Days of Punk | Fashion
Blog

Punk music and culture were born of rebellion. It was a rebellious spirit against the complacency that had become rock and roll. The generational evolution had become homogenized, overproduced, and became the standard sound of commercial and mall music.

Punk turned the music around with a DIY sound born in the suburban garages and urban neighborhoods of overlooked gentrification. It was a generation of disaffected, economically oppressed rebels ready, willing, and able to pick up a guitar and play like those that led rock in so many yesterdays.

Stripped down to basic cords, driving beats and primal lyrics, the genre that was Punk was the beginning of a new era, music, culture, literature and art. It too was undergoing a metamorphosis even as it was being born. Hardcore Punk developed the use of distorted guitars, pounding drums, shouted vocals beyond the melodic to create songs that exploded and disappeared in two minutes.

Hardcore Punk was faster, louder and more aggressive. It used speed as its evolutionary force to distinguish itself from what was already being labeled establishment Punk.

The Speed of Hardcore Punk

Punk in itself was an unpolished entity. Hardcore Punk rejected even foundational Punk music as a polished sound that was technically elaborate and commercially accepted. Hardcore Punk tapped into a message of urgency. The sound moved at lightning speed. Its message was, “there was no time to waste.” Speed was at its core.

In 1978, in San Francisco, The Dead Kennedys emerged as one of the most political bands of Punk. Led by the confrontational vocals of Jello Biafra, the group attacked consumer culture, including early Punk that was leading the fashion of a new generation. The music was a concept that proved Punk could be energetic, provocative and a trail blazer of Hardcore Punk.

Jello Biafra of The Dead Kennedys photographed by Michael Grecco

The Boston Explosion

Coinciding with the Hardcore Punk bands entering the spotlight around the world from San Francisco, London, Berlin and New York, Gang Green was lighting the Boston fuse of rebellion. Surfacing within a fiercely independent Punk scene, Gang Green brought speed to the genre with a reckless abandon.

Redefining song, Gang Green created blasts of distorted guitars and pounding drums that captured a physical energy defining Live Hardcore Punk. Gang Green reflected and expanded the core DIY ethos of Punk. Bands didn’t need record company approvals, expensive recording equipment or professional connections. Gang Green showed that anyone group could use any space for rehearsal, create an audience with flyers, book a show and play. Independence became a defining strength of Hardcore Punk, reaffirming and expanding the core values of the movement.

Gang Green photographed by Michael Grecco

In his Artist Statement on his Days of Punk website, Michael Grecco reveals his feelings about the era that reflect that of countless others, “Wear what you want! Say what you want! Make music however you want! In this culture of acceptance, myself and countless others dove headfirst into a journey of social and artistic freedom.”

The Days of Punk collection, photographed and curated by Michael Grecco is an intimate look at the pu