Tiny Moving Parts's Defiant Joy

by Brian Pell

Punk rock is fundamentally and proudly and, therefore, essentially antiestablishment. Principally, it has always been a creative act of defiance and a celebration of defiance.

Punk is a stepchild of rock ’n’ roll. The instrumentation is in the family to be sure, with guitars and drums and so on. The lyrical content has some kindred traits too, though it tends to be more pointed than its parent with an incisive eye and aggressive disposition toward politics and social machinery.

The style is proportionally pointed and subversive. Guitars and drums and vocals eschew a more traditional rock ’n’ roll feel, and there’s an anarchist’s anger for the music industry and its pop(ular) acolytes. It’s supposed to feel like a rejection of something — capitalism, romance, the American dream, soulless music, etc. etc. It rejects musical norms and bourgeois themes with ferocity and delight. Like an angsty teenager, the earliest punk music feels like a rejection of just about everything, including its p…