From Punk Rock Conspiracy To Punk Rock Theory

Back in the ‘90s, we loved conspiracy theories. My buddy Gary would show up to our house with stories about whatever he’d just heard on Art Bell’s show. We were all obsessed with the Kennedy assassination. And Roswell. And a million other photocopied pamphlet types of crazy ideas.

It was the days of anarchist bookstores and minimal internet archiving. 

Plus, the conspiracy theory trading was fun. 

Good clean fun, for small-town kids, obsessed with counter-culture stuff. 

Fun because we learned things about the world. Stuff the textbooks left out (sometimes for good reason). And fun because we grew with it. We, mostly, grew out of it too. 

Which makes looking back on playing with this type of logic so interesting, and so developmentally foundational. We were learning to play with stories. We were learning to play with variables. 

Vic Ruggiero was in a New York City version of our 90s scene too. He definitely spent some time trading conspiracy theories with friends. But more importantly, he was writing and playing and touring with his band, The Slackers, as well as several other groups (providing critical “opening act” experiences, opportunities, and influences for ambitious kids like me). 

He had a song he’d been working on about the expansion of all of our regional worlds. It first appeared on a Rancid album as a track called “Wrongful Suspicion.” Part of the lyrics grappled with finding out, thanks to touring and traveling, that, “I heard they fly a confederate flag / down at the statehouse… what can you do?”

A Confederate flag on a state building? Yeah. Something they didn’t know existed - because, nobody was flying a Confederate flag in New York City or the East Bay, especially not on a public building. And when they asked some friends in South Carolina what was up with that, they heard some seemingly good historical-sounding answers. 

People said flying the flag was a dedication, offered 100 years after the founding of the Confederation, celebrating heritage.

And if you’re traveling through town and nice people tell you this, you accept it. Yeah, it still feels a little weird, but - it’s not your town. So you say, “OK. What can you do?”

But you’re still a conspiracy theory kid. 

And even if Q-Anon took all the fun out of most of your theories, maybe especially if you lament how the crazies took over the fun you used to have trading these stories with friends, you still learned it’s important to trust your inquisitive instincts. 

Because that’s just your nature - you have questions. A lot of questions. And now you also have the internet. 

The Slackers played their own rendition of the Rancid version at shows for years. You can hear where it was headed on this 2018 version. The flag had famously come down in 2015 at this point. The song was sort of a punk “we told you that was messed up” reminder. But it still wasn’t fully evolved yet…

On the 2022 album, Don’t Let The Sunlight Fool Ya, they decided to fully revisit it. With new updates. The state house flag had been taken down in 2015, as were many others in the years that followed, and Vic felt ready to add some fresh commentary:

They don’t fly swastikas in Germany

No shrines to Mussolini in Italy

So why it's ok to see

That Confederate flag in front of me

The rest of the song is still mostly there. Same chorus, same vibe. Just so much more nuance. A history lesson. To be shared amongst their post-conspiracy theorist friends.  

We loved conspiracy theories when were kids because they were outside of the box. 

The box was boring. The box needed to either get turned up, smashed, or maybe both. We wanted out, and conspiracy theories provided it. 

That’s being a punk-a** kid for you. Angry at structure just for being structured. Insisting on making your own replacement, no matter how flawed any or all of it might be. 

Because we wanted growth too. We wanted answers. We wanted the knowledge and power to point at the box when it was wrong and move on. As part of growing up. Which is a part of not just wanting to blow stuff up, but yearning to not be a kid anymore. 

Why doesn’t Q-Anon get this? They get the “angry at the box!” but not the “ask questions with purpose.” Most dangerously of all, so many modern conspiracy theory traders don’t seem to be having any fun.

What the song evolving like this shows is where the real importance lives. 

Yes, in making positive change and not celebrating bigotry. 

But the most important bit here is to keep asking productive questions. 

Keep thinking outside the box. 

Keep having fun.

Keep giving your friends a reason to dance.

This is what you can do: you can keep caring for each other, keep growing wiser, and keep writing songs about your stories, updating them when appropriate.

I’m grateful for this lesson. I’m grateful for this reminder. I’m grateful for this band. 

h/t Vic Ruggiero on the In Defense of Ska podcast where he tells this story and more. 

*here’s a bonus lyrical snip too, in case you’re interested: 

Civil Rights in '61 was

Freedom Riders on the bus

And the Ku Klux Klan come to beat them down

While the local cops all turned around

They don’t fly swastikas in Germany

No shrines to Mussolini in Italy

So why it's ok to see

That Confederate flag in front of me?

It must have been a shame to see…

Down at the statehouse

If your Grandfather was born in slavery

Down at the statehouse

Now, one family's history

May be dying for the Confederacy

But another family's history

Was being born in slavery

But they finally took that old flag down

Down at the statehouse

Too long, too long it was hanging around

Down at the statehouse