Joe Strummer Jeans. For The Love Of God.

[...] If you hadn’t noticed, “punk rock” is “back.” So says GQ, and you can see it in the men’s fashion being produced by designers like Alexandre Plokhov and in the skinny jeans seen everywhere these days (Levi’s actually makes a pair called “Strummer jeans“). Many have noted the similarities of the political and social scenes in the late 1970s and the early 2000s, but I think the comparison only goes so far. There is a sense of social irony and awareness now that we take for granted, and I think punk rock, particularly British punk from that era, was unseen and undone and unexperienced before that time. What happens now, with a few exceptions is a postmodern “punk rock” which is very aware of recreating (and modifying) what’s been done before. The Sex Pistols took it all too far, but groups like The Clash rescued punk from losing itself in nihilism and irony. That’s the difference. Strummer as an artist was never ironic. He may have been an ironic person, but not an ironic artist. And our culture is so steeped in irony, earnestness is approaching extinction. There are still a few artists out there fighting the good fight. The rap group The Coup comes closer than any I’ve seen or heard to bringing the punk attitude (as defined by Don Letts) to today’s music industry. It can’t be a coincidence that The Coup is also on the Epitaph label, the same label that signed Joe Strummer’s last band, The Mescaleros and is home to Rancid. There is hope for the music industry when a label like Epitaph will still nurture and develop independent artists–even when their first and second albums do little better than break even. [...]