You're Gonna Change (Or I'm Gonna Leave)

Last week, I went to the grocery store to load up on necessities (Fiji water, Alaskan salmon marinated in cracked pepper and chopped garlic, pink-lemonade-flavored Metamucil) and I heard someone yelling a phrase I usually hear at Warped Tour. Some girl with comic-book blue-black hair, obviously displeased with a pastel-sweatpanted blonde in the canned veggies aisle, uttered the horrible p-word. "You're such a friggin' poseur."It's nice to know my local market is protecting me from faux punks when all I really want is a f&$@#ng tomato that won't make me hurl.

This got me to realizing how so much youth/music culture is obsessed with identifying who is, ahem, "legit." Once in 1992, I stopped into Noir Leather in Royal Oak, Michigan, the place for culture-defining sartorial flair, waaay before Hot Topic ever drafted a business plan. Unfortunately, I was wearing shorts and a Looney Tunes t-shirt with all the famous Warner Bros. cartoon characters on it. I was set upon by some gangly halfwit in what looked like standard-issue black bondage suit, and 32 pieces of metal in his face. He looks me up and down and says, "Nice shirt. Do you know where I can get a Looney Runes shirt?" Granted, I looked like I was lining up for Third Eye Blind tickets and he figured I'd never know he was talking about the 1990 release by the pastorally sinister British act Current 93. This of course, gave me carte blanche to blather on incessantly about other things I heard C93 leader David Tibet was doing, as well as rattling off my favorite records and songs by Coil, Nurse With Wound, Death In June and other acts active in that scene. The dude slowly backed away from me as I was discussing the merits of Coil's Love Secret Domain vs. NWW's Homotopy To Marie. Here's hoping that guy found some strength in Proactiv.

On another trip to the grocery store a few years ago, I wore a Damned t-shirt which sported the artwork to their "Thanks For The Night" single. The 20-something dood with the white hat and butcher's lab coat stocking the meat section complimented me on the shirt, before adding, "I guess you bought that new."When I told him I saw the Damned at the Ontario Theatre in D.C. with Minor Threat opening, he dropped his braised beef tips. Then he asked if I ever heard of Melt Banana, and I told him how Burnt By The Sun's Dave Witte was playing drums with them on that tour. Four days later at the Melt Banana show in Cle, he tapped me on the shoulder and apologized for being condescending.

But I get it. All of my oldest friends I met because they marked themselves in ways that separated themselves from the rest of the FM-rock dullards we had to endure in our youth. I met Erik when he came into the National Record Mart I was working at wearing a Public Image Ltd. button. My buddy Joe was a full-on Mod with sweet bowling shoes, Jam shirts and Secret Affair pins on his lapel. (Naturally, to all the vomit-faced masses in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, he was frequently referred to as a "punk-rock faggot.") Now here's the thing: In those days in the late '70s/early '80s, there was a degree of solidarity. In those days, a melting pot of nerdy students, Addams Family types, guys with "RAMONES" painted on their leather jackets in White-Out and the only dude in town with a mohawk would all show up at gigs featuring Peter Gabriel, the Meat Puppets, the Bush Tetras and unknown hardcore bands with names like the Clitboys. We went to the gigs in solidarity because we were united in our hatred for the crap that was on the radio and playing the local arena. Meanwhile back in Cleveland, Mike Shea started AP because he wanted a portal of information for new-wave dance-pop and bone-breaking hardcore! These days, everybody seems so rigidly set in their little fashion-show subculture, whether it's the Suicide Girl wannabe in my grocery store, or the 40-something dude with the faded tats that now look like mold, who thinks there's no good music anymore. I wanna slap all of them with a manhole cover.

I really believe that real music fans don't need all the acoutrements of subcultures to love the music. I don't need a severe haircut, a full tattoo sleeve, 67 piercings, an addiction to Percoset or a nip/tuck job to profess my love for Dillinger Escape Plan, Sex Gang Children, My Chemical Romance, Russell Haswell and Rancid. Let me put it to you this way: The underground music world needs more "Marilyns." No, not doppelgangers of Miss Monroe, America's favorite dead actress: I'm talking about the seemingly normal types who stick out at shows simply because they're so painfully ordinary. Because in the long run, they're all punker than all "the tribes" combined.