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kris needs

  • prison column(Pondering the passing of time, punk, and the “new” Young Charlatans record, “'1978”, released on Eminent Vinyl, and featuring a short interview with Harry Howard.)

    UK writer Kris Needs expresses it best, I think. In his introduction to his 2010 “Dirty Water 2. More Birth of Punk Attitude” CD compilation, Needs denies trying to nail down "any kind of definitive punk thesis", and instead tries "to show how the age-old attitude which shaped it could not be confined to any one time, place or big bang”.

    He goes on to describe punk as "an eternal spirit", explaining that the "desire to achieve or express personal freedom is one major uniting theme, whether an attitude born out of everyday struggle or desire to upend existing musical forms, which could spark in anyone from guitar-toting wild men and electronic alchemists to street corner finger-poppers or expressionistic black music movements such as bebop and free jazz."

    Feel free to disagree, of course.