The Advent of Punk - Good or Bad Thing?

[Low End Bee]

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1329243764' post='1539526']


...God knows, Marillion wouldn't still be going were it not for the DIY punk ethos. The desirability of said outcome will depend upon one's tastes.

[color=#ffffff].[/color]
[/quote]

It's true. Marillion are 467 times more punk than Green Day could ever be. Punks lasting legacy is probably the DIY ethos in music.

[skankdelvar]

[quote name='Low End Bee' timestamp='1329249179' post='1539631']
It's true. Marillion are 467 times more punk than Green Day could ever be. Punks lasting legacy is probably the DIY ethos in music.
[/quote]

And eyeliner for men. Don't forget eyeliner.

Nice touch parking this thread in Basses. Keeps the riff-raff out.

[Low End Bee]

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1329249378' post='1539637']

Nice touch parking this thread in Basses. Keeps the riff-raff out.
[/quote]

I'm a rebel me. I don't play by the rules. Apart from considerate parking and queue discipline. Which I'm a stickler for.

[Lozz196]

For me, it was the starting point of being a musician. I already loved music, but in 77, when on holiday in Jersey, there was this song that was being played everywhere, and the energy from it was unlike anything I`d ever heard. It was Pretty Vacant.

From there on, I was hooked, but didn`t really get into the "overfast" punk that many think that`s what it was all about. For me, punk (and new wave) was about good tunes, an attitude that said "you aren`t automatically right because....." and the willingness to try new things, instead of copying the previous. The clothes were good too.

I`m also glad I never bought into the violence aspect, and, when you read about the actual people who started it, in the many bands form all over the country, with a few exceptions, most were the geeks at school who didn`t fit in, and not hard at all. The threatening image was banded about I`m sure due to the ferocity of how the music was played, and the media latched on to that, labelling punk as violent.

And remember, nowadays, those punk songs have been shown up to be what they really are - great 3 minute pop songs. So many of them are played on radio/tv as part of advertising. Not really that violent or threatening after all.

[TheGreek]

[quote name='uncle psychosis' timestamp='1329240994' post='1539452']
A quick glance at the charts from the first half of the 1970s should be more than enough to convince all but the most cloth-eared that punk was completely and utterly [u][i][b]essential[/b][/i][/u].
[/quote]

agree 100%!!!

[apa]

It just passed me by being just a few years before I got into music. I saw it as emporers new cloths. Most of it just sounded like 50's rock and roll on acid. Didnt do anything for me and still doesnt. Having said that. It kicked the doors open. Blew off the cobwebs. Made people realise that its about doing it for yourself and sod them all. It was more an attitude than music. Nothing to do with safety pins and mohekans etal. They were the for runners of some of the stuff I got into so I thank them. Ive also managed to keep some of those cobwebs they blew away too. Gentle Giant included

Thank fooooooque it happened. Only problem is it doesnt travel through time well. Best not to try and do it now.

A

[leftyhook]

Hated most of it. Emergency by 999 slipped through for me.
But I was just discovering musical instruments and knew that punk musicians were a pie in the face of the likes of Ritchie Blackmore.

But a 'short, sharp shock is what the music scene needed. Clouds and Silver linings....blah blah...

[Prosebass]

I think it was a case of 'hey man , you had to be there'

[phil.i.stein]

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1329249378' post='1539637']
Nice touch parking this thread in Basses. Keeps the riff-raff out.
[/quote]
no it doesn't.

for 'punk', read 'jazz' or 'rock' or 'dubstep' etc..

in fact, any genre of music that flips complacent elders into a tailspin.

[Jerry_B]

Don't forget also that when punk went to the States (or as some might say, rebounded) it kicked off a great many offshoots. Hardcore punk maybe being one of the most influential. Not just in terms of music, but in terms of bands and band members forging their own paths and encouraging others to do so. That ethos was passed on to various other scenes and kicked off a few others. It definitely informed other genres. It also created some horrible mutants too.

I've alway preferred US punk to UK punk. True, I still really like Discharge, but I never ever liked the Clash, X Ray Spex, etc.. US punk always seemed alot more full-on, and to me it's still very listenable and still inspires how I think about ways of playing the bass and creating music.

I think if there's one problem that's always bugged me is that there is sometimes an assumption about punk, UK or US, that tends just to judge it on surface stuff - fashion, social mores of the times, etc.. I think that really undersells it.

[Musicman20]

Even though I missed the first wave, I still see the iconic Clash P bass photo, and I realise how essential it was.

You know what punk did for me? It made playing the bass look totally cool.

Being 11, that is a big thing.

I grew up on early Nirvana at 11/12, turned to more modern punk afterwards, and 40% of my musical life is still run by a punk inside me.

Yes, SOME early punk was so easy you could do it with your eyes closed. Modern punk, (which has somehow evolved in the USA) has given us bands throughout the 90s/00s as NOFX and A Wilhelm Scream.

I would like to see anyone play The Horse by A Wilhelm Scream without having to practice it for a few months. It really has evolved and in my eyes.

Without punk, I would not love the bass how I do. Simple as.

Agreed that punk in the USA bred hardcore, and eventually, (and don't laugh) early 'emo' and post hardcore, (well before we had bands making it a commercial success).

As I grow older, I still look back and love the moments of seeing bass player's in punk really playing the bass properly (Matt Freeman - Rancid, Karl Alvarez - The Descendents).

Its an essential genre.

[phil.i.stein]

all of the above ^^

[Jerry_B]

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1329257665' post='1539831']
Agreed that punk in the USA bred hardcore, and eventually, (and don't laugh) early 'emo' and post hardcore, (well before we had bands making it a commercial success).[/quote]

Yep - Emo, aka 'Emotionalcore' was allegedly kicked off by a band called Rites of Spring (one band member ended up in Fugazi). Members of the band don't share this view. Either way, Rites of Spring were an American punk-inspired band from the Dischord punk record label/distributor. Emo just seems to have grown out of RoS's use of lyrics, rather than musical style.

[quote]As I grow older, I still look back and love the moments of seeing bass player's in punk really playing the bass properly (Matt Freeman - Rancid, Karl Alvarez - The Descendents).[/quote]

Same for me - although in my case it's inspired more by Klaus Fluoride, Dave Riley, Chuck Dukowski, to name a few.

[51m0n]

Punk was utterly essential!

[Deep Thought]

Punk was groundbreaking as far as I was concerned-punk made me into somebody with a genuine interest in music, as opposed to somebody to whom it was just a thing you listen to-I, and many others, cite the influence of JJ Burnel in inspiring them to take up the bass, but The Stranglers had in fact been in existence since 1974, and were already competent musicians, and I think would admit themselves that they and several other bands just got caught up in the punk thing and rode the wave, as it were. The thing that did it for me was in fact the Sex Pistols, and specifically Anarchy in the UK. After hearing that, for the first time I was interested not only in the music but the band as well, thus leading subsequently to JJ and the bass. It's interesting that several of the punk bands who couldn't play a note at the outset (Siouxsie and the Banshees, or the Damned), as they developed their musical skills, evolved into quite accomplished bands not unlike the 'Dinosaurs' they sought to overthrow. Much as I love it, 'Curtain Call' took up a whole side of the Black Album! In later years I have grown to love many of the bands despised during the punk era, but I can also quite see the punk point of view that many had become obsessed with musical virtuousity to the exclusion of all else-and that music was in dire need of a bit of bollocks, which punk provided. I had mates at college who looked down upon punk music 'because they're not very good musicians', as if that was all that mattered, and that attitude needed a kick up the arse IMHO. For me, the vast majority of stuff I've listened to ever since has been influenced in some way by punk, and I will be forever grateful to it for that.

[Prunesquallor]

[quote name='Mykesbass' timestamp='1329245998' post='1539571']
See, again, it all comes down to opinion - I really wouldn't include any of the above in the Punk category
[/quote]

Don't you think their opinion counts? The Buzzcocks saw the Pistols play at the 100 Club and promptly formed a band; Siouxie and the Banshees were part of the original Bromley Contingent that hung around with the Sex Pistols at Malcolm McLaren's shop, etc. They all considered themselves punk. Just take a listen to all their early stuff. It's just that the bands that survived developed their own styles and later got pigeon-holed as goth, power pop, new wave, etc.

I agree that the important legacy of punk was the 'can-do' attitude. It kickstarted the 80s, when all you needed was style, and can be seen in all kinds of genres, such as techno and hip-hop, where lack of [i]technical[/i] ability doesn't matter one jot.

[Mykesbass]

[quote name='Prunesquallor' timestamp='1329290979' post='1540003']
Don't you think their opinion counts? The Buzzcocks saw the Pistols play at the 100 Club and promptly formed a band; Siouxie and the Banshees were part of the original Bromley Contingent that hung around with the Sex Pistols at Malcolm McLaren's shop, etc. They all considered themselves punk. Just take a listen to all their early stuff. It's just that the bands that survived developed their own styles and later got pigeon-holed as goth, power pop, new wave, etc.

I agree that the important legacy of punk was the 'can-do' attitude. It kickstarted the 80s, when all you needed was style, and can be seen in all kinds of genres, such as techno and hip-hop, where lack of [i]technical[/i] ability doesn't matter one jot.
[/quote]

Of course their opinions count. I just don't happen to agree with them!! The Buzzcocks seeing the Sex Pistols play at the 100 Club is as relevant as the influence Lonnie Donegan and the Skiffle movement had on the Beatles - it may have inspired them but it didn't make them a Skiffle group.

[louisthebass]

[quote name='uncle psychosis' timestamp='1329240994' post='1539452']
A quick glance at the charts from the first half of the 1970s should be more than enough to convince all but the most cloth-eared that punk was completely and utterly [u][i][b]essential[/b][/i][/u].
[/quote]

Agree.

[ead]

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1329238352' post='1539377']

[b]...But[/b], it did seem to wake up a music scene that had perhaps become a little stale and complacent...

[/quote]

Same here really. I'm a massive prog rock fan so it woke me up from shuffling around gigs in flares and tie dyes. I do like some of it more from the point of view of its place in musical history and the fact that Punk needed to happen than any technical ability to marvel at.

[Lozz196]

The thing about the whole punk movement was that, from the early/original bands lumped in to it, none sounded remotely like each other. Thats whay it`s so difficult to say who was punk, and who wasn`t.

Out of the "earlies/originals" I would put:

The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned, The Stranglers, The Buzzcocks, The Jam, followed very soon by Siouxsie & The Banshees, The Undertones, Stiff Little Fingers. There are of course many more, but listen to those bands above, and they all have their own unique sounds, which is difficult to then place them in a movement based upon this.

If push came to shove, I`d say there was only one punk band, and they`re the ones who always said they weren`t part of the movement anyway - The Sex Pistols. And I mean punk for the way they did things, not for how they sounded. And most of that was Jones & Cook (mainly Jones) anyway, though it was Rotten & Vicious who got the press, because of how they looked.

[Prunesquallor]

[quote name='Mykesbass' timestamp='1329294184' post='1540026']
Of course their opinions count. I just don't happen to agree with them!! The Buzzcocks seeing the Sex Pistols play at the 100 Club is as relevant as the influence Lonnie Donegan and the Skiffle movement had on the Beatles - it may have inspired them but it didn't make them a Skiffle group.
[/quote]

Ah, but take a listen to their first release, Spiral Scratch. Punk. With knobs on.

[Mykesbass]

[quote name='Prunesquallor' timestamp='1329295492' post='1540058']
Ah, but take a listen to their first release, Spiral Scratch. Punk. With knobs on.
[/quote]

I thought their first release was the German album with Tony Sheridan!

Seriously though, yes, Punk was a huge influence, but I still maintain that there was a lot less of it in the public conciousness at the time than people like to remember. Which really adds to the movement's importance, how something relatively small gave birth to the whole independent record business and a huge mass of great post-Punk music.

[Cat Burrito]

I enjoyed punk, although I was 3 in 1976. My musical introduction was through the cool 60s records of my parents collection. Some of their friends had older kids who in the back rooms of parties introduced me to The Clash, the Pistols, Buzzcocks, Damned etc in the early 80s. So my first musical discoveries outside the home were old punk vinyls.

A lot of rubbish is spoken about music (& long may that remain) but I simply enjoyed the tunes. No real cultural significance for me. During the Silver Jubilee as the Pistols sailed down the Thames I believe I was at a tea party on Marlborough High Street dressed as a cowboy. I sat by my friend Pete and had a great day

[MacDaddy]

[quote name='BurritoBass' timestamp='1329299074' post='1540111']

A lot of rubbish is spoken about music [/quote]

this.

/thread

[Dave Vader]

Without punk we would not have peter and the test tube babies or the Anti-Nowhere League.
That would make me sad.