XI Congreso Español de Sociología"Crisis y cambio: propuestas desde la sociología"

Grupo 18: Sociología de la Cultura y de las Artes

TÍTULO: PUNK: CONTEXT AND INTERPRETATION IN FACE

OF THE PORTUGUESE REALITY

Paula GuerraProfesor Asistent/Ph.D.

Departamento de Sociología/ Instituto de Sociología

Facultad de Letras de la Universidad del Porto, Portugal

E-mail: pguerra@letras.up.pt; paula.kismif@gmail.com

Paula AbreuProfesor Asistente/Ph.D.

Faculdade de Economia/ Centro de Estudos Sociais

Faculdade de Economia da Universidadede Coimbra, Portugal

E-mail: pabreu67@gmail.com; pabreu@fe.uc.pt

João Campos MatosEstudiante del Máster en Sociología

Departamento de Sociología

Facultad de Letras de la Universidad del Porto, Portugal

E-mail: joaomatos1989@gmail.com

Tânia MoreiraEstudiante del Máster en Sociología

Departamento de Sociología

Facultad de Letras de la Universidad del Porto, Portugal

E-mail: taniadmmoreira@gmail.com

RESUMEN:

El punk representa en las sociedades occidentales, una ruptura histórica y

reposicionamiento contra la estructura social existente, acompañado de una banda

sonora, una estética y una actitud propia. El punk siempre ha sido algo más que una

camiseta o una canción: una actitud inflexible que se rompió el status quo y dio

visibilidad a un joven descontento e incrédulos (Colegrave & Sullivan, 2002). El punk

contiene dentro de sí el impulso de retorno, resurrección y renovación, sino también el

cambio de la inversión (Reynolds, 2007). Después de 1978, muchos (Clark, 2003)

reiteran la muerte del punk. Pero es una muerte más simbólica que real, porque el

movimiento ha cambiado y reestructurado por su incorporación en el sistema de la

industria cultural actual (Masters, 2007). Sabemos que la historia del pop se repite a sí

mismo con regularidad, reinventando nuevas escenas underground como respuestas a la

hegemonía (Azerrad, 2002). Es esta concepción la que se traza una aproximación

preliminar de emergencia, y la experiencia del punk de hoy en Portugal, lo considerando

tanto quanto un movimiento social, una experiencia y una escena. Esta es una primera

aproximación al punk en la sociedad portuguesa, tras un intento de contextualizar este

fenómeno global en una escala nacional, donde protagonismos, caminos y ajustes son

necesariamente específicos y muy diferentes lo que ocurrió en Inglaterra (Reino Unido)

o los Estados Unidos de América1.

Asumimos que la creación de la música popular no es un asunto individual, no debe

entenderse a través de un enfoque en la música o músico, pero, en cambio, como un

proceso multifacético que sólo puede entenderse en el contexto del entorno social en

que se crea y banda sonora apropiada. Con estos pilares, nosotros, en este trabajo, nos

centramos en los discursos de las personas, en una descripción, evaluación y análisis del

contexto en el que el punk surge y se desarrolla en Portugal, y al mismo tiempo,

haciendo un ejercicio de alcance y una presentación de las trayectorias de perteneciente

al movimiento, dando cuenta de que los individuos construyen significados por su

participación (Haenfler, 2004:428-429).

Palabras clave: Punk, (Post-sub)culturales studies, escena, Portugal, resistencia, forma

de vida.

1 Este enfoque se traduce en el desarrollo de la investigación Keep it simple, make it fast! Prolegómenos y las escenas punk, un camino hacia el contemporáneo portugués (1977-2012) (PTDC/CS-SOC/118830/2010) que se extiende hasta el año 2015 bajo la coordinación científica de Paula Guerra.

PUNK: CONTEXT AND INTERPRETATION IN FACE OF THE

PORTUGUESE REALITY.

1. Focus

Ideally, punk assumes itself as a contesting movement in the scope of the artistic, economic and

social dimensions. Contextualised in a period of severe economic crisis, it reclaims a (contested)

sense of belonging to the sub-proletariat - the group of marginalised individuals by the social

norm. Nevertheless, we can also read the punk movement as a response to the hippie

movement, as this was seen as one that failed to fulfil its promise to revolutionise the traditions

that crushed everyday life. The musical dilettantism, in another way, the vividness and agitation

will become the movement’s banners (Département Musique, 2006). Musically, the punk ideals

will reject the reigning musical scene of the seventies, the musical industry and its procedures,

the traditional modalities of dissemination, the progressive sonorities and the aesthetic norm. As

a movement it was close to the sixties garage rock scene, proposing itself to enhance the

organisation of youth via a prolific emergence of bands, as it claims to itself the DIY strategy.

The dialectic relationship that enhanced the cultural life, as in the relationship between

the infinite essence of life and the ways of expression (or exteriorisation) that it is obliged to

find, propel culture towards a situation of contradiction and even opposition (Simmel,

2001:204). Close to this simmelian approach, punk represented, on the scope of western

societies, a turning point that forced a repositioning of the individuals towards the existing

social structure, accompanied by a soundtrack. Punk was always more than a simple t-shirt or a

song: it was an unsubmissive attitude that shattered the status quo and made an unsatisfied and

betrayed (in its future) youth visible (Colegrave & Sullivan, 2002). Punk contains in itself the

impetus of a comeback, of resurrection and renovation, but also of change and inversion

(Reynolds, 2007).

In the words of its protagonists, we can say that, and according to Joe Strummer:

“Everything looked like a desert, there was nothing. We had energy. We wanted to go

somewhere. There was nothing to do. Nowhere to go. A kind of hopelessness. But we had hope

in a sea of hopelessness” (Colegrave & Sullivan, 2002). Also, Johnny Rotten reiterates this

feeling: “It was a really miserable period. High unemployment. Absolutely no hope. Furious

class war. Literally, no future. I wrote my own future. I had to do it. It was the only way out”

(Idem). This leads to what we can call a “formal agnosticism”. A situation in which, in the

absence of qualified solutions from the point of view of the existing forms of manifestation of

life, the cultural dynamic is pushed to exercise the absence of norms in itself, the negation of

forms as Simmel would say, as a way of convert itself in the world (Simmel, 2011:204). The

inadequacy of the forms demands that we commit to discover new forms, that tertium datum,

that enables us to solve the present cynicism towards them.

In 1976, the date of its emergence and nomination, punk as a word and concept was

associated to negative meanings, and therefore shaped in relation to a strong social opposition.

This lack of a positive evaluation and social recognition is in itself an indicator of its inferiority

and its difficulty to affirm itself as a social movement (Colegrave & Sullivan: 2002). Simon

Reynolds (2006) stated that punk may be understood through four key modalities. The first one

leads us to the idea that punk may be understood as a kind of “hyper-word”, as it has lead to

endless discussions, being worth of reference that the unity of this referred moment is confined

to the musical press, as there is no apparent consensus regarding its motivations and objectives.

The debate in this regard is intense and if there is a consensus it stands upon the recognition that

punk is shaped by the idea of being opposite to something and by its will of being aggressive.

Hence, the characteristic that enables the conceptual unity is, maybe, the opposing nature

towards dominant society (McNeil & Gillian, 2006; Reynolds, 2006; Kogan, 2006). Punk has

never assumed itself as a counterculture, as it has always had a fatalist posture regarding social

change interweaved with a pamphletary matrix willing to rethink the ways by which the

contemporary social structure worked. In this regard, the post-punk period from 1978 to 1984

may be understood as a consequence drawn from all the questions raised and from all the

answers and provisory conclusions presented by some. Secondly, punk is a word that is

replenishing with energy and emotions, being its distinctiveness assured by the intensity and

simultaneity of feelings: “It was during 1975 that life was filled with punk as a visible entity. In

the beginning, punk was a way of being that was essentially expressed through fashion and

music. It was anarchic, nihilistic and deliberately aggressive. It threatened the establishment,

defying the social order, in a general way, by placing the question «why?»” (Colegrave &

Sullivan, 2002:18).

Another look to punk enables us to see it within a metaphoric astrophysical structure, as

an explosion of fragments of a crystallised rock’n’roll structure, one that is amorphous and

accommodated to the system and to the most oppressive of the cultural industries. In this sense,

punk would be the emergence of a new universe - the post-punk cosmos, of which the different

variations may be compared to the galaxies and systems that compose the universe. In another

way, punk may be also analysed as a Reform: after the first conflict (old wave versus new wave,

as an equivalent to the opposition Catholicism-Protestantism) the path to future disintegration

was opened. The main controversy that shook punk culture, in the period comprised between

78-84, stands on the idea of what to do with the remnants of punk, all its force and chimera

accumulated in 76/77.

Inscribed in this mindset is the idea that punk, more than a movement, was a collective

of individuals that expressed themselves in a specific way, a situation that makes punk

something harder to define (Colegrave & Sullivan, 2002). Individualism was a shared trait

among the British and American actors in this context (Albiez, 2006). If in the USA, the

manifestations had more of a musical incline, the spectre of manifestations in the UK was more

ample and included fashion, design, or, in a word, aesthetics. These multiple revelations are

among the reasons of why it is something so hard to define (Savage, 2001). In terms of the

social structure, punk’s development has, as background, a male context marked by sexism and

alcohol abuse; in historical terms, its situated in the years after the post-war period and in its

consequent absent of expectations. Something that is associated to youth in general but to the

one coming from a working class background lacking the social, economic and cultural capital

in particular (Savage, 2001). Hence, and following up close the structure of social fields based

on Bourdieu’s matrix (1996), punk has to be seen as a conquest of prerogatives from a socially

closed system, which also lead to its assimilation as a consumption item, emptying it as a

movement of opposition (Kent, 2006), an idea that brings us closer to the critical school’s theses

(Benjamin, 1992).

Punk’s emergence is frequently interpreted in light of the context of economic crisis

lived at the time and translated in the increase of the oil prices due to the israeli-arab conflict of

1973 that struck the western countries. By that time, the UK is watching the fall of the last

bastions of its economy: the auto and textile industry experience major difficulties, as well as

the ones related to coal and steel. The prices rise, wages stagnate and unemployment increases:

“to the youth there’s nothing: the dole, a scholarship to get in an «art school», little jobs,

nothing that is enough to raise morale among the adolescents bombed every night by the

television showing statistics of unemployment and lists of factories that closed” (Paraire, 1992:

166). In the music field, rock had assumed a high degree of institutionalisation. Dominated by

the great bands, by an heavy industry, and placed further away from the youth’s everyday life

despairs: “it’s in the cities of concrete, in that urbanism built in rush after the the war, in the

middle of an unoccupied youth, without culture, violent and despaired that contestation will be

born and write: once that rock died, controlled by a handful of worldwide stars that made it its

private hunting ground, it is necessary to destroy rock’s establishment” (Paraire, 1992:166).

Hebdige presented punk as a kind of typically youthful music, an interpretation that can

also be extended to other studies about punk in other national contexts. Bennett tells us that this

focus on youthfulness as a characteristic of punk is relevant as the individuals that keep an

active connection to the subculture after turning 30 years old are ones that keep involved by

performing roles at more organisational or creative levels: musicians, promoters, writers on

fanzines, artists, etc. as “most people on the punk subculture end up leaving their punk identities

behind” (1998:219). In this framework is also important to understand if punk defied the

preceding distribution and production structures, and if it was capable of implementing

independent record organisations. Also, at this time the first generation of independent

companies among the rock field was born. This first generation was mainly made of go-it-alone

business ventures, influenced by some of the developed cultural values but often not interested

in a deep democratisation of the social relations of production (Hesmondhalg, 1997). This idea

can also be found present on the discourses of some key actors. First, Johnny Rotten: “this

liberates people. Punk really has this effect” (Colegrave & Sullivan, 2002:119); then, Paul

Cook: “Et voilá. A simple four letter word started it all” (Colegrave & Sullivan, 2002: 168).

After 1978, many affirmed that punk was dead (Reynolds, 2007). Yet, this is a more

symbolical than actual death, as the movement changed and restructured itself in light of a

relative incorporation by the existing cultural industry system (Masters, 2007). Marco Pirroni

considers that “from an exciting, individual, different and subversive thing, punk started to

change into a mode of presentation, of drinking beer and of having imbecile attitudes”

(Colegrave & Sullivan, 2002:352). We know that the history of pop often walks upon itself,

reinventing new underground scenes as an answer to hegemony (Azerrad, 2002). In 1979,

Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power marked an inversion and reorganisation among the punk

movement, providing new developments and outlines: “this meant that a significant percentage

of the population that bought punk records voted conservative; in another way, punk and its

intentions had extended themselves worldwide, leaving the indigents behind. Kings Road kept

attracting the second zone punks, but the style as a hole became a caricature of itself. Punk

meant 6 inch mohawks, facial tattoos, bondages, army boots, doc martens...” (Colegrave &

Sullivan, 2002:342). Nevertheless, a myriad of musical opportunities, and subsequently of ways

of life, became possible because of punk. Notwithstanding the relationship between social

movements and music rarely being conceptualised, in practice we can always find a connection.

Music is a resource used as a base for the construction of a society’s collective conscience

(Eyerman, 2007). It is a key resource in the construction of collective entities, and in the

construction and maintenance of solidarity and conscience groups. With an emphasis on the

mobilisation resources, Bourdieu (1994) also considers music as a part of the social action, as

music and art are resources, forms of attribution of a position in the social field, forms of social

distinction. Through Hebdige’s (1979) contributions, we can understand that subcultures used

music as a key resource in their resistance. Many of the studies focusing on the punk movement

also stress that relationship. Nevertheless, for us, the question that is important to address is not

the one focused on the validity of this relationship but the one that looks for the limits of the

punk movement as a social movement.

2. The beginning

In Portugal, punk emerges almost at the same time as it did in countries such as England or the

U.S.A. This is significant in the portuguese context as it was typical for artistic movements to

experience a ten year gap when compared to other european contexts. The portuguese

revolution of April ’74, worked as a catalyst of will, of change and of freedom, providing a

favourable context for the emergence of the first punk manifestations in Portugal.

Simultaneously, in Lisbon there were small groups of youngsters connected to the top of the

artistic and social hierarchies that maintained a close contact to the international novelties. It

was among these individuals that the will to be punk first emerged.

“...All of that Lisbon movement, that was a restrict group. 100 people. Soon, I got in and found something that I

could relate to” (Adolfo Luxúria Canibal In Guerra, 2010).

“When the idea of a punk movement came to Portugal, we were already packed with punks. This is the truth. The

revolution had just happened and we were yet living all of that euphoria. There was a lot of people that kept their

mouths shut all their lives and suddenly started to express themselves. It was like punk existed here all along, but

without being referenced, without a bar code. Hence, the timing was perfect, Zé Leonel explains, the first lead singer

of Xutos & Pontapés, a position he occupied until 1981. «we were on the top of the wave, for us, more revolution or

less revolution, we felt like we were a part of a turmoil, everything was revolutionary», states Tim, the bass player for

Xutos and, since 1981, the «owner» of the microphone” (Abreu, 2009).

“Zé Pedro was one of the punk pioneers in Lisbon, he had the advantage of an early experience, in a french festival

[Mont de Marsan] where The Clash played in 1977, of the impact of that explosive movement. «At the time», the

guitar player from Xutos & Pontapés tells us, «there was just a few people in sync with the punk phenomenon,

fortunately António Sérgio had begun really soon to play punk on the radio, while he was at Renascença [Portuguese

Radio Station]. We lived those times of the post-25th of Abril with everyone being open to all of the art scenes. There

was a torrent of information to digest” (Abreu, 2009).

“«Visually, the easiest accessory to get was the safety pin, you could find it anywhere», Zé Pedro tells us.

«Afterwards the store Porfírios started to have a few adornments, some bracelets, etc.». Also referring to the

«uniform», Tim explains that “there wasn’t that attitude that started with the new wave of the clothing being

connected to the music, but you could find the idea of creating a character. I chose a kind of a Wilko Johnson look,

slim tie and shirt. Zé Leonel was a much more exuberant person, Zé Pedro had a more punk attitude and Kalu might

have been more bluesy. Already at that time the band lived from that encounter of personalities” (Abreu, 2009).

While not being a proper movement, the first punk bands emerge in the late 1970’s and are, in a

certain way, connected with the emergence of the alternative rock genre in Portugal, assuming,

therefore, a leading role in the history of rock music in our country (Guerra, 2010). In this

regard, we can actually transcribe some excerpts from that time’s press:

“We were in 1978. It was a brief phenomenon, but it had a decisive contribution for the renovation of the portuguese

music and even maybe of the mentalities. They called it portuguese punk. Faíscas, Minas & Armadilhas, Aqui d’el

Rock, UHF, Raios e Coriscos opened the way that created the context where the so called portuguese rock would be

born, a kind of local new wave where we could find bands such as Xutos & Pontapés, Corpo Diplomático (a spin off

from Faíscas, later they became Heróis do Mar and Madredeus, with some changes in the middle) and even Rui

Veloso” (Rock no Liceu, 2007).

“While the capital was still waking up on the undertow of the madness of the foreign rock concerts in the beggining

of 1980’s, punk was at it’s boiling point in massive doses and frenzy moves in a dark, pretty dark, club called

Brown’s. this was the time when badges flourish in the black leather jackets; the collars or leashes with lockers, the

stockings with laces, the spikes, chains, and the “pierced” safety pins were fashionable among the punks” (Rock no

Liceu, 2007)

Nevertheless, it is only after the 1980’s that punk shows signs of a stronger cohesion and more

vitality in Portugal. If on the one side, internationally, bands like The Sex Pistols and The

Ramones were associated with the beginning of the movement, on the other side, and for some

individuals reading the phenomenon a posteriori, punk is something that has always existed, in a

way, as an embodiment of an attitude, and in another way - in a point of view that almost

always relates it, in a certain way, to the rock’n’roll roots worldwide -, as music played in

garages through a mimetic exercise, emulating the sounds of the new records. In other words,

both blues and the first wave of rock’n’roll came to England, where they were recreated by

english youngsters, got back to the U.S.A. with a different vibe and as a new scene that

appealed to a different type of publics that until then wouldn’t listen to that type of music,

publics that rapidly became active agents with bands that were afterwards associated to the

proto-punk movement. In this sense it is important to refer to the opportunity of drawing a

relationship between a life purpose and a musical framework, modelling an experience and a

destiny. Here, we feel how crucial music is as a decisive identity focus.

“Music, punk, was my way of finding a course for my life; a way to affirm my identity in a rural and closeminded

world in the beginning of the 1980’s. It is also a life choice, an option to fight against domination, against the

constraints... against the despotism and authoritarianism of my father and against the prejudice present in the society I

was living in. We lived we a lot of economic difficulties, and I felt all the violence held against us and my mother,

that worked a lot... I used to come to Porto on the weekends and this is how I had my first contacts with punk, and

that was important to free myself from the oppression I felt in Trás-os-Montes” (Frágio In Guerra, 2010).

“When I start to watch punk bands and had my first real contact with the thing, I thought that I could actually become

a musician. I came back and became punk. I met Faíscas, that at the time were also riding the punk wave, completely

in sync, we were a tiny group of maybe twenty or thirty, twenty people. We wore safety pins and all those things.

There were no piercings. We pierced our mouths with the safety pins directly. With the safety pin the only thing you

needed to do was this movement with your hand and it was done, and at the time people still did the earrings with a

needle and line. We used a cork to avoid a mess, and then we pierced with a needle and wore it, you would use the

earring for two or three days” (Zé Pedro In Guerra, 2010).

“There were a punk attitude between the musicians and the crowd surrounding them. It was important to shock, to

agitate... Paulo Pedro Gonçalves was a total punk regarding attitude, Pedro Ayres was all talk, problematisation,

always accompanied by a bottle of absinthe. The important thing was to live every single day as it was the last!” (Zé

Pedro In Guerra, 2010).

“What I found funny [as interesting] in punk was the do it yourself motto. That was a slogan, within quotation marks,

that suited me just fine. And the fact that that phrase and that attitude that, really they put to practice... the punk

movement was a movement that was created with a very exposed image. So, punk influenced everybody, in fashion,

the way people behave, and I think it really was a good movement in Europe. It was a movement without rules. You

didn’t have to play a certain type of sound. I think that the movements that try to put themselves into drawers with a

bunch of rules have their lasting time. This doesn’t mean that punk wasn’t one of these. Nowadays a lot is being said

about punk, but, nowadays, the image of what they try to think upon, back then, thirty years ago, was something

really loose. And that was the attitude I’ve always had, since I had my first contact with that movement” (Zé Pedro In

Guerra, 2010).

3. Emergences

If punk’s emergence in Lisbon can be traced back in time to the end of the seventies, it is only,

almost ten years later, in the mid-1980’s, that punk starts to take its steps in Porto. In the Porto

case, Cães Vadios (a band formed in 1985), assume a role similar to the one of Aqui D’el Rock

in Lisbon: they are seen as the first punk band in the region, enabling other punk manifestations,

or at least working as a cornerstone for their emergence. Also, Renegados de Boliqueime

(formed in the beginning of the nineties) have their relevance via Frágil, their lead singer.

Nevertheless, Frágil’s importance as a character in the Porto punk scene is also due to the

recognition of what has been a long and lasting journey in punk, in other words, of a

retrospective look that takes into account what the present is, what were the experiences in that

period and the prestige he attained because of them.

Generally, the founding importance of Aqui D’el Rock, as a reference band in punk’s

emergence is recognised. Nevertheless, other Lisbon bands are referred for the same timespan -

specially Faíscas, but also Minas & Armadilhas and Corpo Dilomático - in the discourses

concerned with the local punk scene in Lisbon. The recording of two singles in the end of the

seventies materialises the existence of Aqui D’el Rock, which may help us to understand their

historical prominence among the existing bands at the time. Hellas, it is commonly assumed that

the band had the adequate sound and narrative, but not the desired look and attitude.

Therefore, the logic of (mimetic) appropriation creates not only new sonorities but also

fills them with the specific meanings of their context of production. This exercise of

contextualisation reflects itself on the success that some bands had (Gelder, 2007; Hebdige,

1979, 1992). Some became a worldwide success, other became it at a national level, and yet

others were more successful outside their country of origin. The local reappropriations of the

punk sonority have been confirming the accuracy of Dunn’s assertions as punk rock is a sound

example of “cultural hybridism among contemporary world politics”, as it is not the same

everywhere - it is re-shaped and redefined locally, according to the available resources and

social and political needs of those places, in a process that intertwines characteristics of the

global punk with local elements. For Dunn, punk is able to have all this geographical reach

because it is a cultural field among which youth can find several resources of resistance, action

and empowerment (Dunn, 2008: 205-206).

“Punk, the new tentacle of rock, it is not only what bands — their speakers — make of it. The punk explosion was the

motive for several parallel activities, that have been coated with great importance in the development of the

phenomenon — the massive creation of small magazines called fanzines, created the first important alternative to the

musical information in the society of the truts and the coups were created since the beginning of 1975 more than 30

new labels, some just with one or two records, but that came to strike the big lords domain” (Sérgio, 1979:14).

“Afterwards, the first punk bands came to life, but they didn’t play, it was only for the sake of shock. The message

was important, in terms of lyrics, but no one played a thing” (Pedro Ayres Magalhães In Guerra, 2010).

“Returning to politics. We at the beginning thought, by we I mean the small group of punks, that life was too short to

be an hypocrite; and that we really had to get our hands dirty, that instead of preaching, what mattered was to make

things happen that weren’t happening at the time” (Pedro Ayres Magalhães In Guerra, 2010).

“What made me believe and say “I’m going to be a musician” was my contact with punk rock and hardcore. Thinking

that you can control the process... everything is less complicated, there are a lot less intermediaries and the attitude of

“anyone can do it” and if I do this and you like and I am so mediocre at it, you’re gonna make it as good or even

better than me. The fact of simplifying the access to music made me feel good about myself or confident enough to

decide to experiment. One time in front of the drum kit was all it took” (Joaguim Albergaria In Guerra, 2010).

“We came from the punk rock, we say concerts that were true parties, celebrations of youth culture quite irreverent

and even subversive, of resistance to the apathy which the system draws us into in a daily basis, from birth until

death” (Joaquim Albergaria In Guerra, 2010).

If in the duality between the U.S.A and the United Kingdom that happened, in Portugal this can

also be seen. The emergence of punk in Portugal is therefore shaped by the environment of

openness and transformation in which the country was immersed in the post-25 of April of 1974

and characterised by a mimetism/reappropriation of the north-american and british realities, a

mimetism which isn’t, nonetheless, specific to the founding moments of punk in Portugal as it

can be found through the generations of individuals and their paths/connections through/to

punk. April Errickson (1999) provides us an account of the socio-historical specificities that

were present in the origin of the punk movement in the U.S.A. and in the U.K., showing us the

plasticity and consequent adaptability of this movement to the contexts of living, in synch with

the theses of Andy Bennett about the consolidation of the music scenes (Bennett & Peterson,

2004). Hence, Errickson, writing about the context in which punk emerged in the U.K., tells us

that “in the mid-seventies, England suffered a recession. (...) From that recession came the

transformation of the relatively stable lives of the english”. Unemployment rose; the thefts,

strikes and bomb-letters rose and the panic was installed among the population; and “the

conspiracies were abundant and were focused on what was happening with the government to

permit the recession to go on”. Alongside with this political problems, the heat wave that the

country felt in the summer of 1976 forced a lot of families to stay at home, as they had no

money to have vacations away from this situation. The fear that was acute, became even worse.

People felt trapped and without hope. The youth was “furious with the government and with

society for trusting a government that was unable to help their own citizens and to protect them

from all this suffering” (Errickson, 1999:7-8).

“In just a couple of years, punk made more headlines than other socio-musical phenomenon since The Beatles (...)

and Jimi Hendrix or the colossal reunions of Woodstock. As a movement it has true tendencies to dilute itself due to

the velocity of the phenomenons in the communication age - but its offsprings are here for those able to take

advantage and understand them. And know that rock will always react with replenished strength to the recuperation

of the system and to the attempts to control it. Punk is dead, long live rock” (Sérgio, 1979:14).

For April Errickson (1999) the context that “helped to form the punk in England, was

mirrored in the United States during the seventies”. In that decade, the opportunities were scarce

and the energy crisis of 1973/74 lead to the depression of the industrial production and,

consequently, to the decrease of the worker’s wages. Another recession was near. But, contrary

to the british punk movement, in the United States, the youth were more interested in the music

than in the questions regarding (social) class. Here, in the U.S.A., even in the beginning of the

1970’s we could hear “the first signs of a fast, loud and stylistically simple music that started

with bands like The New York Dolls, The Ramones and Blondie”. Nevertheless, only between

the end of the seventies and the beginning of the eighties we can see the rise in popularity of the

punk looks in this country (Errickson, 1999:9). Also, we can state that there were, in fact,

differences between the british and north-american punk. The latter was much more interested

in the symbols than in its ideals. According to Errickson, that may be due to the fact that north-

american punk emerged among the middle class and not the working class as the british

movement did. This may, in fact, explain why the north-american punk soon revealed its

interest in selling music (without political or social causes) to the mainstream (Errickson,

1999:10).

In an exercise of comparison of the punk movement in Portugal and other realities, we

have, at the same time, a reiteration of the mimetic character present, mainly, on the musical

influences, an evaluation that points to the lack of infrastructures and support activities (like

punk houses or squats) to the movement that enable an increment of its radius of action, of its

capacity to intervene, in organisation and dynamism, and the recognition that the punk

movement evolves and constitutes itself in a close relation to each local and national context on

a mentality level. Albiez considers that “punk is always diverse and fluid in its identity. Any

theoretical or interpretative study that focus itself only on the class or the oppositional politics

as a framework to understand this genre, at least since the beginning of the eighties in the

United Kingdom, misses the essential question which is that punk had vast effects on those who

adopted it, who adapted it and answered it” (Albiez, 2004: 12).

4. Sedimentations

After the first punk wave of the end of the 1970’s, in the mid-1980’s we could watch

the emergence of a second wave, ten years past the punk’s eclosion in the U.K.: here we can

find bands like Peste & Sida, Mata Ratos, Censurados, Crise Total and Bastardos do Cardeal.

They play shows in Lisbon in places like A Teia, Rock Rendez Vous, António Arroio Artistic

School or the Fine Arts Faculty and they wanted to be heard. At this time we still lived in the

after-revolutionary period, a period of euphoria, expectations and dreams wherein the

portuguese youth felt that there was room for bands do grow and every single day you could

find new acts and potential musicians.

The existence of a place like Rock Rendez Vous was a determinant factor for the

actualisation and sedimentation of the punk sensibility and of punk bands. Also relevant at this

time seems to be the importance of Alvalade as the epicentre of the Lisbon’s punk scene,

feeding from a musical tradition and converting it to the punk’s DIY. The significance of

Alvalade is also due to the fact that since the beginning of the 1980’s, in Lisbon, each of its

neighbourhoods has its own sensibility and associated musical movement. Also, it is possible to

identify at this time several ways of living and experiencing punk according to its territorial

context, namely, a more well known and intense Lisbon scene, and a less intense but more

underground Porto scene. It is, nevertheless, important to stress that the attendance to

international festivals, the foreign literature and the possibility of listening to imported records

were determinant for the emergence of the portuguese punk scene.

The portuguese punk scene is, nowadays and resembling what happens with other punks

scenes all over the world, constituted by several subgroups, united around the sonority of the

bands and, in some cases, of a set of, mainly political, ideals. Through the history of the punk

movement, this genre was subdivided in an infinitude of other genres, more or less close to their

roots, more or less open to contaminations by other genres (namely pop, ska or metal).

In Portugal, we can subdivide the contemporary punk scene in seven groups, noting that

this division is influenced by some degree of arbitrariness, as there are links connecting some of

the subgroups and bands that can be transversal to more than one subgroup. In this way, there is

a first group that we can call political punk/anarcho-punk. Politicised, with an anarchist or anti-

system incline, this group is connected to places like Casa Viva in Porto and the centres for

libertarian culture of Cacilhas, Almada and Aljustrel. Having as aesthetic and political

references other bands of political punk, their sound varies between one influenced by crust (a

punk verge influenced by metal) and one of a more classic incline, in line with bands like

Exploited or GBH. In Portugal, bands within this spectre are Coluna de Ferro (Lisbon),

Eskizofrénicos (Porto), Albert Fish (Porto, a band more street punk but, in a way, in line with

this verge), Dissidentes do Projecto Estatal (Aljustrel) and Artigo 19 (Porto).

The second group is the hardcore one (classic, in line with the 1980’s Washington

scene). This group shaped the Lisbon punk scene (in a broad sense) of the 1990’s, with bands

like X-Acto and Sannyasin and places like the Ritz headlining this moment where the

portuguese punk was more intense. This scene is now, at some extent, defaced (some of its

leading characters are now in bands like Linda Martini, PAUS and If Lucy Fell), but there are

some bands that have this kind of sound like My Rules (Lisbon), No Good Reason (Almada),

Mr. Miyagi (Viana do Castelo), and, in a way, Adorno (influenced in some extent by the

original emo movement). The third group can be identified as metallic hardcore/metalcore/post-

metal. Between hardcore, metal, and genres like post-rock and instrumental music, it is a

relatively undefined, but active, group that leaves aside the more militant components of the

classic punk and hardcore. Also, it is more open in what concerns music and we can include in

this group bands like If Lucy Fell and Men Eater (both from Lisbon).

The fourth group can be found among the crust/d-beat sonorities - a more metallic, and

highly politicised tendency, in line with bands like Discharge and Doom. The extremely fast

drumming leads the music, to which screaming vocals and distorted guitars are added. The more

significant bands among this group are Simbiose (Lisbon), Freedoom (Porto), Deskarga Etílica

(Figueira da Foz), Alien Squad (Leiria), and Dokuga (Porto). The fifth group is the punk rock

one. With melodic songs in line with Censurados and the early Xutos & Pontapés. Here we can

actually speak of a specific portuguese sonority, played by bands like Fitacola (Coimbra), Tara

Perdida (Lisboa), and K2o3 (Setúbal). The sixth group may be identified with skapunk, as it

opts to perform a cross between the jamaican ska music and the simplicity and energy of punk.

The most popular band within this sub-genre is Humble.

Finally, the pop-punk/melodic hardcore. In the 1990’s, bands like Lagwagon,

Pennywise, Bad Religion and NOFX became popular. They practice hardcore with a very

melodic incline, almost pop, more accessible in terms of listening to broader audiences. This

tendency is in line with the popularity of bands like Green Day and Offspring, a movement that

was conventionally called pop-punk. One of the most popular bands in Portugal, Fonzie, follow

this aesthetic. Other groups like Easyway (which have obtained some airplay on the radio),

Aside (currently on an undetermined hiatus) and Triplet (with a more radiophonic emo incline).

Concluding, with all the national specificities and the underground inclination that the

movement has, we can actually find not only punks, but also concerts and other signs of vitality

among the movement in Portugal. Even though it isn’t on the covers of newspapers, even

though it has not the media attention it used to have at the peak of its emergence, namely in the

U.S.A an the U.K., punk still has, nowadays, the ability to move small crowds and sell out

concerts. Nevertheless, and in spite of being pronounced dead, it is something that lives, it is

still around (in?) us, it is something replenishing with meanings, something that still has a role

in the individuals life and among society. Several authors claimed the death of punk, and, with

it, the death of the classic view of subcultures (Cogan, 2010; Sabin, 1999; Clark, 2003), in the

exact measure in which those subcultures were “groups of young people that practiced a vast set

of social contestation through shared behavioural and aesthetic orientations” (Clark, 2003:223).

These groups were important to the change of the social order in several parts of the world,

operating this change through their capacity to shock and disobey the established norms

referring to class, gender or ethnicity. However, everything changed, as, with the course of time,

these transgressions to the norm, became, so to speak, normal. In other words, they became

expectable, they were included among the capitalist repertoire which converted the “rebellious”

image into a potential consumer, into a consumer item. Dylan Clark, actually states that punk

was captured and placed among the “subcultural zoo, exposed for everyone to see” (Clark,

2003:223). This lead punk to the end of the line, to the point of no return. Having fought a full

front battle against the establishment, having reached a point where some bands valorised

everything rejected by the mainstream, from raping to death fields and to fascism (some actually

adhered to it) (Clark, 2003:225), punk had to reflect upon itself.

In other words, with Savage, we can say that “punk was beaten but it also won. If the

destruction of the music industry was the Sex Pistols’s project, they failed; but they also gave it

a new life, a myriad of new forms. Since punk’s inscription in music and the media industries,

its conception of freedom is finally submersed by the New Right’s political power and by the

value system that comes with it, but its initial negation remains a beacon. History is made by

those who say ‘NO’ and the utopian heresies of punk remain a gift in the world” (Savage, 2002:

613-614).