Metro Pulse/Gamut/VANS Warped Tour

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Live and Onstage

Our local, somewhat-jaded rocker-writer handicaps the Tour.

Sure, everybody knows that the Warped Tour is gonna be a heaping helping of loud/fast sounds for the teenage set, interspersed with skaters, ska, and hip-hop. Let's take a look at some of the better (or at least more prominent) acts featured in this year's festival.

Green Day—It's only fitting that Green Day, America's foremost proponents of pop punk, finally headline the Warped Tour. Always entertaining and frighteningly tight, Billy Joe Armstrong & Co. will surely remind the Warped audience that songs matter more than whatever silly haircut is popular this week.

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones—The flagship band of the mid '90s ska revival, I never really understood why The Bosstones inspired such reverence. Sure, they jump around a lot and play a long time. But the lead singer's trashed, gravely voice is grating at best. You'd be better off watching some skaters during their set.

Jurassic 5—The only true hip-hop of this year's fest, Jurassic 5 is the real deal. How the predominantly white audience will react is anybody's guess. They're no Eminem, which is a good thing.

Snapcase—Is it metal, hardcore, or punk? And who cares? As the flagship band of the Victory Records stable, Snapcase is poised for some kind of mainstream crossover success that probably won't happen. One of the guitarists does the spin the guitar over the shoulder trick just like Steve Vai! And if you miss it the first time, he'll do it again—at least 20 more times.

Millencolin—Sweden's answer to NOFX, these guys are full-fledged rock stars...in Europe.

The Hippos—Another ska band. Time for a beer, or three.

MXPX—These guys are essentially a PC version of Blink 182 who play too fast for their own good. The band's chief strength, melody, is usually killed by sheer velocity. MXPX is a good band who should learn some restraint.

Long Beach Dub Allstars—LBDA is basically an augmented support group of the survivors of Sublime. Their mix of punk, hip-hop, metal, and reggae will be a big hit with the big pants 'n' baseball cap set everywhere. If they can survive the impending fame without any overdoses, they'll be huge.

Avail—Melodic hardcore meets Southern rock in the form of Avail. And any band that features a heavily tattooed go-go dancer/maniac named Beau Beau is A-OK in my book.

Anti-Flag—The mohawk contingent will eat this up! Despite their trite circa-'77 punk outfits, Anti-Flag delivers a surprisingly competent Give 'Em Enough Rope-era Rancid sound.

NOFX—The most imitated band in punk, NOFX defined the gallop-beat Southern California sound. Their irreverent, self-effacing music is a great alternative to the crash-and-burn punk aesthetic. Instead of watching the countless wannabes at this very show, just be sure to check out the innovators. And their vaguely political outlook is a good intro to counterculture without being too preachy. Kids love 'em and you should too.

Good Riddance—One of the most underrated bands of melodic hardcore, Good Riddance shreds. And their lyrics are a cut above the usual skatepunk/male anger thing that is so prevalent.

Elliott—Well-executed emocore. The more stylish kids with cool hair will love 'em. They really are good, and really emotional too.

Unwritten Law—Apparently, these guys are huge in California. Their lyrics are too teenage-lust oriented for my mature, sensitive tastes. The 12-year-olds will rave.

One Man Army—these guys pull off the old school, leather-jacket-and-mascara punk style without looking too silly. Pogo, scream in teenage anger, and have a blast! Oi!

Hot Water Music—An underground fave for years, it's about time for Hot Water to cross over to big success. As the band has progressed, they've eschewed hardcore tendencies for a more mature, heartfelt-yet-heavy sound. Their only crime: making heavy beards a fashion statement for 17-year-old emocore boys everywhere. But, with music like this, I can forgive a fashion don't.

—J.S.

After 25 years, this subculture struggles to define itself in the wake of commodification and sexual violence

by John Sewell

Packaged rebellion is nothing new, especially in the world of rock 'n' roll. As far back as the late '60s, corporate record companies were using slogans like, "The Man Can't Bust Our Music" to hype their supposedly counterculture acts. This ad campaign was just the beginning of a marketing schtick that would eventually encompass all aspects of advertising for anything youth oriented.

By the '90s, almost all advertising aimed at the teenage (and younger) market was totally steeped in irony. Grunge chic and anti-establishment rhetoric was used to flog everything from rock bands to breakfast cereal. Thanks to the newly diversified media of cable television and the Internet, even subculture wasn't so underground anymore.

As grunge reached its zenith, Jane's Addiction's Perry Farrell used what remaining brain cells he hadn't already vaporized to come up with a brilliant idea: The Lollapalooza Festival. Lollapalooza was a tour that combined the more adventurous yet commercially successful bands of the time with sideshow performers and leftist politics to present a traveling Woodstock for the '90s. And, for a few years anyway, the tour was the hottest ticket in rock—selling out large outdoor venues and establishing a new breed of wilder, weirder mainstream rockers like Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, Nine Inch Nails, and others.

Now that the Lollapalooza Festival is no more than a flannel-encrusted memory, The Vans Warped Tour has filled the void as the biggest and best alterna-tour—a make-or-break opportunity for bands and products to come in contact with their target audience: "the kids." Since 1994, the yearly event has successfully combined extreme sports and rock bands that usually fall somewhere in the punk spectrum to create a marketer's dream.

Essentially the punker's version of Lollapalooza, Warped has come to symbolize the commodification of punk. And in the Catch-22 sphere of punk subculture, mass success indicates failure. So there has been predictable criticism of Warped and how it has exploited the punk scene—which is ripe for the picking—to sell athletic shoes and create a watered-down, "extreme" marketing niche. Yet punk bands still covet a slot on the tour because exposure equals sales, and that's the name of the game, baby.

"The Warped Tour is like capitalism with the gloves off—there's no padding whatsoever," says Tim Barry, lead vocalist for Avail, a band featured on this year's tour that had been previously been lauded for its uncompromising DIY stance.

"I fully understand people's negative ideas about it. Last year when we did it, it hit me pretty hard. It's total commodity-core. I mean, everybody's pushing some kind of product. It seems like all of the biggest bands that draw people to this event have already got huge sponsorship. And a lot of people perceive that as negative.

"For that matter, people perceive any corporate influence on music as being negative," continues Barry. "I really did, especially when I was younger. But it flips both ways: it's beneficial for bands to get that kind of massive exposure—new people can hear your music.

"And on this tour there's so many good bands. It'll be nice to be able to introduce tons of kids, in one day, to bands they've never heard like Snapcase or Hot Water Music. That's rad. So you can flip-flop on it."

Negative response to Warped reached its peak last year, when the tour featured controversial artists Eminem and Blink 182 as its most prominent acts. Tristin Laughter, publicist for Berkeley's Lookout Records label, spearheaded an expose on Warped that became the cover story for the summer 1999 issue of Punk Planet. The piece featured articles by Laughter, Punk Planet editor Dan Sinker, and Spin magazine writer Charles Aaron.

"I was motivated to write that article for Punk Planet critiquing last year's Warped Tour specifically because the headlining bands [Blink 182 and Eminem] are really the two that I think most typify the kind of hatred towards women that is so pervasive in music today—even in so-called punk music." says Laughter. "I did the article because those bands are such flagrant examples of an attitude that is so not subversive or critical or alternative. And then that led me to critique the whole endeavor, which seemed in many ways to be misleading or false.

"Last year was a really poignant year because of the bands at the Warped Tour and because of the events at Woodstock, with the rapes that happened there," Laughter continues. "I think a lot of people were motivated to complain because of all of that."

Laughter was also motivated by members of Blink 182 using the Warped Tour stage as a conduit for pornography. "The heinous thing about Blink 182 is that they went on the Howard Stern show and said, 'We're gonna be photographing girls' tits for Playboy magazine from the Warped stage.' And to me that was so wrong. Because I've always had really passionate feelings about punk rock: It really formed me and changed me and shaped me. Punk is something that I care about and I resent what Blink 182 is doing.

"The Warped Tour was originally conceived as a punk mega tour. But bands like the Dead Kennedys or Fugazi—they wouldn't be playing with someone like Eminem: an artist who writes songs about drugging a girl at a party and then raping her. Punk is a romanticized movement, and most people that have been involved in it feel really passionately about it. And, as a feminist and a punk rocker, I felt like speaking out."

Laughter is not nearly as critical of this year's Warped outing, which features friendlier, more tolerant acts such as Green Day and NOFX. She also realizes that the event is an important springboard to greater exposure, even for bands with more politically correct agendas than those featured on last year's tour—like Avail, a band once publicized by Laughter.

"Avail has a lot to say that is important and urgent," says Laughter. "And for them to play the Warped Tour could really change a kid's life. That may sound grandiose, but I think it's true. If there's something in the mix of Warped that's important for a kid to see, that makes going to the show important. And for a band to be involved in a bigger marketing opportunity—that gives a band like Avail a chance to connect with young fans who might not know about them."

Sure, this year's Warped Tour is a more PC face of the commercialized world of punk. But, almost 25 years into its existence as a rigidly defined subculture, can punk transcend the marketing and still be a valid youth movement? That's debatable.

"Punk rock bores the living shit out of me," says Avail's Barry. "The attitudes that revolve around the very clique-y scenester types whose first intention is to always criticize people really bugs me. I don't consider myself to be a punk. I used to, years ago.

"But being called punk means that you're kind of instantly pigeonholed into some kind of a mindset that we didn't create for ourselves. I completely distance myself from the punk rock handbook that says what you can and can't say and do. It's just all a crock of shit at this point as far as I'm concerned."

Nonetheless, Avail rose from the punk scene, and that involvement played a major role in shaping the band. Barry says that the financial reality of being in a band is often a far cry from the idealized notions presented by punk pundits. "For a lot of people, anarchy means 'Don't pay the bands,'" he says, laughing. "I mean, what the heck is that?

"When people criticize Avail for anything—playing Warped, playing at a club that they think is too big, for our music, our personalities, who they think we are or whatever, we just have to ask ourselves: Do we really care? We make our decisions on our own. Going on something as big as the Warped Tour, you know you're gonna get criticism. It doesn't really matter where the criticism is coming from."

Laughter is a little less critical of the subculture as a whole, still believing that involvement in punk can be a life-changing experience. "I know that punk can still have a dramatic effect, especially for teenagers," she says. "Punk has always been a feeling of alienation and differentness and separation. And it's also been a politicized critique of mainstream culture in a lot of cases.

"It [punk] speaks most powerfully to the young. And that affection for the music and the message can live on forever. There's just something about late adolescence that is so inexpressible. And the anger and sexuality of punk rock just expresses that perfectly."