This story appears in Huck 82: The Music Issue. Order your copy now.

In May, New York City’s Mayor Eric Adams held a press conference, announcing the reopening of the city’s historic skate mecca, Brooklyn Banks. More importantly, thanks to 15 years of activism from the city’s skateboarding community, the site was formally glorified as a place of historic significance – not just for its role in the cultural development of skateboarding, but as a common ground responsible for the flourishing of American street culture writ large.

In 2018, historian and curator, Roger Gastman, embarked on a similar project in downtown Los Angeles. On the fringes of LA’s Chinatown district, Gastman, in partnership with over one hundred renowned graffiti writers, street artists, skaters and photographers, would unleash BEYOND THE STREETS – the largest exhibition of American subculture ever put to public display. Within the show was an immersive diorama of particular significance to not only American punk, skateboarding and art, but of a multicultural gathering place eerily similar to Brooklyn’s famous Banks – The Venice Pavilion.

Interred beneath the sands of California’s iconic Venice Beach Boardwalk, The Pavilion, like The Banks, is long considered hallowed ground to ranks of outlaw youth who consecrated the derelict site in the decades before being torn down by the city in 2000. Like Giza’s pyramids, vestiges of The Pavilion are still visible today – peeking out of the sand as a perpetual reminder that just below the surface lies the ruins of what once marked the surgence of a new American superpower – a playground of a new breed of Americans armed not with guns and bombs, but with skateboards, spray cans, guitars, cameras, pens and feverishly strong opinions. The Pavillion couldn’t be resurrected as The Banks later would, but it could be honoured as a site deserving of American historical merit.

To witness The Pavilion’s reconstruction was to behold some type of ancient, yet presently familiar, ritual – a kaleidoscopically diverse group of elder skaters, punkers, and graffiti writers working simultaneously to recreate the same sensory experience they’d done some 50 years prior. In witness came overwhelming synesthesia. The thrashing guitars sounded like the aggressiveness of skateboarding, which felt like the pushing and shoving of the mosh pit.

In observation, one thing became abundantly clear; these were all expressions of the same thing – a singular, chameleonic American identity defined by a constant shape shifting and often indistinguishable blend of skateboarding, graffiti, punk rock and hip-hop. As vocalist Raybeez of seminal New York-based hardcore punk band, Warzone, would observe and lyrically canonise in their 1987 song, *​‘Don’t Forget The Struggle, Don’t Forget The Streets’, *he’d bellow: ​“From the East Coast to the West Coast / Inside myself, I can hear the screams / The style, all over / It may be different, but in our hearts, it’s all the same.” The track became one of a small handful of punk songs from the era that transcended the coming decades. As an anthem about unity, of belonging and togetherness – it not only preached the importance of a unified scene, but proclaimed that its growing diversity should be the source of its strength.

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Raybeez’s lyrics were prophetic of the explosive, multidimensional movement that was to come. Much was shared between the punk and skate scenes, including notably, their lexicon. ​‘Thrash’, a term used to describe, and later define, the emergent sound of the raucous, jerky and metallic subgenre of West Coast punk, was simultaneously used to point toward an equally as aggressive approach to California skateboarding. It was a term so charged with meaning and commonality that in 1981, it became the namesake of skateboarding’s most sacred volume of law – an independent magazine dedicating itself to the service of punk skateboarding, punk music and punk art. More importantly though, *Thrasher Magazine *would consistently lay bare a fundamentally important truth of the matter. Punk wasn’t a genre of music. Punk was an attitude, a creative approach and an uncompromising point of view – the spirit of which, to be sure, embodies all three.

In a 2011 interview for the then fledgling culture blog, Highsnobiety, I sat down with Henry Rollins for a discussion far more dynamic than planned. Rollins, who at one time arguably personified the skate punk essence better than anyone, openly shared first hand accounts of what he’d seen during his days fronting Black Flag, but more significantly, he shared thoughts of the then current state of America’s youth. We talked about the proliferation of the internet and rapid growth of social media, of a distracted and disengaged generation making their way out of the spiritually dead punk movement he’d once dominated, using thumbs instead of fists.

The conversation illuminated the inevitable estrangement of generations, which was already in motion and spoke to the paradox of what might happen when punks become long in tooth. Most importantly though, we discussed a kind of cultural amnesia the country was facing; a mass forgetting of where it had been, the battles it had fought, and an emerging sense that the people were slowly being superficially turned against each other by some force from within. ​“America is working itself toward a two-tier system of the very rich and everyone else,” he said. ​“That’s the real struggle. It’s not a race thing. We the people, the plebs, the citizens of the republic are given issues like ​‘gay marriage’ and ​‘Is Barack Obama from Kenya?’. This is all just crap. These are non-issues. They’re distracting. We get sold out and the ground underneath us gets pulled while we get to argue about gays being in the military.”

Given today’s modern conceptions of skateboarding and punk, it may well be inconceivable for a younger person to imagine either as ever having an inherent element of danger. Yet there was absolutely a time, where it was dangerous to shout a charged message into a microphone, dangerous to throw an unsanctioned show, dangerous to skate in the streets and dangerous to stand out wearing the identity of a skate punk on your sleeve.

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Punk wasn’t fitting in, punk was getting kicked out. It wasn’t doing what you were told – it was thinking, saying and doing things differently, and without anyone’s permission. And as Rollins recalled, it was, above all, about placing yourself directly in the crosshairs of establishment authority. Today’s prevailing narrative positions original punks and skaters as being outspoken, activists and anti-authoritative by nature. While Rollins’ recollections rightly account for these notions, it also illuminates something deeper that may have gotten lost in the plot: the idea that the skateboarding and the music itself may not have necessarily come prepackaged as angsty and anti-establishment just for the sake of it, as much as laws, norms and other constructs of the day’s authority almost always tried to block the creation and sharing of the work itself. The conservative mainstream may have simply just gotten in the way. For as anyone from this era who ever spent serious time street skating or playing in a punk band knows, there was nothing more frustrating and disruptive to the creative process than to have some cop shutting you down, beating you up, or taking you and your friends to jail for doing nothing other than trying to express yourself. Punk music gave these shared frustrations a bullhorn.

Born objectively out of the American punk rock movement, DIY culture might well be examined as something of a 20th century version of The Boston Tea Party – a gutter punk manifesto that raised a direct middle finger to record labels, laws, order, religion, politicians and anything else that stood in its way. If there are adjectives to describe the American spirit it is independent, self-reliant and rebellious, and you’d be hard pressed to argue punk, skateboarding and a DIY ethos don’t perfectly cross a holy trinity of the three. The DIY movement would spawn indie record labels and magazines, shirts, patches and stickers. It fuelled a generation of backyard ramp builders, renegade inner city concrete skateparks and armies of otherwise voracious, equally creative doers. It became the driving force behind the explosive popularity of not only skateboarding and punk music, but a term that would seep into everyday American language, its origins in punk all but forgotten, all while serving as a perpetual reminder that you didn’t need anyone’s permission to do the work that needs to be done – as is, or perhaps once was, the American way. Thus the punk sound, if we must give it an operative genre, might be better examined, not as a form of art exactly, but more as a creative form of activism put to music.

For all its transgressions, if there’s a couple of things the United States of America can proudly hang its hat on, it is skateboarding and punk rock. Punk music and skateboarding are not only unequivocally American in both spirit and origin, but depending on who you count, how you count and by what criteria you judge, it might be argued both came into actualised cultural phenotypes at around the same period – two harmoniously overlapping subcultures that carried the torch decades before what today’s academics-turned-thought-policing-evangelists should, but won’t, proclaim as being movements that proudly stood for social justice, inclusion and diversity. Saying it loud, saying it when it was dangerous and without a single ounce of care or awareness that there might be some social dividend to be extracted.

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And yet somehow, ageing punks have almost all but totally fallen in line, sold themselves out and taken a big, smug bite out of the same rotten apple they’d once had the courage to spit back in the faces of those who attempted to force feed them in the last century. How could it all have been so easily forgotten? How could the same generation of punks who championed the underpinnings of what would become the acid baths of today’s awakened thought systems, be duped into believing that they not only had it wrong all along, but are somehow, same as everyone, guilty as charged?

The answer lies in America’s long history of eating its young, and even more disturbingly, its young have a history of eating themselves. Such would be the fate of the most influential wave of skate punk. The reasons are numerous, but two prevail.. Once punk was something that was created, understood and accepted as a thing, it became something to point at, aim toward and to become. Punk, all of a sudden, wasn’t anything new or creative anymore. It was just a shell. Something to hang on a wall, point at and reflect upon. Shells can be assumed as costume for a time, but will ultimately become nothing more than what they are; hollowed out widgets on an assembly line being stamped out, replica after replica slogging further and further away from what they once were. The farther down the conveyor belt they go, the more unrecognisable and silly they become until they finally reach late stage decay, an end game spiral that can only conclude in post-commercial parody.

Mall Punk, as an identity, marked not only the peak of the punk idea commercially, but the point at which the movement had become reduced to cultural satire. Mainstream skateboarding met the same fate and for similar reasons. Exacerbated by an emergent corporate empire, the outlaw image became not just an endless procession of representative brands, but an ironclad proof of concept brought to market through a wave of apparel, shoes, music that offered instant access to the lifestyle everyone wanted a piece of. The torrent of high dollar marketing would unleash generations of soft-core spinoffs, masquerading in Vans and black T‑shirts across food courts nationwide.

But punk’s core wouldn’t go quietly. It would go as a crying baby might be coddled and carried out of a quiet movie theatre. It kicked and screamed at the corporations it viewed as exploitative, as much as it would ruthlessly accuse members of its own as being sellouts. It lashed out at anyone and anything it perceived as being anywhere remotely close to what might be considered ​“not core” or ​“true punk” – terms the very definitions of which were lost to decades of acrimony within the scene itself. Among the top ranks of these punk and skate puritanicals came ​‘saviours’; outspoken voices who, spellbound by the illusion that punk and skateboarding somehow needed saving, stump toured paths to salvation though it had already been long gone.

Of course, when the Tony Hawk video game series also happens to represent the top selling ​“punk” soundtrack of all time, it cemented both skateboarding and punk as not only forever partners, but things that were no longer a secret to anyone. In a world of TikTok videos awash in kickflipping cops commenting on how they ​“used to skate” and ​“used to be punk”, how punk could things still possibly be? In a world installing safety nets in its mosh pits, how much actual danger could there still be at shows? Rollins had a pretty clear answer for it in our conversation; not much. ​“As far as contact at shows goes, it’s kind of ancient history,” he reflected on modern punk rock pits. ​“It’s a rite. It’s a ritual. Security knows what they’re in for. Some kid will fly over a barricade and he’s gently caught by security and gently ushered off to the side. But back then, these Westwood security guys would swarm some kid and beat the daylights out of them. At a Circle Jerks show in ​’81 or ​’82, security cleared the show out one person at a time. They hated the audience. Nowadays there’s security people that are ex-audience members. They know what the deal is. It’s easier for people to make a buck off these kids than to beat the hell out of them”.

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That same ​‘Warzone’ song, about unity and togetherness, was also about something else. It was an admonishment about what happens when you forget your roots. ​“Don’t forget your roots and don’t sell out” Raybeez stated. The US Navy veteran was right about that too, because never in recent American history has there ever been a more urgent time to listen to his words, to listen to Rollins, to Minor Threat’s Ian MacKaye, and all the other forebearers of the nation’s skate punk generation. If there was ever a time to be punk, that time is here and that time is now, right here in America where it all began because apparently we didn’t learn our own lessons.

If you are a skate punk, it is your job to speak truth to power, and not just speak it, scream it, play it, make it be heard and seen with a conviction that frightens tyrants and ignites the rest. It may be dangerous and it may outcast you, but that’s the point, that’s the deal, and the job that was accepted. It’s the invisible oath. PUNK’S NOT DEAD. We’re dead. We’re our own TV dinner. We dropped out, broke edge, grew up, grew out or simply got tired of being that person. We decided being charged up, uncompromising and outspoken was hard and socially inconvenient.

Maybe we never even had it to lose in the first place. Maybe we were just that poser first in line at the merch table just throbbing to get hands on something real. Maybe we were just that nervous voyeur cautiously wallflowering on the edge of the pit hoping to get a whiff of the action without catching an elbow to the mouth. Maybe we’re still that do-nothing hangaround – buying an image, revolting with unread New York Times Best Sellers on our coffee tables and haplessly ​“Doing The Work” – not because we’re dangerous outlaws ready to fight, but because it’s what we’re being told to do. Think anti-racist yard signs are fashionable and core? Thank Jello, Civ, Ian, Fat Mike and a laundry list of other punks who screamed the same message aloud to red laced skins patrolling the scene. Thank them for making it easy to do now. Thank skateboarders like Jim Thiebaud, Jovante Turner, Natas Kaupas and so many more for thoughtfully infusing into deck graphics those same, provocatively anti-institutional and anti-institutional, anti-racist racist sentiments of punk.

Should these charges strike a chord, the oath has been broken and the penalty is to stand aside because right now, as I write, Los Angeles, as Bad Religion once proclaimed, is burning. Right now The Feds are kicking in the doors of communities and ICBMs are ready for launch. But fear not, fair reader, for punk’s not dead. Some young person is out there, some kid who’s closer, more pissed and infinitely more careless about what anyone thinks. That kid is screaming it all into the mic in some basement. And for the sake of a nation we should pray for it. And while it may not be the punk we want or recognise, it’ll be the punk we hopefully still deserve.

Cullen Poythress is a skate writer and journalist.

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