I’ll leave it up to the musicians to determine whether or not this most venerable of musical traditions has kicked the bucket yet or not. Maybe punk is thriving in a time where the smothering forces of the slave-society are growing more and more pervasive, presented as it is with a real challenge. Or maybe it’s just been commodified as every counter-cultural force before it has. After all, that is the power and the allure of the super-consumerist society we’ve been living so comfortably in for these past few generations.

I do not claim to know.

What I will assert instead is that Washington, D.C.’s punk scene is a stupid, stupid mess; if it is symptomatic of political unrest and discord throughout the rest of our nation, then we are certainly a nation without a backbone anymore. Good god, it was fitting to call this perhaps the saddest punk show ever. Taking place in The Electrical Maid (“your community living space!” a flyer on the door proudly proclaims), the concert was as sad as its surroundings. No more than 17 people were packed into that tiny, blue little room with its dingy lighting and hideous decor. Of those 17 people, no less than 12 of its participants were composed of the members of those bands which had just wrapped up their acts or were waiting to go on stage. The remaining handful were either the personal friends of the bands or a group of the most stereotypical highschool punks ever. Black jackets covered in silver studs and band stickers they wore, their greasy hair and disdain for everything they hardly comprehended hidden under their generic baseball hats.

But at least these high-school stereotypes danced, making due with the hollow sounding pop punk that was so apathetically jammed out by inspiring acts such as Mason Summers and The Toolshed Massacre. The band members seemed like they could hardly be asked to stay awake throughout their sets as they sang about god only knows and god only cares, listless and with all the enthusiasm of the dead. The other punk bands simply sat and watched; lord doubts they even listened, for their eyes had glazed over long before they ever got to their feet and began moving their equipment into position. No wonder punk shows have the rotten reputation they do; no wonder people so quickly associate these concerts with meth-heads and burnouts. Surely that was the size of things I had to look upon.

What of this, Washington? When once you were the most thriving of punk scenes, a fine region that produced such class acts as Gray Matter and the original lineup for Black Flag! All that is left is a skeleton being picked by crows where once there were at least eagles! Is this the best in political music that this fine nation has to offer? Rants about “friends who let friends turn emo” and other such decadent bullshit? Ugh. This is not the way of things; at least not the way that things should be.

Though here one of my loves (comics) thrives, another suffers and grows skinny, stripped of any redeeming value! What a vile way you have with life! And still I must return to that dread internship at Sirius XM! GODS, BUT THIS WASHINGTON TRIP IS ALMOST OVER! PRESERVE ME!