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What was punk?


Otto Masson

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Nice one Ally, and still is my friend. laugh.gif

Don't get me wrong, just because i don't like something doesn't mean i don't give it credence because i do. Not all Punk was bad, neither is Rap or Disco are anything else, but i would prefer to listen to whale song or Gregorian chant rather than have to listen to them, its just my honest account of what a bigoted fool I've become mate. wink.gif

Kind Regards, Danny

My son's tastes are heavily influenced by punk and they continue to play the old and new. Me, I enjoy bits and pieces of it. I'm more into what punk is rooted in and to me, that's the same stuff that I was listening to when I was a wee lad being a pain in the ass to my older cousins... Rockabilly, Garage etc.

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It's OK. I like few bands. I've never been a fan of punk/punk rock but there are few bands and songs I can listen to. For example, I like The Ramones. They might not be the typical punk band, but I think they're really one of the first punk rock bands. But I like garage rock a lot. :)

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Joe Strummer, towards the end of his life, said that he came to realize that hippies & punks were pretty much the same. He started out a hippy & then adopted a punk stance and it wasn't until he hit his 40's that he realized that both were about a sense of community while still remaining an individual. To stand up for your beliefs & to tear down the old rules that obviously weren't working but to also build upon those things that were working. It couldn't all be a peace & love or nihilistic vibe, both were viable and both had to give back something positive to everyone.

Strummer definately wore both cultures on his sleeve during his last years & became a less conflicted person and artist for doing so.

Joe was a good friend of mine, he used to come in my local pub where I worked & we used to have lock ins a bit of a drink & a smoke and trade rock 'n' roll stories.. (Well he did anyway)

He let me interview him, here are a couple of snippets, the rest of the interview is in a draw next to me, i may post all of it sometime

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Thanks for all the responses. Maybe I should add that my purpose in starting the thread was certainly not to dismiss all the actual music that came out of the punk wave. I listened a lot to The Clash myself back in the day, still love London Calling and Sandinista, and I'm also a longtime fan of Siouxsie and the Banshees, just to give a couple of examples. What I was disputing was more how the whole thing has been seen, what the actual significance of it was in the history of popular music and rock more specifically.

The theory that it was a much needed revolt against a stagnant, overblown scene just seems ridiculous to me, because if you just look at the albums released in the years immediately prior to the real punk explosion in 1976-77, it was an incredibly fertile scene. Take 1974-1975: it's when you get albums like Joni Mitchell's Court and Spark, Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti, Elton John's Captain Fantastic, Genesis's Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, David Bowie's Low, Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, Jethro Tull's War Child and Minstrel in the Gallery, 10 cc's How Dare You? and so on, almost forever. Where is the fucking stagnation punk was supposedly revolting against? Overblown? Bullshit - these are simply great albums. There's a lot of professionalism by that time, certainly, but why would that be a problem for music lovers?

Punk as I see it was more of a simplifying turn, and as some of you have mentioned, that can be linked to the fact that a new generation was coming to the fore, trying to obtain space for itself to develop. Which it did: I think the real achievements of that new generation came in the 1980's, and by that time it wasn't necessarily punk anymore. Siouxsie is a case in point - but so is the experimentalism of an album like PiL's Flowers of Romance (another album I loved - it came in 1981, the year of the punk explosion on the Icelandic scene). To summarize, what I mean is that I don't believe that simple music is better - it's just relatively simple when you compare it with something else. Both things can be done done well or badly.

Disco was a part of what the typical punk rhetoric was always attacking, and in this country disco killed live music almost completely. I felt a lot of sympathy with that - also for personal reasons - but, people were also dismissing so-called dinosaurs and what not, calling them passé, etc. In itself that can be seen as just a passing thing, as a new generation tries to find its own voice and all that, but I find that incredibly many take that ideology at face value, when it just doesn't make a lot of sense. A certain subjectivity in taste will of course affect how you judge all this, but to actually believe that punk was a revolt against a stagnating scene to me smacks more of either narrow-mindedness, pure ignorance or perhaps just that people haven't really thought it through.

Sorry but I think alot of the albums you listed fall exactly into thoe "tired and overblown" catagory, Zep, Floyd and Bowie(and remmeber all of them survived punk popularity intact) were still certainly releasing music as good as anything they ever had but generally I think the big bands of the late 60's/early 70's were on a downturn by 76/77. Theres certainaly an arguement that Punks inital blast wasnt any better but that doesnt disproove the decline of the mid 70's as a reason for its breakthough. If bands with the influences and quality of work of Pil, mid period Clash, Joy Division etc had appeared in say 1975 I very much doubt you'd have seen basic punk takeover in the way it did.

It wasnt some divine music inspiration, it was a simplistic movement that tapped into the stagnated/impersonal nature of the music scene of the time aswell as the political/economic problems. Alot of good musicans either used it to build their popularity or were inspired by it in a way that simpley wasnt happening in the few years beforehand.

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Thank you Otto. I'm from NYC but I too preferred the first wave of English punk bands to the first wave NYC bands, even though I love a lot of the NYC bands too. But there's a big chasm even amongst the American punk scenes. With the exception of Black Flag, X, & Dead Kennedy's, I hate, absolutly loathe, the California punk scene. I can't stand it. They have their own complete different take on punk than the NYC scene & the Brit scene. I can relate much more to a Brit punker ranting about being on the dole because I know what it's like to be broke but how can I relate to some mohawked guy hanging at the beach going on about skate boarding or whatever. It's like the Beach Boy's surfing songs or the Eagles watching Tequila soaked sunrises, I just don't get it because I don't have that point of reference. Then there was the Washington DC hardcore scene, which I did/do like even though it's different from the NYC scene but maybe I can relate to it because it was still an East Coast scene. Lol, the East/West coast feud goes back way before Tupac & Biggie it seems!

Even among my friends we have very differing opinions about what is considered punk. I love The Buzzcocks who are pretty poppy & have a homosexual singer. My Agnostic Front loving friends don't think that they're punk & think that the Buzzcocks are fags, while I just think Agnostic Front are a bunch of macho poseurs, an angrier version of The Offspring who I can't stand either as I consider them a boy band with tattoos. Yet I concede that all three bands I just mentioned are punk whether I like them or not. I love The Dead Boys but I could never understand my friends who loved Patti Smith & considered her punk. She's just a Jack Kerourac spouting beatnick hippie to me, yet I love X & they are beatnick hippies too but with a rockabilly twist. So it's strange. After all what did The Beatles & The Stones really have in common themselves when they started out? The Beatles loved American rockabilly & black American pop while The Stones loved Chicago blues and the raunchier side of black R&B, yet both bands are almost forever going to be linked despite these differences.

There was talk about the British punks in the media right away, so I was aware of it, but the thing is one didn't hear a lot of it here in, say, 1977. In 1978 a borderline punk band, The Stranglers, came here and gave a big concert which I saw and quite liked. I got both the albums they had released then, Rattus Norvegicus and No More Heroes, and thought they had an interesting sound of their own (I think it must have been those keyboards more than anything else). What I heard from The Sex Pistols I didn't really like, but The Clash was a different story - although I only started really listening to them in 1979-80.

The first Icelandic punk band was formed in 1978, called Fræbbblarnir, but although some people like to mythologize them, I always thought they were an awful band, never liked them, and the thing is they weren't influential at all. Disco reigned supreme and just killed off the live scene in 1979-1980 - the only real exceptions were Þursaflokkurinn, a truly fabulous progressive and somewhat folkish (in an Icelandic way) band that I saw several times live, and Ljósin í bænum/Mezzoforte, basically a funky fusion outfit that were great players but weren't really my cup of tea. Something did happen in 1980 though: Bubbi Morthens released an album that was a sort of mixture of punk and blues rock, and then he formed the band Utangarðsmenn. That was a hard rocking outfit indeed, and bloody loud - I remember when I saw them at a big concert in Laugardalshöllin in 1981 my head was ringing for a couple of days afterwards. That was really the first time we had a band in this country with that kind of attitude.

Not too long after that the scene just exploded. It was really young kids picking up instruments - like this band, Vonbrigði. Primitive indeed! You may notice, for example, how they don't manage to keep the tempo even throughout, but it was an interesting band. Here's how they sounded in 1981:

Another interesting band was Purrkur pillnikk - the video is really a couple of their songs. Their singer later went on to form The Sugarcubes, who some of you may have heard of, with Björk, who in 1981 was singing with Tappi tíkarrass, and some members of Þeyr.

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Þeyr to me was a quite special band. The musicianship was always pretty good, and they actually sounded rather old-fashioned on their debut album in 1980. By spring 1980 they had reinvented themselves - very, very successfully, with a few nods to Killing Joke in some of their music, but really quite unique. Their drummer from the outset had a completely unique style, the guitars were good, and the lyrics quite unusual, to say the least - not political, more like mystical, sometimes absurd, often enough intriguing. They were interested in the occult, in Wilhelm Reich's theories, and god knows what else....!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-Xo0TRdRvo&feature=related

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By the mid-1980's a sort of supergroup had been formed, with the drummer and guitarist from Þeyr, Björk from Tappinn, Einar Örn from Purrkur, etc. This was an excellent band, called Kukl. Here's one of their songs. Björk was pregnant at the time of this TV show.

The Sugarcubes were mostly the same people, except that was always meant to be a pop group. They explained later that the idea was to make money to finance their label, Smekkleysa - which still exists.

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The few samples above will I hope give some indication as to the kind of scene that suddenly came into being here in the spring of 1981, although I must say a lot of the songs I would have preferred still can't be found on Youtube - and I found no live clips of Utangarðsmenn, which is practically a scandal. I saw all of these bands back in the day, and it was a very fertile scene. The mentality in the early 1980's was a sort of mixture of out-and-out experimentalism and the typical UK punk debunking of everything older than The Sex Pistols.

Looking back, I think the unusual strength of the punk/new wave scene here was due to a combination of different reasons, one of them being that some of these people actually had been playing for a while - Björk was an obvious talent right from the start, and she had been a child star around 1975; Gulli and Þorsteinn, who played guitar with Þeyr, were also experienced players, and so on. Another factor was that the real explosion came so late - in 1981. As a result it was never a very narrow punk scene: a lot of new wave and other late influences were part and parcel of the whole thing here - even if the British punk ideology was quite prevalent with respect to older music. A third factor was that the Icelandic rock scene had always been peculiar in some ways. There weren't a lot of concerts - instead what you had was dances most of the time, and this was certainly limiting. What little live music scene you had, however, was almost completely killed off in 1979-80, so the punk thing came as a reversal of that trend too.

These circumstances of the punk explosion are specific to Iceland I believe. For me personally, it was fun to witness, but I must say I always found the dissing of older music ridiculous, and I never stopped listening to it as well. So I liked some of the music, but was never really a punk myself.

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Sorry but I think alot of the albums you listed fall exactly into thoe "tired and overblown" catagory, Zep, Floyd and Bowie(and remmeber all of them survived punk popularity intact) were still certainly releasing music as good as anything they ever had but generally I think the big bands of the late 60's/early 70's were on a downturn by 76/77. Theres certainaly an arguement that Punks inital blast wasnt any better but that doesnt disproove the decline of the mid 70's as a reason for its breakthough. If bands with the influences and quality of work of Pil, mid period Clash, Joy Division etc had appeared in say 1975 I very much doubt you'd have seen basic punk takeover in the way it did.

It wasnt some divine music inspiration, it was a simplistic movement that tapped into the stagnated/impersonal nature of the music scene of the time aswell as the political/economic problems. Alot of good musicans either used it to build their popularity or were inspired by it in a way that simpley wasnt happening in the few years beforehand.

Thank you for that response to my arguments, greenman. I am not at all convinced by your post though. For me "overblown" is quite senseless with respect to any of the 1974-75 albums I mentioned - as a description it's not helpful to understand and make sense of these albums, as extremely different as they are. And I could have gone on - you mentioned Floyd, and they released Wish You Were Here in this period. Even Bob Dylan was having one of his best periods ever: This is the era of Blood on the Tracks and Desire. The Pretty Things released an album on Swan Song in 1974 called Silk Torpedo - that too is a very strong album.

There were bands that I would agree to call "overblown" but they had been that on purpose from the start, so to speak. I mean people like Yes, ELP and some others - in general the prog scene suffered in the wake of punk. I would in fact argue that the crisis for big parts of the older scene came after punk, not before. There was a sense of direction, and punk disrupted it, and probably record company pressure was a real factor as well. Genesis suddenly became a pop band. Gentle Giant lost their sense of purpose.

One of the trends that had been going on before punk was increased professionalism, increased complexity of songwriting and of arrangements. This will not have been particularly liked by inexperienced musicians who wanted to have some room for themselves to develop, but that isn't a valid argument against that music, or something like that. You can see Jimmy Page's expectations in an interesting interview from 1976 that is posted HERE. He was expecting things to go on in the same way - and that's when punk came, and upset every expectation. It still didn't throw Led Zeppelin off course - they had just released Presence.

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One of the trends that had been going on before punk was increased professionalism, increased complexity of songwriting and of arrangements. This will not have been particularly liked by inexperienced musicians who wanted to have some room for themselves to develop, but that isn't a valid argument against that music, or something like that. You can see Jimmy Page's expectations in an interesting interview from 1976 that is posted HERE. He was expecting things to go on in the same way - and that's when punk came, and upset every expectation. It still didn't throw Led Zeppelin off course - they had just released Presence.

Couldn't agree with you more Otto.

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It's all rock & roll, man, that's what's funny, the actual music isn't all that different from what they're 'rebelling' against.

I do have a couple of vivid memories of those days when punk was new:

#1 Backstage at the Whiskey-a-go-go, the main dressing room had this wall. Everyone who was anyone wrote on this wall. Not just wrote. Janis Joplin had drawn pictures on it. Jim Morrison had written poetry on it. Neil Young, Otis Redding, Joni Mitchell, I mean, it was unbelievable the star-studded graffitti that had lasted for so many years on this wall. Then punk happened. I will never forget walking into that dressing room one day and seeing that a punk band (by the name of "ORANGE") had spray-painted their name all over the walls. Other bands soon followed suit. The wall was now gone forever.

#2 Outside the Whiskey. Some punks suddenly start beating up this innocent bystander, just so their friend can snap photos for their underground punk publication, making sure to get the Whiskey marquee in the shot, as well as lots of blood

#3 I witness the Clash opening for the Who at the LA Coliseum. I actually like a couple of their tunes and look forward to seeing them. I cannot describe just how terrible they were. They totally sucked. I thought when they headlined one of the days at the US Festival that it was ridiculous.

So - This was punk, to me. Although I am always open to new sounds, and Kaiser makes many good points, in the end I'm probably more in agreement with Big Dan - most punk (and rap) just makes me cringe

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Thank you for that response to my arguments, greenman. I am not at all convinced by your post though. For me "overblown" is quite senseless with respect to any of the 1974-75 albums I mentioned - as a description it's not helpful to understand and make sense of these albums, as extremely different as they are. And I could have gone on - you mentioned Floyd, and they released Wish You Were Here in this period. Even Bob Dylan was having one of his best periods ever: This is the era of Blood on the Tracks and Desire. The Pretty Things released an album on Swan Song in 1974 called Silk Torpedo - that too is a very strong album.

There were bands that I would agree to call "overblown" but they had been that on purpose from the start, so to speak. I mean people like Yes, ELP and some others - in general the prog scene suffered in the wake of punk. I would in fact argue that the crisis for big parts of the older scene came after punk, not before. There was a sense of direction, and punk disrupted it, and probably record company pressure was a real factor as well. Genesis suddenly became a pop band. Gentle Giant lost their sense of purpose.

One of the trends that had been going on before punk was increased professionalism, increased complexity of songwriting and of arrangements. This will not have been particularly liked by inexperienced musicians who wanted to have some room for themselves to develop, but that isn't a valid argument against that music, or something like that. You can see Jimmy Page's expectations in an interesting interview from 1976 that is posted HERE. He was expecting things to go on in the same way - and that's when punk came, and upset every expectation. It still didn't throw Led Zeppelin off course - they had just released Presence.

While alot of those bands did start out with a rather overblown style I do think there was a clear move in that direction by the mid 70's, there was a rash of double albums, epic concepts and/or sidelong songs. As I said I think there was a general drop in quality aswell compaired to what those same groups/individuals were producing 3-4 years earlier.

I think its noticble that the artists who were still producing quality work(Zep, Floyd, Queen, Bowie and Gabriel spring to mind) didnt suffer a hit in popularity or arguebley quality of output. Others did I agree totally lose there direction but really I think they were well past there best anyway. Punk itsnt viewed as a positive movement for inspiring the existing artists though but rather for opening the door to new ones. The scene of the mid 70's just wasnt letting though new talent and influences(primitive rock, reggea, krautrock had been around for a good few years) and was going stale because of it. I'll take Yes, ELP etc producing a few terrible pop albums if it gives me London Calling and Unknown Pleasures.

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Joe was a good friend of mine, he used to come in my local pub where I worked & we used to have lock ins a bit of a drink & a smoke and trade rock 'n' roll stories.. (Well he did anyway)

He let me interview him, here are a couple of snippets, the rest of the interview is in a draw next to me, i may post all of it sometime

That's wonderful. I'm glad you got to know him on a personal level. Every person I've known who was friendly with Strummer, whether working with him on a regular basis or just meeting him & hanging out with him for a day at Glastonbury, has said what a kind, generous, passionate, & down to earth man he was. Joe Strummer is the only celebrity whose passing I ever shed tears over. What Joe Strummer meant to his fans is not unlike what John Lennon meant to his. Joe Strummer left this earth far to soon for my liking. I didn't even have pictures of my family hanging up in my old apartment when I was seperated by 100's of miles from them but I did have a large framed one of Joe Strummer above my dinner table.

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By the mid-1980's a sort of supergroup had been formed, with the drummer and guitarist from Þeyr, Björk from Tappinn, Einar Örn from Purrkur, etc. This was an excellent band, called Kukl. Here's one of their songs. Björk was pregnant at the time of this TV show.

The Sugarcubes were mostly the same people, except that was always meant to be a pop group. They explained later that the idea was to make money to finance their label, Smekkleysa - which still exists.

I'm a huge Bjork fan. I have a few Kukl songs, along with her first album when she was a pre-teen in the 70's. She's absolutely brilliant, eveything from The Sugarcubes to her jazzy Gling Glo album to all of her solo career. As I was saying about English punks rebellion of the generation before them, Bjork took the same approach. She grew up in a household where her parents & their friends listened to Cream, Hendrix, & Zeppelin & she didn't want to know about it. It was her parents music as far as she was concerned & she wanted something of her own. She loved Discharge & The Exploited when they came out in the punk era but she also loved Chet Baker & Nina Simone which she liked from her pre-teen school years. You can hear both styles in her music. A brilliant schooled musical mind but with a punk approach.

Doesn't Tapi takarrass translate too Spit and Snot in English lol? She said several times over the years that was the name of her first real band.

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Obviously in the mid 70's there were fantastic albums, but there were things that were overblown. Very overblown. Rick Wakemen's "The Myths And Legends Of King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table" ice spectacle stage show comes to mind. Lol, I mean what was that? I've never heard the album, it could be the work of genuis for all I know, but it's certainly not something I personally could ever relate to. I guess The Sex Pistols couldn't either because they formed in late 1975 when Rick Wakemen's album/stage show came out.

And it wasn't just the punks that stripped down. AC/DC came out at this time. Bon Scott era AC/DC have more in common with The Ramones than they do Yes. Basic three chord rock'n'roll, limited musicianship, & plenty of attitude. Angus Young at that time thought Jimmy Page was to clever a guitarist for his tastes lol! He couldn't concern himself with "Stairway To Heaven" when he thought "Johnny B. Goode" was so much better. Then you have Motorhead via Hawkwind's Lemmy. Completely stripped down & sped up Metal that you would not confuse for the Sabbath albums of the time, which coincidentally Rick Wakemen had played on a few. Motorhead & The Damned formed a mutual admiration society playing gigs with eachother. Not long after this speed metal band & gothy punks do shows together that the Paul D'ianno era Iron Maiden start to take off. It's all relative.

In America not only were Led Zeppelin ignored by Rolling Stone but the pre-punks as well. The Stooges, MC5, & Dolls were covered in Creem magazine but Rolling Stone, America's biggest music magazine of that time, wouldn't touch any of that. Like Led Zeppelin those bands music was considered dumbed down. To Rolling Stone the new music that mattered was all that laid back middle of the road California singer/songwriter type music of The Eagles, Linda Rondstadt, Jackson Browne, Rickie Lee Jones, Phoebe Snow, Joan Armatrang, Harry Nillson, etc. With the benefit of hindsight, if you put all these things together, it was inevitable that a segment of people wanted a return to the simpler rock'n'roll that goes back to the original 50's artists who themselves were not virtuoso's or had to put a social/political message into every song. Rock'n'roll at the very least should be fun & have a pulse, & quite frankly in England & America at that time Tangerine Dream & Jackson Browne were not what I would call a fun time.

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Thanks Swede!

I'm on a quick flyby right now but I'll talk with you later about your excellent posts, Kaiser. It took a bit of time to unearth this classic article but, if you haven't read it, I think you and Swede might enjoy this: Jerry Nolan's 1991 first person account of his years as a drummer for the Dolls and other bands, written a year before he died. (I hope the link works):

Jerry Nolan - My Life as a Doll

Thanks for the link! NYD is an absolute favorite band of mine. I have a great DVD called "All Dolled Up," filmed by Bob Gruen and his wife. It has got some really rare footage of NYD. Johnny Thunders were Chuck Berry on acid!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7VIf_n_8G0

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Obviously in the mid 70's there were fantastic albums, but there were things that were overblown. Very overblown. Rick Wakemen's "The Myths And Legends Of King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table" ice spectacle stage show comes to mind. Lol, I mean what was that? I've never heard the album, it could be the work of genuis for all I know, but it's certainly not something I personally could ever relate to. I guess The Sex Pistols couldn't either because they formed in late 1975 when Rick Wakemen's album/stage show came out.

And it wasn't just the punks that stripped down. AC/DC came out at this time. Bon Scott era AC/DC have more in common with The Ramones than they do Yes. Basic three chord rock'n'roll, limited musicianship, & plenty of attitude. Angus Young at that time thought Jimmy Page was to clever a guitarist for his tastes lol! He couldn't concern himself with "Stairway To Heaven" when he thought "Johnny B. Goode" was so much better. Then you have Motorhead via Hawkwind's Lemmy. Completely stripped down & sped up Metal that you would not confuse for the Sabbath albums of the time, which coincidentally Rick Wakemen had played on a few. Motorhead & The Damned formed a mutual admiration society playing gigs with eachother. Not long after this speed metal band & gothy punks do shows together that the Paul D'ianno era Iron Maiden start to take off. It's all relative.

In America not only were Led Zeppelin ignored by Rolling Stone but the pre-punks as well. The Stooges, MC5, & Dolls were covered in Creem magazine but Rolling Stone, America's biggest music magazine of that time, wouldn't touch any of that. Like Led Zeppelin those bands music was considered dumbed down. To Rolling Stone the new music that mattered was all that laid back middle of the road California singer/songwriter type music of The Eagles, Linda Rondstadt, Jackson Browne, Rickie Lee Jones, Phoebe Snow, Joan Armatrang, Harry Nillson, etc. With the benefit of hindsight, if you put all these things together, it was inevitable that a segment of people wanted a return to the simpler rock'n'roll that goes back to the original 50's artists who themselves were not virtuoso's or had to put a social/political message into every song. Rock'n'roll at the very least should be fun & have a pulse, & quite frankly in England & America at that time Tangerine Dream & Jackson Browne were not what I would call a fun time.

IMHO, your post is very accurate ! I would even go as far as to say that on the west coast at least, it seemed like FM radio was devising it's playlists by what was being written in Rolling Stone ! To me, there was a corellation between Rolling Stone becoming the establishment music mag and the death of experimental FM radio. Subsequently, bands like the Dolls, Ramones,Stooges and even Bowie to a certain degree were getting little or no airplay. It is not suprising that the English punk bands initially received none. However, there was a desire amoung the minions for more choice in what was being delivered. For most of my friends and I, we started paying more attention to the fusion bands. Many many more however moved directly into bands like the ones you mentioned AC/DC, Iron Maiden etc. Punk came rather late to us west coasters but it hit big when it did. The death of disco and the return of live music in the clubs created the avenue for many a local band who had been heavily influenced by the Stooges and Ramones For many in the audience, it would be their first real taste of hearing music that had been created by those acts !

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It was a breath of fresh air and it had to happen.

Hi 'Walesdad'

Twas as welcome as a "Fart in a Spacesuit" if you were a Rock Fan of the time, anyone who tells you any different wasnt there or was born much later. ;)

Regards, Danny

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Hi 'Walesdad'

Twas as welcome as a "Fart in a Spacesuit" if you were a Rock Fan of the time, anyone who tells you any different wasnt there or was born much later. ;)

Regards, Danny

Hello Danny,in 1976 I was 18,so I was there.I was a rock fan at the time,but you could feel that something had to give.

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Hello Danny,in 1976 I was 18,so I was there.I was a rock fan at the time,but you could feel that something had to give.

Hi Walesdad,

You were 18 at the time Punk came in to being, just the right impressionable age to be hoodwinked in to the idea that Punk was needed, it was another Music Fashion unworthy of being called anything other than that, that's my honest and humble opinion anyway.

Yea i know what you mean, but the Rock Fraternity Fans didn't give Punk the time of day, in fact here in London there were running battles between each other, it took another generation to appreciate both Genres together without going to war over it, and I'm as guilty as anyone for that. :yesnod:

Some might say that "Punk gave that Breath of Fresh Air to the Stagnancy of Rock Music" but i didn't think that at the time Rock had become Stagnant, neither did anyone that i knew that was into Rock Music either, and we as a Group never wanted or subscribed to Punk, either Now or Zen, and i know i speak for the majority of the True Ancient Rock Fans, that's if they are Truthful and still have their memories intact. :o

Regards, Danny

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I wasnt there at the time(born in 78) but as I said I think Punks continued good reputation has more to do what followed than the musical output of the first wave. That suddenly unlocked burst of creativity from Joy Division, PiL, Talking Heads, The Clash, The Speicals, Television, etc in the late 70's/early 80's clearly jusified it to me and was really what killed off the lesser names of the previous generation.

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I remember the music of the 70's, particularly as I had 2 brothers who were either side of a decade older than me, but I was to young to really witness rock, disco, & punk first hand but I liked all 3 even then. Really coming to age in the 80's, what I had to contend with was hair metal. I hated it then, I hate it now. I was listening to Zeppelin & The Clash, and quite frankly people my age who were hair metal fans didn't pass a rock/punk judgement on me because they felt that both bands were dinosaurs & that Poison & Motley Crue was where it was at. The 2 subgenres that people my age were listening to were thrash metal & alternative, then called college rock. Metallica & Slayer at one end, The Pixies & REM at the other. I liked both types of music from the very beginning, but as I said I was mainly a Zeppelin/Clash fan. It took the combination of both of those genres in the form of bands like Nirvana to rid the world for good of the Warrants, White Lion's, Slaughter, Vixen, Lita Ford, etc while putting huge dents in Motley Crue & Poison's fanbase. Whether anyone likes Nirvana or "Grunge"(I hate that term as much as New Wave) or not, a change had to come on the rock'n'roll landscape. Sure, it went shitty again after a few years with the emergence of lame brained rap/rock hybrid bands who sucked so bad they destroyed themselves, but there was a good 2-3 years where something exciting was happening in rock again, & it helped if you were a teen or slightly older to appreciate it on that level.

The same resentment I see coming from the generation before mine towards punk, I see with the fans of hair metal bands of my generation towards grunge & alternative bands. You'll see Lita Ford on TV complaining that grunge killed "real" rock bands like herself. Lol, I have to f@*king laugh because when was "Kiss Me Deadly" or "Close My Eyes Forever" considered "real" rock? I missed the memo on that one. I was not a huge fan of grunge at the time, hell I was an American listening to pre-Oasis/Stone Roses influenced BritPop mainly at that time, but grunge/alternative was needed if only to kill off that genre & restore my sanity & faith in basic rock'n'roll. Then Radiohead & Bjork took me to beyond basic rock'n'roll a short time later by expanding on it yet again but without losing the heart of what makes a good song.

Anyway, the same feuds & resentments will always present themselves no matter what year or decade it is. I'm sure there are Elvis fans who still resent The Beatles while forgetting all the crappy Frankie Avalons & Paul Anka's that came between their seperate reigns.

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I don't know if they were mentioned in this thread, but The Velvet Underground were an early influence on Punk proving that it was just a matter of time before it emerged. Also, The Pyschadelic Furs had some notable music coming from the Punk scene. I agree with the comments on thoughtless destruction of historical property, but rockers were doing the same unfortunately....

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