As I mentioned last night, The Brutalist Bricks by Ted Leo, officially released yesterday, is glorious. I haven’t listened to it more than three times through yet, but that’s about to change. One of the things I love most about this track from the record, “Ativan Eyes,” is its Easter Egg for all us aged punk rockers: “We strive to survive causing least suffering possible” — ohhhh shit – “Flux of Pink Indians gave me words for that.”

Punk is very old. It’s a culture and, increasingly, a heritage. Put aside for a moment any debate over whether that ironic fact contradicts or even refutes punk’s original rationales. It is simply a fact. And for those of us who look back, as we can’t help but do at a certain point in our lives, there’s a joy that comes from hearing the heritage acknowledged by those who share it. Young kids who’ve never heard the “Neu Smell” EP can hear Ted namechecking Flux of Pink Indians and maybe give them a listen. In 2005, I once had the good fortune at an antiwar show/rally on the Mall to ask Ted whether there was a danger of the consciously countercultural elements of our gathering — I pointed to the Crass badge he wore — undermining the broad coalition necessary to stop the Iraq war. (I realize in retrospect it was a dumb question, for the most part. Really, who’s going to be hesitant to pull out of Iraq because Le Tigre too aggressively challenges heteronormativity, etc.) He answered that he wore those badges as Samizdat — undetectable, really, by those who aren’t already attuned to their significance, but highly significant to those who do. If I can quote Nas: that’s what I call a G; that’s what I call a pimp.

Punk rock’s difficulty with acknowledging the fact of its heritage sometimes makes it easy to create scene elders without scene elder states(wo)men. I’d put Ted in the latter category. He carries on tradition.