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straight edge punk movement and drugs in this movie


as a straight edge guy myself, i was drawn to that part of the punk scene when i was growing up in the early 90's. johnny ramone founded the straight edge movement and that became a foundation for many punk bands that followed. (in my opinion you were not a punk band if you did drugs/drank, being punk after all is about being against the norm). i know the "meat is murder" thing happened too with the vegetarian thing, but that wasnt me. my question is really did those bands indulge like the movie showed? if they did drink/drug when did the straight edge thing take hold?

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The Straight edge scene started with Minor Threat in 1981 In Washington D.C. as for the punk scene in the 70's there were lots of drugs in the scene apparently, not really sure bout the ramones. as far as I know dee dee was the only junkie in the band. Straight edge started as a rebellion against all the drug going on the time.

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The straight edge movement in punk was more of an 80's hardcore punk thing- starting with the likes of Ian MacKaye and Minor Threat. I'm not sure where the notion that Johnny Ramone started straight edge came from.

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my question is really did those bands indulge like the movie showed?


While I haven't seen the movie and I am not sure what exactly is shown, Heroin was very big in certain groups in the CBGB scene. Richard Hell, Johnny Thunders,Jerry Nolan, Dee Dee Ramone, Richard Lloyd, Walture Lure, Stiv Bators and countless others were notorious junkies.

I don't know where your information on Johnny Ramone founding the straight edge movement comes from.

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This is way before hardcore punk. And Johnny Ramone wasn't the first or straight edge, he used to sniff glue ffs!

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Way before? Minor Threat certainly wasn't the first hardcore band and they formed the year after the Dead Boys broke up. More to the point, The Teen Idols (MacKaye's first published band) were doing their thing while The Dead Boys were still a band and The Teen Idols most certainly were straight edge.

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Johnny may have seemed straight edge compared to Marky, joey etc with their heavy drinking. And Dee Dee with everything.He however did like a couple of glasses of wine here and there from what I have read. And was more wild in the early days.

http://lscottpalmer.blogspot.com/

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Before the was Minor Threat, there was no Straight Edge. You maybe didn't do drugs, but SXE as a movement/ideal did not exist until the song did. Also, it doesn't matter when hardcore came about in a conversation about SXE; the first hardcore band was Bad Brains (maybe Middle Class too, but that's doubtful) and they were HUGE stoners.

And doing or not doing drugs is absolutely NOT what determines whether something is punk or not.

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Remember just about all the first punks were ex-hippies. So they had fully imbibed the drug culture of the 1970s. That wasn't going to change, since habits developed in one's early teens (anybody heard of pornography and masturbation?) die hard.

What did change was the decreased emphasis on it, and yes, as you quite rightly point out, a rebellion against the norm which back then was very much, "have long hair, do lots of drugs and brag about doing lots of drugs". Punks took drugs but were quiet about it and didn't walk around like hippies saying, "Whohoah ... I'm so ripped man." I will say that there was a rebellion somewhat against being constantly stoned on marijuana, although punks certainly did their share. The emphasis was more on upper type drugs.

And don't forget, taking drugs sort of goes with being in the music business (any genre) because of the crazy hours, need to be "up" for your public all the time, etc. Ask Elvis, for music. Ask Marilyn, etc., for Hollywood.

There were one or two punks who were straight edge from the beginning however. One was Jonathan Richman, who used to say he has never taken a drug, wrote the virulently anti-hippie anthem "I'm Straight". But the example of Jonathan Richman is somewhat anomalous because Jonathan was (and is) simply a contrarian in just about everything (wrote a song about loving his parents for example) But the case of Jonathan is still interesting because he hung around for several years sleeping on the couches of various members of the Velvet Underground and was heavily influenced by them musically (as was three quarters of the punk movement). He must've seen enough drugs to fill the Grand Canyon in those times.

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