Straight Edge article in the Irish Times today? (1 Viewer)

[cesspooldublin]

Complete with Minor Threat quotes apparently.

anyone seen it?

 

[Diddles]

Here it is..

Straight Edgers put the cool into abstinence

A growing band of punk youths are proving that you don't need alcohol to have an edge, writes Quentin Fottrell

ASIDE FROM the prospect of a global financial meltdown, atom experiments in that Swiss tunnel swallowing us all up, the backstreets of Temple Bar after dark, more Riverdance revivals, nuclear war and/or denim worn above and below the waist, there is something else that scares me. It is a low-level, persistent concern tugging away at my spells of contentment.

When a friend or relative reaches drinking age, that hangman's knot in my stomach tightens, especially with the rise in alcohol-related liver disease among under-30s, and talk of binge drinking and drugs in universities. In my day, the only drugs around college were from tobacco companies passing out free cigarettes. In our naivety, we thought it was bloody great.

A friend is approaching his 21st birthday. I first met him in the Coffee Inn on South Anne Street in the late 1980s when he was in a buggy. These days, he raves about hardcore punk, which is like a clatter of dustbins to me.

He recently told me something amazing: he doesn't drink, smoke or do drugs. The weight of 1,000 Riverdance revivals and spinning atoms was lifted off my shoulders.

He is not someone I'd peg as a member of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart. I take my rosary beads off to the Pioneers and their important message about the damage of alcohol abuse, but the sacred heart of Jesus isn't his gig. I don't see him reciting the Heroic Offering off the cuff, as powerful as that is. He's more into the Jesus and Mary Chain on vinyl.

So what gives? (That's me trying to be cool. . .) He is a member of the Straight Edge band of brothers, a hardcore punk music scene that began in 1980 when a group of kids were refused entry to the Teen Idles at the Mabuhay Gardens club in San Francisco for being underage. As a compromise, management marked their hands with an X for the barmen to see.

Some Edgers write or tattoo an X or SxE on their arms or hands, or write x on either side of their name like the band xAFBx. They took what they liked about hardcore punk - the music - and screwed the rest, some choosing celibacy. Straight Edge means different things to different people. (One online poster has a Clintonian interpretation of sexual abstinence: only oral sex on a first date.)

This is a worldwide youthquake. No rampaging in Ibiza with Leaving Cert students. Too predictable. They give their all to visceral, mind-blowing hardcore punk. Edgers have more gumption than the Sex Pistols: they stood up to society and their peers. Like the Pioneers, it is a lifestyle choice. Despite the television advertisements to the contrary, they decided drinking wasn't cool.

StraightEdge.com quotes 1980s band Minor Threat with the message:

"I'm a person just like you

But I've got better things to do

Than sit around and f**k my head

Hang out with the living dead

Snort white shit up my nose

Pass out at the shows

I don't even think about speed

That's something I just don't need."

It's angry and aggressive language, but it's also on the side of the angels.

My friend doesn't go for MP3 piracy, either. Edgers pay for music and go to gigs. They need to connect in the heaving human pit of a concert. The television campaigns say drink responsibly, but soft-drinks prices don't support this holier-than-thou message.

A good old-fashioned, postcolonial rabble-rousing Irish knees-up has always been associated with booze. In a less confident time, it was one way we felt comfortable talking and bonding.

Our drinking culture allows us to remain the clever outsiders, one shot glass away from needing to conform. The Straight Edge movement found a more imaginative way to connect and rebel.

The old way was to stay out drinking, doing what the previous generation did. And the one before that . . . That has been our way of escaping our demons and dealing with our pain, and sticking two fingers up to the powers that be. Who knew that there was an equally rambunctious younger generation out there who don't want or need to spend their whole lives in a pub?

If we turn our streets into public toilets at weekends, it's because we have always defined ourselves by our choice of tipple: everything from the drunken narrative of our great writers to drink sponsorship of sporting events. (I shudder to think what would happen if the whole country went cold turkey.) But there is a growing number of people here who are part of the Straight Edge scene.

The owner of SxE.com, a major Straight Edge website, says: "If you are interested in advertising here, reaching roughly 10,000 unique user sessions a month, mail me. If you run a porn site and want to offer me over seven figures for the domain name, mail me for that too."

They may be poison-free, cleanliving hardcore punk rockers, but no one said they were perfect. "Edgers have more gumption than the Sex Pistols: they stood up to their peers and society

 

[frona]

It's hardly a growing scene though is it? I mean maybe it is, but I thought its heyday was long gone.

 

[damone]

worldwide its growing at a frightening pace ,and its the shithead rightwing end of it for the most part,the str8 edge of today is a long way removed from minor threat or even uniform choice

 

[HMD]

they grow out of it the day they could get served in a pub.

 

[Danny_Mc]

Pretty much everyone I've known who was Straight Edge (even some with X tats) are now carniverous booze hounds.....


Look what that Aryan wear site has...

 

[kleft]

fuck's sake, i thought this was goin to be about the sexual orientation of U2's guitarist

 

[Gambra]

It was written by that dope Quentin Fottrel. He's probably a nice guy as his articles are usually ok but that name alone sounds lame.

 

[Space]

The friend posts on moshspace as Saul2something. There's a huge Yousendit thread on there, it's run by straightedgers, hmmm. I think someone mixed up supporting the scene and robbing off the net.

 

[Gambra]

I don't think he meant it as a "devout" thing. The same comment can be made to most people here too. Sure we download a good bit but we all go to gigs on a regular basis and buy tonnes of records/cd's.

 

[GARYXKNIFEDX]

Most people commenting on this here are probably as uninformed about what the article is about as the person who wrote it.
Who cares.

 

[cesspooldublin]

wow. does the guy think he's just discovered straight edge I wonder? like, there hasn't been a couple of other articles in the Irish media about it already.
Well done Quentin, you're quite the fucking groundbreaker.

Incidentally, I am now considering going sXe just so I can wear one of thsoe Htler tshirts. Amazing.

 

[GO]

Pretty much everyone I've known who was Straight Edge (even some with X tats) are now carniverous booze hounds.....


Look what that Aryan wear site has...

Thats hilarious.Srsly.I'd wear it.

 

[GO]

Incidentally, I am now considering going sXe just so I can wear one of thsoe Htler tshirts. Amazing.

Better laugh if yer not edge but.

 

[xConorx]

worldwide its growing at a frightening pace ,and its the shithead rightwing end of it for the most part,the str8 edge of today is a long way removed from minor threat or even uniform choice

Who's the shithead right-wing end? You ever met any?

I assume you were about 'back in the day'

You total fuckin knob.

 

[xMac Kellx]

The friend posts on moshspace as Saul2something. There's a huge Yousendit thread on there, it's run by straightedgers, hmmm. I think someone mixed up supporting the scene and robbing off the net.

...

Fair few of us were asked to contribute to the article, very glad I didn't.

 

[Jerry Twig]

xspannersx

 

[AnarchoBob]

To be fair, it is true that there are a few right-wing shitheads that get into the whole sXe thing. But seems to be an American only thing and only a tiny minority of the global growth of the thing.

Anyway, it is true that some quit after reaching drinking age but there is also some that keep it up for long time, even their lifetime (or at least, up untill now). Hell, there is even people that become straight edgers quitting the drink. I was one hell of a boozehound (ask the Axis Of guys about my drunkness and my drunken antics) yet i have embraced the straight edge lifestyle.

As they say, don't knock it 'till you tried it.

 

[cesspooldublin]

I assume you were about 'back in the day'

You total fuckin knob.

Actually he was around "back in the day". Long before you were, or I was for that matter.

you sir, are the one who looks like a knob here.

 

[Space]

...

Fair few of us were asked to contribute to the article, very glad I didn't.

Yeah I read the thread.