COURTESY OF DIUNDERGROUND.COM
The 40-ish Casey Royer (center) is the frontman for veteran punk band D.I.
D.I. punks to
rock at Pauahi
'I can't imagine being a teenager now and having to sift through everything and having to decipher what is punk and what is not," says Chckn, 39-year-old guitarist for punk rockers D.I., whose performances this weekend at downtown Honolulu's Club Pauahi mark the first-ever Hawaii appearances for the venerable SoCal outfit.
In their 20-plus year career, the Fullerton, Calif. band has seen punk rock go from music for the marginalized to a profit-driven marketing tool, shamelessly co-opted by America's corporate forces. It has been heavily diluted both in sound and message, and the wildly-colored hair, leather jackets and body piercings that once branded Chckn and his ilk as derelicts and castaways are now part of mainstream society and de rigueur at high schools across the country.
D.I. with Sidekick
Where: Club Pauahi, 68 S. Pauahi St.When: 7:30 p.m. today (with local opening bands The Enhancements and Saggy Terry and the Meat Curtains) and tomorrow (The 86 List and a band TBA)
Tickets: $6 advance (available on Web site www.808shows.com), $9 at the door, all ages
Info: www.808shows.com
But the vowel-less axeman, known by his mom as Craig Jewett, has learned to live with big business' influence on punk. Corporate raids on his music, he believes, has only strengthened the resolve of those truly dedicated to genuine punk rock and driven its practitioners further underground.
"It's all a matter of timing," he sighs, with just a hint of exasperation. "If you remember in the early '80s, punks were being labeled as violent social outcasts that couldn't be trusted in school, in the home or in the workplace. Although some bands have become more marketable and more radio-friendly, there's still a huge underground punk rock scene. The fact that true underground punk rock hasn't been accepted actually keeps it punk rock."
If it's one thing D.I. knows, it's die-hard, old-school punk, O.C. style. As Chckn explains, soon after the punk explosion hit Los Angeles in the late 1970s, the kids in the suburbs to the south took to the new sound and created an entirely self-contained community. Their Hollywood contemporaries may have enjoyed a vibrant and diverse music scene, but Orange County punks like D.I. cultivated a genuine sense of family, which remains as something of a blueprint for punk rock's succeeding generations.
"Social Distortion and The Mechanics and The Adolescents all went to either Troy High School or Fullerton High School," he says, running down a list of revered local ensembles. "We all hung out together and we all knew each other prior to that, too. Some of us lived in the same house together, so at some point, if you weren't a band member, you were a roadie or a friend or a manager or something."
D.I. may not command the exorbitant fees or reap the grand royalties of today's MTV-endorsed SoCal pop-punk whippersnappers, and with the group's average age hovering around 36, they may never reap their just rewards. Yet Chckn feels fortunate to be associated with a band that helped pioneer a sound and lifestyle that helped youngsters find their own identity and discover an alternative social perspective.
"For the bands that established themselves in '79, '80 '81, the things that you wrote about in that time frame and the things that you felt then that still hold true today," he states. "There's a realness to it and an emotion tied to it.
"In fact, it's amazing if you look at the recent world tragedies that are going on, with the wars jumping off and things getting worse ... all of these things were written about in D.I. songs through the years. Not that D.I.'s any kind of Nostradamus or anything, but it's still about the system and how money dictates everything. At the same time, we try not to take things too seriously because there's a fine line between baring your soul and doing this for the reason it's meant to be done in the first place -- and that's to have fun."
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