Good Charlotte and the Order of the Phoenix


Good Charlotte just trashed their drumkit on TRL, and I’m not sure exactly what to say. That they did it a few years ago too, in front of ten million people at the VMA's, amongst the strobe and the glitz and the Hiltons—these things should mean something, but I’m too full of poison to put a thought together. That no matter how stale, and safe, and hopelessly calculated it seemed, it still calls to mind the ghosts of VMA’s past (in particular, a stringy-haired suicide and an ill-fated bass toss)—this pisses me off even more. Still though, I’ve got nothing to say. Good Charlotte just trashed their drumkit in front of Lil' Jon, Vanessa Minillo, and fifty hormonal tweeners, and I’m absolutely fucking speechless.

I was walking down St. Mark’s the other night, in front of that t-shirt place on the corner of 2nd Ave. I passed a bunch of punks going the other way and didn’t take much notice, until I picked out a face at the center of the crowd--the lead singer of Good Charlotte.

“Oh, that’s weird,” I thought. “That dude goes out with Hillary Duff. I’ve seen his videos, I’ve heard his record. He really hangs out with the St. Mark’s punk crowd?”

It seemed so strange, after all. He had the tattoos, the Misfits t-shirt, the wallet chain, but still. I’ve seen his videos, I’ve heard his record—he’s a pop star, nothing more or less. He just looked so much like a punk that I was taken aback.

So for the sake of our discussion, I should probably make a few things clear:
Being tattooed is not punk.
Hanging out with Kelly Osbourne is not punk.
Playing three chords, no matter how fast or sloppy, is not punk.
Trashing the drumkit (especially trashing the drumkit) is not punk.

These things are the trappings of punk, certainly, related to punk, yes, but not necessarily punk themselves. So you ask, “What then is punk, Bedroom-Rock-Critic?” I’m not sure I can articulate it. I’m not sure I should even try.

There was this guy, Jonathan Richman, who played at CBGB’s in the late 70’s. He was a punk. Never mind the fact that he dressed like a dad, or that he sang these goofy little songs about the Ice-Cream Man or the Abominable Snowman. He was a fucking punk. I’d say it’s a lot more punk to sing about ice cream when the crowd expects anarchy, than it is to sing about anarchy when the crowd is waiting for it. At any moment, our boy Jonathan could’ve taken a beer bottle off the forehead, and yet he kept strumming along, smiling goofy into the sweaty, hostile crowd. That is punk. It’s not a definition but it’ll have to suffice.

But that still doesn’t explain why I’d flip out about Good Charlotte, just because they reminded me of something Kurt Cobain did 13 years ago. Who gives a shit? It just seemed right for me to get indignant, to shout at the screen, “You didn’t earn that, you fucking apes!” But why? What Cobain did was brilliant, at times affected and calculated in its own way, but brilliant. He trashed his drumkit and it screamed. He fractured a hand, split his forehead open on the high-hat and somehow it yelped.

After a while though, it became expected of him. After every Nirvana show, the crowd would wait for the guitar to be shoved through the amp, for Cobain to hurtle recklessly into the drumkit. He became an ape himself, performing a task that was expected of him, like some alterna-Wayne Newton doing his signature stage move. It was said that he grew to hate trashing the stage, because it wasn’t punk anymore, because it had become a safe and accepted expression of rebellion. During their final tour of Europe, Cobain used to hand his guitar to a roadie, smile acidly at the crowd, and then walk offstage. That was punk. He knew that it was a constantly moving target, and that the target had shifted away from trashing the drumkit. It wasn’t punk anymore, and so he stopped doing it. And now Good Fucking Charlotte comes along, looking the part of punk but playing the role of patsy. They trash their drumkit, and they have no idea how silly they look doing it.

If I were a more dramatic man, someone apt to make grand, sweeping statements, I’d say, after watching them trash their shit, that punk is dead. That’d be dumb.

It’s been said a million times, and never, never ever ever has it been true. Not once. They said it when Joe Strummer died; they said it when the Sex Pistols broke up; they said it again when the Sex Pistols reunited, for a cynical, opportunistic “Comeback Tour” 20 years later; they said it when Green Day had their first big moment, when Rancid signed with a major label. They even said it when Blondie got big, because New Wave was supposedly this ultra-commercial bastard child of punk, destined to destroy the original artifact.

That’s bullshit of course, not because it hasn’t happened yet, but because it will never happen. It couldn’t. Whenever things seems hopeless or bleak, whenever the Good Charlottes seem to be winning, punk explodes in that very place—the Sex Pistols blew out of recession-wracked London, the Dischord scene began as a response to the frat-pack, paternal mentality of 80’s DC, grunge came out of 8 years of Reaganomics and a completely desolate pop landscape.

Who’s to say what will come out of this time and place, this era of renegade foreign policy and sterile pop posturing? What brilliant nuggets of punk will George Junior be responsible for? Mark my words, it’s already begun. New manifestations of punk, like tentacles, have begun to spring up in unexpected places—Kanye calling out the Administration on live TV, or Bright Eyes denouncing Clear Channel from the Clear Channel stage, or even within the simple apolitical purity of our Exploding Hearts, three of whom died in a tour van accident a few summers back. It’s already begun, believe me. Because punk isn’t a thing, because it’s not a definable entity (like wallet chains or faux-hawks), it can never be destroyed, and instead will always rear its head when it’s needed most. The Phoenix will always rise, the opposition will always spring up most violently. Rest assured.

The thing is, frankly, that I can’t say punk is dead after Good Charlotte’s bullshit, simply because no matter how horrifying it seemed at the time, in the end it’s harmless. Good Charlotte could never kill punk because Good Charlotte were never punk in the first place. And punk, real punk, that constantly moving target, will always be, can never be mimicked or diluted or destroyed. Cobain’s ghost will always remain sacred, and a thousand Sex Pistols reunions could never erase their original legacy. So go ahead then, Faux-Hawk, trash the drumkit. Trash the drumkit, and wear the tattoos, and play your three chords, but know that you’re harmless, a patsy, a joke.

Punk’s not dead.