Punk Paradox
A Memoir
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From the legendary singer-songwriter of Bad Religion comes a historical memoir and cultural criticism of punk rock’s evolution.
Greg Graffin is the lead vocalist and songwriter of Bad Religion, recently described as “America's most significant punk band.” Since its inception in Los Angeles in 1980, Bad Religion has produced 18 studio albums, become a long-running global touring powerhouse, and has established a durable legacy as one of the most influential punk rock bands of all time.
Punk Paradox is Graffin's life narrative before and during L.A. punk's early years, detailing his observations on the genre's explosive growth and his band's steady rise in importance. The book begins by exploring Graffin’s Midwestern roots and his life-changing move to Southern California in the mid-’70s. Swept up into the burgeoning punk scene in the exhilarating and often-violent streets of Los Angeles, Graffin and his friends formed Bad Religion, built a fanbase, and became a touring institution. All these activities took place in parallel with Graffin's never ceasing quest for intellectual enlightenment. Despite the demands of global tours, recording sessions, and dedication to songwriting, the author also balanced a budding academic career. In so doing, he managed to reconcile an improbable double-life as an iconic punk rock front man and University Lecturer in evolution.
Graffin’s unique experiences mirror the paradoxical elements that define the punk genre—the pop influence, the quest for society’s betterment, music’s unifying power—all of which are prime ingredients in its surprising endurance. Fittingly, this book argues against the traditional narrative of the popular perception of punk. As Bad Religion changed from year to year, the spirit of punk—and its sonic significance—lived on while Graffin was ever willing to challenge convention, debunk mythology, and liberate listeners from the chains of indoctrination.
As insightful as it is exciting, this thought-provoking memoir provides both a fly on the wall history of the punk scene and astute commentary on its endurance and evolution.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Graffin (Population Wars), singer of the punk group Bad Religion, explores the underside of punk rock's chaotic surface in this scattershot memoir. He recounts a wholesome Wisconsin boyhood followed by an anxious California adolescence spent in the L.A. punk scene of the early 1980s; the band's success as a venerable touring group; and the development of his side gig teaching evolutionary biology, first at UCLA and then Cornell. Graffin's narrative is not the typical punk confessional. He laments the "nihilistic, ugly and artless" culture of brawling and drug abuse, celebrates Bad Religion's maturation into a well-oiled business, and wonders where he fits in with his contemporaries. But Graffin's long-winded ruminations on punk humanism can be stilted: "The humanity in our lyrics found resonance with the embodiment of the enlightenment quest that seems to be in the DNA of all Europeans, but particularly those who call themselves punks," for instance. And his prose comes alive only when describing the very excesses he deplores. ("Nearly every slam pit had devolved into a disjointed jumble of drunk or speeded-out former jocks randomly bumping into or tackling one another.") This account of punk's evolution mutes the sound and fury of the scene.
