Los Angeles’ Fuck Yeah Fest Brings Punk Back in the Shadows of Banks and LAPD Ghettobirds
Los Angeles has finally joined the tireless list of world class cities with vibrant and well-attended music festivals. It took long enough, even if the “City of Angels,” which is in a basin so it can more appropriately sit closer to Hell, can only boast a music festival of 25,000. For what it lacks in cross-culture and mainstream appeal, the festival brings to the underbelly of the “City of Quartz” – of militarism and alienation – an anti-establishment mindset that is fitting in 21st century America. The politics of entertainment’s epicenter have led to Southern California growing seemingly flabby after so long not flexing its musical might save for mainstream radio play and worldwide celebredom pioneered by Hollywood culture creators.
But, Fuck Yeah Festival east of downtown L.A. brought crunchy guitar chords and tempest tempos out underneath a hot sun whose rays bounced off the concrete in the 90 degree weather. Punk-sects spanning three decades showed up in force, as people with pins, died hair, long hair, tight pants, plenty of Fall colors and lots of cigarettes danced to the beats spanning from electronica to hardcore.
An epicenter of the American punk rock music scene as LA was, it is fitting that the festival – Fuck Yeah Festival or FYF – still has at its heart punk rock. Thousands gathered under the watchful eyes of militarized Los Angeles Sheriff patrolmen and canopies of the nation’s biggest banks – US Bank, Bank of America, Chase – to watch bands like the Refused and Desaparecidos, whose name is a reference to the disappearances of students in Argentina in the 70s, play to some of the biggest crowds of the festival.
No better time for punk rock to return to L.A., as the authorities against which the genre originally wailed continue to abuse power with concrete buildings, multiple lane freeways and public transportation that have eyes. Cruising to the festival on the Metro, trains were heavily manned by the Los Angeles Sherriff’s Department and cameras kept their eyes on roads and stations. This is truly post 9/11-War-on-Drugs era Los Angeles, as having failed to TAP is sure to get you pulled off a train and sent on your own way home if you are lucky. If you’re unlucky, one of Los Angeles’ packed jails – among the most packed in the nation – would happily take you win so as to prop up the stock of Correction Corps of America.
Indeed, an ironic and cerebral experience the festival was for those with knowledge of Los Angeles’ history. With highway motes and ghettobirds keeping their watchful eye, Los Angeles is a crystal clear demonstration of what the War on Drugs has done to America. Had this been a hip-hop concert, surely the police would have shown more force in their embedded racism from the early Reagan presidency.
As I walked into the festival for day two, my own weekend was compromised by a prop in the police state ways of the American city of the 21st century. A seemingly dirty tube sock with dank looking chronic in the middle; that is, good marijuana. How many licks? I thought. But, prescient as I am, I realized that, considering the twenty or so Los Angeles Sherriff’s behind me, and the Sherriff tank or “personnel carrier,” this must be a setup. Of course it’s a setup. This is the part of Fuck Yeah Fest that the LA Times wouldn’t cover.
I had seen the Male Jail on the way into Fuck Yeah Fest, in east Los Angeles, had I not? I would have been the butt of a sick joke by a fraternity of thugs that day, had I bit. Poor sap who might, I thought. For, I know what lie behind the concrete walls of a drab jail.
What good would I be in jail? What good would anybody in jail? It was my destiny to go and witness a punk revival on the east-side of Los Angeles beneath the buildings housing the criminalities of Too Big to Fail, under the watchful eyes of state powers.
When the Swedish punk band Refused was not defending the band Pussy Riot, bringing the Free Pussy Riot nearly full circle, just a pond away from Russia where punk rock was recently dominated, they were singing songs such as “Liberation Frequency”:
It’s coming through the air
For all of us to hear
Could it be the sounds of liberation
Or just the image of detention?
We want the airwaves back
We want the airwaves back
We don’t just want airtime
We want all the time all of the time
What frequency are you getting?
Is it noise or sweet sweet music?
What frequency will liberation be?
What frequency will liberation be?
It’s coming through the air
For all of us to hear
Could it be the sounds of liberation
Or just the image of detention?
Control my flower
Business, news all ready to devour
Who’s in charge and what does he say?
Is he playing the alternative or does it sound the same old way?
We want the airwaves back
We want the airwaves back
We want transmission for the people (by the people)
We mean…
We want the airwaves back
We don’t just want airtime
We want all the time all of the time
And by no means were Refused the only band to come with a distinctly anti-establishment demeanor. When the Desaparecidos first album came out in the 2001, it was a premonition of endless mini-malls amid squalor. Odes to austere domestic life were seen poking fun at “mediocrity” of that life, whereas today they are seen as a struggle to merely survive the austerity. “Man and Wife, the Former (Financial Planning)”:
It’s night but I can’t stay asleep
But you do, straight through till morning
When you get my coffee and say “Baby,
All that caffeine causes bad dreams
Where all your anxiety is unleashed”
Well lately my days are much better
I can’t concentrate while I’m at work
I just think and think until my head hurts
Of the payment plans I’m making
I just wanted to provide for you
But if you want to make a run for it
My love I’d cover you
And if you need money for bills
My lover I could cover you
‘Cause I sold some shit I’m saving up
We can get that house next to the park
I’ll get more hours at my dads shop
Yeah we’ll plan for everything
And we’ll enroll in that middle class
Get a compact car full of discount tags
If you’re feeling trapped or too attached
Remember we wanted that
And if you need money for bills this month
My love I’d cover you
And if you have to lie to everyone
Well I’d cover up for you
‘Cause we’re growing older growing up
Just like our parents before us
With your new job at the coffee shop
We are ready for everything
And we’ll graduate that middle class
Get a nicer car full of shopping bags
So if you’re feeling sad kind of detached
Remember we wanted that
Just remember we wanted that
Yeah I sold some shit I’m saving up
We can get that house next to he park
With the extra hours I picked up
We will pay for everything
The Desaparecidos even dedicated a new song of theirs called “Anonymous” to Bradley Manning, the American soldier involved in the WikiLeaks scandal for having leaked classified information. He has been in jail for nearly 1,000 days without council, and will likely end up spending many more years there unless a popular uprising forces him out. “We do not forgive and we do not forget,” sang the singer Conor Oberst, once called this generation’s Bob Dylan.
The Desaparecidos even covered The Clash’s “Spanish Bombs” and introduced a new song, “Marikkopa,” by saying: “ “This one goes out to you Arizona. If you have brown skin you are a lesser citizen. Anytime a government oppresses any segment of humanity it is a great tragedy and I hope they can fix it. I like Arizona and I want to go back there.”
I believe there can be little doubt that the anti-establishment and counter-culture of the sixties is returning. But, what must be remembered is the sixties counter-culture in many ways was totalitarian. It believed in the state to bring about positive change. This can be seen in today’s Occupy Wall Street movement. The state is called upon to police corporate greed, when in reality the state and corporate greed are co-dependent. In many ways, punk rock brings anarchistic memes to the debate, which in the long run is a positive force in my opinion.
The Refused might not be the best example of this, as they have been known to have socialist leanings, but these are the sort of socialist meanings derived in the villages of Sweden, with rampant working classism and resentment towards those with power, the utmost power.
All over the festival, punk bands and hardcore acts could be seen at the LA State Historic Park, the big mound of dirt in east Los Angeles. A cocktail of marijuana smoke, cigarette smoke, dust, sweat and angst made for, if not the “Best Weekend of the Summer,” as the FYF promoters kept drilling into the skulls of the entertained on big screens, was certainly a rejuvenating and exciting experience.
As LA Times refers to it, “the once-renegade FYF fest” has had to tuck in its shirt a little bit and comb the long, messy hair. Compromises included booze sponsorships from Budweiser and corporate beer Shock Top. In the backrooms, a production agreement Coachella promoter Goldenvoice (a subsidiary of conglomerate Anschutz Entertanment Group, one of the largest sports franchise and arena owners in the world), as well as a front-line security team that could ensure order if need be were obvious.
Nonetheless, as even Hollywood Reporter notes, “there was a distinct edge to the weekened as well that was conjured by a strong hardcore punk presence that included American Nightmare, Converge, Quickstand, Redd Cross, Fucked Up, Ceremony, Against Me, and Refused.” LA Times arguably left of this list San Diego veteran rockers Hot Snakes and the aforementioned Omaha’s post-punk Desaparecidos.
As Cuckoo Chaos bassist Garrett Prange called the festival, it was a “Saddle-Creek revival,” which jives with my thesis that the festival was a punk rock revival in some ways. For instance, the Desaparecidos are a punk band from the Omaha label, and singer Conor Obersts’ many projects always come loaded with political undertones deriding the austere way of life we must endure. Another Saddle Creek band, Cursive, has tackled middle class mediocrity with a number of tracks such as “Dorothy at 40.”
Saddle Creek band The Faint, who headlined the festival’s second day is an electronic-punk band who bring punk themes, with songs such as “Agenda Suicide”:
You could follow logic
Or contest it all
The work solution makes the common house a home
The element of progress
That you mention is gone
It de-evolved to something you were headed toward
As i lay to die the things i think
Did i waste my time, i think i did
I worked for life
All we want are just pretty little homes
Our work makes pretty little homes
Like a cast shadow
Like a fathers dream
Have a cut out son
What’s a worse disease
To get that pretty little home
As i lay to die the things i think
I don’t want to regret what i did- and work for life
All we want are just pretty little homes
Our work makes pretty little homes
Agenda suicide
The drones work hard before they die
And give up on pretty little homes
(like a cast shadow)
Our work makes pretty little homes
Our work makes pretty little homes
Agenda suicide, the drones work hard before they die
And give up on pretty little homes
The festival was a marriage of subcultures at Punk’s Crossing. Even if it was not necessarily always American Hardcore at its rawest, the festival capitalized upon the matured musical sensibilities of people who grew up on punk, but are making music in the 21st century. If Fuck Yeah Fest wants to remain relevant, it will avoid going the way of its cousin to the east, Coachella, and stick with its more underground and anti-establishment approach. In this setting, east L.A., Paul McCartney’s and Jay-Z’s would not make for as pressing and relevant weekend as does the thus far punk festival Fuck Yeah Fest. It’s like a Warped Tour for twentysomethings: alongside the more complicated song structures, comes also a more worldly sense of what makes the world go ’round, and why it should be stopped.
