7.1 / Sell Out Now

I know what you’re thinking: how cynical of Art Practical to give a dealer the job of editing an issue devoted to punk rock. Dealers are the monetizers of culture, the fork-tongued descendants of hip capitalists, those Bill Graham music presenters of hippie days gone by who set the standard for co-opting counterculture so it can be watered down and sold back to the mainstream as a T-shirt or an album. The choice seems even more galling since one of the things people cherish about punk rock—perhaps the thing they cherish most about punk rock—is the value placed on authenticity. The Wikipedia definition of selling out includes a section on punk rock. That's like saying there's a picture of Jello Biafra in the dictionary next to authenticity. That scenario would be comical if not for the subject's sour gravity, which you can taste in the suicide note of Kurt Cobain, who lost touch with that authenticity and paid for it with his life. Listen to the despair in his voice after falling prey to the falseness that so often accompanies fame and fortune: "All the warnings from the punk rock 101 courses over the years, since my first introduction to the, shall we say, ethics involved with independence and the embracement of your community has proven to be very true." — Steven Wolf