Ageing in Punk

The 2002 special issue of HeartattaCk entitled “Thirty Years and Counting: Punks Over Thirty” discusses how punks over the age of 30, are navigating, participating and contributing to the punk scene. While punks over 30 are still very much part of the scene then and now, their representation often gets overlooked. As with many issues of HeartattaCk, editors Leslie and Lisa utilize interviews, written submissions, and even advertising to create a conversation on the ways in which punks over 30 forge a place for themselves within the scene. The zine offers personal narratives that shape and reshape what it means to not quite fit the conventional social expectations of punk identity.

WHILE THERE ARE TIMES WHEN I DO WONDER WHY I’M STILL HERE AND PROBABLY ALWAYS WILL QUESTION IT, I JUST CAN’T GET COMPLETELY AWAY FROM IT

Al Q.

Punk as Pedagogy

Punk utilizes pedagogy not only through learning and thinking, but by engaging with other like-minded individuals to address topics, ideas, and passions that matter to them. Isn’t that how the punk scene started? People who could not find a place in mainstream culture turned to the alternative that punk culture offered instead. These individuals listened to the same music, dressed in similar styles and felt an overall sense of community rooted in rebellion. Becoming punk involves both teaching and learning from others while trying to understand culture and one’s place within it. Such teaching and learning can take many forms like working together to put on a show or older bands teaching younger bands how to book a tour. Punk provides a non-traditional education through its community, and creates an environment for pedagogy to thrive.

         The pedagogy of punk is especially evident when one looks at “Thirty Years and Counting: Punks Over Thirty.” The zine explores how punks are dealing with mid-life issues including marriage and divorce, the dating scene, working full-time, and raising families while still maintaining their attachment to punk. These realities are complicated by the prevailing view that punk is a deviant youth subculture. As a result, one might expect that the zine will feature narratives of disappointment from people who feel like that don’t belong. And that is true sometimes, but I don’t think that this is the point.

I spawned the idea to do this theme issue, and at the same time I decided to use this issue to announce my departure. It seems fitting.

Kent M.

Instead of looking at the punks over 30 issue as a zine for burned-out, disconnected individuals, why not consider it as a platform for education? Since these punks over 30 will be one of the first to leave a legacy, why not leave a legacy that includes first-hand narratives on how to live as a punk. Punks who are young now will reach their thirties one day and can look at this issue of HeartattaCk and utilize its stories and knowledge transmissions. By doing this, hopefully, they will be able to live a fully authentic punk life without any frustration or exclusion from the current punk community

BEING PUNK IS FOREVER

For many in the scene, being punk is often characterized by a life-long commitment. When you don’t fit into mainstream culture, but fit in well to a subculture, it is hard to give up your sense of belonging. Al Q. recounts his experience as a punk over 40 and identifies it as part of his essence, for example.

         This means that to leave punk would be to leave everything that has shaped you as an individual. For many punk individuals, their shift into the scene was a way for them to take control of their lives, to push back on over-controlling parents and dominant mainstream society. Punk is the name given to a community but also to the individual shift that enabled individuals to live the life they wanted. For punks over 30, to turn away from the scene could quite literally mean sacrificing their identity. Q. admits that he has thought about moving on but he would never do it because he is still having the time of his life.

         As many contributors note, being a punk over 30 is a negotiation. Maybe you don’t go to as many shows as you used to, or dress as radically as you did in your youth, but you are still a punk regardless. If punk contributed to your identity, if it shaped your thoughts and attitudes, why leave it? To break away from punk would be like breaking a soul away from a body. Even though individuals have expressed their frustrations with punk throughout the zine, Q. provides an important reminder that punk is for life. 

Ageing in Punk

The zine opens with a note from editor Kent. His words recount recent realizations he has had about the over 30 experience in the scene. It is made very clear that being a punk over 30 is hard and Kent, like many others, is just tired. Thankfully this isn’t the tone for the remainder of the zine but rather a friendly reminder of the challenges that older punks can face.

         It is quite possible that the qualities that make individuals punk do not mesh well with norms of ageing. Around the age of 30, individuals find themselves drawn increasingly toward the mainstream, whether that is because of new economic responsibilities, maturing relationships, family, or expectations surrounding work.

But such changes/compromises/realizations toward more mainstream lifestyle will certainly move one out of a scene where most of the participants are 10 years younger. […] But there are some of us old punks, who, because of ideology or stubbornness (or in my case both) chose to remain in this increasingly alienating subculture. But that’s how life goes sometimes. We’ve made out beds and we lie in them, even if no one else is under the covers with us.

O.B.

Dregs of Humanity (Interviews with Dave and Shane)

Dave: Too many people feeling they should be married and breeding while in their twenties, and then having a mid-life crisis when approaching 40 because there are so many things they wanted to do with their life but didn’t cause of kids/mortgage/etc. Punk to most people (including punks) is just seen as a rebellious phase that they will grow out of in a few years (and most do) and get on with a “real life.

Shane: I’ve never looked at the punk scene as a youth subculture. When I first started going to gigs there were always people who were older than the “youth” age bracket 18-25. And why shouldn’t there be? Punk has been around for about 25 years, it’s not some new idea this bunch of 18 year olds have just thought up. I think the media has created and reinforced this idea of youth punk culture, cause it’s easier to market to younger, less discerning minds. The idea that the punk scene/community is just for youth goes against the principles of punk, in that our community should be a safe, caring environment regardless of whether you’re male or female, black or white, young or old (although I do realize that punk doesn’t always live up to this).

As Dave and Shane note, being an older punk is only alienating if one accepts a mainstream claim that punk is a youth subculture. By challenging this perspective, they feel a sense of acceptance, rather than alienation, within the punk scene. Dave and Shane’s new perspective offers a way for punks to unlearn what they had perviously thought and re-learn a new narrative that is both inclusive and accepting.

Instead of growing out of the scene, and completely abandoning the punk ideologies that shaped their identity, Dave and Shane see that they can grow and change within punk, including how one raises children, where one works, and the companies one supports. To be a punk at the age of 30 does not mean one is involved in the scene in the same ways when one was younger.

The main ethic of punk is D.I.Y., do it yourself. Why the need for role models? Punk can be something you grow on with, not out of. The words ‘involved in punk’ to me have a connotation of something separate from your life, not a lifestyle.

Dave

HeartattaCk provides a platform to foster new perspectives created by punks for punks. Punks over 30 use the zine as a space for informal education. Sharing their experiences in the scene and learning from others and their advice. Alas, there is no handbook or instruction manual for being a punk over 30 but “Thirty Years and Counting: Punks Over Thirty” comes pretty close.

924 Gilman: Place and Cultural Memory

The oral history, 924 Gilman: The Story So Far offers similar insights to those shared by the contributors to HeartattaCk. 924 Gilman is a long-standing DIY punk-run venue in Oakland CA. 924 Gilman acts as a safe haven of sorts putting on punk shows, selling band merchandise and providing a place for punk individuals to express themselves. It is also a venue that has survived and been maintained by multiple generations of punks.

But, bottom line is, it’s a thankless job, and that does eventually get you. It’s hard to maintain the same level of excitement about something over a sustained period of time when it seems like no one is appreciating what you do.

Lauren L.

As an all ages venue, it provides a setting for the transmission of knowledge, teaching and learning from others and preserving a cultural memory. Many individuals interviewed note how challenging it is to work to maintain this institution. Many have left their leadership positions within the club due to exhaustion and disagreements with other volunteers.

Gilman gave me a lot of education. I sat through a lot of stuff that I didn’t like, and sat through a lot of stuff that I was surprised that I really liked. I took a lot of literature home from the benefit shows and learned a lot from those.

Dave E. C.

Lauren and Dave express the ambivalence that many older punks have expressed. Punks at an older age are thankful for the informal education they have gained through growing up as punk, but they are struggling to remain enthusiastic about some of the challenges of maintaining a DIY subculture.

         Documenting and sharing and archiving these first-hand accounts will allow punk individuals to create a conversation on ageing in punk that helps to build the very frameworks that many see are absent. Hearing from Lauren and Dave and other volunteers may provide future punks with suggestions and tips on how to successfully run 924 Gilman or other similar all ages clubs.  

I wouldn’t say that punk is dead but it has lost a lot of what got me interested in it, the feeling of belonging and acceptance, the politics…it has been so watered down by the mainstream leaching off it.

Dave

A Hopeful Conclusion on Pedagogy

HeartattaCk never argues that there is a right or a wrong way to be a punk over 30. HeartattaCk does not claim to be an all-knowing ‘how to’ manual on being punk over 30. Indeed, this issue of the zine remembers the importance of a punk ethic that is premised on an openness to individuals finding their own way by supporting a number of different ways of thinking about ageing in punk.         

Learning to be a punk as a kid means also relearning how to be a punk at 30. Being a punk over 30 could mean maintaining a punk ethic and identity while trying to live as an adult in mainstream society. In HeartattaCk, punks are able to beginning to create pedagogical processes which will define punks over 30 in the subculture for generations to come. By doing so, there is a hope that punks over 30 will feel more accepted in the scene and the negative ideologies that surround them will dissipate. More valuably, this issue documents the vital presence of a great many punks over 30 and initiates a dialogue regarding how one can age in punk, maintaining ties to the scene while also navigating one’s distinct social position within and outside of punk culture.

By Tatum Fraser