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"Punk's not Dead!"--The Exploited, 1981
"Goth's not dead--it just looks like it"--Anon
Joey is a punk. His hair is bleached white-blond and styled to spiky points. He wears a black leather jacket and ripped jeans; his wrists are ringed with leather cuffs, one studded, one bearing a silver skull. He goes to protests and is known to spout revolutionary slogans. Joey is not unlike hundreds of thousands of kids who listen to punk and wear its signature look. Except this Joey is 47 years old.
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Joe Keithley is the singer for D.O.A., the British Columbia band that has defined the sound and style of Canadian punk rock for 25 years. In the pages of music history, D.O.A. is right beside the Ramones and Dead Kennedys, bands that created the soundtrack to a new North American subculture seeking loud, hard, fast music that reflected their outsider social status and anti-establishment views.
Keithley (who also goes by the stage name Joey Shithead) is hardcore. His commitment to a punk lifestyle hasn't waned with age. Even though he's married with three children, Keithley is much the same as in 1978, when he formed D.O.A. and released the independent single "Disco Sucks." He still dresses the part, still tours with the band, still puts out his own records (the latest is War and Peace, a greatest hits compilation), still participates in political causes, and still promotes the D.O.A. mantra "Talk - Action = 0." He's been called the godfather of punk, but his longevity makes Keithley a poster boy for all grown-ups who identify themselves with adolescent-oriented subcultures, who refuse to abandon the ideals--and hairstyles--of their youth.
"I believe in what I do," explains Keithley, on a visit to Toronto for Canadian Music Week. "This is how I make a living and support my family, which is the number one thing in my life. But music is just a part of it. When I started out, I wanted to change the world. I still do. That's why I haven't stopped."
Ancestry, race, nationality, and (often) religion are thrust upon us at birth, but we can choose our cultural identities, our tribes. For most, this occurs in high school. While some teens dabble in different peer...