Many readers just like you have asked me: Skinhead Crispy, why are you still listening to punk music and flirting with the symbolism of fascism after all these years?

Okay, bitch. Let me explain this punk thing to you.

When Shostakovich wanted to display the huge sublimity of his Mind, he resorted to large orchestras, grand sweeping gestures, incredibly elaborate conceptions. He created a profoundly and laboriously avant-garde art.

But not all Minds are sublime or, synonymously, pretentious. There is a human impulse to complexity and gigantism, but there is also a human impulse to clarity and simplicity. There is expressive power in Difficult Art that must pass through an immense hermeneutical structure to be comprehensible. But there is an expressive power also in taking the most direct means, the most constricted vocabulary, and throwing an emotion through it.

There is the moment when you build it up, ramifying structures, adding ornaments, pondering, contemplating, revising. Then there is the moment when you strip it back down to its essentials, when you expose the bones of the structure. The former is an effeminate moment; the latter is masculine. The former is a baroque moment; the latter is classical. The former is opera; the latter is punk.

If you think about the popular music of the mid-seventies, you see exactly why punk was required. You had your art rock: Yes, ELP, Pink Floyd. This was inexpressive because it consisted fundamentally of empty displays of virtuosity. You had your disco, which was inexpressive because it was a glossy music of producers and studios rather than musicians.

Rock originated out of the blues, perhaps the greatest example of the expressive power of a constricted vocabulary. Every gesture of the blues is significant because comprehensible, and it embodies raw emotion in a truly satisfying artistry. Early Stones and Beatles, the girl groups, surf music: it was all relatively simple, clean, and true.

The Pistols and Ramones were neo-classicists: they wanted to turn rock back toward something straightforward. And when their music was elaborated or intensified into hardcore by Black Flag or Minor Threat, you had perhaps the best art ever made for expressing the emotion of rage: the most direct embodiment of rage in the history of the world's arts.

For these reasons, punk is not a style that has been superseded, but - like the blues - a permanent repertoire, a fundamental form. Punk never sleeps. It'll be with us as long we have alienated suburban boys.

Or we might put it like this: ain't no stopping the cretins from hopping.

Speaking of the Ramones, let's talk about the new Huntingtons album, "Songs in the Key of You" (Tooth and Nail). Joey Ramone's last couple of gigs were singing with the Huntingtons, and at times these boys sound more like the Ramones than the Ramones did. This is of course a bit limiting, and it has a kind of spooky "Beatlemania" wax museum quality. But first of all, the Ramones, unlike the Beatles, were the best rock band of all times. And the Ramones will never make another album. I love this record, because even though it is a kind of Ramones tribute, it does have its own life. The Huntingtons are missing the irony with which Joey could sing "Now I wanna sniff some glue," or in his late thirties could run straight through "Hey little girl, I wanna be your boyfriend. The Huntingtons, rather, are unbelievably wholesome. But there is a hint of fury in the guitars and finally, what you end up with a great pop record.

In the world of punk, the basic split is pop vs. hardcore, although these days the schisms have become much more finely-drawn than that. But hardcore is rhythm and noise, where pop has a rudimentary melody. Hardcore vocals are bellowed or howled rather than sung, whereas the popper complements the melody. Fury 66 and Missing 23^rd manage to split this difference almost perfectly on, respectively, "Red Giant Evolution" (Sessions) and "ctrl+alt+del" (Sessions) They play fast but with a hint of a tune and bellow hard but melodiously. This is quite an accomplishment, and winds up in records that, for hc, are remarkably listenable. The sense you get is of fury, channeled. And you got to be impressed by the cover of "Red Giant Evolution," which features a star, freshly carved into someone's thigh, and bleeding. I guess if I had to declare a preference, I'd take Missing 23^rd, who are really individualist anarchists in the great American tradition of Tom Paine and Thoreau. Plus they're really fucking pissed off and they can really fucking play. "ctrl+alt=del" might be the best anti-pop punk album this year. "Is this how you want things to be?"

Sloe, "Inexact Replica" (Sessions): Shit! My copy of this disc skips like a schoolgirl. Sounds like it might be good, though.

What the hell is up with Tooth and Nail Records, anyway? Their website describes them as a Christian label, which is alright with me as long as they're fundamentalists. My straightedge skinhead thing, drugged-out nocore, the Taliban: we're all into cutting to the chase: the simple, brutal truth. And they do issue records which are all about falling to your knees. Plus with the maga-success of P.O.D. and Creed you can't sneer at Christian rockers anymore. If the Taliban hadn't banned music, they'd still be kicking our ass. Jihad hardcore, baby.

But anyway, there is no sign that the Huntingtons are Christians, sweet as they may be. And the same goes with Sidewalk Slam and their "Past Remains" (Tooth and Nail). They seem like friendly teenagers with just that hint of thrash that makes all the difference. Of course they've been listening to Green Day since they were in diapers. We all have. So even as they thrash they've got that little laconic or reserved thing going. And they have a certain respect for melody. What the heck. Not everyone has to be a satanist or a killer anarchist from hell. There's plenty of room for skateboarders in every generation.

CKY, Volume 1 (Island/Def Jam): These are the skaters and idiots from West Chester, PA who brought you that irrefutable argument for juvenile detention facilities, the MTV series "Jackass," in which people did horrible things to themselves or one another. I was figuring that the cd would be just a cheeso commercial tie-in. I was wrong: it's original, smart, and listenable. The sound I guess is somewhere between seventies dark metal a la Sabbath and eighties funk a la Gap Band. Added also is a kind of pervasive atmosphere of distortion, played on a synth set on "guitar." But the riffs are cool, the lyrics are cool, the sound is coherent.

Garrison is absorbing because they've got the simplicity of the aesthetic, but they're willing to bend it a little. They're warped or twisted within a basically punk framework; they disarticulate the structure slightly in a way that expands the possibilities. "Be a Criminal" (Revelation) is full of good advice ("we ain't gonna toe the line"), and though it's clear, it's not simple. This is one you've got to live with for awhile. Do.

Obviously there's still room for three kids in some fucked-up bar trying to play their instruments and stay pissed off, or recording some fucked-up album in their basement. Together, we're keeping it fundamental.