’s your favourite Iggy Pop album?
EL: Well, I should say first that to my great surprise, the new Stooges record is actually really killer! Even as we’re complaining about nostalgia here, I got to say that its not nostalgia if you’ve still got it! I checked out some live clips online and it was really inspiring to me to see James Williamson and Mike Watt rocking out so insanely hard to these new songs. Those guys are deadly serious. They always really bring it. You hear fans complain and say things like, “A bunch of senior citizens shouldn’t be playing punk rock!” But those folks have it exactly wrong. The truth is, being old is punk! I don’t mean like The Rolling Stones, Inc. Roadshow, which is still just as corporate, louche, and contemptuous of its audience as ever. Or The Who, who really suck. But when you’re like Fred and Toodie Cole or Watt and you’re up there on stage, looking all wild and ragged and you’re rocking out, warts and all, blowing younger bands off the stage…that is seriously cool! Any 20 year old can sing, “I’m going to stay young until I die”, but those oldtimers have been staring it down everyday for a long time and still deliver. These people are true lifers and I’m inspired by their dedication.
I guess if we’re talking about solo records, I’d have to say Lust For Life is still my favorite. I mean, for starters, who can deny that killer cover photo of The Ig and that thousand-watt grin? “I’m worth a million in prizes”… But Kill City is amazing. Even New Values… I’ve been listening to that a lot lately.
I’ve actually been listening to LFL, The Idiot, and New Values a lot lately, though. For some reason those sound so great to me right now. It’s like pulling a warm blanket over my head and burrowing deeper under the covers on a cold Sunday morning. They really capture that It has that glorious empire-in-ruins-pre-Reagan-fascism late 70’s sound… “From Central Park to shanty town… Don’t look down.”Williamson was really hinked on those saxaphones and lush female backing vocals, huh? That big studio 70’s analog sound was what the first music I heard on the radio when I was a tiny child sounded like, so there’s always been something both creepy and thrilling about it. Its like the sound that “Horses”, Fleetwood Mac, “Jailbreak”, “Marquee Moon”, “The E Street Shuffle”, and Dylan’s “Street Legal” record all have in common. Something on the line between luxurious and just bloated. I think Bowie got something like that for Iggy with scrappier production values on those records they made in Berlin together. It makes me wonder, what would a record that captures exactly our current moment sound like? And would we even like it or would it not sound good for another 20 years?!? Of course, Bowie was trying to channel Weimer-era nostalgia with those records for The Ig so they were born already drenched in nostalgia. But why do they sound perfect to me this week?