When it comes to remembering my early adolescence, I do so with great hesitation. But when I do come around to thinking of such harsh times, I undoubtedly also do so with much false idealization, turning what I am sure was a tortuous and treacherous time into a memory of considerable enjoyment. This is to say that my recollection of STLPunk, which was introduced to me when I was around 13 years old, is entirely biased and naïve, but as sure as I am of this fact, I am just as sure that STLPunk, as an entity and an idea, was a productive one, and, even more, that it was pretty far ahead of its time. When it was lost – turning into a social networking website, losing its purpose entirely – our local music scene lost one of its greatest resources.

It is rare that I hear people talking about the strengths of our local music scene. In fact, it’s more often that I hear unending doomsaying-rants of our city being a cultural black hole. The reasons for this, if it is true, are largely a mystery to me. I see the sickness spoken of here sometimes: When do we hear about our city making a difference on a national, much less an international, level? How often do you hear about our musicians, or any of our artists, breaking free of the walls and rivers that constrain them here? Really, when I hear “black hole,” it seems slightly apt, as our scenes seem to swallow their members whole, rather than release them for the rest of the world.

I, for one, believe there is an untapped potential to be had here. Whether it is because of geography or apathy, we are in this state of affairs together. We now find ourselves in an age of communication, the internet being an infinite resource at our fingertips on a daily basis. Instead of using it to our advantage, it tends to act as more of an eternal timewaster. Musically speaking, we turn more to MySpace and other globally engineered websites which offer few communication and networking opportunities on a local level. hese websites aren’t created or designed for local use, but rather for a massive collective of people, making it near-impossible to find like-minded individuals with whom to start a serious dialogue, especially on a local topic.

STLPunk was perfect for this function. Users were able to network easily and freely, and finding out about bands and venues was effortless. To give the site one historical credit, I can say that the layout and design were years ahead of their time, and some features were even better and more creative than what MySpace or Facebook ever offered a few years later. Even if we never fully took advantage of the possibilities STLPunk presented us with, it was undeniably a unifying force, and, in my experience, a great piece of our local culture.

It is not my intention to throw blame around. It is even less my intention to demean the great efforts by some toward the survival of local music. If anything, I want to applaud such efforts, because they are keeping a wonderful thing alive. STLPunk itself seemed to fall because of disinterest and over-crowding, turning into a more locally based MySpace, users taking the focus away from the music. Maybe this points to the truth of the matter: People in Saint Louis have no desire for such a site. It is entirely possible that the dialogue formed on STLPunk was not enticing enough to get anyone to stick around. I can say, though, that I remember its existence fondly, and found out about quite a few great bands simply from searching through its pages.

If our scene, as a whole, is broken, we are the only ones who can fix it. If nothing else, one of our greatest resources has atrophied and gone to waste. We cannot hope for solidarity and unity if we do not strive for such qualities. Nothing really separates us from those cities which are thriving besides our own efforts, and it is undoubtedly true that we have the potential to become something more than we currently are.

STLPunk was a step in the right direction, and its loss has been a longstanding tragedy. Music may be the most beautiful, communicative art form we have, but it is made all the more amazing when it is the fruit of collaboration and community. Using technology, we can mend our wounds, and attempt to become whole, should this be what we want.

A look at some STL Punk art from the past:

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