Punk rock

Template:Punkbox Punk Rock is an anti-establishment music movement that began about 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified by The Damned, The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and The Clash. The term is also used to describe subsequent music scenes that share key characteristics with those first-generation "punks". The term is sometimes also applied to the fashions or the irreverent "DIY" ("do it yourself") attitude associated with this musical movement.

Origins

The phrase "punk rock" (from "punk", meaning worthless or snotty, often applied to a street hustler or a young person who is disrespectful of authority; also meaning a beginner or novice [1]) was originally applied to the untutored guitar-and-vocals-based rock and roll of United States bands of the mid-1960s such as The Standells, The Sonics, and The Seeds, bands that now are more often categorized as "garage rock".

The term was coined by rock critic Dave Marsh, who used it to describe the music of ? and the Mysterians in the May 1971 issue of Creem magazine, and it was adopted by many rock music journalists in the early 1970s. For example, in the liner notes of the 1972 anthology album Nuggets, critic and guitarist Lenny Kaye uses the term "punk-rock" to refer to the Sixties "garage rock" groups, as well as some of the darker and more primitive practitioners of 1960s psychedelia. Shortly after the time of those notes, Lenny Kaye formed a band with avant-garde poet Patti Smith. Smith's group, and her first album, Horses, released in 1975, directly inspired many of the mid-1970s punk rockers, so this suggests one path by which the term migrated to the music we now know as punk.

In addition to the inspiration of those "garage bands" of the 1960s, the roots of punk rock draw on the abrasive, dissonant style of The Velvet Underground; the snotty attitude and aggressive instrumentation of The Who and the early Rolling Stones; the sexually and politically confrontational Detroit bands The Stooges and MC5; the UK pub rock scene and political UK underground bands such as Mick Farren and the Deviants; the New York Dolls, and some British "glam rock" or "art rock" acts of the early 1970s, including Gary Glitter and Roxy Music.

Punk rock was also a reaction against certain tendencies that had overtaken popular music in the 1970s, including what the punks saw as superficial "disco" music and grandiose forms of heavy metal, progressive rock and "arena rock." Punk also rejected the remnants of the hippie counterculture of the 1960s. Bands such as Jefferson Airplane, which had survived the 1960s, were regarded by most punks as having become fatuous and an embarrassment to their former claims of radicality. Eric Clapton's appearance in television beer ads in the mid-1970s was often cited as an example of how the icons of 1960s rock had literally sold themselves to the system they once opposed.

The British punk movement also found a precedent in the "do-it-yourself" attitude of the Skiffle craze that emerged amid the post-World War II austerity of 1950s Britain. Skiffle music led directly to the tremendous worldwide success of The Beatles (who began as a Skiffle group) and the subsequent British Invasion of the U.S. record charts. Punk rock in Britain coincided with the rise of Thatcherism, and nearly all British punk bands expressed an attitude of angry social alienation.

The cultural critique and strategies for revolutionary action offered by the European Situationist movement of the 1950s and 1960s were another influence on the vanguard of the British punk movement, particularly the Sex Pistols. Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren consciously embraced situationist ideas, which are also reflected in the clothing designed for the band by Vivienne Westwood and the visual artwork of the Situationist-affiliated Jamie Reid, who designed many of the band's graphics.

See the Timeline of punk rock

The Emergence of Punk Rock

The first ongoing music scene that was assigned the "punk" label appeared in New York in 1974-1976, centered around bands that played regularly at the club CBGB's in New York's Bowery district, including The Ramones, Television, Blondie, Richard Hell and The Voidoids, Mink Deville, Manster, and Talking Heads. The "punk" title was applied to these groups by early 1976, when Punk Magazine first appeared, featuring these bands alongside articles on some of the immediate role models for the new groups, such as Lou Reed, who was on the cover of the first issue of Punk, and Patti Smith, cover subject on the second issue.

During this same period, bands that would later be recognized as "punk" were forming independently in other locations as well, such as The Saints in Brisbane, Australia, and The Stranglers and the Sex Pistols in London. These early bands usually operated within small "scenes" facilitated by enthusiastic impresarios who operated small nightclubs. The nightclubs provided a showcase and meeting place for the emerging musicians (the 100 Club in London, CBGB in New York, and The Masque in Hollywood are among the best known early punk clubs).

While the London bands may have played a relatively minor role in determining the early punk sound, the London punk scene would come to define and epitomize the rebellious punk culture. After a brief stint managing the New York Dolls at the end of their career in the US, Englishman Malcolm McLaren returned to London in May 1975. He started a clothing store called "Sex" that was instrumental in creating the radical punk clothing style. Inspired by the emerging New York scene, McLaren started looking to help create a similar movement in the UK. He soon organized several frequent customers of his shop into the Sex Pistols. The Sex Pistols soon created a strong cult following in London, centered on a clique known as the Bromley Contingent (named after the suburb where many of them had grown up), who followed them around the country.

An oft-cited moment in punk rock's history is a July 4, 1976 concert by the Ramones at the Roundhouse in London (The Stranglers were also on the bill). Many of the future leaders of the UK punk rock scene were inspired by this show, and almost immediately after it, the UK punk scene quickly got into full swing. By the end of 1976, many fans of the Sex Pistols had formed their own bands, including The Clash, Siouxsie & the Banshees, The Adverts, Generation X, The Slits and X-Ray Spex. Other UK bands to emerge in this milieu included The Damned (the first band to market an album as "punk"), The Jam and The Buzzcocks. In November of 1976, the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned and other bands united for the Anarchy Tour, a series of gigs throughout the U.K. Many of the gigs were cancelled by venue owners, after tabloid newspapers and other media seized on sensational stories regarding the antics of both the bands and their fans.

The growing notoriety of punk rock in the UK was launched to greater heights by one particular media incident. After EMI signed the Sex Pistols for the release of their debut album, they made an appearance on a London TV show called Thames Today. Guitarist Steve Jones got into a verbal altercation with the host, Bill Grundy, swearing profusely at him on live television.

One of the first books about punk rock — The Boy Looked at Johnny by Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons (December 1977) — declared the punk moment to be already over: the subtitle was The Obituary of Rock and Roll. The title echoed a lyric from the title track of Patti Smith's 1975 album Horses.

During 1977, a second wave of bands emerged, influenced by those mentioned above. Some, such as The Misfits (from New Jersey), Black Flag (from Los Angeles) and Crass (from Essex) would go on to influence the subsequent sound and culture of punk rock.

In the UK, punk interacted with the Jamaican reggae and ska subcultures. The reggae influence is evident in the first releases by The Clash, for example. By the end of the 1970s punk had spawned the 2 Tone ska revival movement, including bands such as The Specials, Madness and The Selecter.

In the US, Los Angeles spawned many influential punk groups, some of which are documented in the film The Decline of Western Civilization (1981). Los Angeles bands active at this time included The Germs, The Screamers, X, Circle Jerks, and Fear.

Punk attitudes and fashion

An important feature of punk rock was a desire to return to the concise approach of early rock and roll. Punk rock emphasised simple musical structure and short songs, extolling a DIY ethic (the early UK punk fanzine Sniffin' Glue in 1977 famously included drawings of three chord shapes, captioned, "this is a chord, this is another, this is a third. Now form a band"). Punk lyrics introduced a confrontational frankness of expression in matters both political and sexual, dealing with urban boredom and rising unemployment in the UK — for example, the Sex Pistols' "God Save The Queen" and "Pretty Vacant" — or decidedly anti-romantic depictions of sex and love, such as the Dead Kennedys' "Too Drunk to Fuck."

The punk phenomenon expressed a rejection of prevailing values in ways that extended beyond the music. British punk fashion deliberately outraged propriety with the highly theatrical use of cosmetics and hairstyles: eye makeup covering half the face, hair made to stand in spikes, cut into a "Mohawk" or another dramatic shape, colored with vibrant unnatural hues. Punk clothing typically adapted or mutilated existing objects for artistic effect: pants and shirts were cut, torn, or wrapped with tape, written on with marker or defaced with paint; safety pins and razor blades were used as jewelry (including using safety pins for piercings); a black bin liner bag (garbage bag) might become a dress, shirt or skirt. Leather, rubber and vinyl clothing was also common, possibly due to its implied connection with transgressive sexual practices, such as bondage and S&M. Taboo symbols such as the Nazi swastika or Iron Cross were also occasionally flaunted by punks.

Punk bands and fans were often accused of nihilism, reflexive anarchism, willful stupidity, hooliganism, and of outrageous behavior and dress that existed merely for shock value. Some of the furor over punk was caused by the behavior of the fans at shows, which often appeared to the uninitiated to be more of a small-scale riot than a music concert. Fans spat and threw beer bottles at the band and each other, while stage diving, pogoing and slam dancing (which eventually led to the mosh pit). Fights both inside and outside the venue were common, as was damage to sound equipment or the venue itself.

But for its admirers, the music, dress and lifestyle included elements of ironic humor and genuine criticism of mainstream culture and values. Many bands, (The Clash being a prime example), openly espoused a left-wing or progressive social and political philosophy. Other bands, such as Crass (an anarchist/pacifist group), actively participated in political protests and projects to alter local or national communities.

The DIY aesthetic of punk created a thriving underground press; you could not only start a band, you could also be a music journalist and critic. Mark Perry produced the first photocopied issue of Sniffin' Glue in London immediately after that Ramones concert in 1976. In the US, such titles as Punk, Search & Destroy (later REsearch), Flipside and Slash chronicled and helped to define the emerging culture. Such amateur magazines took inspiration from the rock fanzines of the early 70s, which themselves had roots in the science fiction fan community; probably the most influential of the fanzines to cross over from SF fandom to rock (and, later, punk rock and "new wave") was Greg Shaw's Who Put the Bomp, published since 1970.

The politically-charged Maximum RocknRoll and the anarchist Profane Existence were among the most important fanzines in the 1980s and onward. By that time, every local "scene" had at least one, often primitively- or casually-published magazine with news, gossip, and interviews with local or touring bands. The magazine Factsheet Five chronicled thousands of underground publications and "zines" in the 1980s and 1990s.

Post-1970s punk

In the 1980s a second wave of anti-establishment and "DIY" bands came into their own in the UK and the United States, a genre known as Hardcore punk. The period from approximately 1980 to 1986 is considered the peak of hardcore punk. Early hardcore bands include Black Flag, Bad Brains and The Germs and the movement developed via Minor Threat, The Dicks, Minutemen and Hüsker Dü, among others. In New York, there was a large hardcore punk movement led by bands such as Agnostic Front, The Cro-Mags, Murphy's Law, Sick of it All, and Gorilla Biscuits.

In the UK, meanwhile, post-punk bands as diverse as Joy Division, The Fall, This Heat, Public Image Ltd, Scritti Politti and Gang of Four, each with their own distinctive sound, contributed to a musically adventurous era, although their influence on later 'punk rock' is debatable.

A thriving punk rock subculture can still be found in many cities.

The punk rock of the early and mid-1990s was characterized by the scene at 924 Gilman Street, a venue in Berkeley, California, which featured bands such as Operation Ivy, and Rancid (though clearly not simultaneously, as Rancid sprung from the proverbial ashes of Operation Ivy), who would later go on to be well-known among the punk scene. Epitaph Records, an independent record label started by Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion, would become the home of the "skate punk" sound, characterized by bands like Pennywise, NOFX, The Offspring, and blink-182. Around 1994, these bands achieved a commercial success, followed by a short-lived ska punk revival around 1997. Green Day achieved huge commercial success with their 1994 album, "Dookie". In 1991, Nirvana, essentially a punk-rock band, topped the charts with their album Nevermind, the first time any significantly punk-influenced band reached this level of success in the U.S. This shift in public taste was chronicled in a film entitled 1991: The Year Punk Broke, which featured Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr., and Sonic Youth; Nirvana also featured in the film Hype!.

By the late '90s, punk was so ingrained in Western culture that it is often used to sell commercial bands as "rebels", amid complaints from underground punk fans that, by being signed to major labels and appearing on MTV, these bands were buying into the system that punk was created to rebel against, and as a result, could not be considered true punk. This debate continues with the popularity of "pop-punk" in the early 2000s, and the emo trend of recent times. Notable pop-punk bands include Simple Plan, Good Charlotte, and Relient K.

Regardless, there is still a thriving underground punk scene in both North America and Europe. The widespread availability of the Internet and file sharing programs enables bands who would otherwise not be heard outside of their local scene to garner larger followings, and emphasizes the DIY ethic started by the original punk bands. Many punk bands still retain the political streak of their forefathers. The political success of George W. Bush and Tony Blair have inspired both songs and political action, such as the Rock Against Bush movement, that can be compared to the original rage at Reagan and Thatcher.

In punk's original heydey, punks faced harassment and even violence from others, such as in Britain, where punks were infamously involved in brawls with teds, or fans of rockabilly. Nowadays, it is relatively socially acceptable to be punk and play punk rock music, and it is often merely a fashion statement for youth. Thus, some maintain that the punk scene has lost the very heart of its former nature as one of explosive creativity, rebellion, anger, and individualism, and that it has become a mere caricature of what once was.

Sound samples

"I Wanna Be Sedated" by The Ramones, from Road to Ruin, 1978. 28 seconds, 540 KB.
"Dot Dash" by Wire, a single from 1978. 30 seconds, 519 KB.
"London Calling" by The Clash, from London Calling, 1979. 30 seconds, 616 KB.

References

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung by Lester Bangs, ISBN 0679720456
The Boy Looked At Johnny: The Obituary of Rock and Roll by Julie Burchill & Tony Parsons, 1978, Pluto Press, UK, ISBN 0861040309X
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil & Gillian McCain, 1997, Penguin Books, ISBN 0140266909

External links