UC Davis

The Sex Pistols’ 1976 anthem, “Anarchy in the UK,” memorialized an ongoing relationship between anarchism and punk rock music. Although scholars of punk music have long documented the relationship between leftist or progressive politics in punk music scenes, they have not interrogated the content and sources of anarchist politics, often taking for granted the relationship between anarchism and punk. This dissertation examines the anarchist politics of a particular genre of punk, called “crust punk,” which is a blend of punk and heavy metal. Like most music subcultures, the crust punk scene is much more than musical sounds; it is associated with a particular lifestyle as well. Crust punks’ choices to drop out of society and live in squats or on the streets, I argue, are political. This dissertation combines ethnomusicological methods with a field of study called “political epistemology” from political science that seeks to understand the origins and composition of political ideas. I combine these two approaches to examine crust punk political ideas: where they come from, how they are shared within the scene, and in what ways they can be considered “anarchist.” I conclude that crust punk represents a form of what I theorize as “vernacular anarchism” that arises from precarious forms of existence, is formulated in everyday life experiences, and is given substance through affective and emotional responses to the poetics of crust punk song texts.