We all know that punk has been doing fine in the mainstream blitzkrieg that is MTV and pop radio for years, with bands like Green Day, Blink-182 and the Offspring at the forefront.

But how is punk doing at the local level?

Patrick Fleming, a member of local band Pookey Bleum and co-owner of the label, provides some insight.

“Sure, punk is definitely alive in Ames,” he says. “Even if there weren’t great punk bands like Duck and Cover, Shiloh Church, and Minus Zero around, punk would still be thriving. It seems to be more about an image or an attitude than anything else, really. So as long as that’s there, which it definitely is here, you’ve got a scene.”

Joel Nott, ISU grad and member of the now-disbanded local punk group Grubby Ernie, concurs.

“It’s an attitude, a DIY work ethic. As far as music goes, it can be any style, but mostly it’s short, fast songs.”

“Punk will never die,” adds Nott’s former Grubby bandmate Matt McClurg, also an ISU grad. “Kids will always be playing in a garage somewhere . . . It’s about doing what you want and not caring what anyone else thinks. And that will always be around.”

According to A. Darryl Moton Jr., KURE program director, “Punk is alive anywhere you have people holding guitars who try to make statements with their music.”

But the Ames scene is in danger at the same time it’s thriving, he warns.

“One problem is that most kids nowadays don’t want to hear any statements in the music to which they listen; they just want to sway along and have something of a good time.

“A lot of kids love music that is called `punk’ but is really just pop-rock played in the simplistic style often used by punk rock. The rising popularity of so-called `punk’ bands like Blink-182 has led to an even larger explosion of these imposters.”

So does this mean that true punks are the exact opposite? Perhaps, but that isn’t always such a great thing either.

“A lot of people whose philosophies fall closer to the punk realm are just as elitist and exclusionary as the institutions they rebel against,” Moton explains. “You get a lot of these people . . . obsessed with being more punk than anyone else. I call it `punker-than-thou’ syndrome.”

Moton says he thinks this type of people are often quick to label something a “sell-out.”

“Ironically enough, what often falls under the `sell-out’ category is anything liked by a plurality of other people, which is counter-productive to the punk ethic, in my opinion,” Moton continues.

“At any rate, I think punk is definitely alive in this area; however, it has become infected with the same clique-ish, elitist bullshit that killed it the first time around.”

As with many genres, it is important to have strong role models. So who influences these local scenesters?

“Joey Ramone, for being one of the forefathers of punk,” says McClurg.

Nott prefers Fugazi’s Ian MacKaye, “the king of DIY,” he says.

“The Who,” Fleming says. “They were doing the whole punk thing really before anyone else . . . playing loud, breaking stuff. That, to me, is really punk. Then of course there’s bands like the Sex Pistols and The Clash, and even Elvis Costello was punk in his day.”

Moton agrees.

“Punk has been around longer than we have been able to classify it as such. I think artists like The Who and John Lennon, among others, have done the punk thing for quite a while.”

But probably the biggest impact on the local scene so far has come from Ames’ own Grubby Ernie, who split up last December. Currently there are about ten local bands set to release a Grubby Ernie tribute album, covering some of their songs, Fleming says.

“Those guys had a lot of influence around here and you can hear it in the music of the other bands,” he says.

So it seems punk is indeed alive and well on the local level. Check out shows at the Maintenance Shop, People’s, the Boheme, even your neighbor’s house. Get out there, support it and keep it real.