With all the focus in the last two decades switching to indie rock and the more tolerant (and profitable) market of hipsters, it's easy to forget that there still is a dedicated few who maintain Sex Pistols-like rejection of any authority. Authority in this case includes cops, Chipotle, or even paying rent. New York mag has a fascinating article up on the return of old-line punks to St. Mark's Place, a street that to many has become the biggest symbol of the commodification of punk rock (think of the Dead Kennedy's song "Anarchy for Sale"). This is a new breed of punks, same as the old punks. They hate hipster yuppies, squat wherever they damn well please, and dream of dying by the time they hit 30.

As you can imagine, these punks are a riduculous quote machine, with juiciness such as the following:

Punk, says Suvy, is “the only view that makes sense to me.” Work is for yuppies. Rent is for yuppies. Shelter is a basic human right. The government is bullshit. Corporations are bullshit. He “fucks capitalism” by pissing in the corner of the Dunkin’ Donuts.

“No one has a right to tell anyone else what to do,” Greg says. “Like, it’s your life, you should be in control of it. I don’t pay for anything—just drugs. They don’t tax drug dealers.”

 I think I speak for many in claiming that D.I.Y. is the most important thing for punk—or as D. Boon famously put it, "Punk rock is whatever we made it to be". Still, there is a case to be made that American Apparel-wearing bands selling tracks to Wal-Mart and bashing those who disagree is pretty much as far from punk rock as indie rock has ever gotten. That's probably why the term "indie" is no longer in fashion among punks. So while the article justly presents the new gutter poets of St. Mark's in a somewhat absurd light, don't rush to dismiss them outright. [New York Magazine]