Punk rock has always been for the misfit and the underdog.
The punk music scene in the West thrived during the late 1970s and early 1980s, gaining attention from mainstream media as provocateurs. The counterculture it later birthed grew beyond just the three-piece band setup to spawn a movement in literature, fashion, politics, and an ideology of refusal.
Against such underpinnings of confrontation as expression, cultures beyond the West have since assimilated punk, drawing from the spiritual well of its primal screams to communicate their own unique fury. It’s no surprise that Filipino-Americans have also gravitated towards punk and its sub-genres, seeking to form their own tribe and articulate their own experiences.
‘ ‘3’: ‘image’: ‘jcr:6ef8f809-d2e7-4f72-9c64-3589f1a6f89b’ ‘imageCaption’: ‘Solo project Obsolete Sun says “Never before had I played a show where my music was that well received, and where I felt so understood.”
It’s this same spirit that brought Jeremiah “JJ” Weber, the man behind solo industrial and hardcore project Obsolete Sun, to perform onstage for the first time at Aklasan Festival 2022 in San Francisco.
Playing there was a life-changing experience for Weber: “I felt more seen as a musician than I ever had in my previous 10 years of playing shows.”
Weber is a 30-year-old accounting student and grocery store worker. Born and raised in San Diego, California, his father was Caucasian, while his mother is a Filipina from Zamboanga.
“Never before had I played a show where my music was that well received, and where I felt so understood,” Weber wrote to CNN Philippines Life. “People understood my music, aesthetics, and personality without me ever having to explain myself. I felt so ‘at home’ at Aklasan Fest. This experience set off a fire inside of me.”
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