review by Will K. Shilling
It's become a rock critic cliché. In these post-grunge days, the established dogma implies that punk is Not. One can merely point (at, say, electronica or modern rock or post-pop or post -grind -emo -modern - alt -country -ska -core) and lament. Punk, so sayeth the Gospel of Hip, is dead, its' divine spark of inspiration forever lost somewhere outside of CBGB's, circa 1978.

Hence, you might expect Kiss This: Punk In The Present Tense, Gina Arnold's second foray into the anemic genre of rock criticism novels, to be a self-absorbed exercise in over-educated cynicism, another toxic flood of sermonizing from some high priestess of rock media, chastising this punk pretender or that, pointing vehemently and righteously to the current plague of false garage-rock prophets. But you would be only half wrong, punk.

No small name in rock journalism, Greil Marcus himself is a fan. He's quoted on the book's cover, waxing rhapsodic over Ms. Arnold's "mapping of her generation... as fan, chronicler, critic, gadfly..."-- whatever the hell that means.

Kiss This... is something of a disappointment to anyone who has (as I have) enjoyed Arnold's free lance missives in the pages of LA's New Times, The East Bay Express and The San Diego Reader. Her Reader "Of Note"s are requisite for an incisive take on modern rock commentary. But it's her especially delightful dissing exercises, usually performed on the deserving classic rock dinosaurs still insisting on hanging around, that truly liberates the gobber in us all. Sample her laser wit: "Jethro Tull? Two words: flutes and tights".

But a truly nasty Ms. Arnold never surfaces in this so-called "sequel" to Route 666: The Road To Nirvana, her 1994 debut novel.  Maybe because the book stops shy of the revolting "Third Wave" ska trend we are still enduring today, but most of the articles focus on the positive stories to come out of the co-opting of punk. When Arnold does let loose on the paper punk tigers of the mid-nineties, she is careful to include mature and balanced reposes of similar sub-cultural tragedies (i.e., Hippies, R&B and rap).

Still, one chapter, a brilliant rant on her hatred for the Grateful Dead phenomenon, is practically seething with the acidic clarity and power only a punk with a word processor could pen:

Need, need, need. Give, give, give. What did these Deadheads give back to my community? Mess. Noise. Traffic. Bad LSD, overpriced bracelets and an atmosphere of fuzzy-headed dissipation... Just the sight makes me want to yell, 'Get a fucking job, or go back home to your rich white Marin County parents!'

(Chapter III, hippiesomething)

Punk, argues Arnold, can be found regenerating its spirit in the underground all-ages clubs, such as Berkeley's Gilman Street. Or through indie record labels such as Brett Gurewitz' Epitaph Records. Even in (brace yourself) "the anti-industry stance" of a band called Pearl Jam (record scratch, music cuts, collective gasp).

Not exactly a band renowned by punk purists, Pearl Jam is nevertheless "vilified by the mainstream media like no other band," writes Arnold, "precisely because they offend the more powerful members of the music industry the way punk should have all along -- by threatening and/or ignoring the very machinery of record sales." Pearl Jam, according to Arnold, is one of the best examples of "truly punk ethics" in music today.

Wow. Given the almost blanket disdain for Eddie Vedder & Co. by those who consider themselves hip, Arnold's makes a bold statement here. Such words seem as incredulous to the hypocritical guardians of All Things Punk as they are insightful to anyone who's bothered to ponder the impressive growth of Pearl Jam's music and artistic vision. Think of how quickly the media forgets its dying musical kings: If punk is dead, grunge didn't even make the back page obits. Yet Pearl Jam is that movement's only band still standing, still slamming in the free world.

Impressive. And so is Gina Arnold. Kiss This: Punk In The Present Tense is a book worthy of our interest, our debate, even our hard-earned bucks. Whether punk rock music is still remains to be seen.

(This article originally appeared in ShadowLand magazine, March, 1998. ShadowLand is produced by Many Moore Designs Post Office Box 207 Redondo Beach, CA 90277 USA)