The Sound and the Fury : From Riot Grrrls to Straight-Edgers, Punk’s Cacophonous Sound Makes a Comeback

If Scott Berkeley’s head bears some resemblance to a Christmas tree ornament, it’s all thanks to Irish Spring. Berkeley is an Irish Spring devotee, “cause it makes my hair stick up the best, and ‘cause it’s green,” he says, explaining the secret of the light lime spikes that bedeck his shiny scalp. During fashion emergencies he resorts to Elmer’s Glue All, which he totes in his backpack at all times.

While Berkeley’s garnishments may appear unusual in your average crowd, they will be in vogue Saturday night, when Mushface--a Valley punk band that can occasionally be heard on KROQ-FM (106.7)--performs with the Hippos, Less Than Jake, and Rhythm Collision at the Cobalt Cafe in Canoga Park.

Just when you thought the world was safe for easy listenin’, punk is back--Day-Glo, cacophonous and just in time for Christmas.

Punkers are proliferating, undaunted by the dearth of nearby all-age venues. John Moscrop, owner of Odds ‘n’ Sods, a used-record store in Reseda, says his punk stock has gone from nil to plentiful in response to the burgeoning demand. And the style has become so prevalent that a punk boutique, Hot Topic, has sprouted in the Northridge Fashion Center.

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The punk motto is D.I.Y., Do It Yourself, and indeed they do, playing in myriad and recombinant garage bands and exercising their singular fashion design talents on themselves and each other. But adherents say that punk is far more than its artistic manifestations. “It goes beyond fashion and music, beyond race and class. Punk is a state of mind,” says Mike “Thrashead” Sullivan, who works at Green Hell, a Sherman Oaks record store specializing in the genre. “Punk means question everything. It means use your brain.”

This fierce brand of individualism is a constant throughout the various subgroupings of the movement. Mike Marlett, 16, and Lewis Pesacov, 15, together are The Americanas, a “straight-edge” band. “Straight-edge is the philosophy of not doing drugs, and not drinking or smoking,” says Pesacov, who doesn’t eat meat and whose Converse high tops are explicitly canvas.

Marlett says punkers are routinely subjected to cultural misinterpretation. “If I’m at school and they start talking about drugs in class, everyone looks at me. It bothers me that people assume I do drugs because I dress this way,” he says. On the wall of Marlett’s Van Nuys bedroom hangs a certificate verifying that in 1994, he ran the Los Angeles Marathon in four hours and 14 minutes; across the way a computer-lettered sign cautions, “Be Warned!! The nature of your oppression is the aesthetic of our anger.”

Aimee “Huggy Bear” Artz, guitar player for Superflu, considers herself a Riot Grrrl. “Riot grrrls are basically women who express their feelings through punk music,” she explains. “A lot of times they talk about how women feel they’re not treated equal to men in today’s society. They also sing about rape and incest a lot.”

But 18-year-old Mario Sandoval, whose buzz cut sprouts a spray of bleached bangs, refuses to be categorized. ‘I’m myself, that’s all. Whenever a questionnaire asks what race I am, I mark “Other” and write “Human” on the line. My father is Salvadoran and my mother is Cuban--she has some black blood in her. Me, I’m human.”

Ai Kusuhara, 18, guitar player for Chromosome Tea, has grown up in the posh neighborhood of West Hills, in a house overlooking the San Fernando Valley. As she recites the words to a song she wrote, the water ripples in the blue-tiled pool behind her. The song is “She Makes Me Feel,” and its refrain goes, “Killer in the graveyard/Children with a credit card/Mom and Dad you kill me/Thrill me/You.”

Kusuhara says she wrote the song during a plane trip home from Boston, where she was visiting a childhood friend. “My friend comes from a wealthy family,” Kusuhara says. “The song is about how she’s killing herself with drugs, and how all the drug money comes out of her parents’ pockets, but they don’t realize it.”

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Punk music is furious and cacophonous, a deliberate head-on collision of screaming vocals and electric guitar. “We feel disenfranchised, we don’t like the way things are run, so we voice our opinion,” says Thrashead Sullivan. “Sometimes it comes off real angry and real violent, but that’s our way of letting it out of our system.”

Huggy Bear Artz concurs.

“The subject matter wouldn’t sound right in easy listening or country music,” she says.

Few neighbors, however, are appreciative of the noise. “Sometimes we’ll hold parties, but we usually get shut down by cops within an hour or so,” says Nicole Harvey, who works at Emerson’s, a popular cafe hangout in Studio City. “Lately people are playing at backyard barbecues during the day, when the noise is less of a problem.”

Marlett was once ticketed by the police for practicing in his parents’ garage. “The cops threatened to take our instruments away,” he says. The citation now hangs proudly on his wall: “Notice of Noise Enforcement, L.A.P.D. Van Nuys Division.”

Neither stern officers, nor annoyed neighbors, nor lack of nearby all-age venues have daunted young punkers. Instead, bands seem to be mushrooming. A mere sampling includes: No Consent, Fed Up, Racecar, Narnia, Moog, Without Reason, Molesting Vicars, Mealticket, Nothing Yet, Naked Aggression, the Fixtures, Deadletter Office, Otto, Much, and Buford. Most hie to Hollywood and other far-off spots, where they perform at and frequent such all-age meccas as Jabberjaw, the Natural Fudge Company and the Macando, among others.

Just as salmon seek the stream, so punkers seek the coffee shop. In Studio City they patronize Twain’s, convening at the outdoor smoking tables in the latter hours of the evening. “They’re my most well-behaved customers--they just look crazy,” attests Rick Tillman, who has worked at Twain’s for 14 years. “Lovely people, if you can get over the shock of all those spikes and tattoos.” (Tillman draws the line at piercings--”I was an altar boy, you know.”)

Built three decades ago as a Denny’s, Twain’s retains the original earth-hued furniture of its original incarnation, now a bit frayed but ever a marvel of modern design. A framed rendering of Mark Twain hangs beside the front door. Judging from his wild, wavy hair and from the quote inscribed below his portrait, Twain may have been the very first punk. The quote reads: “Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul.”