Hello everyone and welcome to Navel Gazing: your look back in the week in Punknews. I'm John G filling in for Brittany Strummer this week (she's busy finishing her book of "Yo momma" jokes) and I'll be your guide through some of the juiciest, most popular and otherwise noteworthy stories from the last seven days. Remember, every Punknews story is built from tips from our wonderful, good-looking readers, so get to submitting. Here's what got the strange, slow and old community talking this week:
- Henry Rollins got a lot of people all riled up
- Mike Park debuted a new single featuring Jesse Michaels. It's great
- Your favorite band, Hot Water Music is going on tour.
- Anti-Flag reacted to the shooting of Michael Brown
- Melviiiiiiiiiinssss!!!!!
- We bid a final goodbye to The greatest alien ever. Screw you, ET.
Click below to check out this past week's collection of new streaming music, features and interviews. You'll also find our new weekly Q&A and where you can find the Punknews staff to yell at on Twitter. Talk amongst yourselves and we'll see you Monday morning.
Tonight We're Going To Give It 35%
@Punknews still waiting for his apology for "family man" too
– Smo (@TommyRocket) August 23, 2014
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Here's your question and answer of the week from the Punknews Formspring:
Q: care to comment on the jadedness of punknews community and the punk community in general?
A:This is a great question. I think the idea that punk rockers are now more jaded or cynical than before is sort of a false proposition. Certainly, if you go to any punk rock website, you see a bunch of people that all they do is talk about how much they hate something or how much something is stupid.
Critical analysis is one thing, but simply being a "hater" is another. Iâm aware that punknews has sort of a reputation for being a hotbed of haters or trolls, but really, I think thatâs overstated. If you go to other music or pop culture websites, there are far worst trolls than we have at punknews. Also, the people seem to be far more jaded at other punk rock websites.
But, compare this to real life. I go to my fair share if gigs and the people there donât seem jaded at all. Pretty much every gig I go to, the majority of people are there to have a good time, enjoy the music, socialize, and maybe learn about some new bands.
So, really, I think the idea that modern punk kids are jaded is overstated. Rather, I think that a small subset of people have always been jaded, or more accurately, just miserable people, and so they find the internet as way to exert that negativity without having to have the courage to say anything to someone in real life. Iâd even wager that the trolls and jaded people on punk rock websites donât even go tot hat many gigs.
So, if you actually go to gigs, people donât seem that jaded in real life. The internet just makes it easier for that small minority of people who are jaded or unhappy to express their message and make the message seem to represent a larger subset of people than it actually does.
Really, in person, most people seem to be pretty damn excited about music.
-John G
Of course your day wouldn't be complete without knowing every inane detail of your humble editors' lives. Follow @aubinpaul, @adamwhite, @johngentile, @kiraface, @Brittastrophee and @BrittStrummer's every move at Twitter.
The People Must Have Something Good To Read
In the past few weeks we've spoken with a number of bands and artists. Don't miss out on these interviews:
- Blag Dahlia of The Dwarves
- Mike Watt
- Dexter Holland of The Offspring
- Shawna Potter of War on Women
- Helios Creed of Chrome
- Homeless Gospel Choir
- Spraynard
- Keith Buckley of Every Time I Die
- We'll Do It Live with Chris 2 of Anti-Flag