Like the majority of their British counterparts, the original American punks had been making music for years before they began to receive acknowledgement in late-1975. In common with the Brits once again, the biggest problem was that nobody had a clue what to call it. Drawing their wild, high-energy style from such Detroit-based rock acts of the late-1960s ...
Proto-punk bands, like all ‘proto’ genres, are by definition only identified retrospectively and generally share subversive and anti-establishment attitudes. Although punk rock was primarily a British phenomenon, there were several notable American punk bands and its musical roots lie more with these American bands than with British bands. The energy of pub rockers like Dr. Feelgood and Eddie ...
Punk exploded on to the stagnant British music scene in the mid-1970s with short, fast songs, played with maximum energy and often fuelled by angry lyrics. A musical and social phenomenon, punk was a reaction to the indulgence of glam rock bands, and the perceived elitism of the often highly musically proficient musicians who played in the ...
The music of Latin America combines influences from the traditional music of the African slaves transported between 1450 and the end of the nineteenth century, music from the Spanish and Portuguese colonial powers, and latterly, pop and jazz from North America. Samba is an umbrella term describing an energetic style of dancing and drumming performed at the annual ...
In our heads we can all imagine a noise called punk rock. It’s nasty, brutish and short. It’s played on cheap guitars at high speed. In fact it’s possibly played on cheap speed. The songs are basic to the point of wilful stupidity. If they have any message, it will probably be negative. The general effect will not be ...
The roots of punk lie in rock’n’roll, itself a rebellious spin-off from rhythm and blues. ‘Louie Louie’, written by Richard Berry in 1955 and a US No. 2 hit for The Kingsmen in 1963, is often cited as the first punk song with its raw sound and almost indecipherable lyrics (nonetheless investigated by the FBI for obscenity). The song ...
Punk rock is about attitude more than music. It’s not about how well you can play, it’s about how well you can communicate. Its roots go back to the beginning of rock’n’roll in the 1950s. The rebellious spirit of MC5 and The Stooges in the 1960s helped to define the punk attitude, while Velvet Underground singer Lou Reed and ...
February MC5 Kick Out The Jams Often credited as the first intentionally punk band, MC5’s live debut album detonated in 1969. Forming at their Michigan High School, singer Rob Tyner, guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith, bassist Michael Davis and drummer Dennis Thompson were mentored by political activist John Sinclair of The White Panthers. They were ...
All Dolled Up In New York Throwing a fistful of glitter into the mix, along with some debilitating drug problems, The New York Dolls tottered unsteadily along the line between punk and glam rock in the early 1970s. Fronted by the pouting Jagger-esque David Johansen, the band lost drummer Billy Murcia to a drug overdose before their self-titled ...
Spring The New York Scene By the mid-1970s, the New York punk/new wave scene was starting to bubble. Acts like Patti Smith, Television and Talking Heads were emerging from the city’s bohemian underground, alongside newly formed bands like The Ramones, Blondie, Wayne County, Johnny Thunders and Tuff Darts. The scene was centred around two clubs. ...
March The Dictators Go Girl Crazy The anarchic Dictators spiced up the New York scene with their Go Girl Crazy! album in 1975, a coarse blend of punk and heavy metal with sharp witty lyrics mocking the junk culture they saw all around them, which naturally included punk and heavy metal. Unfortunately the chaos that surrounded the band ...
By early 1976, The Sex Pistols were playing intermittent gigs in London, getting a reputation for the random acts of violence that surrounded their shows. They were also inspiring others to form punk bands – notably London SS, who never released a record or even played a note in public but were directly responsible for the formation of ...
Early ’76 The Sex Pistols’ First Gigs The Sex Pistols played their first gig at London’s St Martin’s School of Art in November 1975, racing through a batch of Faces and Who numbers plus some of their own, including ‘Pretty Vacant’ and ‘Did You No Wrong’, while Rotten sneered at the audience, calling them ‘f***ing boring’. The pattern ...
As The Sex Pistols passed through three record companies in the first half of 1977, sacked their songwriting bass player for liking The Beatles and struggled to find venues that would let them play, they became a side-show in the thriving British punk scene now led by The Clash. In London, new punk clubs sprang up and found ...
January The Sex Pistols Get The Bullet On 6 January 1977 EMI Records terminated its contract with The Sex Pistols, saying it was unable to promote the group’s records ‘in view of the adverse publicity generated over the past two months’. The media furore over the Pistols’ TV appearance six weeks earlier had barely abated and now politicians were weighing ...
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