1. It’s 1998. I’m 14 years old and I’m spending the afternoon at my grandparents’ house. I’m alone, though I don’t remember why now. My grandparents have this weirdly extensive satellite TV package and I am watching Much Music, the exotic Canadian version of MTV.
A video comes on that immediately grabs my full attention. There are spidery staccato guitars playing over an ominous video of people in animal costumes running through the anonymous hallways of what appears to be an underground bunker. It seems that they are being pursued by monsters in work jumpsuits and plaid shirts. It feels dangerous but also kind of cute at the same time. Also there are blank faced robots, but it is unclear how they fit into the story. Then the fuzzy animals find a safe haven in a room full of electronic equipment and reveal themselves to be an almost unexpectedly clean-cut four-piece band. They almost look Beatles-esque with their shaggy black hair and their black sweaters over button-up shirts. Then the fab four sit down at the equipment and the loud guitars are replaced with strange, electronic sounds. It is completely unexpected. I can’t believe what I am hearing. I’m just starting to explore punk music further off the beaten path, and to my young and uneducated ears, this is the equivalent of Dylan going electric.
By the time singer Dennis Lyxzén cuts through the electronics with a shout of “Can I scream?” I am completely sold.
The song, of course, is “New Noise,” a joyous and angry celebration of music and its revolutionary properties. The video seems to tell the story of a rock band in a bunker, trying to save the world from monsters with the power of music. They “dance to all the wrong songs and enjoy all the wrong moves.” There are more clips here and there of the robots finding the band’s performance space. They inspect the instruments as if they are unfamiliar. Is this a future without music? Do the monsters win? Or are the robots there to continue the fight? Are they there to bring The New Beat? It is unclear. What is clear is that the song is an injection of pure adrenaline. I am energized. I am changed. I go out and buy a copy of The Shape of Punk To Come as soon as possible.
2. It’s a year or two later. I’m at a party. It’s one of those parties thrown by a friend of a friend, so you get there and you know four or five people tops, and the vibe is just unfamiliar, and you wonder why you thought it would be a good idea to come to this in the first place. I’m sitting in the corner, by myself. The people I know are otherwise occupied. There’s a guy on the other side of the room controlling the music. I don’t know him exactly, but I know who he is. He’s playing relatively tame party-safe background music. This isn’t a dance party. People are just standing around chatting, snacking on whatever party snacks are available.
I’m watching him switch from Weezer to New Order and so on, but then he gets a mischievous grin and puts on a song immediately familiar to me. It starts with a single note, rhythmically repeated, followed by descending octave chords. It is “Summerholidays Vs. Punkroutine”. I jump up from my seat. This song feels out of place in this room, around these people. It’s exciting. I look over at the DJ. He’s jumping up and down. Two of my friends hear the song from the next room and come running in. We all rush into the middle of the room, crashing into each other, singing along, playing air guitar. We’re 15 year old idiots reveling in the pure joy of music. The other partygoers move to the edge of the room or leave the room altogether and the four of us just dance and jump and “mosh” (whatever that means to 15-year-olds in the year 2000).
All of the party anxiety, all the introversion, all the desperate desire to appear cool, it just goes out the window. And we almost certainly do not look cool to anyone witnessing this. But there is a freedom in not caring at all what the rest of the world thinks of you. It’s a feeling that I aspire to daily, but rarely achieve. But for this one beautiful brief moment, we are “a scenario of simplicity.” For just one night, we embody the rallying cry of “Rather be forgotten than remembered for giving in.”
3. It’s a Saturday night, autumn of 2001. I am driving around with my girlfriend. We’re in my beat-up 1986 Ford Taurus station wagon heading to our small town’s fall festival. I’m in a transitional period of my life and am in a constant state of emotional conflict. I am from a very conservative Christian home, but I have discovered a whole new world of thought through the punk music I have fallen in love with. The lyrics of the songs and the people I have met who share my passion for this music have opened my mind to so many new ideas. It’s overwhelming. I don’t know where I fit in the world anymore. There are so many beliefs I have taken for granted my whole life that now don’t seem to make sense anymore. But the concept of sin is hard to escape. Guilt and shame and the fear of Hell are very, very real to me.
In contrast to all of that, there is this girl in the car next to me. I met her in the summer at church camp. She represents the life my parents wanted for me. She’s nice enough, but I’m starting to feel like we don’t fit together. She has a single path ahead of her and she’s happy to go down it. On the other hand, I see several paths ahead of me and don’t know what to choose. I have a tendency to be timid and to seek the path of least resistance, so part of me knows that I’ll never get out from under the weight of God and family obligations. It seems pretty naïve to think that punk music could possibly be powerful enough to help me escape all of that. So, I’m probably going to marry this girl. I’m probably going to buy a house down the road from my parents and sit next to them in church every Sunday. We’re probably going to have babies and raise them the same way we were raised. The cycle never ends. I am becoming increasingly resigned to this future.
On this particular night, as we drive to the festival, I put on The Shape Of Punk To Come, which has remained one of my favorite albums. As soon as it comes on, I am transported. This record is a safe haven for me. My concern about the future is gone. My fear of eternity is drowned out by the pounding drums, the squealing guitars, the commanding, dynamic vocals. I am drumming on the steering wheel, rocking out. I am free. “Liberation Frequency” comes on. The clean guitars and falsetto vocals draw me in. I’m singing along. I look over at the girl next to me. She is not having the same transcendent experience that I am. Then the song explodes into the chorus, all loud, distorted guitars and shouted vocals, “What frequency are you getting? Is it noise or sweet, sweet music?” She reaches over and shuts the stereo off and says she doesn’t know why I listen to stuff like this. It feels like I’ve been slapped. My future opens up before me. I’m going to be with this person for the rest of my life and this music is not going to be welcome in that life. Let me be clear, I don’t think it’s necessary to have identical tastes in music to have a happy marriage. I don’t expect her to love the music I love, but in this moment, I see that she will expect me to let go of things I care about if she doesn’t see the value in them. Much of my life is already about suppressing my true self to make others happy, and I suddenly realize that on this path of least resistance, that will never change.
I would like to say that this moment was the end of that relationship. That I was immediately bold and decisive. But it was not so sudden. A few more months would pass before the relationship ended, but this moment was certainly the beginning of the end. The walls may not have come down that day, but they started to crumble. And getting out of that relationship was the first step in a new direction for me. There were many conflicts ahead, many fights with my family, many tears to be shed, but in the end I was happy. I was free. “Could it be the sounds of liberation,” indeed.
Anthony Bowman is long-time amateur and occasional professional music journalist, and more recently the cohost of The Frankencast, a podcast about Frankenstein in all its many forms. He lives in the American Midwest with his partner, two retired greyhounds, and a cat who runs the show. Follow him on Twitter @constantreadr.