about Spunk Rock

"without music, life would be a mistake" ~Nietzsche

"In my day Rock'N'Roll was..." hang on old sir, today is my day.

The task of keeping up with current music is more rewarding nowadays than ever before.. and more challenging. As top 40 gets lamer and more formulaic, the Rock’N’Roll on the streets is just as fresh and vibrant as ever.. maybe more so. Rock is not dead.. it is decentralized. Fresh Rock’N’Roll is one of the things that makes me feel excited to be alive. I would hate to lose that just because I “grow up”. This blog is dedicated to the pursuit of new and fresh music, with a focus on the broad genre I call “Spunk Rock”. I hope you enjoy the music as much as I do.

A few years ago I started compiling a "best of" list at the end of each year. It was primarily an exercise for myself, a way to stay tuned-in to current music.

I'm reaching that age where a lot of people curl into a musical fetal position called nostalgia and get stuck in a rut with the music of their youth. I don't want to do that. There is too much interesting and exciting music going on now.

Generation-wise, I identify as a child of the nineties. My formative years were characterized by Nirvana and Beavis and Butthead. I could easily slide into middle age with my soul stuck in that time, there was plenty of good stuff going on back then.

but I don't wanna.

I'm obsessive enough that I compile a list of "favorite bands" year over year. I realize it is a bit childish and stupid, like a favorite color, but I have debates in my mind about the order of bands in my top 20 list. I observe that most of my favorite bands today were not on the list 10 (some cases 5) years ago. So what will that look like 5, 10 years in the future?  Who might I miss if I tune out?

Meanwhile, the quantity of recorded music is increasing exponentially with time. It might be possible for one person to know most, if not all, of the great bands from the 60's and 70's - a sort of Da Vinci of rock-n-roll fandom (maybe not, but bear with me). Surely not possible now. There are too many great bands, songs, sounds. There are also too many bad ones. Oh the quantity of suck-pop generated every year! and metal? OMG metal bands are a dime a dozen. Indie-punk.. countless. Not sure what this says about our world, but a lot of the best ones don't make super-star anymore. And a lot of the top-40 stuff just sucks.

"Spunk Rock" the blog was born of my efforts to navigate that sea of sound. My hope is that some like-minded listeners out there might use my playlists as one resource of the many available. I listen to a new band every day, and it is always a pleasure to find another good one.

In the past, I have used the word "punk", among other words, to describe the music I enjoy. I have shied away from that of late because I felt like it was being misinterpreted. I tried to put my finger on a better word, and came up with "spunk." like sassy, moxie, charismatic, funky.

I see spunk picking up where punk left off, and ultimately going beyond. At times I've thought "better than punk,"  or "what punk bands would play if they could." But I don't say it that way because it demeans a branch of music culture that I have a lot of respect for (look for a separate post on the story of punk.) If these newer bands can see further, it is because they are standing on the shoulders of giants.

Spunk then, is punk that got fun. dance-able. Punk that embraces the virtues of catchy melody and good song writing. At times loose and funky, at times soft and playful, at times rough and heavy, but never, NEVER, stop kicking ass. These are some of the properties I look for from the myriad of bands that light up my life like so many stars in the sky. One way I locate them is by following playlists and flipping through best-of lists to see what is happening now. This blog is meant to pass it along.

enjoy.

P.S.
here is a sampler playlist (on Spotify)
https://open.spotify.com/user/fluid3sally/playlist/3WOjwAXMdIqajy46OPuinw