Like many kids, when I was young I just listened to the same music my parents did, and at the time, that was country. Country music is usually made fun of, and oftentimes deservedly so, but country in the 90s wasn’t necessarily as bad as people think (while it’s not something I’d go out of my way to listen to, there were a few bangers; it wasn’t until the Toby Keithization of the genre after 9/11 that it became completely insufferable). Still, while I’ve always loved music and would sing along to those country tunes with all my heart as a kid, it wasn’t until I got into middle and high school and started discovering music that interested me that music became an actual passion of mine.
It all started with hearing Semisonic’s “Closing Time” on the radio, which intrigued me, and made me start scanning through radio stations for things that weren’t country. I started hearing songs from Sum 41, the Used, and Linkin Park on our local rock station (RIP Y100). I was staying at a friend’s house and he made a mix tape that prominently featured “Freakish” by Saves the Day, which wormed its way into my head and never really left. The guitar, the voices, the lyrics, were like nothing I’d ever heard before. I felt the emotions, I felt the urgency. It resonated with the angsty, depressed white teenage boy I was.
There’s so much media that has touched me throughout my life, but I don’t know if there’s anything that can resonate with and galvanize me quite like music can. The pop-punk and emo I grew up on (and let’s be real, still listen to, even if not necessarily the exact same bands) became an integral part of my identity. For all the scene’s flaws it’s helped refine my sense of empathy and social consciousness, and helped me connect with people I never would have met otherwise, who have continued to widen my worldview. It’s given me countless nights of pogoing across venues, moshing off sweaty bodies (RIP going places), finding that visceral, cathartic release of energy that helps me work through my pent up aggression, helps exorcise my bad feelings by physically working them out of my body.
I spent a lot of time thinking about these ways music has shaped my life recently while reading Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall by Tim Mohr*. It’s not really meant to be a book about people’s personal experiences with music, but in a way it is, because for those teenagers growing up behind the iron curtain in the 1980s, punk rock came into their lives and effected them the same way punk’s offshoots did for me. Their imaginations were sparked by its urgency, its roughness, and the fact that it was just so different from the mainstream music the East German government allowed to be broadcast. I couldn’t help but identify with these kids. I didn’t grow up in a communist dictatorship, but I still often felt like my life had been mapped out for me ahead of time and without my consent, just as it was for these kids; for all of us, punk rock was an escape, a chance to perhaps forge our own futures.
*I discovered this book through the enthusiastic recommendation of one of my favorite Twitter accounts, Minnesota artist Keith Pille. His newsletter, “Art Is My Middle Name,” is always a great read, and his entry this week, on the work of black artist Kara Walker, is especially timely.
The word “Revolution” looms pretty heavy in that title, though, and the connection between it and punk rock — and the transformation of these kids from punks to revolutionaries — isn’t as far-fetched as it might seem. The East German secret police, the Stasi, hated the punks and watched them closely. Even rebels, revolutionaries, and activists didn’t live those roles 24/7. They could blend into society when they weren’t actively working against it, but the punks’ dress and attitudes were taken as a personal offense by the East German government, and it wasn’t just a part-time thing. They dressed like punks all the time, everywhere they went, and that made them a threat to the bland conformity the government was striving for.
Many of these kids just started out as music fans, as kids looking for something more, but after being constantly hassled by the Stasi, most became radicalized. Some simply hoped their music would expose those in East Germany to new, unfamiliar, “forbidden” forms of art, expanding their minds. Others lashed out with graffiti and other petty, but satisfying, offenses. But many, many others leapt right to the front lines of the country’s activism, working with and expanding existing opposition groups and often soon taking the lead as well. Many, in fact, straight up became socialist anarchists, and in the essentially government-less year between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, established their own successful collective communes in squatted buildings throughout the country.
It’s interesting seeing the comparisons between the punk scene in East Germany and our own, but also between their political situation then and ours now. The debate over the concept of “selling out” still existed, only in East Germany selling out meant getting an official government license to be a paid musician. The East German punk scene also had to deal with a Neo-Nazi skinhead infestation, and (much like the current U.S.) for all their preaching about being the complete antithesis of Nazi Germany, the East German government did nothing about it because the skinheads were targeting their hated enemy, the punks. Increasingly violent and public retribution from the Stasi against the punks was a major factor in waking much of the public up to their government’s corrupt hypocrisy and moving them to political action, much like the police response to the BLM movement seems to be doing today. It’s uncanny.
Gee, all that seems awfully familiar, doesn’t it? Despite there being no mention of the pandemic or race in Burning Down The Haus, I can’t think of a book more relevant to 2020 — unfortunately. It really should be required reading. Even if you’re not a punk fan, I think you’ll still get a lot out of it.
But I also appreciate the personal touches in the writing. Like I said, while Burning Down The Haus is most effective as a book about a revolution, it also really captures the feeling of falling in love with music, or with a whole new scene or movement. It digs, not just into the politics and the facts and the movement, but the lives of the people living and creating it all. We get to see their joy in finding something that resonates with them, but also the fear and paranoia and pain caused by living under an oppressive regime and being the constant target of surveillance and police intimidation. It’s heartbreaking at times, but there’s also some really uplifting stories — my favorites being the brothers who flew a plane over the wall to rescue another brother then just abandoned it once returning to the West, and the East German band who was playing a show in West Germany literally as the wall collapsed, and suddenly started seeing their friends from the East start flooding into the venue and could only think ‘I guess I drank more than I thought!’
Also, since this is my newsletter and I can do what I want, here’s my favorite chapter, a brief three-page one that’s mostly about how little either version of Germany actually cared about noted monster Ronald Reagan, despite all his posturing.
It gives me so much life.
CHECK OUT
Well, Burning Down The Haus, obviously. Now, though — especially if you’re not black — is also the time to be educating ourselves by looking to material from and about black people, so since we’re on the subject, here’s a list of some books about the role black people played in the creation and history of punk rock.
I’ll admit I haven’t read these yet myself, but I’m excited to. I guess we can check them out together!
ABOUT
“Do You Know What I Love the Most?” is a newsletter from Spencer Irwin. Spencer is an enthusiast and writer from Newark, Delaware, who likes punk rock, comic books, working out, breakfast, and most of all, stories. His previous work appeared on Retcon Punch, One Week One Band, and Crisis on Infinite Chords, and he can be found on Twitter at @ThatSpenceGuy. If you like this newsletter, please subscribe and share with your friends!