ABSTRACT
Using autoethnographic and secondary interview and documentary data through interviews with active musicians, D. Kauzlarich develops a way to understand how musicians see their emotional and political work through writing and performing punk rock. This chapter focuses on that path by examining the lyrical content, political activism of punk artists as active musicians to develop an understanding of the role of modern underground music as a component of opposing state violence and oppression. Music is a universal form of communication that provides avenues for artists and listeners to explore and critique an unlimited variety of social problems, including state crime and oppression. Few expressly critical criminological studies have been conducted on the relationship between music and deviance. Music is ubiquitous and spans many of the centuries of human existence. As integrated as music is in contemporary society, its beginnings are found in the cultural rituals of ancestors.
