The Advent of Punk - Good or Bad Thing?

[merello]

Great era that inspired many to pick up and play.

[hairyhaw]

[quote name='BRANCINI' timestamp='1329410828' post='1542104']
To be honest, to my mind, the singles from the early 70s have, on the whole outlasted the album tracks which os surprising when you cosider that singles bands like Slade and the Faces were looked down on by the groovy people, myself included, who only bought albums back then. I still have the albums, but cant really get into them, theyre just so dated.

There are of course the odd album tracks that still sound good. As evidenced by what covers bands are still playing 30, or sometimes 40 years on. None of em are by Genesis, or Yes, or the Van Fer Graff boring ol fart generators though.
[/quote]

Really? http://themusicalbox.net/ They seem to be doing alright. And a quick cursory look on youtube shows that plenty prog still getting played by other people.

I'm glad punk came along, otherwise there'd be no Joy Division or Slaughter & The Dogs and it sharpened a lot of senses in the prog community.

Keep praising punk for its own sake. But stop talking kak and talking pot-shots about music you know hee haw about.

[Musky]

Off topic I know, but I've often wondered why Genesis seem to be completely off the radar nowadays. They must have been on a par with Yes as perhaps the biggest prog bands, but whilst other prog bands of the time get kudos today Genesis are rarely name checked.

[BILL POSTERS]

[quote name='hairyhaw' timestamp='1329421934' post='1542353']
Really? [url="http://themusicalbox.net/"]http://themusicalbox.net/[/url] They seem to be doing alright. And a quick cursory look on youtube shows that plenty prog still getting played by other people.

I'm glad punk came along, otherwise there'd be no Joy Division or Slaughter & The Dogs and it sharpened a lot of senses in the prog community.

Keep praising punk for its own sake. But stop talking kak and talking pot-shots about music you know hee haw about.
[/quote]

Takes all sorts I s'pose.

[Jacqueslemac]

[quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1329412027' post='1542137']


Yep I remember R&B when it meant music like Dr Feelgood. Quality band, wish I`d seen them live.

Did see Wilko last year, with NWR on bass - now [b]that [/b]was R&B!
[/quote]

I did, several times, with Wilko and after. R&B with a punk in-your-face attitude. That's where the definitions fail to serve any purpose. I seem to remember the audience was mostly the same as turned up to see the Undertones and Toyah, except for the safety-pins and spitting element.

[Dave Vader]

[quote name='Musky' timestamp='1329438957' post='1542672']
Off topic I know, but I've often wondered why Genesis seem to be completely off the radar nowadays. They must have been on a par with Yes as perhaps the biggest prog bands, but whilst other prog bands of the time get kudos today Genesis are rarely name checked.
[/quote]

I would blame Phil Collins solo career for that, entirely.
Oh, and Invisible Touch, oh and We can't dance or whatever it was called....

[hairyhaw]

[quote name='Musky' timestamp='1329438957' post='1542672']
Off topic I know, but I've often wondered why Genesis seem to be completely off the radar nowadays. They must have been on a par with Yes as perhaps the biggest prog bands, but whilst other prog bands of the time get kudos today Genesis are rarely name checked.
[/quote]

Depends what sort of radar you have . They still get plenty name checks by people like The Mars Volta amongst others and I think they just completed a world tour a couple of years ago. But they stopped being a prog band in the late 70’s when Hackett left the band and they then jettisoned the long pieces, going off to the AOR/MOR territory that they sold gazillions of records with. So you have two Genesis’s really; the Peter Gabriel-era band that its ok to like at the moment, and then you have the stadium-filling Collins era that everyone likes to boo in pantomime villain stylee.

[Bilbo]

Not read the whole thread but Puink was a good thing. It broke the status quo that existed and was blanding out a lot of music. It happens in every genre. It starts as folk music and gets more and more complex as the musos develop and, eventually, becomes kind of elitist and less immediate. Then another folk form has to come along and give the music back to the kids. Its always been the same. What made punk different is that it went well beyond music and affected art, theatre, dance, film etc etc. Kids also became politically much more aware than they had been and all of a sudden people became aware of what a fascist was!! They started to question the monarchy, the stitled tones of the BBC, the patronising politicians and the complacency of 'the establishment'.

Hated the music, loved the attitude.

[kerley]

Totally agree. I have watched a few reruns of Top of the Pops from 1976 that have been on recently and the music situation was extremely dire.
The show was filled with bland, pop ballads. It needed a kick up the arse which is what it got (along with politics, fashion, art etc,. as mentioned above)

Anyone who questions the worthiness of punk needs to watch a few 1976 TOTPs...

[Billy Apple]

[quote name='Leon Transaxle' timestamp='1329414740' post='1542198']
When I visualise bass guitars I see three things:-
[indent=1]Sid with his P Bass[/indent]
[indent=1]The cover of 'London Calling'[/indent]
[indent=1]Bruce Foxton flying with his Rick on the back of 'The Modern World' .[/indent]
[/quote]

Well, here's one of them for you....

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/393Ra.jpg[/IMG]

[Jerry_B]

Whereas I tend to visualise...

[BILL POSTERS]

Not everyones bag I know, but there was some really great Rock n Roll around in the mid - late 70s
Dave Edmunds, Graham Parker, Ian Dury, the Feelgoods, Kursall Flyers etc. plus what I thin of as the Rockpile stuff. Like Kirsty McColl, etc that had the same basic lineup of Billy Bremner / Nick Lowe etc driving it. All on TOTP at the time.

Although they were already around, if the Punky style of 3 minute singles hadn’t caught on, a lot of these bands would never have got the airplay.

[Musky]

[quote name='hairyhaw' timestamp='1329475134' post='1542931']
Depends what sort of radar you have . They still get plenty name checks by people like The Mars Volta amongst others and I think they just completed a world tour a couple of years ago. But they stopped being a prog band in the late 70’s when Hackett left the band and they then jettisoned the long pieces, going off to the AOR/MOR territory that they sold gazillions of records with. So you have two Genesis’s really; the Peter Gabriel-era band that its ok to like at the moment, and then you have the stadium-filling Collins era that everyone likes to boo in pantomime villain stylee.
[/quote]

I just comes from browsing around Drowned in Sound really. There are plenty of Muse or Mars Volta fans there that have delved into the roots of prog but I've never noted any love for Genesis. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough.

I guess you and Dave are right about the Gabriel/Collins thing, but as a casual observation there didn't seem to be any love for the Gabriel era either.

[Fuzzbass2000]

An absolutely essential musical "reboot" Nothing wrong with what went before (loads of marvellous stuff), but sometimes you've got to hit the reset button to get some context.

Learned to play to the first Ramones LP (turn the left hand side down and you can be Dee Dee too), still get a kick out of the bass intros to Neat Neat Neat. Love Song... love the bass playing on the 1st Rezillos Album and Matlock's playing on sp**k,

[Chris2112]

I'd say good. Okay, some punk music was awful, but it created a creative spirit that allowed electronic music to take root. A generation's ear had been turned away from pop sh*te and ended up focusing on things like Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk and OMD. If we have nothing else to thank punk for, let us thank it for electronic music.

Oh, and Big Country, who, in somewhat bizarre move, formed an amazing prog rock band from the ashes of the punk scene.

[Lozz196]

[quote name='Fuzzbass2000' timestamp='1329528577' post='1544016']
An absolutely essential musical "reboot" Nothing wrong with what went before (loads of marvellous stuff), but sometimes you've got to hit the reset button to get some context.

Learned to play to the first Ramones LP (turn the left hand side down and you can be Dee Dee too), still get a kick out of the bass intros to Neat Neat Neat. Love Song... love the bass playing on the 1st Rezillos Album and Matlock's playing on sp**k,
[/quote]

Yes, when you hear Matlocks playing, it`s a definite wonder how Never Mind The B*ll*cks would have turned out, had he stayed in the band.

[Mr Lizard]

If it wasn't for Punk, I wouldn't be playing the bass

[hairyhaw]

[quote name='Musky' timestamp='1329520568' post='1543937']
I just comes from browsing around Drowned in Sound really. There are plenty of Muse or Mars Volta fans there that have delved into the roots of prog but I've never noted any love for Genesis. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough.

I guess you and Dave are right about the Gabriel/Collins thing, but as a casual observation there didn't seem to be any love for the Gabriel era either.
[/quote]

Possibly, but as you said yourself, its a casual observation and they can be problematic - punk itself has been generalised to most as shouting, spitting, spikey haircuts and safety pins (Sid Snot) - scratch beneath the caricature of course and there's a lot more to it.

Back to your main point though, The Mars Volta were interviewed a couple of years back in a print mag (Uncut or Mojo maybe) and were talking about Trespass (early, early Genesis album) and how prog had influenced them in general. As to how much that would influence their fans to pick up those records is a moot point - I really like the Beatles but I'm totally not arsed about listening to the 50's Rock'n'Roll that influenced them. Others would no doubt disagree.

Some who are undeniably influenced by prog will deny it as it can still be considered social/career suicide for a musician or journalist to admit liking it - unless you're Stuart Maconie right enough. Radiohead are a good example - Rick Wakeman states that "they're as prog as they come" from OK Computer onward but the band totally deny it as they grew up when it was the dirtiest of words.

A lot of prog is brilliant but just like all other genres there is the bloody awful (ELP, except for one bass riff). And those that use keyboards and early synths can sound dated to some and this is where punk wins out as a lot of its musical longevity (apart from some superb songwriting) is down to its fairly conservative format - Guitar, Bass, and Drums.

[icastle]

[quote name='Mr Lizard' timestamp='1329565392' post='1544279']
If it wasn't for Punk, I wouldn't be playing the bass
[/quote]

Same here actually.
I've been thinking about this thread over the last few days and have thought back to my 'teen years'.

I hated punk.
I disliked both the music and it's scowling devotees.
It seemed that just about everyone in my age group were into 'punk', some going further with their devotion than others.

In an ironically 'punky' bit of revolution, it gave me a much needed kick in the arse to jump into traditional music and provide myself with an alternative that I felt comfortable in.

[icastle]

[quote name='Musky' timestamp='1329438957' post='1542672']
Off topic I know, but I've often wondered why Genesis seem to be completely off the radar nowadays. They must have been on a par with Yes as perhaps the biggest prog bands, but whilst other prog bands of the time get kudos today Genesis are rarely name checked.
[/quote]

I think it's trendy not to like them at the moment (maybe to do with Peter Gabriels resurgance over the last few years?).
I find the pre Collins stuff a little hard to listen to and the post Gabriel stuff a little bland in places - but they have sold over 150M records.

Personally, if I'd sold 150M records and still had royalty cheques coming in, I wouldn't give a toot whether I was considered trendy or not.

[skankdelvar]

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1329575505' post='1544431']
Personally, if I'd sold 150M records and still had royalty cheques coming in, I wouldn't give a toot whether I was considered trendy or not. [/quote]

I believe that's certainly Mr Collins' take on the matter - he has been quoted as such in a number of interviews. Critical acclaim has never seemed to matter to the band at any stage in their career.

More importantly, Genesis have enjoyed both cult 'credibility' and wide popular acclaim. Just not at the same time.

[color=#ffffff].[/color]

Edited February 18, 2012 by skankdelvar

[molan]

I moved to London in the late 70's as a, very impressionable, 18 year old.

Had already been to see several punk bands live - Clash / Jam / Souixsie / Gen x + lots of smaller bands like the Lurkers, 999 etc.

I moved into the room that Billy idol had just vacated, he'd moved to the flat next door - most immaculately dressed & coiffed person I've ever seen at 8:00 in the morning for breakfast by the way, lol.

We had various Pistols, Gen Xers, Chrissie Hynde, Marco Peroni, some new bloke who reckoned he could sing called George O'Dowd & a host of others round at out flat before heading off to party in the evening.

It was a fabulous time to be living in London and the city felt so 'alive'. Even just being out & walking the streets became all part of the social scene and there were some fantastic gigs - The Clash tended to kick everyone else's arse when some of the bands started moving up to larger sized venues like the Rainbow.

I think it was a massive change in the way the whole music scene worked for a few years. It became easier to get up & play live and, maybe more importantly, the independent label and distribution networks sprung up which meant you could much more easily track down your favourite latest single.

The way this affected some of the independent record shops made them much more exciting places to visit & meet friends, browse for rare stuff etc. Quite a few started branching out into imported reggae, harder core funk, rare groove soul and stuff. Cost me a bloody fortune in Jamaican 12" imports at £4.50 a pop!

Truly a great time to be alive and for me it was absolutely about the social aspect as much as about the music.

[guildbass]

I think Britain's a very unique place as far as music is concerned... i mean when Punk hit the country i was at college in Plymouth and went to see loads of bands...Slaughter and the Dogs, XTC...I just missed the Pistols. It was an exciting time as the energy had gone from the pop scene up t'ill that point. What WAS interesting was that Punk almost overnight banished Prog, but the thing was, in the UK we all thought Prog had, like the dinosaurs, died out, but it hadn't at all, it carried on with the same huge audiences overseas...places like Germany, Japan and a host of countries carried on loving it. Today there are proper Prog rock bands doing proper world tours annually...Porcupine Tree springs to mind but there are plenty of others...

The other thing that punk did was to break the strangle hold of the songwriter. Up to the end of Glam, the pop charts were full of stuff written by professional song writers...Half the Glam Rock output was by a guy called John Shinney who wrote all the Chinn and Chapman stuff...And he was in his mid 40's when he wrote 'Blockbuster', '48 Crash' and so on

[guildbass]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1329476335' post='1542957']
Not read the whole thread but Puink was a good thing. It broke the status quo
[/quote]

Nah, Nuffink could break the 'Quo'

[madanglian]

In the late 70s I was a teenager growing up in the North-east, where punk didn't really happen - not first time around, anyway:

- nobody listened to Radio 1 as the reception was crap, especially after dark, and we had these wonderful local stations that actually talked about the towns and cities where we lived.

- Johnny Rotten was just another cockney gobsh*te - how was he any different to Steve Harley?

- social commentary, ok, rebellion against authority, fine, but Alan Hull and Lindisfarne had done all that 4 or 5 years previously

- The Pistols may have made history in Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall, but on our side of the country they only got as far as Northallerton - this would be like playing your only Southern gig in a place like Abingdon or Hertford.

- Maybe it was because we didn't have the big impersonal stadium gigs, but we didn't really get the "alienation from dinosaur bands" thing. Personally I was happy to sit at home and listened to records, and if I did want to go out and see bands in the flesh,there was still a thriving pub rock / folk scene going on, which didn't need punk to re-invigorate.

Punk was fine when it came along and no doubt a lot of bands made it that wouldn't have done so otherwise. What really p*ssed me off though was the whole "reign of terror" which meant that bands had to suddenly become something that they weren't, otherwise they would be labelled "boring old farts" and committed to musical oblivion. And the lie that rock music was dying on its feet before punk came along and saved it. B*llocks. There were good bands like Man and Budgie around that were on the cusp of making it, but never got the recognition they deserved because their hair was too long. It annoys me that the BBC are still perpetuating this myth about punk.

Punk was another one of those movements that, like goth today, is characterised by people who "want to look different" and as a result all end up looking the same. I kept my long hair till the New Romantics came along (and I was dragged kicking and screaming into the job market ) and suffered endless p*ss-taking by my fellow students (I had moved down South by this time) but honestly, bandwagon-jumpers the lot of 'em.

Kudos to the afore-mentioned Stranglers and JJ however, sneaking "Down in the sewer" onto the Rattus Norvegicus album - showed they could do stuff with musical gravitas if they wanted . . . .