The tide of New Wave has come, crested, come back again as retro, disappeared and returned once more as a post modern cliche. Even after ever commercial entity has try to wring a profit out of this old chestnut the spirit of what made punk viable lives on.
Once sitting with my more political friends, we talked about the Arab Spring several moths before the upraising in Libya. We all understood the direction things were going in but underestimated the force behind the tectonic changes.
In the Middle East two forces are gathering strength. One force is socially and religiously conservative but the other force is young, mostly secular and relatively progressive. This other force is ignored by the mainstream media, maybe because it does fit the popular narrative of the wild Jihadist and The Clash of Civilizations.
A big part of the revolt in Egypt came as a reaction to the social suppression of young people. In all practical terms you can not have sex in Egypt unless you're married. And you can not get married in Egypt unless you have job and a place to live. The villages along the Nile, the Sinai, Port Said, Giza, Alexandria and most of all Cairo are so over crowded that families have taken to living in cemeteries. There are no empty or unoccupied buildings. Educated or not the unemployment rate is officially at 12% and estimated at 25% for 18-35 year old adults. Through out North Africa and the Middle East you have a whole generation of angry, horny and under employed people ready to explode. The kind of energy that pushes social movements.
Things in America, at least so far, don't get as bad as other places in the world, Though in the 1970's the foundation of the American Dream was rocked. The final battles of the Vietnam War were fought and lost, President Nixon resigned in disgrace, unemployment and inflation were up and future job prospects were dim. Demographically there was a huge pool of young, horny and sometimes angry adults ready to start their lives. You could hear it in the music -in the escapism of disco or in the rage of punk / new wave.
Part of New Wave was to get back to the simplest roots of Rock&Roll, to reject overly produced and commercialized music, and encourage people to make their own music -even if it was loud, angry and not that melodic. Like anyone could learn to bang out three cords and shout into a microphone -right?
It was also a search for meaning or at least rejecting current values and living in the moment. I clearly remember the first time I heard the Ramones. My friend Dave was a fan of theirs from the beginning and bought their album only days after its release (back then there were no downloads and major records stores didn't sell punk for years). Before that Lou Reed, Iggy and the Stooges, the New York Dolls all made inroads into the popular culture of the time but the Ramones were a real game changer.
One spin off of the Romones fame was CBGBs. It was a symbiotic relationship where the fame of one feed the other. Originally the CBGB meant Country, Blue Grass & Blues but that was quickly forgotten as other groups like Blondie, Talking Heads and Patti Smith got their earliest gigs at the club and went on to sell millions of records. CBGBs became know around the world and it could be argued the club not only help change the direction of music but also changed the development of Lower Manhattan.
In the 1970's New York was struggling and everything between Canal to 14th Street was in pretty sad shape. Young people are always willing to risk and deal with places that are dirty and dangerous as long as they are also exciting. It might even be crucial part of human development where young people have to take some kind of risk to help put the rest of their lives in perspective.
CBGBs is gone but there's a festival to help remember all the good times. Maybe that's the fate of all upheavals after the fury it's all about economic opportunities.
In the end this is what CBGBs looks like today. These days Lower Manhattan is expensive and prosperous. After the kids of one generation vented their angst, they came back and redeveloped the old neighborhoods around the club. I would love to see an economic study done to see how many millions (if not billions) of dollars were generated.
In the end most people most people want the same things in life. A few material comforts, a safe place to live, a position in the community and a meaning they can attach to their lives. Often these things mean work and organization but they also need the counter balance of free choice, free expression and enough freedom to make mistakes and learn from them. Youthful discontent is a great engine of change and suppressing it only stores up the energy of a generation the same way potential stored up along a seismic fault line. The longer the periods between earthquakes the more violent they tend to be.
To all the dictators and paternalistic despots of the world, you do not what is best for your people -they can only decide that for themselves.
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