A long time ago, back before The Ramones could count to 4, before the Black Flag so proudly waved, before The Clash had enough rope, before X marked the spot and before the Sex Pistols backfired punk was knocking at the door. Now in 2005 "Punk" is just another genre in your local music emporium. A product to be bought and sold at the local mall.
Even the most suburbanized suburbanite can now take a trip to their local mall and come out two hours later as an Insta-Punk. Just add beer, a little attitude and voila: Dude yer a punk. Just walk the mall, any mall, anywhere U.S.A from Maine to Mississippi, Alaska to Arizona, Nevada to New York and you too can be Punk Rock and I mean it maaaaan. Stop by Hot Topic pick up some creepers, a pair of Docs or some Chuck Taylors, drop into the local hipster hair emporium "Hair 'Tis" or whatever, get pierced, tattoed, pick up some black clothes and a handful of CD's and there ya have it. You are a punk rocker, congratulations.
Well anyway you have the outward trappings of some such a thing. You are an individual, different than everbody else, into something new and hip, not just another jerk in oversized clothes & a backwards baseball cap (speaking of which no one should be allowed to wear but catchers) no, you are walking and talking statement on the vitrues of non-conformity just like the other 7 or 8 million of the non-conformists out there. Punk Rock, shmunk rock. There was a time that I thought it was new, interesting and cutting edge. Well it was new and interesting for a couple of years. But like any other pop culture movement in crashed and burned within a few years of inception in regards to momentum but it did leave behind it an interesting recorded history.
I used to be young once, I think, and loved Punk Rock. I was raised on it, and I was in on what I saw at the time as ground zero. I saw the NY Dolls make their splash, The final death rattle of Raw Power era Stooges, The Stones go from being a parent's nightmare to a band your parents might listen to and a bunch of limeys from across the pond taunt, tease, terrorize and try the patience of any and all who came into contact with them, fans included. Of course, this didn't last long and by the early 80's elements of metal, pop and art rock were coming into the mix diluting Punk in its purest form.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Eric Olsen
very nice HW - I too knew the bride when she used to rock 'n' roll
2 - Bennett
Totally worth reading. I am impressed.
3 - Dave Nalle
Good insights, but as someone who lived through the same era and continued to listen to music, I have to say that I think a stream of genuine punk did live on beyond 1981. There's a lot of pseudo-punk and way too much punk-lite and pop punk, but the real thing is still out there too.
What's your response to bands like Rancid, Social Distortion, Sublime, Dropkick Murphy and even Green Day? Seems to me they tapped into the genuine punk vein in at lest some way.
Dave
4 - Bob
You were spot on with the comment: "In general, marginalized people, angry people, people looking for kindred spirits in dive bars..." That is the early crowd as I remember them (myself included), although in many cases it wasn't bars, but houses, at least in Portland where I first found a home.
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I never realized I was there the night punk died... it seems the crowd that night had a large number of - shall we say - newcomers who ventured north to the Hollyweird scene.
There were several shows in a 3-4 month period around that one which I believe heralded a changing of the guard. Don't get me wrong, OC was like a second home, in fact we are today commonly referred to as being from Huntington Beach, although we were never based anywhere but Hollywood.
---
To this day I carry a souviner from the Polish American Hall gig. I was met going down the side stair case by several LA sheriffs running up it who decided that I needed a night-stick to the belly to clear the way for them. Unfortunately I had surgery two days earlier and they landed a direct hit on the stiches in my belly button , leaving me with a one of a kind half inny / half outty. You really needed to know that didn't you... just thought I'd share.
--Bob
5 - Eric Olsen
I agree with Dave that there was plenty of good punk in the '80s and '90s, but it was music as opposed to any kind of meaningful movement
6 - Cerulean
I was into Punk Rock in the seventies when there there about thirty people in my state that understood it. We all knew each other. We had to make our own punk clothing, makeup and hair dyes. I thought it was going to herald a revolution that would change the world.
7 - Eric Olsen
you mean I missed it?
8 - Cerulean
I'm not sure who Eric's comment is directed at, but if you have to ask, you probably did.
9 - Eric Olsen
it was just a little rib-tickler
10 - wally bangs
Punk probably died when the first mohawk was spotted in my suburban town around the middle of the 80's. When it penetrated that far, the end was near. Great post HW.
11 - HW Saxton
Thanks for all the responses guys it's
nice to be read once in a while.Bob,we
got lucky at The Polish American Hall.
Somehow we didn't get our asses kicked
in by the L.A.P.D.or the Sheriffs dept.
I wasn't so lucky one night at "The Vex"
in East L.A. A group of us were at Jack In The Box up the street on Brooklyn Ave
when several of LA's finest held us for
about half an hour before letting us go.
We had done nothing wrong but looked
like Punks.
We were lined against a wall frisked and
had our feet kicked out from behind us
causing us to fall into the wall face
first ending up with what was basically
road rash down one side of my face and
a decent shiner to boot. Our only crime
was looking like punks.Boots, bandanas,
overcoats you know, the basic Hollywood
punk look. We did get to see the show
though which featured all Chicano punk
bands that night: The Stains,Hey Taxi,
The Undertakers and I believe Saccharine
Trust.Great old venue in an insanely bad
& dangerous neighborhood: Brooklyn Ave &
Soto St. in the heart of Boyle Heights.
I would not go there in the day time at
this point in my life now,much less go &
wander alleys looking for a place to sit
& drink beer before the show in the mid
middle of sat. nite I'm often amazed I'm
here to post this shit out today.
12 - Cerulean
Hmmmm. I'm sorry about that. We didnt' have violence against us where I lived. For one thing, no one knew what the hell we were. There wasn't really violence at the clubs either.
13 - Shark
Great post, Saxman! And it's really refreshing to read your stuff with no weird line breaks!
=========
And just for the record, I WAS A PUNK BEFORE YOU WERE!
(I sported a safety pin when I was in diapers! So there!)
xxoo
Shark
14 - Mark Saleski
great post.
i loved the chaotic (if forced) nature of early punk.
i usedta drive my friends crazy on friday nights listening to the punk show on the campus radio station (this was, i think...1980). it was called 'Decline of the West' and was just friggin' brutal.
i loved every nasty second of it.
there are bits of NuSuburbanPunk that i like, but don't really bother making the comparison to the old stuff.
15 - Shark
BTW: Just a historical note for the cultural illiterates who've never seen a black and white movie -- and think that a 78rpm is really a large, heavy coaster.
It could be argued that Punks owe a bit of debt to some brilliant, subversive old guys such as Charles Ives, Tristan Tzara, Marinetti, Pratella, and the late-great Russolo -- and later, Spike Jones, Raymond Scott, and *John Cage.
*Who can't forget the melody and lyrics to his infamous musical composition "4'33"?!
16 - gonzo marx
just my 2 guilders worth here..
first "punk" ...Buddy Holly..
last Moment of true "Punk" was 1981..Elvis Costello was on Saturday Night Live..he was told by NBC to play "Less than Zero" which is quite subversive in it's own way..but they did NOT want him to play another of his songs, since they owned quite a few radio stations at the time...
the Band came out, and played 2 bars of the song requested...Costello then stopped the band and said into the camera "i'm sorry folks, but that song isn't really relevant" and then broke into "Radio,Radio"...
they played it with balls to the walls abandon...the show went to commercial..and there was NO second song later in the program
Elvis was banned from American Radio for years
to your humble Narrator...that Moment ended Punk and began "New Wave"
your mileage may vary..
(PS..i have a bad copy of that video on my computer)
Excelsior!
17 - HW Saxton
Gonzo,This post was posted prematurely.
It was only about maybe 1/2 way done.In
Pt 2 I'll feature who I think was really
the first rocker to stylistically and to
ideologically hit upon what I feel are
the roots of Punk Rock. Hint: It wasn't
Bobby Fuller,though he is on my list of
proto-punks. It's not Little Richard,I'm
saving him for a history of the roots
of Bling Bling.It's not Buddy either but
I'm a huge fan of his and Bobby Fuller
was also and was as greatly influenced
by Buddy Holly as The Stones were by Mr.
Chuck Berry.Also,Thanx fer reading this
by the way.Much appreciated.
18 - Cerulean
I think that new wave like Elvis Costello is just as subversive, innovative and important as punk. Where I live the same clubs played Punk, New Wave, and Ska. Elvis Costello is a genius.
19 - HW Saxton
Shark,Thanks for giving this the once
over. You couldn't be more right about
the connection to Dada and Surrealism.
The Cleveland punk band Pere Ubu were
directly inspired to start a band after
reading Alfred Jarry's "Ubu Roi" and a
Northern California punk rock band went
and named themselves after my favorite
B & W film of all time by Luis Bunuel:
"Los Olvidados".Which is easily the best
of the films he made during his stay in
Mexico.I think that it's one of the best
films ever anywhere.Period.Wouldn't you
agree? Nothing like a film with a happy
ending. And that's nothing like a happy
ending. LOL!
PS:Some of the greatest 60's punk bands
were all from TX. Elevators,Mouse & The
Traps,Moving Sidewalks,Josephus,Scotty
MacKay,Red Krayola and on and on. So I
won't argue your point on you being a
'punk" before I was. I couldn't imagine
having long hair in Tejas in the 60's.
It must have been very similar to be a
person of color in the Jim Crow South.
20 - Mat
When I recently quizzed a 19 year old female friend I was intrigued to hear her admit that she liked punk music.
You like the dead kennedys?
no
the stooges?
no
henry rollins?
no
Who then?
Avril Lavigne. I knew it was time to change the subject.
21 - Dave Nalle
But don't you think, HW, that at the point where you're reading Brunel, you've already ceased to be punk?
There's a lot of art rock like the Talking Heads or Devo or Pere Ubu or even the Dead Kennedys which piggytailed on the back of Punk in that period right around 1980, but lacked the urban working class ethos that really drove bands like the Buzzcocks and the Clash and the Ramones.
Oh, and Mat - Henry Rollins isn't punk. He may be _a_ punk, but his music isn't punk.
Dave
22 - Mark Saleski
Black Flag isn't punk? hardcore? is there a big difference?
23 - Dave Nalle
Yes, enormous.
Dave
24 - Shark
DaveKnowItAllNalle: "...But don't you think, HW, that at the point where you're reading Brunel, you've already ceased to be punk?"
It's BUNUEL, son. And no, anyone who opened a film with a closeup of a razor blade cutting an eyeball automatically gets inducted into the Punk Hall of Fame.
25 - Eric Berlin
Punk and hardcore are at least close cousins of one another. Thus the term "hardcore punk."
A friend of mine used to mildly scoff at the "light punk" I listened to at the time (NOFX, The Damned, Suicide Machines) as compared to his scene, which was more on the Downset, Sevendust, and a whole bunch of metal stylings. I like the comparison of light punk and hardcore punk anyway.
I also really love Downset's first album, as an aside.