Fort Thunder.

As much as i am appreciative of new indie rock at the tip of my fingers, the convenience of online bill paying, and the endless pictures of James Mcavoy; there is one huge down fall to this uber cyber universe that we have created for ourselves... that being the extinction of subculture altogether. Underground has become mainstream. Why go to your local venue when any tone deaf kid with a guitar has a myspace page? Why support thrift stores and boutiques when there is ebay? Don't get me wrong my ipod and wardrobe have benefited immensely from this oh thousand way of life, but it truly saddens me to see the lack of creativity it has invoked upon my generation. To put it simply we (youth as a whole) are lazy as all H, which brings me to Fort Thunder. Fort Thunder (once an abandoned pre Civil War textile factory in Providence Rhode Island) was a mecca for inspiring and creative youth activism in the mid to late nineties. Founded by Matt Brinkman (of Forcefield) and Brian Chippendale (drummer of Lightning Bolt) room mates at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Both dropped out of the "well to do" art school and moved into the abandoned warehouse to eventually lead an amazing subculture of art and life. Numerous artists and musicians lived there, having a utopian lifestyle and surviving only on art which they created from stolen things around the city. The site became a venue of underground music and events, including costumed wrestling and boxing matches. The posters advertising these events, seen around the Olynville district of providence, displayed some of the best modern art of this time. Fort Thunder was one of the biggest underground movements of our generation, untainted by the growing technological world around it. The homeless youth of Fort Thunder led a youth revolution completely unnoticed by society until 2001 when the warehouse, which these youth called home, was destroyed to make way for a Shaw's Grocery Store parking lot (ironically which closed in 2007 leaving the entire plaza without a tenant and abandoned once again). Some may consider Fort Thunder a group of homeless kids leaving nothing but vandalism in the city of Providence and wasting their time. I however would like to thank Fort Thunder for not making me completely loose faith in my generation. The fifties had the rockers and black and white, the sixties had hippies and humanitarianism, the seventies had punk rock and hard drugs, and despite mankind's advances we can very proudly say that we had Fort Thunder.