it's early in the day, so i'll only raise my coffee cup to link wray, without whom we would not have had the power chord. without "rumble", the history of rock and roll would have taken a very different direction.
http://www.legacy.com/nytimes/LegacySubPage2.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=15735553
thank you, link, for poking those holes in your amp so many years ago.
hard to say, rock music might be more tolerable if he didnt do what he did.
and he was also responsible for the fuzztone, which i love even more than the power chord.
obviously, both have been horribly misused.
i'm of the opinion that one can only define or undefine oneself as punk.
as long as these bands are happy with what they're doing, that's just fine.
i liked good charlotte before the 14-year-old girls of america went crazy over their second album. i continue to like their music, though the latest album does feel like they turned up the emo dial a bit. are they punk? whatever. i like their music.
Quote from: hattmoward on November 25, 2005, 01:52:18 PM
i'm of the opinion that one can only define or undefine oneself as punk.
Well, then Barry Manilow could call himself punk, and while I respect The Barry, I think we can agree he is not punk.
I think punk has to do more with an attitude towards established systems then anything else. At least modern punk does, to me. It doesn't have to be Ramones-esque. Yeah, definitely attitude and actions, over genre specifically. But I guess that's how I see it.
Good Charlotte to me is harmless. But they are part of a larger, younger collective who claim to be "punk" when they are very much part of the same system that spawned Britney and The Spice Girls. They're on MTV, claiming to be punk. I'm of the opinion that you can't be on MTV and still be punk. A real punk rocker would loathe MTV.
I don't know. I think Nishi would cover this much better.
It seems there's a Wiki for just about everything these days. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk_(music)
Quote from: Beefy on November 25, 2005, 12:12:30 PM
Quote from: Mr. Ubiquity on November 25, 2005, 11:48:17 AM
Quote from: nishi on November 25, 2005, 11:44:31 AM
Quote from: Beefy on November 25, 2005, 11:34:57 AM
Quote from: Mr. Ubiquity on November 25, 2005, 10:45:38 AM
however, green hair and mascara around the eyes doesnt make you punk.
*cough*good charlotte*cough*
*cough*also not punk*cough*
sid, ramones are the only ones i would consider truely punk.. but then i never truely considered punk in any manner...
Ooo, new question? Who was punk? Who could reasonably be called punk now?
first, i would say that punk was originally not about a specific musical style, although it was certainly either very loud or very much in your face or both - its roots are often credited to iggy pop and the stooges, lou reed and the velvet underground, jonathan richman and the modern lovers, and the new york dolls. those bands and performers have very little in common musically, but a lot in commn socially, artistically, and politically. musically, lou reed demonstrated that you didn't have to be able to sing; jonathan richman that you could sing about pretty much anythng, including chewing gum wrappers; iggy pop proved that audiences would actually tolerate it if you spit on them (mr. pop offered much more than that, but we'll that as it is for now), and the new york dolls proved that you didn't have to play an instrument well - that style alone could carry you a very long way. all those things informed punk rock.
it was also about breaking away from the endless prog and corporate rock of the 70s. see earlier notes on "why i hate led zepplin'....
as a result, there are lots of early punk bands that sound very different from one another. whatever message punk rock had was originally part of several counterculture responses to facets of a society that obviously was no longer even trying to measure up their actions to their words.. some punk music was actively anarchic - the sex pistols, MC5, and stiff little fingers, for instance. richard hell of richard hell and the voidoids said that what he set out to do was to demonstrate that you could reinvent yourself (i looked hard for this quote!) "If you just amass the courage that is necessary, you can completely invent yourself. you can be your own hero, and once everybody is their own hero, then everybody is gonna be able to communicate with each other on a real basis rather than a hand-me-down set of societal standards." richard also wrote a song titled (I Belong to the) Blank Generation, and that theme became a pretty important one. and if you don't belong to a generation - you don't have to follow their rules.
the ramones most important contribution to punk rock, beyond the enormous catalogue of 120 second songs, played even faster live, was how their music communicated that anyone that wanted to be in a band could be. that it was about going out and playing. there might well be no clash without the ramones.
and - the titles of the albums of the sex pistols and the titles of some of their songs - you have to remember that we had not moved into an era where nothing was sacred, like now. *plenty* of things were sacred then. "give me convenience or give me death", "plastic surgery disasters/in god we trust", "frankenchist", "bedtime for democracy", "california uber alles", "a child and his lawnmower", "religious vomit" and "nazi punks fuck off"... people did not name things in these ways at the time. i mean - he called himself jello biafra. BIAFRA.
so - who was punk? all those guys i mentioned up there. patti smith. the damned. the buzzcocks,the vibrators,the germs, the sonices, the rezillos,the adverts, wire, the circle jerks, mission of burma, bad brains, black flag, gang of four, the meat puppets, the minutemen, pere ubu, husker du (they do my favorite cover song ever - the theme song from the mary tyler moore show).... i'm sure i'm missing plenty. there are plenty of early punk bands that all contributed something unique to the genre.
listen to 'god save the queen' or 'anarchy in the uk' (actually johnny rotten's sneering laugh at the beginning of 'anarchy' could sum up the whole thing),, 'alternative ulster' or 'suspect device', 'holiday in cambodia' or 'too drunk to fuck','something's gone wrong again','rock and roll nigger','that's how i escaped my certain fate', 'world up my ass', 'judy is a punk'.
who's punk now? for me, that would start with anyone that is actively working against the mainstream musical and social cultures, anyone who is brave enough to completely reinvent themselves personally and musically, and anyone that doesn't worry about how things *sound* as long as they *rock*. someone with something worthwhile and possibly ugly and probably funny to say.
which is why green day doesn't come close to qualifying. because in their songs they whine about not having a girlfriend and because they have fucked up hair and because he feigns a slight british accent... fuck them. i'm not sure i have heard anyone that qualifies as punk here in the US, but i've not been listening that closely. japan is where new punk is being made, and frankly, there's so little that i understand about asian culture that it's hard to know how the counterculture speaks there. but, in terms of japanese music, i'd say guitar wolf, melt banana, 00I00, and boredoms.
if you're still reading, i found this, which sums up what i was trying to say much better than i was saying it:
"It doesn't take a Masters degree for someone with relevant life experiences to understand and appreciate the sarcasm of the Fugs, or the self-honesty of the Velvet Underground, or the crude exuberance of the Stooges. Above all, punk offered a cure for boredom. It offered an escape route for kids who weren't allowed to participate within commercial culture. Who would have wanted to participate, with suckers paying atrocious prices to peek at the tediously bloated rock-star attitudes of bands like Pink Floyd and Yes? Consumer voyeurism is much more offensive to punk sensibilities than song themes about addiction or slaughtering dolls onstage.
Punk gives the message that no one has to be a genius to do it him/herself. Punk invented a whole new spectrum of do-it-yourself projects for a generation. Instead of waiting for the next big thing in music to be excited about, anyone with this new sense of autonomy can make it happen themselves by forming a band. Instead of depending on commercial media, from the big papers and television to New Musical Express and Rolling Stone, to tell them what to think, anyone can create a fanzine, paper, journal or comic book. With enough effort and cooperation they can even publish and distribute it. Kids were eventually able to start their own record labels too. Such personal empowerment leads to other possibilities in self-employment and activism."
or, as MC5 put it, "kick out the jams, motherfucker!!"
Good, I was going to mention New York Dolls, and didn't out of fear, but now I feel validated.
If they are/were still together, I'd say one act that definitely exemplifies the punk attitude is/was Godspeed You Black Emperor.
Quote from: Beefy on November 25, 2005, 04:31:48 PM
Good, I was going to mention New York Dolls, and didn't out of fear, but now I feel validated.
If they are/were still together, I'd say one act that definitely exemplifies the punk attitude is/was Godspeed You Black Emperor.
the new york dolls were really interesting, since they helped start both punk *and* glam. but that's another story....
sounds like i need to hear some godspeed you black emperor!