Words by Peter Tanski
Peter Tanski grew up in the small but thriving Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area, fronting several bands and founding the music and literary fanzine, Exmortus. After a brief stint living in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and writing for Legends Magazine, he returned to Pennsylvania where he began to work with web based music site NEPA Rocks. He currently fronts the melodic hardcore/punk band, Heart Out and hosts The Book of Very Very Bad Things PodZine.
“You find the most important thing that really grabs you and put it right up top. Don’t bury the lead. Put it at the top.” – Kurt Loder.
As I pen this, my year in review column, my wife is yelling – not speaking through one of the myriad devices that we can easily use to communicate with one another through – but yelling across our home, up a flight of stairs, to ask me a non-pressing question.
I project my answer at great ex-hardcore vocalist volume, and am met with “What?!” I gave the dog his medicine. “What?!” I Gave The Dog HIS Medicine. “WHAT?!” I – GAVE – THE DOG – HIS MEDICINE! “You don’t have to YELL!”
That was 2024 in a giant, pockmarked nutshell. Everything and everyone, everywhere, are offended, afraid, angry, defensive, and it’s exhausting us all. We have failed as a species to be what we have been since the first trimester of uterine life. We are no longer successful at being human beings. We are aging badly as a species. Aging in the Age of Disconnection has quickened the process of entropy.
Age is the ghost that haunts us all, yet only terrifies those nearest it’s fellows. The roiling inferno of youth scorches it’s perfect path into countenances that will be made to pay in withering looks and sullen skins. Our cherubic features are ultimately rendered reptilian. Sunken. Effected and defiled. Our ties to the fire are tethered to us with the records that stoked the blaze at the onset. Our relationships are strained. Our bodies are grinding to a halt. Our music is considered Oldies.
At 48 years of age I ponder the utter blasphemy of considering Negative Approach, Acid Bath, Void, Neurosis,Sheer Terror, Starkweather, Fugazi or Guilt as “Classic Rock”, yet the likes of Nirvana, Ministry, the Cure, or even Nine Inch Nails have all had said designation shoveled upon them.
The new Classic.
Classic Alternative.
For Christ’s sake, there are Classics of Goth, Darkwave, and Post-Punk compilations available for purchase that are as bare bones and canned as the old K-Tel collections that I used to buy for $3.99 (The Nice Price). Those of us that discovered our cultural roots and tribes in the late 1980’s, the ones that viewed their parents records as ancient artifacts and time capsule curiosities have now become the relics themselves.
It may come as no surprise that one such as myself takes no great pleasure in fading out into golfing and day drinking, nor do I find late middle aged solace in attending forced, work-related functions or office “Secret Santa” buggery. Imagine buying your Yuppie boss a copy of Carcass “Symphonies of Sickness” on cassette and seeing the look of bemusement and disgust fall across his Pillsbury-white face as he takes in the visual barrage of viscera.
I am simply not designed for the space that I inhabit. I have not grown more conservative with age as I’d been warned as a young Anarchist. I did not vote for the WWE Republican Hail Mary, nor did I back the equally reprehensible, corporate backed, war mongering alternative. In a year of genocide, cultural combat, egregious price gouging, unsubstantiated accusations, bitter divides and bestial human rights setbacks, I have grown more frail in body as well as mind. I have begun to withdraw, ever further, from those that I had once occupied spaces with. Everyone everywhere at all times have simultaneously chosen to become flippant and glib or reactionary and cunning. I thought Generation X had been (somewhat) made up of revolutionary thinkers and countercultural upstarts. Forget drinking water from hoses and latch key youths. We were supposed to infiltrate the system and tear it asunder from within. Alas, we became comfortable and lethargic while making comparatively half of what our parents had. We are no longer successful at being human beings, and we really suck at recalling the foibles and follies of the past.
As the year sputters to an anti-climax of transgender loved ones getting their passports renewed and having to put together bug-out bags, women bracing for the next piece of their bodily autonomy to be stripped away, and Spanish speaking people prepare for needless deportation or worse, I feel compelled to remind you all that this was probably inevitable. The game is fully rigged. The guy that presented salvation from fossil fuel dependence and the global crock pot is fully in bed with the same demonic elitists that poison the globe with impunity. The libertarian brain worm, earth-loving Kennedy that the rest of the family won’t talk to is also team Ed McMahon. The Biden administration is actually to the near right of Reagan. We never had a shot, really. What we do have is one another, and music.
May the next Crass, Clash, Public Enemy, and B.D.P emerge to embolden the next generation. May the next year end wrap I offer have a more sunny disposition. May you all use the device that you are listening to the new Cure record on to call to your partner upstairs. May we all find the courage extend a little understanding, even if we can’t stand the person next to us. Especially if that’s the case. Everyone, everywhere, all of the time.