it's so cool to wear a leather jacket

Alex and Adam. Autistic Youth.

This Sunday I went to a show at Dunes in NE Portland.  I went because one of my closest friends is moving to France in a few days and his band, Autistic Youth, was playing there last show for a while.  As I was nodding to the loud punk music all night I kept thinking about how different people are attracted to such different types of music and how little communities are formed based on what you listen to or play.  I don't consider myself to be very "punk" but I do appreciate and have grown to a love a lot of the elements in the music.  There is something about the energy in punk music that is hard to find anywhere else.  Although the harmonic textures and the melodies can at times be painfully simple, there is something really moving about the energy, the pace, and the emotion behind the sound.  Also, what does really means to be "punk"these days anyway?  I mean, it seems that now it is almost more based on the image of being "punk" than the ideals of the punk lifestyle that bands like The Velvet Underground and The Ramones tried to embody.  I do agree with a lot of the ideals behind this lifestyle: the DIY movement, the anti-establishment mentality, and a lot of the ideology the punk movement embraces are concepts I really identify with; but it seems that more and more this ideology is being forgotten and what becomes important is if you're wearing a cool band t-shirt and wearing enough studs in your leather jacket.  Aside from this frustration I feel at the focus on image, Portland punk bands are making some of the best music I have heard right now and it's exciting to feel that energy and watch them grow.  All the bands that played that night: The Bimarks, The Estranged, The Free Radicals, and Autistic Youth were all really fun to watch!