Some have predicted punk's demise when monied success befalls the street rockers. But Joe Incagnoli doesn't think punks can be commercialized. Punk is much more than punk rock; it is lived by real people, not fabricated for sale. "Look where punk is coming from--who's going to listen to it? It's not really an age group, it's a culture."

Joe's record collection is well-used, judging from the ragged-edged condition of the record jackets. It contains a smattering of Dick Clark's greatest and the Beatles and Zep and Willie Loco and Stones and Doors--all those who kicked out in their time at conformity.

"People are much more concerned with marketability than they were. I mean, when the Rolling Stones started playing, they were a blues band when there were no blues bands in England. They were low life. But they didn't care because they liked the blues. There were a lot of rival sounds and playing the blues was like cutting your but the just went out and what they wanted--and worked, the says.

Lulla there have always been punks, and there always punks, as long there feel individuality by some frighteningly by-product of our own his case, business.

and Top 40, and there's a formula for these sounds, so you get 60 disco songs that all sound alike and all sell a million copies.

"That's why punks get into anarchy and disorganization; it's really a reaction to the absurd organization which has taken all the creativity out of music that's been coming out over the past few years," Joe explains.

It shows--on the faces of old men, in the dim solace of Eastie bars, in the punk energy--that there are people in this new age who are not part of the burgeoning wave of IBM and mechanization and mass transportation.

"It's a lot harder for the little guy to make it on his own these days," Incagnoli says. "After all, how many Italian shoemakers do you see around anymore?"

The important thing to remember about punk besides what it has thrived in diametric opposition to, is where it comes from. "Punks" like Ricky and the Invaders had to confront a lot of things that aren't easily found on manicured suburban lawns.

"Punk is a cultural thing. You can't take the music without taking the culture. If you live in a community that's crime and violence oriented, then you're going to appreciate punk a lot more...not because you're a criminal, but because there's nothing to do," he says.

When Lulla came to Harvard last year, he was confronted by students who never had to worry about survival, who were never threatened by the weapon-slinging boys and consequently could never understand why Joe was "Lulla."

"Not that stealing a car is any big shit, but you'll never know what it's like to be in a knife fight until you've experienced it, I don't care if you've read Mean Streets 90 times.

"And this gives you less to be afraid of in life. The experience of having a lot of close friends die because of drugs or just having a lot of close friends murdered--seeing friends overdose, stabbed to death, shot, strangled or found in the water somewhere, you know?

"You gain a broader perspective on what life really is. And what holds value. You know that when a friend died, and it happened suddenly, you know that nobody ever expected it to happen--and you can see what a rat-race life really is--you can appreciate the fact that what you're here for is to live for yourself, and that if you take things too seriously, you're going out of your way because just die anytime."

Willie Loco Alexander and the Boom Boom Band, Baby's Arm, The Thrills. The Nerous Eaters, Human Sexual Response. The Jaguars, The One, The Cars, Tracks, The Molls, Ricky and the Invaders.

They gather in some dark restaurants and bars, these punks who are to the violent passion which rips through their music like so many pins and needles poking surprise where order has set it.

Just as those who try to the cost-benefit grid brought punks than in "beat" .

bably play at. The Club in the next it depends on how rast we get our back. We're in limbo because his over and he beat the shit of her but out a warrant for his don't think he's coming back." In says a back of "ake sure Babys Arm, .

You have to see the man...asss, you have to see."