For quite a lot of my life I have been a fan of punk. There is an energy to it that I really like. In fact anything with a bit of energy or feeling I like. Which is perhaps why I hate U2 so much.
Anyway, most people will say that the first punk band is Iggy and the Stooges or the MC5. I have written about The stooges before and so here is The MC5's most famous song. Kick out the Jams
You can see they were quite different to everything else that was around at the time. I love looking at the faces and the crowd, who possibly expected some Byrd's esq melodies and got that instead. Quality.
Punk is reactionary music. The MC5 were a very political band and much of their work was against the hypocrisy of the hippy age and the political goings on at the time.
This kind of ethos was then taken on a number of years later by The Ramones and of course The Sex Pistols. i saw an interview with Joey Ramone, where he said that their music was a reaction to the music of the time. This was the mid seventies. Popular music was simply dreadful. i think it is easy for us now, courtesy of the digital age, to look back somewhat fondly upon the 70s and think it was all Zeppelin, Sabbath, Deep Purple, Bowie etc.
One of the biggest selling tracks of all time was released in 1974, about when the Ramones formed. I think it was perhaps a direct reaction, here is that song
here is the ramones
The Ramones make a whole lot more sense when compared like that.
Then you had The Sex Pistols. They were very much a manufactured reaction to the social ills of the UK at the time. Basically the UK was falling apart. Strikes, 3 day working weeks, nothing happening and going nowhere.
It is a good song. But, and I know this isn't going to be particularly popular, but I don't see why everyone gets so excited about it. The Sex pistols often make the most influential bands, best bands etc. What rubbish. name a band that took from them? Their attitude is almost comical now. It was obviously different at the time. , but lets not forget their publicity was all entirely manufactured.
I am not going to write about The Clash, because although always lumped in with the Pistols, they were far more accomplished and different musicians.
So we can cross the pond and now go back to the States. The English punk movement was a catalyst for some great music to come out of the US. My favourite of these Punk bands was the Dead Kennedys. I still wear a DK t shirt I bought years ago. Whenever I wear I get compliments, comments. People are always keen to show they not only know who they are but they appreciate my good music taste. it is odd, i don't get comments if I wear any other band top. Ever.
Maybe this is why
So I have just spent about 30 mins going through all of the clips and I found this one
So that is the Foo Fighters and Serj from System of a Down, playing Holiday in Cambodia. How cool is that? They look like they are having so much fun. I want to punch everyone in that stupid audience for not realising how cool it is , but I enjoyed that immensely
Jello Biafra was the lead singer of DK. he ran for major of San Francisco, but lost. Imagine the difference if he had won. it does make a great deal of difference when someone is prepared not just to sneer at the system, but actually try to do something about it. John Lydon take note I guess.
It was after this stage that most people tried to disassociate themselves from punk, as it was deemed to be a dead movement, which is basically true. it has resurfaced a number of times. Nirvana described themselves as punk. i have never really been sure about this. More punky that rock I guess, but well pigeon holes are never good.
The nineties saw quite a big revival in the scene, at least in the states. Bands such as The Offspring and green Day could quite rightly claim to be punk. Obviously in a different and less political way. Although, one of the few anti iraq , second, war albums worth listening to is the American idiot album.
here is a good song off it.
Interestingly they were not allowed to use war footage and so choose to that instead.
Perhaps the not quite understood side of punk is that a lot of it has a sense of humour as well. From DK's too drunk to fuck to this by the offspring
I guess it goes to show that absolutely anything musically can be industrialised and made into a neat package that sells. The anger and the political indignation that went through The MC5 and to a certain extent to Green Day, has left us neither that changed or that different. There have been some amusing haircuts to look at. Punk was not ever about how you looked though. It was about attitude, and these guys all had it.
Disclaimer, this is a very short and sharp potted history of punk. I have not included, great bands like Black Flag, Bad Brains, XTC, UK Subs, The Clash, etc, etc. Perhaps I will go through it all at length soon. Could be good fun
British Punk. The Sex Pistols Are considered the biggest influence because they were ground zero for the movement in England. Many bands formed because they saw the Pistols in concert in '76 (when they still were dodgy musicians). The Clash Included.
ReplyDeleteNow, the influence wasn't so much musical as just attitude, that you didn't have to be a brilliant musician to play music and you could sing about different things. So then dozens of bands sprung up and developed that attitude into their own style. And it's notable to recognize that none of the first wave of punk bands sound like the Sex Pistols or each other for that matter, and their lyrical content was all about different things than the Pistols or each other.
The Pistols legacy was a bunch of bands that were inspired to do their own thing.
The Sex Pistols came up from nowhere, guided by the helping hand of Malcolm who tried to mold them in his own graven image. But there was always a fight between him and the band once they started learning how to play because they wanted to be a good band and Malcolm wanted chaos.
Due to their musical limitations and boredom, from legal problems, to banning them from playing live, Steve Jones and Paul Cook spent months in the studio playing and recording the songs that eventually made up the album. With all this time on their hands, they engaged in obsessive overdubbing, building up a huge wall of sound based around (as Lydia Lunch called it), recycled Chuck Berry riffs. So when the album was finally released in '77 (late by punk standards) it was a finely tuned and polished representation of where these guys were at the moment and sounded nothing like the other bands.
But because they were the FIRST band and because of the news stories generated by them(Bill Grundy's show for instance), this along with other reasons makes them the most important punk band. Out of all the bands, these guys said what they said the loudest and it was picked up by the media and all the bands that formed because of them.
Musically however, it was merely a good hard rock album, played very well with a non singer to provide the (cartoon) attitude. It's a difficult album to listen too all the way through because it is boring. I play side one only and it comes across as a (highly polished) blast of fresh air that opened the way for the first wave of punk bands and then the evolution into the different styles of music that came out of the movement.
You either progressed or died. The Clash progressed. Buzzcocks became a charming love song menacing power pop outfit, The Damned with their dracula proto-type hard core, the Banshees taking it into the Goth realm. Then the second wave bands like Sham 69 oi! movement, and on and on. The synth wave stuff, the post punk stuff like The Bunnymen, PiL, etc,etc.
It all started because of the Pistols. That was the catalyst for the whole punk new wave scene and then it progressed very quickly into new forms, which was what it was supposed to be about anyway. Which makes the Sex Pistols story a success. It was also good that they self destructed before they could make another album, thus preserving the myths and legends.
I like Offspring and Green Day etc, but I call it Hollywood punk because it is about a form of music and style rather than being an individual.
This was a rushed (yeah right!) history lesson on why the Sex Pistols are considered influential. I'm a bit of an historian on this period in music. Ho Hum! Who Cares.
Sorry i haven't answered on this one, will do when I get a bit more time to read it!!!
ReplyDeleteAre my comments too long?
ReplyDeleteIt isn't that, I have been travelling for work and havent had the time. I know you put a lot of thought and effort into the comment and I wanted to do it some justice , that's all.
ReplyDeleteSo, i get around to my thoughts on your detailed and informative remarks. I understand what you are saying about the Pistols representing an attitude which many bands then tried to emulate. However, did any of them actually acheive it? Was there a band that came in the next wave, that wave, the wave after the next wave that could truely say that they represented the carrying of the torch from the Pistols?
ReplyDeleteWell no. If we look at what happened with the disintegration of the prog scene with Punk, did we get something better? Did we get a new change in artistic development? No, actually we got the exact opposite.We got style over substance. Admittedly I am excluding the metal scene from this, but that is because the punks and the metals heads hated each other (as a side point how dumb is that - guys we are all outsiders!!). But literally, look at what happened in 1979 - 1985. from the bands that took from the punk underground in the UK , we had New order- madness - The Police - good bands all, but they hardly carried the torch of anti establismentarism did they. In fact you have to look back across the pond to DK and black flag to actually get it. Did those guys see the Pistols play? Well no actually they didnt.
So whilst I agree with your comments about Hollywood punk, not sure I agree about the Sex pistols. Sorry
Let me gather my thoughts. The Sex Pistols inspired a bunch of underground bands that faded quickly but created a new Over Ground. The English scene. The Police, Madness, New Order. Not just the idea of punk rock but recognising no limits or limitations. Neil Tennant was a NME writer who loved punk but his musical direction when he started to make music was nothing like it.
ReplyDeleteI'm really only talking about the English scene and I basically see groups like Echo & The Bunnymen, Public Image Ltd., Orchestral Manoevres in The Dark, Depeche Mode, The Specials, Simple Minds, Ultravox, Joy Division, as all being the spawn of The Sex Pistols. And all these initially underground groups either went overground or influenced new overground acts with their exciting new styles and sounds.
To sum up. The Sex Pistols influenced a variety of groups and sounds. Not just punk. I'm probably contradicting myself all over the place but I see it all as coming from them. We'll never know for sure but I like to believe that OMD's and Depeche Mode's first albums couldn't have happened as they did without the punk explosion (in England). I just see a natural progression from "anarchy in the UK" to early Human League, to Madness, to The Smiths (later) and on and on.
I don't see any connection between U.K. punk and U.S.A. punk. The Ramones and Talking Heads were developing at the same time as The Sex Pistols without each other's knowledge. Coincidence? I don't know. But it did seem to develop in a lot of different spots at the same time. In Toronto we had The Diodes, The Viletones, Teenage Head etc and Vancouver had D.O.A. and in San Francisco a fertile hardcore scene grew spearheaded by DK. and later Black Flag.
I'm rambling! Back To Britain! The Clash were more talented.
My Brain Hurts!
Maybe I'm just romanticising it along with other delusional history revisionists but I do see all that late '70s and early '80s New Wave scene as being a result of the Sex Pistols. Not Punk but just exciting new music. And U2.
One more nonsense thought, Prog rock didn't suffer at all. 1977 was the most successful recording and touring years for Genesis, Yes, Led Zeppelin, E.L.P..
ReplyDeletenot in 1977 no, but after that it was vilified as a self indulgent form of music. it was not until Tool, Opeth and other metal bands made it into something less recognisable that it became cool again.
ReplyDeleteproove my point, name a prog album of the 80s . .
Genesis and Yes reformatted for the '80s but despite cries of 'Sell Out' from precious 70s fans, the music was still more interesting than the stuff they were sharing the charts with. I'm referring to the Hit Parade. Genesis or Paula Abdul?
ReplyDeleteThen a group of pale imitators of the '70s sound showed up like Marillion, Pendragon, I.Q..
And King Crimson mutated into something that was modern sounding but still very distinct from anybody else. Beat, Discipline and Three Of A Perfect Pair.
Aside from Yes and Genesis (who weren't 70s prog anymore) Prog as a genre went underground I guess.
Of the 'new wave' of prog I like The Mars Volta and Porcupine Tree. I like Tool a lot. Not so much Opeth. I don't like the Death Metal roots.
But I like Black Metal. That Mayhem album with the blue church on it. Sleeping Village. Nocturnal Depression. But I don't like Death Metal bands. I can't put my finger on why, though. Weird huh?
Where were you when 9/11 happened? I was on a construction site working on my own in a house listening to Lateralus. Then someone told me to turn on the radio and there it was. Lateralus is forever linked to 9/11 in my mind now.
I agree to a point. But they re-formatted as you say, alienated their orginal fans and then lost all the new ones. I saw a documentary where Rick Wakeman said he felt like he was the most unfashionable person in the world for about 15 years.
ReplyDeleteI am not so much into Black or Death to be honest. i do however love both Tool and Opeth. I can listen to either at any time. I was listening to Lateralus around that time as well. On the day i was at home sick, I was too sick to travel as i was supposed to be in NY that day. The company I was working at then had their offices across the street from the twin towers. No music really defines that era for me. Even when i think about it now it is all just a bit empty, guess it was tied to the loss of a few friends in the whole thing.