I enjoyed the themes of Rent and its representation of the culture in the East Village during the 80s. Each character seemed affected by the AIDS crisis and their own struggle to produce art in different ways. Collins and Angel were brought closer by their shared diagnosis, while Roger felt a need to run away from love and write music since he was running out of time. However, I feel like the movie adaptation of the musical doesn’t do it justice. Some of the scenes and transitions into song were very silly, to the point of breaking the atmosphere that the directors intended to create. I believe that we are able to look past the outlandishness of bursting into song mid-conversation when we see a performance on stage since the stage itself enables us to suspend our belief and understand the sight of people hanging off fire escapes and shredding their eviction notices, but the moment that same performance enters a realistic movie set environment, the same effect just isn’t there.

This stage performance effect also applies to opera. Because opera employs such powerful vocals, I feel that the best way for it to be experienced is live in an auditorium or theatre, where the singer’s voice resonates with the walls and the audience can be immersed in the storyline. It was cool to see the evolution of opera over time — from a single lute player and singer, to an upscaled production featuring orchestra and set pieces. And like with other forms of theater, the stories that opera tells have also changed. It’s impressive how we’ve gone from Greek tragedies to Oppenheimer in a story-telling medium that is purely musical.

I don’t usually listen to punk rock, so when Rich Stremme’s songs were playing while we were drawing our graffiti, it was my first time listening to punk rock in a couple of years. I did not connect with the music or beats when listening, so I tuned it out while drawing, expecting not to be interested in his presentation. I was surprised when it was a Zoom presentation since I believed Rich would be there in person. In my opinion, all the technical difficulties made his presentation hard to follow and connect to. I did, however, enjoy listening to his experience with punk rock. I liked his discussion about zines, essentially small magazine pages intended to share a message to the public, and it was how punk rock artists spread their name. I have done a lot of graphic design work, making posters, campaigns, and websites, so it was interesting to hear about zines and how punk rock artists made their following. I thought it was crazy some of the lengths people went to because of punk rock, like how someone killed another person after getting kicked out of a rock show, and it showed me how passionate people were about punk rock back then. Rich’s presentation, although through Zoom, was easier to connect to because of the in-class items we could see, like the album covers being passed around the class, and I found them to teach me a bit more about the history of punk rock, which I liked. Although I don’t connect with punk rock music, it was interesting to hear about punk rock’s history and its specific terms like zines, which I think opened my eyes to punk rock.

The guest speaker’s introduction to punk rock was an important part of his early life. It began when his uncle and aunt took him to a show during his childhood. That experience inspired Rich to create zines, which included band reviews and lyrics. These zines showcased musicians’ work to others. After attending his first punk rock show in Connecticut, Rich connected with people through his zines and eventually decided to form a band with some of them. He noted that most of the audience at these shows were men, with women often participating as photographers. I thought it was very intriguing

Hearing about Rich’s punk rock journey inspired me to learn more about the genre. Punk rock challenged the expectations of its time and eventually became so influential that those rules faded away. Looking at the old album covers passed around during class, I found myself drawn to the designs and the CDs inside them. It made me think about how people accessed music in the 20th century, before apps made it so easy to buy songs. I really liked the pins and stickers he gave me.

When I was listening to Rich talk about his life, I thought it was very interesting. He was explaining to us how when he moved it was hard to find people with the same interests as him. He also said how punk rock had a negative connotation to it, and whenever he found a person who liked what he did, they connected. He was also explaining how he made a lot of bands with friends and how he tried to get himself into events so that more people could hear him and his band. This was very interesting to me because I would never have expected a teenager to try so hard, like Rich did, to get into these events. Like he explained, he would call multiple times a month to try to get into shows. This was surprising to me because most people would give up after a couple of rejections. I also liked his viewpoint that you should let everyone enjoy their time at an event because you never know what they might do next. It was basically him saying it was the band’s responsibility to make sure people don’t do anything bad because of them. He then later explained that one person at one of his events actually killed someone after getting kicked out of the event. In general, I thought the Zoom call with Rich was interesting, and it helped open my eyes to a bit of the rock world.

As someone whose music taste usually tends toward rock and alternative, I was excited when I learned that we would be having guest speaker Rich Stremme speaking to us about his formative experiences with the nascent punk rock scene. Something I have always admired about the punk scene was how grassroots it was, which Rich discussed in length. I found it so fascinating that he created a zine basically by himself when he was as young as 13, and that he managed to carve a place for himself within the scene at such a young age. It takes an incredible amount of dedication to start from nothing and work your way into the scene, which is what Rich managed to do. I also really enjoyed how he discussed the sort of multidisciplinary aspect of punk rock in regards to his work with graffiti artist Revs. You wouldn’t have been able to promote your music without some kind of graphic accompaniment, which for Rich came in the form of Revs’ work. I think this also sort of ties into the idea of zines, as one would have to make them visually appealing to gain a following. Something else I found curious was his response to my asking him his thoughts on the riot grrrl movement and his experience with women in punk. I was surprised to learn that his experience with women in punk was that they were mostly photographers, which I hadn’t known beforehand. I did know, however, that women were excluded from the predominantly male scene, so at least within that they were able to carve out a niche for themselves. On riot grrrl, however, Rich said that he felt it to be exclusionary of men. He told a story of somebody at a Bikini Kill concert harassing other crowd members, after which he was asked to leave by the band; he ended up killing his girlfriend that night, apparently. He said that he would have welcomed the man in the concert so that he wouldn’t take the frustration of being rejected out on innocent people. Honestly, I would never have thought of riot grrrl in that way. The way I see it, riot grrrl was an avenue for women who were excluded themselves from the punk movement and, felt alienated by the sheer testosterone of it all. Thus, they branched out into their own offshoot of punk and wrote and sang about their specific frustrations. I will say that I found it interesting to hear such a radically different viewpoint from my own, and I can definitely see where Rich was coming from in that regard.

♥Background♥

Before getting the opportunity to chat with punk artist Rich Stremme, I reflected a bit on my punk background. Growing up, I lived with a culture to fear punks and anybody out of the ordinary. I, being out of the ordinary myself, was also afraid of not conforming to the norms of society. Since the beginning of my freshman year of high school, I realized I was more punk than I thought I was, and instead of fearing the misfits, I befriended them. This relates to the question I asked Stremme— how did you adapt to the stigmas surrounding punk culture?

♥What I Learned♥

Stremme’s response resonated with my experiences, where the general theme was that trying new things and doing what he loves mattered the most to him. With this in mind, I realized that punk rock is a protest. Punk individuals take a stand for what they love and embrace the parts of life that stray from the common, normalized trends that might be quite harmful at times. Punks take this stand especially when others or society pressures them to conform to common ideas in politics, fashion, or casual living. With these points in mind, I firmly believe that openly and happily being the black sheep is the freedom that the punk genre gives us, and it gives life more vibrancy. Punk art has made my life significantly better, and being able to listen in on a professional who actively participated in creating the type of art I love confirmed that this lifestyle is really about being passionate about who you are, and I believe that is the strongest and most peaceful societal protest against conformity.

       The guest speaker’s introduction to punk rock was a fascinating thing in his early life. It all started in his childhood when he was taken by his uncle and aunt to a show. From there, Rich was inspired to make zines, which included band reviews and lyrics. Those zines are very similar to our Instagram posts in showing our loved ones and followers highlighting the aspects of a musician’s career or latest works. When Rich first saw his first punk rock show in Connecticut, he met with a lot of people through his zines and eventually wanted to form a band with them. This was an interesting event, as he noted that the event was predominantly male rather than women, as most of them were photographers.

       Rich’s main intention in pursuing punk rock was mainly due to its uniqueness. At the time, punk rock was a relatively new genre of music and didn’t have much popularity during that time. He appreciated how punk rock broke conventional music norms and embraced a do-it-yourself approach. The lyrics often tackled social issues and personal struggles that gave it a depth that many other genres lacked, especially with asylum seekers crossing through the southern border when he performed in one of the southern states. What sparked me the most about Rich was his involvement in other art disciplines, like graffiti, when he moved to Brooklyn, Revs, and other musicians, where he found a vibrant community of artists and a new source of inspiration. 

       After hearing about his punk rock career, I felt inspired to research more about it. Punk rock pushed back against many expectations of what music should be like during its time. Eventually, it became so popular that those expectations no longer apply. When looking at the album covers that were passed throughout the class, I grew interested in the album cover designs and the old CDs that were encased in them. It made me wonder about the accessibility of these albums during the 20th century, especially when music applications weren’t available to purchase music. The gifts left by Rich of the old-fashioned stickers and pins were precious, and something that added something special to my music collection.

When Rich Stremmes songs were playing, I enjoyed them. I liked the beats and I thought they were great songs. I did not like how he was speaking to us in a zoom call, since not only did it make it difficult to see what he actually looked like, but I think it’s more challenging to listen to someone and for the speaker to catch their audience’s attention through it. I liked the art on the vinyl disks he sent for us to look at, it was like graffiti art with a lot going on and it looked like they had deep meanings. I also think it was nice he gave us some freebies, especially the pins. He talked a lot about zines, which are small pieces of paper that are reproduced and shared to the public to spread a message, and how he used them to spread punk-rock related messages. One story he shared that shocked me was when his friend didn’t allow someone to enter a concert after they traveled there for six hours. He told him that if the guy killed someone then his friend is responsible for it, and later they found out he actually killed someone. Other than that, I would definitely prefer if he talked to our class in person, as I think it would make it a lot more interesting.