Punk as Folk: Tradition as Inevitability, the Appearance of Subjectivity and the Circuitry of Justice

Folk--whatever that is--has one definite thing in common with punk: it means so many different things to different people in different contexts that it often feels impossible that the term has any central denotation. Below the sonic surface, these musical fields have certain strong correspondences, but there is at least one gross difference of attitude, nevertheless: desire for authentic reproduction of a traditional style, in the one case, and for hyper-modernism/originality, in the other. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]