Opening up the pit

Negotiating a punk ethos with PUP

Bibliographic Data

ID21873284
AuthorsMorgan Bimm (0000-0003-2188-8849, York University), Andi Schwartz (0000-0002-6433-7409, York University)
Year2022
Volume11
Issue2
Pages213-227
Publication date2022-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePunk & Post Punk (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2044-1983 • E-ISSN: 2044-3706
PublisherIntellect (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1386/punk_00112_1
OpenAlexW3204366775
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited15

What does it mean to be punk within the Canadian music industry? This article offers a close reading of the band PUP’s politics, grassroots partnerships and personal interviews to argue that they not only skew punk in genre terms, but also embody a punk ethos. Furthermore, this article will confront the ambivalent politics of punk as it becomes entangled with cultural nationalism and national identity-building through institutional arts funding and awards. If punk is about resisting the establishment, how might we reconcile PUP’s reputation as a definitively ‘Canadian’ band with their outspokenness around issues ranging from anti-Black racism to police violence to ongoing colonialism? In what ways might PUP’s leftist politics be absorbed into Canada’s national identity through their receipt of institutional recognition, funding and awards? To make sense of these entanglements, we draw on Tavia Nyong’o’s punk or punk’d theory, which responds to the apparent reification of queer theory and calls on scholars to cultivate a punk spirit. Following Nyong’o and other punk scholars, we ask: is PUP punk’ing the Canadian music machine

Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Ethos · Identity politics · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Punk · Racism · Sociology · Canadian Identity and History · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Gender Studies · Law · Music History and Culture

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