h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Cowpunk

Posted Apr 23, 2000

There are times I wish I had been born about 5 years earlier.

Now that I'm nearing my 30's, I find myself getting a bit more sentimental about things from my past. If only I knew then how much I miss them now, I never would have gotten rid of all of the rockshow fliers that adorned my bedroom walls, and I would have certainly kept the photos of those gorgeous mid 80's cowpunk chicks.
Cowpunk chicks. There was a time, before Uncle Tupelo, before Alt. Country, and before No Depression, when country music was truly ironic, yet still innocent. When the Blaster's version of American Music wasn't "retro" or "roots rock" but pure in its simplicity and punk in its ideals. Bands like X (and its offshoot The Knitters), Tex and The Horseheads, Blood on the Saddle, and The Beat Farmers created the soundtrack to a very particular way of life. Cowpunk.
I experienced this only through my imagination. Growing up in a small town in the midwest, I missed this phenomonon completely. When I would try to emulate the people I saw in pictures and read about in Hip Magazine, I was mocked and ostracized for being "weird." Yeah, love those small towns.
So now I try to get those albums I never could afford in my youth, and I cruise vintage stores for the western shirts and leather pants I only dreamed of when I was a teenager. CDUniverse and Via's Vintage have been my unknowing accomplaces in my search to regain a sense of belonging to a time period that, for me, never was.

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Latest reply: Apr 23, 2000