Punk Rock

[HaemishM]

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.

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.

[stray]

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.

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.

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. 

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 (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).

[Ingmar]

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! 

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

[stray]

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

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 one example. This would have been the kind of thing you heard before they kicked Richard Hell out.

[Ingmar]

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

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 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.

[Sky]

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.

[Righ]

The movement as a whole devalued musicianship as a deliberate response to prog. That isn't a value judgement.

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

[Ingmar]

The movement as a whole devalued musicianship as a deliberate response to prog. That isn't a value judgement.

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!"

[Musashi]

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.

Is your avatard Robbie Kreiger?

[Sky]

It's Derek Trucks, you old fart 

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

(I play an SG, too)

[Musashi]

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

[Sky]

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.

[Fraeg]

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.




/respect

[DraconianOne]

...and the Butthole Surfers.

Saw them live a couple of weeks ago.



They're so old now.

[Sky]

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).

[stray]

They are only one of two bands that I can truly call hometown heroes (the other being FIFH -- cool ass band..listen to Land of the Free).

[CmdrSlack]

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. 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...

[stray]

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.

[Fraeg]

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.

[stray]

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?

[Selby]

One movie not mentioned in here is Another State of Mind. I have it on VHS...which means I either need to re-buy it on DVD or find a cheapo VHS player somewhere.

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.

[Ralence]

One movie not mentioned in here is Another State of Mind. I have it on VHS...which means I either need to re-buy it on DVD or find a cheapo VHS player somewhere.

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