f13.net

First, it's not dead.   :grin:

Second, is anyone else fuckin' sick of the bullshit that passes for punk these days?  Whatever happened to punk trying to offend people?  Punk is supposed to be fucking obnoxious and sound shitty.  For example, my one of my favorite bands of all time:  The Misfits.  Except for Danzig's singing and writing, what a group of shitty musicians, but I fucking love it!  What about the Sex Pistols songs like Bodies?  About a "fucking bloody mess" of an abortion.

We went from Black Flag, Misfits, Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys to fucking Sum 41?

(http://www.softshoe-slim.com/covers2/r/ramones01.jpg)

I don't have to say anything else.

It went from a socio-political statement centered on anarchy and culture-jamming to a "sound" and "image" that could be packaged, polished, and sold in a box.  Of course it became a sad joke on itself.  For crying out loud, it's closing on 40 years old, the original punks who aren't dead are ready to make commercial endorsements for AARP and Depends.

--Dave

When I started hearing Iggy Pop songs in commercials is when I knew that the apocalypse wasn't far off.

It went from being a bunch of kids learning to play on stage, and making DIY records, to slick production facilities, and sound engineers and the like.  Then MTV got their mitts on it, and we got Green Day.  There's still some good stuff out there, though.

Stiff Little Fingers, Blink 182. Both are apparently punk bands....

Roentgen - what's your age?  Have you heard of a recent film called American Hardcore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Hardcore_(film))?  I thought it was an excellent look back at the glorious early 80s hardcore punk scene.  Worth a look if you're at all interested.  I'll paraphrase one seminal quote from it...

"Rock and roll?  Stadium shows and lights and groupies and money, right?  People would ask me why I was fucking around with this punk rock shit, like how could I ever reach the top of the mountain that way.  I was like, no man, you don't understand... the people I'm with, we're trying to level the mountain."

Oh, and Bad Brains ftw.

So, it's not dead then?

Dude...

It's dead.  Way dead.  REALLY fucking dead.

Also, good riddance.

Punk was about sucking on purpose.  It was fun to piss off your parents.  Now we have kids, and we don't want to be pissed off.  Hence, no punk.  Also, kids who want to listen to music in order to piss off their parents listen Lil Wayne. 

The idea that it was necessarily about "anarchy" or culture jamming or sucking or any one thing is true the death of punk... And that happened long, long ago. Avril Lavigne or Blink 182 didn't kill anything. They're just dancing on a rotting corpse.

The first punk bands spanned the gamut of "statements" and sounds. The thing they had in common was the term Cadaverine said: "DIY". Other than that, early bands could range from the raucous and hedonistic (the Stooges, the Dead Boys, the Germs, Richard Hell); to artsy, poetic, and romantic (Velvets, Television, Patti Smith, Modern Lovers, X, Replacements, Siouxsie, Talking Heads, Buzzcocks); to juvenile, nostalgic, and fun (the Dolls, the Ramones, the Avengers, Richard Hell, the Cramps, the Misfits); to political (MC5, Clash, Pistols, Dead Kennedys).

There were so many different approaches on all fronts, and it died the minute bands started just doing Johnny Rotten impressions and intentionally sucking at their instruments (when, in the original case, some early punk or "protobunk" bands had virtuosos in them... guys like John Cale. While Tom Verlaine, Richard Lloyd, and Greg Sage are "guitar gods" just as much as anyone). When it became about posing and style, mohawks and safety pins, then that was the death of punk. The politics of the early bands could be anything from non-existent to rabidly left-wing to anarchic. And suprisingly, some of these musicians were even conventionally conservative (Johnny Ramone, for instance was a staunch Republican his whole life. And he loved Reagan).

Kids are too busy playing tiny plastic instruments to start bands in garages. Punk didn't "sound bad on purpose," it was just raw and unproduced.

Dude.  The only punk band in the history of history was the Sex Pistols.  Their message?  Pretty much kill yourself.  They were an awesome spectacle to watch, and everyone was like "whoa, wtf."  But then one of them actually did kill himself, and everyone was like, "lame."  That's the second punk died.  It proved that while it was new and crazy at the time, it was also very wrong.  Being dead isn't really awesome.  The reason that punk died?  Because nobody can really top that.  Nobody can ever go as far as the Sex Pistols, because in order to go farther than them, you'd actually have to kill yourself, then come back to life and say, "God said I was right about Anarchy."  Then do it again. 

Everything else is just derivative shit.  Except The Clash, who while mildly derivative, weren't shit.

...raw and unproduced on purpose.

I guess your definition of "bad" and my defintion are different.

This discussion is always fun.  Everyone likes to label everything and proclaim how one scene is more badass or more "dead" than another.  A good song is a good song, whether it requires 20 years of training to be able to play or 20 seconds to pick up the 2 chord changes.  If anything died, it was because the songs and music sucked, regardless of genre.  And it didn't "suck" by being underproduced or devoid of complexity, there is a major difference between a good song with shitty production and lousy musicianship and a bad song with slick production and the backing of a gozillion dollar empire.  Just like a shitty song with shitty production and no talent behind it is still a shitty song, even if you throw money at it there is no guarantee of making it not suck.

Nah, I'm talking about punk as an ideology.  I really could care less about the music.  I like some of it.  The Clash in particular.  But most of it, i think tries to follow the Sex Pistol's ideology of anarchy or death, and fails to follow through on the death part.

It wasn't on purpose. They were poor. Most of them simply couldn't afford studio time. Some could, or eventually could, and they didn't shy away from taking advantage of making quality recordings. Sounding like shit wasn't an actual goal in itself. It was circumstantial.

As for the Pistols, they were on the EMI label from the getgo (they even tell you so (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reWCEa7jEcM&feature=related)), and out of most of these bands, came late to the scene, and had an image that was largely manufactured. Malcolm McLaren was a fashion junky who hung around NYC when earlier punk bands were playing. He went back to the UK, opened a "punk" clothing shop, adopted some kids, and made them all look and act like Richard Hell.

A real DIY release was Television's Little Johnny Jewel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFkQq_UpLwU). These dudes had no support, and were flat broke. They didn't even have fucking amps! They were plugged straight into some shitty PA (it's why the guitars sound so goofy in that link). They were the ones who first opened CBGB's, and only convinced the owner to have bands by literally building the stage for him. The minute they got some capital though, they could churn out highly technical guitar tracks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL1lfnlxZkA) that sounded more upbeat and whimsical than a Petula Clark song.

I would suggest, based upon this comment, that you don't know very much about the genre.

Dude, Leadbelly was poor.  He still managed to use coat hangers and duct tape to make recordings that although they sound like ass, are musically good.  Punk was never about musicianship.  I know there are exceptions to the rule.


Oh, you're totally right.  And I don't really care.  I know why it's dead though.  That's all I'm saying. 

But still, a shitton of post 70's punk is Sex Pistols derivative.  Arguably all of it.  It may be a crime against humanity that this is the case, but it is.

That I agree with.

Always good to categorically opine about stuff you don't know anything about.

Oh, come on guy.  I clearly know more than nothing.

There's a difference between 'punk ethic' and 'punk media label'. Fall Out Boy, and Good Charlotte fit the latter - its an imitation of a sound, mass produced by the major labels. It's the antithesis of the ethic. Punk grew out of artists who were unable to get their voices heard. They made their own tapes and records, distributed them by hand, sold their music in bars and markets. Almost anybody who doesn't fit the current narrow-focus industry has to do a similar thing today. The irony is that anybody who sounds like the most well known 'punk rock' bands - those who were picked up by the major labels - doesn't have to. The punk ethic is still alive today among many avant-garde artists, but if you also want it to sound like the popular 'punk rock' artists of the mid to late 70s, you're missing the point.

This happens to most genres of music I think, what is true here for Punk is equally true for Hip-Hop for example, and probably true for other genres with which I am less familiar. There may be a few good artists amongst the homogenized mass-market stuff, but most of the quality stuff is well in the past.

Anyone who considers The Clash part of the punk ethic doens't really know much about the Clash's members, who by and large were middle class posers. Strummer went to private boarding school and poncy art colleges. Mick Jones too went to a rather august civil servant school called The Strand.

Lets face it, Punk had even less moral authority than the 60s hippy movement. Anyone nostalgic for reasons of cultural enrichment or long-lost altruism is barking up the wrong tree.

I agree with that, but I don't know if you can leave out the purposeful self-destructiveness that was part of the ethic.  When fans started judging music based on a perceived level of 'hardcore,' it just spelled disaster.  And how do you know how hardcore a band is?  Well how far underground did you find them?  And while the original punk bands couldn't get paid, and were somewhat altruistic in getting their misguided message out.  It wasn't the case for more than a few years, which made everyone after that hypocrites to fans for playing music they liked because it became popular.  And you can't be punk and popular.  And you can't be in an unpopular band and eat actual food.  So you're in a band on the road and you're poor intentionally.  All signs point to trailer-park meth bender.  It's like the circle of death.

I know there are still bands who play punk music.  There are still bands that do barbershop quartet.  It's dead man.  Lil Wayne.  Embrace your new overlord.


I said I liked The Clash.  I didn't say they were Part of the Ethic. 

Also, I'm pretty much saying that any long-lost altruism wasn't culturally enriching for more than a few minutes and that's why it's dead.

This is pretentious and retarded.  Were you around during this time period?  Just curious.

Sucks.

What makes folks think that punk rockers cannot be middle class art school graduates? The press. The punk ethic has nothing to do with being a 'working class hero'. The 'self destuctiveness' and indeed the whole 'authenticity' stuff was a fabrication of the media, and the record companies who fed them. Punk is about doing your thing, no matter what others think. Which is why I love it when progressive rock fans bemoan punk rock as being a reaction against the pomposity of progressive rock, and how they were untalented musicians kicking down the establishment of classical influenced rock. That's what it became when EMI bought in and wanted a sales pitch. Prior to the commercialization of 'punk rock', punk was Peter Hammill, Gong, Magma. Brilliant musicians who created dissonant music for artistic purposes, not because they were shit.

I think Joe kicks ass. Damn soulful voice, killer grooves. And the Clash are one of the British "punk" bands from the period that didn't rest on one sound. They did their own thing, kept getting more proficient over time, and were closer to the original spirit of it than most. They kick off with Clash City Rockers, covered reggae tunes like Police and Thieves, move on to catchy pop songs like Train in Vain, unclassifiable tunes like Rock the Casbah, and then solo-wise, Joe, much like David Byrne, moved into a more "World" music direction, touching base everywhere (Johnny Appleseed is a damn good song, for one). I don't care if he grew up privileged. His songs were good. Besides, as I've said, I don't see how Punk was about having any moral authority to begin with. Moral authority with music maybe, but otherwise, the politics were across the board.

Punk got bought, pure and simple. The last great punk album was Dookie and it got mass-spun to shit. Punk was already walking with a limp before that. Once the big record companies got involved and actually wanted their money back, punk's days were numbered.

Actually, it got bought and sold twice.  :awesome_for_real:

It's an interesting story (to me anyways). There's the first wave, the stuff we're talking about above -- like the Ramones and the Stooges, where record companies were pretty enthusiastic about cashing in at first -- but after all the excess and self destruction (like Sid), everything imploded. Then....supposedly, what few punk bands that were still around and had a less abrasive sound, were marketed as "New Wave" (I forget the studio exec that first coined the term, but it was all very intentional). Some went full on pop, like Blondie. Other bands were dropped.

After this, you get the entire 80's underground. "Alternative/indie/college rock", whatever you want to call it -- it was still basically the same old punks -- just musicians doing their thing the way they wanted to. Many of them were fantastic. Dino Jr., Ian MacKeye, Big Black, etc., etc.. No major label wanted them though, and none of these bands wanted a major label after seeing what happened before anyways.

Fast forward towards the end of the 80's, and some of these bands start warming up again. Particularly Husker Du and the Pixies. Then Sonic Youth signed with David Geffen (there was also bands like Jane's Addiction and RHCP, who were happy being on major labels, but didn't quite breakthrough until later). These were the few bands that were popular enough for wide distribution, needed a major outlet, but not quite so popular as to compete with, say, Bon Jovi. Labels wanted them merely to fill in the spaces.

Then.... Sonic Youth convinced a little band named Nirvana to sign with Geffen, and that pretty much changed everything for every other underground band. Bands like X who were around way back in the Ramones days started getting cash handed to them to make a new album. Nobodies were getting signed just because they fit the bill somewhat. Hell, even the Butthole Surfers actually started selling more than, say, 2 copies of their albums. It was actually kind of cool at first (to me) - just to see these people become a little more accessible, with music videos and shit.

Then Cobain died like another stupid cliche, and dragged everyone along with him. Some good bands sustained through it, but for the most part, punk was dead again, and replaced with an image of it.

You missed the rise and decline of the SST stable in there, but a good summary.

   Whenever someone mentions Husker Du, it reminds me of Mould's project after that "Sugar", which is *still* two of my all time favorite albums.  And I'm definitely not an 80's alternative fan.  That shit just rocked.

  Also, there's still some "social commentary" punk bands floating around, they're few and far between, "Naked Aggression", "Strike Anywhere", "Strung Out", "Rise Against".  I always enjoyed the political and social messages more than the music itself.  Someone saying the things I wanted to say when I was a teenager, and something to believe in I suppose.

  It's kind of ironic that when you're unempowered you have all sorts of grand ideas of life, and change, and the things you think should be different.  And then once you grow up and have the ability to actually make those changes, they're really not quite as important as you thought they were.  Who the fuck cares if people eat meat?  I've got rent to pay, and if selling dead cows pays the bills, praise be to cow eating!

Just my .02

I'm trying to say that it was pretentious and retarded.  And I'm 34.  You're whole thing here is just an example of what I'm talking about.  I don't know enough about the intricacies of the genre for you, and I'm therefore not qualified to speak about its philosophy.  I'm in essence, not hardcore enough.  I'm not punk rock because instead of being fucked up on heroin in a New York hotel with Sid Vicious in 1979, I was in Mrs. Myers kindergarten class.  And you're right.  I'm not hardcore.  But being that hardcore in the first place just demonstrates what a twat whistle you are for spending your time devoted to an ideal that was monumentally stupid.  So I win by default.

And I agree with Righ, but I still don't think you can separate the whole Sid and Nancy image from punk rock's ethic.  Punk is definitely what you say it is.  But it is also this.  For better or worse, whether it was MTV, or suits, or whatever, that's what most people think of when someone says punk.  I think of Sid Vicious in a gutter.  I think of the bullshit philosophy that led him there.  I think of every teenage douche bag who saw that movie and wanted to be him and started scribbling little A for anarchy symbols on his Trapper Keeper. 

Sid was about doing it his way too, remember?  As I said, I know that's sad.  But that's the way it is.

If I was in a modern punk band, I imagine I'd be pretty tired of that whole moniker too.  I might just play upstrokes and call myself a ska band.  But everyone would still call me punk and ask me where my mohawk and leather jacket are, commending me on allowing my trumpet-playing friend a spot in the band.

Yeah, that sucks... It's true that there's an image associated with punk -- but in actuality, it's counter-productive to the whole thing. None of that shit was supposed to matter. Patti Smith or Iggy looked like typical long haired rockers. The New York Dolls and Wayne/Jayne County were dressed in drag. The Bad Brains were all black Rastas. The Ramones and Fred Sonic Smith had the whole chili bowl thing going on. Television looked like short haired schoolboys. Henry Rollins had long hair during his whole time in Black Flag (speaking of which, here's a hilarious interview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_3g4QPojMc) of Henry from back then. "We don't play for you. We play for us."). [edit] Eh, the context of that interview was that BF started slowing down in their later albums, getting real sludgy. People started bitching that it was metal, and not "punk" enough. Henry was telling them all to fuck off.

I'm a big fan of punk but I think the best thing to come out of it was post punk art rock - Bauhaus, Talking Heads, Siouxsie, Sisters etc. Good punk was the stuff with a message even if the musicianship wasn't up to the band's aspirations - SLF, The Police, The Clash, The Undertones. People who just wanted to sound like the Pistols were missing the point massively.

This phrase here is exactly why this whole discussion is fucking ridiculous. I don't know what this phrase means. But the bands you listed are all bands I like (except the Sisters who I couldn't fucking stand and Andrew Eldritch was a tosser and I really wished I'd elbowed him in the head when I had the chance) that have been variously described as Rock, Gothic, Post-punk, Industrial,  Alternative and so on.  Nine Inch Nails - are they (is he) rock, electronica, nu-metal, alternative, pop or country?  Foetus: industrial, experimental or punk? Einstuerzende Neubauten: Avant-Garde or neo-post-industrial-anti-minimalist-hardcore-thrash-popism?

Labels are for losers.

(Unless, you know, it's labelling a pill bottle as cyanide so you don't confuse it with codeine in which case, label are for sensible clever people)

Andrew 'I don't like goths because they have made up names' Eldritch is indeed a tosser. Post punk art rock isn't a genre or a label, it's just a way to describe a whole raft of different musical styles and directions that took punk as their starting point rather than blues or jazz for example.

Just to give a serious "hipster" answer:

Post punk is a category for "bands that were punk, yet weren't quite playing out traditional rock formulas; truly 'alternative' rock bands, but too experimental to fall in the actual 'alternative' category -- because alternative is now synonymous with shit like Third Eye Blind and Ugly Kid Joe; and not quite 'indie' either -- because indie is now synonymous with some dipshit on myspace".

Or alternatively, bands that are every bit of punk, but called "post-punk" because critics simultaneously want to retain the "punk", yet want to state that these bands are too cool to be in associated with what it has become.  :oh_i_see:

I'm not suggsting that you aren't "hardcore" enough.  I'm suggesting that you are uninformed and therefore making statements that make no sense or are incredibly simplistic.

Most of those categories, or "genres" were just labels made up by pretentious music journos and industry "professionals" to make it easier to write about shit they don't know anything about.  A bit like here, really.   (http://www.zomgstuff.net/forum/images/smilies/emot-jerkbag.gif)

The whole idea of "punk" is really tough for me to wrap my head around and I was alive during that era.  Unfortunately, my music industry experience was in the early 80's (was a signed and working recording artist), so I missed being a part of the early stages.  It's not one of those things you can read about or watch a documentary about and really understand well.  I think that point has been made in this thread already but bears some reinforcement. 

I always used to think of the Who as being punk pioneers, but what the hell do I know?

You know lots and I know you know you know lots!

... independent music distribution - in Britain, The Cartel (Rough Trade, Beggars Banquet, et al) and The Chain With No Name. It took self-destruction by the major labels (selling discounted, returnable CDs to supermarkets) to finally undo some of what was done here.

You forget Green Day's role in all this. Dookie was an incredibe punk album before MTV got a hard-on for it, as was the Breeders album that came out at the same time (the one with Cannonball). But when MTV put Dookie into such heavy rotation, it absolutely killed punk. Everybody had to follow the Green Day formula and the shit just got really old. I can't even listen to that album anymore because of how much it was played.

Cobain's death just made sure he couldn't put out anymore good music.

Is it a characteristic of punk that if it is picked up by MTV it somehow loses its punkness? Cuz that's what I'm hearing you say about Dookie. Or are you saying that there were a slew of poor imitators that tarnished the hallowed Punk halo around Green Day's head? No lo comprendo.

There were a raft of shabby imitation bands(Hi Blink 182!) and after the 5000th time you've heard Longview in one day, you're pretty much saturated, and sick of that sound, making the shabby knockoffs that follow even more intolerable.

Also, MTv is in bed with the major labels in making anything and everything music related mass marketable.

No. Always was, and always will be POP-PUNK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_punk). (because  Wikipedia is definitive!, but no, really, they always were, not punk, pop-punk)

I don't mind MTV... Not as a rule, I mean. I like music videos.

If a band sucks, it usually comes come down to two things. 1) You set about with doing nothing but posturing from the getgo. Or 2) You had one or two good first albums, then signed a contract that obligates/or forces things upon you for subsequent albums. i.e. You're "forced" to issue out an album by this or that deadline -- nothing worse than being put in a room and told to "write"; you're not getting enough time for yourself; you're forced to work with this or that guy, etc.. That hampers the creative process. You start going in auto-pilot mode and crank out shit. Then your contract expires, and you decide to disappear forever.

As for Green Day, I think they're still pretty cool. And yes, it's pop punk. No different than, say, the Go-Go's really. They're tailor made for getting a lot of airplay.

They are in one sense (along with garage rock in general).... If you define "punk" only in terms of sound. But like we're saying, it was never about any one sound. Just approach.

I will use Patti Smith (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3coSfks4rQ), for example. She was one of the first of these musicians to get a major label LP out. She's generally considered the "Godmother of Punk" or some shit. Yet, she sounds nothing like the Who. Or anything close to what the kids these days define as "punk", for that matter. A lot of her stuff teeter totters between street poet beatnik shit or hippie bands like Jefferson Airplane. She also had this whole stream of consciousness thing going on like Jim Morrison. She was just another rock musician really... But one that was reclaiming a lot of aggression that was lost in the 70's (she wasn't Stevie Nicks, for one).

They defied convention (i.e. destroying gear on stage).  That's what I considered punk about the Who.  Raw music, rebelious themes, and aggression that was against the establishment (My generation, etc.)

Oh, I thought you were just talking about songs.

I didn't mean to ignore Pete's proclivity to destroy perfectly fine Les Paul guitars.  :grin:

[edit] Anyhoo, yes... The Who qualify. As do most bands. That's pretty much my point. It's all just rock -- same basic lineage. And all the "punks" were trying to do with give it it's heart back. Sound-wise though, they expressed that in many different ways.

This happens over and over again. Shit stagnates. Elvis leaves for the Army, Buddy Holly dies, and guys like "Fabian" take over. You always need a Bobby D and the British Invasion to come in and shake things up again. Rinse. Repeat.

I'm 27.  Sounds like a sweet movie.  I'll check it out fo' sho'.

I agree, BB FTW.

The Year That Punk Broke is also an interesting flick focusing on 1991 and the transition of punk into "grunge" although I don't know if it is out on DVD.

The other movie that goes well with the Year Punk Broke is "Hype!" - the aftermath. Totally hilarious.

Henry didn't always have long hair. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5ZKEuRrR3E

Ah yeah.. Think he cut it when he came in, then grew it again. Not that it matters. My only point is that he's just another rocker. I believe his favorite band was the Stooges, and after that... Led Zeppelin.

That wasn't a "YOU'RE WRONG, HE SHAVED HIS HEAD, U THINK U NO BUT U DONT" thing.

I really just wanted to post it cuz it's a sweet video.   :grin:

EDIT:

I just read the entire thread.

My interpretation of "punk" is to be yourself no matter what.  If you fucking like polyester pants and pocket protectors and you like the tape on your glasses, say fuck you to anyone who gives you shit for it and kick 'em in the nuts. 

It's not an image.  It's not a political ideology.  The people that think it IS and image and ideology are dead wrong.

:grin:

I don't think it is completely unfair to describe at least some punk as bad on purpose. The movement as a whole devalued musicianship as a deliberate response to prog. That isn't a value judgement.

Prog wasn't that important to merit an entire genre of responses to it.

Besides, punks were just songwriters first and foremost. As is the case with popular music in general. The name of the game was never musicianship in the first place, so why all of the sudden would it be some thing only held against them, or some thing they were lashing out against? Why isn't Johnny Cash guilty of the same thing then? He was just as sparse.

In rock, you're considered pretty good if you can simply express yourself well with a good song, nothing more -- yet, that's the really the hardest thing. That's where musicianship really lies, whether you're a virtuoso or not.

If I wrote this people would say I was trolling, how come you get away with it?  :-)

(http://www.millan.net/minimations/smileys/upherebl.gif)


That, or people just hate you! Take your pick  :-)

I don't know.  Do you write things like that?  I meant it, too.

I have a lot of time for NOFX.

They wrote a song about what happened to punk: Separation of Church and Skate (http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=krZyeldj7tQ) (listen to what they are singing, the video is an amateur job).

Their anti-Bush stuff (http://www.bushflash.com/idiot.html) is clever too.

And then there's The Idiots Are Taking Over (http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=TOPJ90FRZHI).

And Regaining Unconsciousness (http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=gU5gA6IcIpk). The following is genius:

"Looks like witches are in season
You better fly your flag and be aware
Of anyone who might fit the description
Diversity is now our biggest fear
Now with our conversations tapped
And our differences exposed
How you supposed to love your neighbor
With our minds and curtains closed?
We used to worry about Big Brother
Now we've got a Big Father
And an even bigger mutha"

The pop attempt by Green Day to deliver the same message was nice music, but as punk it was fail.

Punk rock to me, can not be packaged. Its a local scene, its local bands, its politically or adolescently charged subject matter. Its a transition period for the youth trying to find its way, or an identity diffrent from the conformist (even if its conformity of a diffrent kind).

You wont find it in stores, you'll find it at local shows, or maybe you can get a copy of some songs slapped onto a record able CD for 5$ or a few beers.

I also maintain that THIS is punk (http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=U0QWTHKeezQ) evolved from The Clash etc.

Maybe watch them do it live (http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=W30dBca4LpM) and you'll see what I mean. Terrible sound quality, but even the fire alarm goes off.

Doherty's certainly more punk than the actual "genre" of punk. So is Jack White.

And by that I mean they're just playing good, honest rock music.  :-)

I'm not saying that prog is the only thing that caused punk rock, but I think you're underestimating just how prevalent it was in the early 70s. Heck, Dark Side of the Moon is still one of the top 5 or 6 best selling albums of all time. And yes, Pink Floyd is definitely prog.

Re: your Johnny Cash point, no I wouldn't consider him 'guilty' of the same thing (remember I am not making a value judgement here, so guilty doesn't feel like the right word to use to me). Sparse production (and there is actually plenty of Cash material out there that is plenty produced) is not the same thing as not knowing or caring if you know how to play your instrument. You can bet that if Luther Perkins fucked up a take, they would redo it. You can't say the same for many punk outfits. I'm also not suggesting that all punk bands have that characteristic, especially if you're going to use a big umbrella and include New Wave bands and other offshoot movements, but it is undeniably part of punk.

As for if it is dead or not, it isn't. You can't just go to iTunes and put 'punk' in the search window and expect to come up with anything other than a band using punk as a marketing term, but you can find 'real' punk bands in any local urban music scene in the US, certainly.

Labels are also for musicologists (and I will admit there is probably a high degree of overlap between the two groups.) Point being, though, the way one group of people (record companies and marketing folks in general) use labels devalues them for this kind of discussion, but they do have a good use and a reason to exist nonetheless.

(No I am not a practicing musicologist, I moved on to IT because I'm lazy.)

Yeah. I loved Dookie until about the fifteen billionth time I'd heard those same songs. Nirvana had the same problem. MTV took coolness and packaged and oversaturated it until the people who are the audience get sick of the band. Then suddenly all these guys have to live down the fact that they not only sold millions of albums, but some asshole in a suit who doesn't even like their music is expecting them to do it again.

Well, the only person I can think of who had a problem with Pink Floyd was Johnny Rotten. He also said Fuck the Beatles. He also said Fuck the Sex Pistols.  :-P

Basically, he was a cunt in general (then turned around and surprised everyone with PiL).

The Ramones did suck, no doubt... But they never trashed good musicians. You never heard any of them say a bad thing about Hendrix, for example. I heard one interview, I guess, where Joey said that most of them were just tired of shit like Boston.

I keep mentioning Television..and for good reason. Tom Verlaine is not only a better guitarist than your average punk, but he's a better guitarist than most of those in prog bands too! He's consistently voted one of the top guitarists of all time in either guitar magazines or mainstream music mags. His talent is apparent in well produced albums like Marquee Moon, or in bootlegs (http://homepage.mac.com/kthompsen/music/little_johnny_jewel.mp3) (seriously, listen to all of that song). Some dipshit kid could say that the guy was "too good" to ever be called a punk, but like I said before, this is the man who built the stage at cbgb's. The whole "scene" would have been completely different without people like him.

The list goes on. Whether it was these original NY bands, or later LA bands (Billy Zoom and East Bay Ray didn't suck either).

Well, when we get into Television we get into the issue of whether we're talking about punk as an actual musical genre (in a structural sense), or as the larger cultural movement. Strictly speaking I would not describe Television's music as punk, any more than I would Talking Heads or Blondie, even though all 3 were part of the overall punk scene.

You may commence making fun of the music nerd at any time!  :uhrr:

EDIT: BTW thanks for that link, that is a fantastic track.

Oh, I'm the music nerd myself. Many of us in this thread are musicians too. Don't worry.  :grin:

Anyhow, my presence in this thread has consistently been about the idea that I don't think "punk" has anything to do with music structure. Just general approach. So I would disagree with you. Who better to define punk than the scene the entire thing was built upon?

That said, when they first popped up earlier in the 70's, they actually were more in line with writing "typical punk song structures", I guess. Double Exposure's (http://homepage.mac.com/kthompsen/music/double_exposure.mp3) one example. This would have been the kind of thing you heard before they kicked Richard Hell out.

Well, I think there is room for both meanings, as long as you're clear what you're talking about when you get started. It isn't as tainted a term as "alternative" for example.

This thread is pretty funny imo. I don't like to argue about genres, it's pretty silly. My favorite "punk" bands were probably Fear, DRI, Accused, CoC, Dianno Maiden and the Butthole Surfers. Most of them aren't punk. Hell, my band was originally a thrash band but certainly could've been considered punk given that we started playing together in front of an audience, wrote a ton of quick angry songs, and it was more about attitude for a year until we learned how to play.

I consider the Who the original punk band, because Pete was so angry as a guitarist. He only had mediocre talent at guitar (a great writer, of course, and he became a good guitarist eventually), in the era of Clapton, Page and Hendrix. You could literally see the frustration and anger rolling off him in waves.

As a whole? You're right, that's not a value judgement, that's just bollocks.

Maybe deliberate is too strong a word; its not like they sat around a table saying "fuck Yes!"

Is your avatard Robbie Kreiger?

It's Derek Trucks, you old fart  :grin:

One of the best guitarists from the new (old) school.

(I play an SG, too)

Wasn't so much just the SG, but it was also sans pick.

I do that too, just not as well as DT can. When I was trying the guitar out at the shop, I played it for about ten minutes without a pick and the guy asked if I wanted one. I shrugged, "Whatever."

My first slide was a bic lighter. One learns to adapt to what one has on hand.

bah and phooey at all your discussions.  whether it was born dead, the ethic is alive or the spirit is best shown in neo-post-punk-acoustic music or whatever.

my 2 cents.  like any other style or genre, it won't "die" it will just go underground.  Just like metal, metal was supposedly dead in the 90s due to grunge.. which was utter media crap... it just went underground.   

but anyways.. hats off to an amazing album.

(http://www.etudiants.phy.ulaval.ca/~pystl/Dead_Kennedys/Plastic.jpg)


/respect

Saw them live a couple of weeks ago.



They're so old now.

Saw them in 86 or 87. Saw them in 96 or 97. I'll just hold on to the memories of the first show. Though I do give Gibby lols for coming out and playing Pepper and then telling everyone they can go home because they won't like the rest of the show (they were headlining a modern rock festival when Pepper hit modern rock radio in a big way).

They are only one of two bands that I can truly call hometown heroes (the other being FIFH (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=69004157) -- cool ass band..listen to Land of the Free).

I'm not wading into the "what is or is not punk" thing in this thread. Punk is like porn, I know it when I see/hear it. I did all kinds of "research" into the roots of punk for some papers in undergrad (permissive English profs FTW!), and all I have to say is that anyone who looks to the Pistols as the paragon of punk is a dumbass. They were an engineered attempt by Malcom McLaren to sell more clothes from Sex. While they did release some great material, they're not really any more definitive of the genre than any other band. It's also not odd that they were put together by McLaren -- plenty of bands are built by A&R guys, etc.

One movie not mentioned in here is Another State of Mind (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0198307/). I have it on VHS...which means I either need to re-buy it on DVD or find a cheapo VHS player somewhere.

ETA -- WTF, Decline of Western Civ is sold out everywhere I look. So much for a lazy morning of online DVD shopping...

Yeah..shit.. I haven't seen Decline in years. It'd be worth it to me just to rip the audio from the live version of Nausea.

On a sidenote, the cockrocker version of Decline is hilarious.

agree with that.  The drunk guitarist from W.A.S.P. floating in his pool section managed to be both painfully awkward to watch and one of the funniest things i have ever seen in a documentary.

Lol, he was exactly who I was thinking of (along with Paul Stanley). Wasn't that dude like a burnout and living with his mom or something?

Can you get that one on DVD?  I know a few out of the way websites list it (haven't checked Amazon in a while) but no store locally ever carries it and gives a blank stare when I ask.  I've been half-heartedly looking for it for a while now.

http://www.moviesunlimited.com/musite/product.asp?sku=D72356++  Another State of Mind on DVD available here, I've used them before for some obscure DVD titles (Kentucky Fried Movie most recently), and they're reliable, though can take a week-ish to receive from them.

HIH