When I was about five years old, my parents took me to the observatory at the top of the Carlton Centre in downtown Johannesburg.
This was way back in the late 1980s, a time when Cyndi Lauper and Madonna were the most controversial music I was being exposed to and Guns N’ Roses and ACDC the new flavour of rock music.
On our way to the Wimpy we passed a few punks dressed in leather pants and torn denim jackets with mohawk and spiky hair, spray-painted blue and green to match their eye-shadow. My mother quickly ushered me past them, mumbling something about “children of the devil”.
Now, about 16 years later, that image still remains with me. At that time I was dead frightened by these “human degenerates”, but now the whole punk culture fascinates me.
With punk making a comeback, especially in South Africa, and me being a bit of an anarchist at heart, I can’t help but feel a bit nostalgic for an era I was never part of.
Unfortunately, the comeback is a bit of a disappointment. Punk has been sterilised to such an extent that the movement has become a multi-million-dollar industry. In South Africa, the movement is dominated by MTV and Americana.
If you look at the average South African punk, it’s easy to draw a profile. The person is usually between 14 and 24 years old, Caucasian, comes from a medium- to high-income home and wears cargos and a T-shirt with a political statement or figure on it.
Che Guevara is a usual favourite, although the bearer of the shirt isn’t always sure who he really is. (“Some Cuban dude, man.”)
Parents range from conservative, (Mom horrified that her son is wearing an Anarchy t-shirt, mistaking the A for Anti-Christ), to relatively liberal (Dad reminiscing over his lost youth when they used to smoke pot and listen to Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin).
Drug use ranges from alcohol and pot to more hardcore stuff like heroin. Drugs like ecstasy are confined to the rave scene and coke to the yuppies. Neither of these can be bought on an average high-school kid’s allowance.
Users are either bored or come from a dysfunctional home. Punk music for them is a way to rebel against authority, be it a father figure, school principle or God.
Pieter*, a 24-year-old literature student, grew up in a time where borders were being broken. He missed the punk movement but got to experience the height of grunge.
“I miss those times. I grew up in a real Calvinistic hellhole in the platteland and it was all God, volk en vaderland.
“Somehow we got hold of the Anarchist’s Cookbook and spent our afternoons smoking pot with the bergies in the park outside the school and plotting how we were going to create havoc the next day.
“I was about 14 when Kurt Cobain decided to blow his brains out. Most of my friends were quite shocked by the whole affair. I was like, ‘fuck this, when are we going to smoke our next joint?'”
Pieter is quite cynical about the punk revival in South Africa.
“When you look at all the bands, it’s a bunch of wankers singing about centerfolds and girls who broke their hearts. It’s like Boyzone, only with a catchy guitar riff. You go to rock festivals and you get these pretty boys trying to make music and a bunch of prepubescent girls throwing their panties at these guys.
“It’s a fucking joke, man. Sid Vicious would have had a hernia if he’d ever lived to see this shit!”
Pieter isn’t far off with his description. South African punk bands like Tweak and the Finkelstiens are a watered-down version of American bands like Blink 182 and Sublime.
The Afrikaans scene, however, recently got a good kick in the balls by Fokofpolisiekar, an Afrikaans punk band. Their record company is laughing all the way to the bank.
Of all the punk bands in South Africa, they are probably the nearest to living out the punk philosophy. Their songs have nihilistic themes, they aren’t afraid to blaspheme and their lyrics have enough swearing to make any parent shudder.
The sad thing about punk is that it died when it went mainstream. Rock heroes like John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, and punk goddess Nina Hagen were replaced with sterilised, radio-friendly personas like Blink 182 and Avril Lavigne.
Girls think they are hardcore because they are sporting ties and wearing skateboard shoes. In order to conform to the new-wave punk movement, your outfit must at least cost more than R1 500 (skateboard excluded).
“Anarchy is unknown to these kids. Most of their time is spent loitering on sidewalks and in malls, with pot, underage drinking and light vandalism being the closest they will ever come to breaking the law.
Punk, a destructive movement like Dadaism in the 1930s, ended up destroying itself. Society became too politically correct and advertisers and the media saw a niche in the marketplace.
Jan-Hendrik Labuschagne, a third-year graphic design student and closet punk, describes it as such: “There is still a strong underground current, if you look at bands like Rancid and NOFX, although they are a lot different from your hardcore, old-school punk.
“To me, punk is a lot more than the clothes you wear or the skateboard brand you support. In fact, the whole idea of punk becoming an industry is contradictory to the punk philosophy and way of life.
“I read Hunter S Thompson and I know all the words of God Save the Queen by heart, but you won’t catch me dead sporting a mohawk or a pair of R900 skating sneakers.”
It’s quite sad. When I saw those punks back in 1988 the punk movement was giving its last few deviant kicks before being swallowed by the corporate monster.
Even the high priest of punk, Johnny Rotten, vocalist of the Sex Pistols, admitted that his reputation was the creation of the media.
In 1986, in an interview with The Observer he gave his exact thoughts on the punk phenomenon.
“Punks in their silly leather jackets are a cliché. I have never liked the term and have never discussed it. I just got on with it and got out of it when it became a competition.”
*Name changed to protect identity