Dim light saturates the broken pavement as I idle around outside of San Pedro mainstay Harold's Bar. Mike Watt is standing, centered against the rails outside, a pariah messiah whose flock stands and soaks in stories of former hijinks and glory.
My friends Colin and Lee of the band Terminal A, along with the rest of the crowd, wait for the chance to take to the non-stage within Harold's for the purpose of entertainment and artistry; all set to a tropical backdrop whose inclusion seems more like a subtle jab at the sun soaked vibes in favor of sentimentality towards the seedier nature of Pedro itself.
This is the scene that I have chosen to commemorate. The scene whose very nature speaks of more than just late night dives and late night drives. A scene which could be labeled as punk, but isn't defined by moniker. This is about more than a Tuesday night show at Harold's. This is a model of existence, a methodology to counter the malaise of the everyday. A giant "fuck you" to every insincerity and every bad hand life has every ungraciously dealt. This is a means of coping, not only through the creation of music but the projection of the individual behind it, doesn't settle on survival as much as it strives to thrive. This is more than punk.
That's why I gathered some of my friends after the show, musicians who inspire me not only with their music, but their intelligence and grit as well, to discuss the purpose behind the music. At two in the morning, surrounded by alcohol, I spoke with Colin Peterson and Lee Busch of the band Terminal A, Brian Mendoza of the group Band Aparte, and Ricky Douglas of Sashcloth and Axes to discuss not only musical influences and performance methods, but the intent of their message and the philosophy influencing there everyday. The result of our discussion spoke volumes. This is the result.
Origin Stories
Union Weekly: It seems that with smaller bands, the idea and the ethos of punk is re-emerging.
Brian Mendoza: There's definitely some continuity for sure.
UW: In that sense, what do you all want to accomplish with what you're doing and playing and what you're trying to convey?
Ricky Douglas: I'm here to fucking party, hard. In terms of punk, punk's really just a fashion, even when it started. It's just a cool thing for people to do when they have nothing to do.
BM: I wouldn't use the term "punk" for what my group or I are trying to do. We listen to stuff made by people that call themselves punks and what they were doing back in the day, but today, it's completely fucking gone.
UW: It's a fashion statement.
RD: I'm not really into the whole fashion thing. This guy's [gestures to Brian] got swag.
BM: But the hipster kids don't like that. They think I'm some fuck.
RD: That's the thing; I never got into it because of the fashion; I got into to it because I fucking love music, hard. Music is something that gives; well, at least it should be giving everybody in here purpose.
UW: Do you feel like you need to convey anything to your audience? Or are you just trying to make something...
BM: Hate, pain.
Colin Peterson: Hate pain.
RD: All the emotions you don't talk about.
BM: Discussing things that aren't discussed in everyday conversation, but are, in a sense, universal. Someone might listen to a song's lyrics, and they might question themselves, "Am I doing this? Am I living this way?" If they can question those things, if they think about things in a different sense than they did before, then maybe I've done my job. I don't want to be Sonic Youth and have fucking 10 minute songs with just noise at the end; I want to do it in a compact fashion, and that's why punk rock has always meant a lot. Sonic Youth is punk rock too, but I want to do it in that sort of traditional sense. I think keeping it compact and having something to say is more effective, and people will be more likely to listen.
CP: Lee and I are on the same page. If you want to communicate something to young people, or people who don't really care about anything, you need to hold their interests, and a good, fast, rock and roll song still holds interest, you know?
BM: And it only holds interest because people can't hold their attention on anything for longer than three to four minutes. For longer songs, people go through like five minutes; they'll skip it if they're not doing drugs or something. We're in the YouTube generation; three to four minutes is all you'll ever need. If you're writing songs longer than five minutes, cut it out (laughs). Knock that shit off.
CP: If you're primarily trying to communicate something in traditional rock and roll fashion, most basic structures and an idea or emotion carry the music. It's someone displaying to you their subjective space, and that music just happens to be the vessel.
The Power of Conflict
UW: Personally, how do you try to convey your ideas or philosophies to a crowd with your own artistic styling as a band?
Lee Busch: My thing is that I'm just an instrument. I've sure you've had this, Doza, when you're trying to convey yourself emotionally when you're playing an instrument; it's all in the style that you play it. I try to get as much energy into every chord that I can, and I also go to a weird emotional place when I'm on stage, and a lot of it comes out, and you move around a lot. A lot of it is mannerisms.
CP: It's confrontational and it's...when you have people's attention, you may as well tell them what's up. Also, I have this whole thing about how I hate the state of how people communicate now. I'm kind of bummed about the trajectory that Western culture as a whole has taken. How do you get rid of all the bullshit? You take things back to a metaphysic of flesh and blood, like if you make yourself suffer in front of someone, and they see that, and then there's no denying the validity of your statement, because they're witnessing something actually happening before them.
UW: So the conflict is sort of a necessity.
CP: The conflict is a necessity, absolutely. I've read a bunch of tragedy; it's a good thing. Because there's so much bullshit nowadays, whether it be complicated hipster sophists spitting their academic jargon, or people who are just too ill-informed to understand something going on in front of them. Both are different shades of bullshit nebulousness. You have to be very direct with people. You have to get them to step outside themselves. It's actually worse now than it was. Look at Lady Gaga for instance. She's got this whole team behind her conjuring images of wacky stunts for her to do, and people perceive it as avant-garde. I bet that in a couple of generations, young kids who are super immersed in normative culture will see her as avant-garde. When that happens, the term avant-garde is drained of credibility. In a sense, cutting through the bullshit is an act of preserving one's culture.
BM: I don't really think there is such a thing as avant-garde. It's been gone.
LB: I think it's always been like that. I think the idea of the end of novelty, and I'm not 100 percent on this, is a false construct in postmodern theory.
RD: You can't say that, like the invention of the synthesizer... after that you can't say that there's nothing you can do.
LB: Technology is different than the creative process, though. You have 12 notes in the entire musical scale, and that's been standardized for hundreds of years. I think at any point in time, it's been taking what had come before and reformatting.
It's kind of like evolution; its DNA gets fucked up and copied wrong and ends up becoming a mutation.
CP: Plus at the end of the day, no two voices sound the same, and no two people with a point of view will say the same thing. Regardless of whether novelty is a factor or not, there will always be an endless amount of individuals who, by perceiving their experiences, will have something to say about them, and will write a riff differently.
RD: It's a really tough thing. That's why it just comes down to the idea of is it real? Does it seem like this person is in it for a real reason or are they some fake bastard trying to get famous? The reason I listen to your band is because it sounds like some bitch broke your heart. The reason we're all sitting here together is because we all like each other's music. At the end of the day, you genuinely fall in love with bands that are more real than others; Morrissey's voice is beautiful because the shit he has to say. It sounds like he's crying all the time. But then you get into like, I don't want to outwardly bash a band. Let's just say that after the Black Lips, everyone just seemed to get into garage rock.
LB: Okay, here's the thing, to bring it back to your old point, any of the bands that we're in you can see the reference points. You love Soft Cell and black metal. Nobody's put that shit together like that before.
CP: Exactly. Ultimately you were tactful enough to synthesize not just sounds, but essences. Cultural synthesis has always been a thing, but the tactful person will look behind the things that signify a style and look at the essence. Everyone has reference points, that's how you learn to go deeper into something. The Internet, this whole working for the crowd thing, especially the Internet, has made it about the bands making what the fans want, not what they want.
With the Internet thing, I think that it's affecting music more than we realize because...
RD: It's made everyone a fucking record label.
CP: Exactly. But people approach music now more from the standpoint of a curator. It's less about doing, and more about curating. There aren't solid scenes, really.
BM: There are solid scenes, it's just that they're all fucking lame. They're called Burger Records.
RD: I'm not gonna bash Burger for their success; I'm gonna bash the bands. They don't seem like they're genuine about anything. There are so many times you can say "Ooh, baby," before it's like, "Enough already."
CP: It's like photocopying a photocopy, and then photocopying that photocopy and watching it disintegrate.
RD: You could get the five bands that started that and did it with passion, and you can see all the snail trail marks.
Final Thoughts
UW: What's the final thing you guys would like to say about why you're all doing this?
CP: Whenever you have an open cultural forum, it behooves you to take advantage of that act in it so you can act on your culture, create a better world. Next generation: it's up to you to define or disassemble what is sacred. Take prisoners and execute them. Bam.
BM: That was some noble shit.
LB: I don't know. I just want to communicate with some people, make some friends, make some people dance, have some sketchy experiences, and hopefully when I croak, somebody will hear one of our songs and relate to it. That's the reason I wake up in the morning and haven't sucked on the end of an exhaust pipe.
BM: Same thing. That's your name in history. There's no better thing than that, something that you contributed, still going on. I just want to reveal some emotions, and help people maybe question the things they do. Just dance, because the rest of the world is bullshit; you might as well have fun. You'll work the rest of your life, a slave to capital, when you're done, you should go ahead and grab a Pabst, and ask what's the hapst.
RD: Pretty much the same thing. The reason for all this shit is just a means for people to feel like they're not insane or making their life meaningless. I'm in it to have fun and have a good time, and if I had to live without it I'd probably go insane.
Share This Article
