A Producer Tries to Start a Movement, Acoustic Punk

And the Reason Why It Never Happened

David Allington is the son of a politician, and a record producer with a mediocre resume. Assigned to produce an incompetent punk band called The Puks, David tries to appease the record company executives while persuading a punk magazine writer named Tara to be his girlfriend, which, fortunately, also keeps him from becoming penniless.

David tries to turn everyone he meets into who he wants them to be, including Tara, because that's what producers tend to do. In the end, he comes up with his best idea yet: a new sound. A new style of music. David tries to turn his girlfriend into a punk icon to make sure his own career doesn’t fall apart.

He envisions Tara becoming a sultry singer playing in clubs around L.A., accompanied by a lone punk guitarist playing acoustic guitar in the background. David writes the music. She writes the tough quirky lyrics. Acoustic Punk was born.

Producing Satire

Published in 2023, Acoustic Punk draws on Marks's decades inside and around the music industry, and on his refusal to bend to its commercial demands. He has privately released nearly every one of his own albums rather than work through a label system. David Allington has no such stance. He'll compromise anything to chase a scene, and an idea to keep him employed.

The Puks, along with its singer and leader Robbie Zone, exist mainly to put David's own hypocrisy on display—a producer trying to manufacture a live sound for a band that can't play live.

The Puks' interview with Punk Online, led by the magazine's star writer Jersey Guthrie, is where Marks's humor draws the most laughs. When Guthrie asks about their song "Switching Poles," Zone explains, "I mean, on the face of it, it's a story of a stripper who goes from pole dancing to politics."

David is cynical. Tara is more cynical. But the warmth behind their cynicism is what comes through in the end. It's what allows the book to broaden, leaves us rooting for their lives, and has us wondering what Acoustic Punk might actually sound like if it was created in the real world.

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