Talk:Punk rock/Archive 2

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

More dubious additions

Because knowledge on this topic is so diffuse, I continue to hesitate to delete without discussion, but here are two more recent additions that I think are probably wrong:

1) In the list of U.S. punk magazines "Search and Destroy" (no link, I've never heard of it, I can't say it doesn't exist). Can someone weigh in and give us a clue on where it is/was from, whether it was actually significant, etc. In any case, I'd be really surprised if it merits listing before Maximum RocknRoll, Profane Existence and Flipside. 2) Post-1970s punk: someone added "Ism" to the list. The link is irrelevant and just goes to our article -ism. I've never heard of them. Can someone vouch for them belonging here?

If no one makes a case for these, I will delete. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:28, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

"Search and Destroy" is legit. It was the predecessor of the REsearch publications out of San Francisco, and has been reprinted as a prime punk document (you can probably find details about the reprint at online booksellers). Unlike some of the other titles mentioned, it was actually active during the late 70s. Other zine titles that might be worth adding are the LA-based "Slash" and "NO".

"Ism" makes no sense to me. --BTfromLA 20:59, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think the title should read "Search & Destroy," with an ampersand. --BTfromLA 21:02, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Oh, yeah, I know REsearch, just didn't know their earlier incarnation. Let's link it to the better-known still-existing publication and make sure the article on that mentions the earlier one. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:41, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

Note that the next comment is after a gap of about 13 months

Reponse to Dubious additions-Post-1970's, Punk

"ISM" was a (hardcore)/punk band/ originally formed in the very early 80's from Queens, New York/ Their first full-length LP titled "a Diet for the Worms" (1983) with its clssic cover- an actual photo of a baby being born- it is a must have for collectors of this gendre. It is very rare, as are all of their other releases. Much more to write about this atypical band- as a credible bio is provided at www.punkvinyl.com (see selections from The Punk Vault (Ism)) . In addition, they are mentioned in the book "American Hardcore A Tribal History" by Author Steven Blush. As an added footnote- their lead singer- I believe a classically trained pianist- went under the moniker of "Jism" Six Pack Fla (undated, 10 Jan 2006)

Ah, yes, now that rings a bell. Yes, they deserve an article. Put it at Ism (punk band). I'll make a link to that from the disambig page ISM. I'm not sure if they are well enough known to merit mention in a broad article on punk, though. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:05, 11 January 2006 (UTC)


Dead Milkmen

what are they classfide nobody else has that sound of punk

not totally unclassifiable. they belong somewhere in there with King Missile, Barnes and Barnes, early "Weird Al" Yankovic, select Mr. T Experience songs (like the hidden song on the "my stupid life" side of the "tapin' up my heart" 7".), Green Jellÿ, and others bands. This might be labeled "funny punk" although i've never heard that before but someone put up the article (it wasnt me!). These groups are also forebearers for the comedy of blink-182 style pop punk. Xsxex 18:19, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I've never heard of "funny punk" before. It could be made up (which happens a lot here). I'll search google. The Ungovernable Force 08:04, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Just as I thought, it's not a notable genre (less than 17,400 hits on google and most that I saw are unrelated). Before listing for AFD I'm going to ask the creator, since they're a good editor. Maybe they can clarify. The Ungovernable Force 08:13, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Too drunk...

A recent anon edit turned 'the Dead Kennedys' "Too Drunk to Fuck"' into 'the Dead Kennedys' "Too Drunk to F**k"'. Is there any basis for this being the official title or was this just censorship of Wikipedia? -- Jmabel | Talk 02:52, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

Um, not that I learned this on the way to my music Ph.D., but I'm pretty sure the official title is "Too Drunk to Fuck." LOL. Antandrus 02:55, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I think this has happened before, as I'm pretty sure I've reverted it previously. In any case, I've reverted it now. We should use the correct title in all cases. Tuf-Kat 05:33, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

1976-1980

Although the 1976 date is important, the 1980 one is completely arbitrary - we might want to say punk began in 1976 (though I think even that is probably papering over the ambiguity), but to say it, or even the 'first wave' ended in 1980 is really not NPOV--XmarkX 06:39, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Concur. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:21, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)
I agree that the dates are a bit arbitrary, as is almost universally the case when describing an artistic movement, but I think "beginning around 1976" is an invitation for endless additions and a generally less useful article. Unless you are arguing that the historical claim for this movement that the article is staking out is incorrect, I vote for specifying dates;75 or 76-80 seems right. If we want to qualify it with an "approximately," that's fine with me. --BTfromLA 07:58, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
OK, I'll just put my cards on the table and say that I don't think we can say that punk has had an end point. No-one specifies an end-point for musical movements like jazz or blues, so why punk? Punk has been around continuously at least since 1976, and not just in small enclaves - there have been massive punk scenes going on continuously, involving millions of people around the world. My problem with this article is that it considers the phrase 'punk-rock' to cover a four-year period. I don't doubt that people do think this, but it is not the only view about punk, so not NPOV. An article about punk-rock ought to trace out its entire history, indicate the existence of off-shoots like New Wave, Grunge, Crossover up to the present day, when punk is still huge. The major inaccuracy in this article is an inaccuracy by omission.--XmarkX 01:37, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for exposing your hand. So is "Punk Rock" an influential episode in the history of "Rock" (or even "Pop") music, as "Bebop" is to "Jazz," or is it a distinct category of music, like "Jazz" itself? Certainly there is a case to be made that, as you say, "punk is still huge." I come down on the side of preserving the article's focus on the original punk scene, with brief descriptions of ongoing manifestations of punk and the many punk-influenced movements, including links to more extensive articles on those. I think a narrower focus makes for a clearer article and better history. Declaring punk to have defined itself in that late-70s period does not invalidate the subsequent "punks" at all (nor does it imply that the Ramones weren't playing Punk Rock in the 90s), it just helps to place them historically. There are still Rockabilly bands, and good ones. But there was a time at which rockabilly defined itself, emerged as a force, then began to become absorbed into a variety of musical forms. Just as I think that period in the 50s should be the focus of the entry on Rockabilly, so I agree with focusing on the late seventies as the primary "Punk Rock" period. --BTfromLA 02:40, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, but if that's your crierion, it still doesn't work: what punk is today is still pretty dynamic and in flux. It is not true that what punk rock is was defined by 1980 - what punk rock is today is not what it is then. Although there are bands who are influenced by the Ramones, there are also plenty of punk bands who are uninfluenced by early punk, except insofar as it has influenced bands, who have influenced bands, who have influenced them.--XmarkX 04:34, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'm willing to allow that my claim may be the result of a generational bias, and I won't put up much of a fight if there's a consensus to welcome an open-ended definition of Punk Rock. But please take a look at such entries as Hardcore punk, Grunge, the punk timeline, and some of the other linked articles, and ask yourself whether the encyclopedia will really be improved by the change. --BTfromLA 05:09, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What need to be done in the article is describe the various opinions on this issue (per: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view), many of which are expressed above. Howevever, the best way to describe this is through citations (Wikipedia:Cite sources).
Once this is done it should be much easier to determine which dates are appropriate for related articles such as Timeline of punk rock (which, by the way, indicates the punk did not end in 1980). Hyacinth 18:22, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I agree that a wider view should be taken. This may also depend partly on countries: in the United States, 1979-1983 (or 84) or so is widely seen as the heydey of punk rock. --Delirium 13:40, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Newschool/Oldschool

Firstly how can you have a punk rcok article without mentioning NOFX? The most influential and successfull of the "new school" punk rock bands. Also there should be greater detail on the new punk rock of the 90's. (anon, unsigned, 30 Jan 2005)

I have a feeling NoFX hasn't been as successful as some other bands like Bad Religion, Pennywise or Green Day. NoFx has only had ONE platinum cd where Green Day has had 2-4? The Police had a lot also... And then there is Blink 182 if we are counting them

amanda: For one thing, punk is not labelled as successful because of how many albums a band sells. Who even put that? Some people would even say that Blink 182 has become a sell out. I've been to concerts where NOFX has been the main attraction and based on the fans, I'd say they're successful.

Dancepunk addition

Hi, just a passerby and I'm not familiar with the layout of this whole topic. But I saw "dancepunk" as a dead link in the article for the band "!!!". I Googled a little and it seems to be a real subgenre, and I found a description or two and some representative bands, but as a beginner I'm not up to the task of categorizing this properly in the punk universe. FYI. (anon, unsigned, 30 Jan 2005)

Malcolm Maclaren and all that

Recently added material, which I've wikified:

"In New York Malcolm Maclaren was managing the New York Dolls, whose style was a hybrid between garage rock and glam, when he saw the Neon Boys perform. The Neon Boys included Tom Verlaine and [[Richard Hell], who went on to form Television. Hell's torn clothing, studded dog collars and leather jackets appealed to Maclaren as much as his dissolute attitude and indifference toward playing the bass. According to Hell, Maclaren approached Hell and Verlaine about being their manager, but they were not interested. When Maclaren returned to London in 1975 he assembled the Sex Pistols in Hell's image."

This certainly belongs in Wikipedia somewhere — certainly in the article on Maclaren, and possibly in those on other parties involved, but does it really belong in this article? Yes, more than a typical random anecdote; I'm just not sure it quite rises to the importance of something about an entire genre. In particular, it's not like the punk idea originated entirely in NYC and Maclaren was the unique route by which it reached the UK: this is more an anecdote about particular (important) bands than about the genre. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:50, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with your assessment. It makes sense for the Sex Pistols article, as well as the McLaren one, but it isn't needed here. -- BTfromLA 19:44, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Just quickly: submission was a piss-take song that the Sex Pistols wrote because Malcolm Maclaren kept bugging them to do a song about S&M (Malcolm Maclaren owned a shop that sold S&M gear). It's about a submarine mission. (Just search for submission in the main article to see why this is a little silly.)
Just stopping by for the moment, but I think I disagree pretty strongly with the general trend of some of the remarks here: my impression is that it's *extremely* difficult to get away from the notion that punk started in New York. The New York Dolls. Television. The Ramones. The idea that the Sex Pistols deserves to be credited as a serious contender as "First Punks" is pretty revisionist -- cutting this story about Malcolm McClauren, and replacing it with this business about punk spontaneously emerging around in different corners of the world is a falsification (though I admit to not knowing much about the Saints in the Brisbane scene). Malcolm McClauren managed the New York Dolls before the Sex Pistols, correct? That's a point of historical fact, right? So how do you come up with this:
In the mid-1970s, influential punk bands emerged in three different corners of the world: The Ramones in New York, The Saints in Brisbane, Australia, and the Sex Pistols, The Damned (the first band to market an album as "punk"), and The Clash in London. Early punk bands were operating within small "scenes" that included other bands and solo performers as well as enthusiastic impresarios who operated small nightclubs that provided a showcase and meeting place for the emerging musicians (the 100 Club in London, CBGB's in New York, and The Masque in Hollywood are among the best known early punk clubs).
Doom 04:20, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)
It's really tricky. I can't speak of Australia, but New York probably had an identifiably "punk" scene before London did (and the Ramones' July 4, 1976 concert at the Roundhouse in London is often considered the start of the London punk scene) but (1) the Dolls were more proto-punk than punk (a lot of glam trappings), (2) at that July 4 concert one of the warm-up bands was London's Stranglers (already certainly a punk band, in fact more so than they were later) and (3) punk in New York at that time was a very local phenonmenon, whereas London-based punks soon topped the UK charts and, arguably, had more influence even in most parts of the U.S. than did the NYC scene. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:55, Apr 23, 2005 (UTC)
I'll argue that punk rock congealed as a movement in the UK in 1976. The Stranglers and Sex Pistols already existed at the time of that Ramones gig, and the Clash, Damned, Siouxsie, etc., appeared very soon after. Press reports of the "punk rock" phenomena, including the fashion, the fighting, and the politics, began in the UK, I think. Best that I can piece it together, the New York scene in 75-76 wasn't a punk scene--it was an art-influenced rock scene, probably better understood as being identified with the Bowery club CBGB than with a "punk" or "new wave" movement. Television, Blondie, Talking Heads, and the Ramones were the leading lights there, and the same audiences also embraced the roots-rock of Mink Deville and the broadway-style Orchestra Luna.
The New York Dolls clearly came and went before the punk movement arrived. One might be able to make a case that the UK punk scene was largely an interpretation of what the Ramones meant, perhaps in part including McClaren's politicized interpretation of the Dolls. But that sort of speculative thesis isn't appropriate for an encyclopedia. I, too, can't really speak to the situation of the Saints; while I know they released some of the earliest records that are labeled "punk," as far as I know they had little impact in either the UK or the US. BTfromLA 01:24, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'd tend to agree with that, although I think the Ramones (unlike the other NYC acts of '75-'76) were not particularly an "art-influenced" band. It is possible that we could bring more precision to the article about just who did what and in what order. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:44, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)
This is another problem: Best that I can piece it together, the New York scene in 75-76 wasn't a punk scene--it was an art-influenced rock scene, probably better understood as being identified with the Bowery club CBGB than with a "punk" or "new wave" movement. Television, Blondie, Talking Heads, and the Ramones were the leading lights there ... Originally punk was a much broader, more diverse scene than it became in the 1990s: this is part of the revisionism I'm complaining about. All of a sudden "Television" ain't punk enough (because the lyrics weren't stupid enough? Punk has to be low-brow in order to be populist? ). This article presents a "history" of punk, but it's just a record of one particular point of view, and the real history is that the meaning of the term shifted in subtle (and not so subtle) ways over the years. It seems really weird to me that the party line on the True Meaning of Punk excludes a bunch of the bands that I was reading about in Punk surveys in the Village Voice in the late 70s. And you know, when I was listening to the Good City Rock Show on WBAI in the late 70s, the New York Dolls fit right into the mix with the Ramones... Doom 05:04, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
Are there no other Australians here? The Saints certainly had a punk sound before having any NY scene influence. Their first exposure (according to the band members) to "punk rock" played by anyone but themselves was hearing the Ramones on the radio (The Ramones having been much more popular here than in America or the UK in their early days). Their reaction was almost the same as that the Ramones had upon first hearing the Sex Pistols - "They sound just like us!". --Switch 07:24, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Punk Site...

Jmabel you keep deleting the link I added for punkomatik.com. This site is new but its goal is to unite local punk scenes. The point of wiki is that no one decision is made by one person, Why not let the rest of the punk community have a chance to decide. (User:Sschopp, unsigned, March 17, 2005)

I see nothing encyclopedic about this link. Last I looked, the calendar showed no punk shows happening in Seattle, LA, or San Fransicco in March; it looks like little more than the framework for a site. Also, last I checked Sschopp's sole contributions to Wikpedia have consisted of efforts to add this site. This looks like self-interested linkspam.
Still, I have now reverted it several times; I won't be the next to do so, but if others agree with me, they should. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:31, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

I concur with Jmabel ; please do not restore that link. If at some point in the future it becomes an encylopedic source of info about punk rock activity, we can reconsider it. BTfromLA 18:36, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"www.punknews.org" covers Mallcore and Pop-Punk its not really relevent in an article about actual punk...

A serch for it comes back as...

Punknews.org Tours, News and Reviews about Punk, Emo and Hardcore. www.punknews.org/

And while the site covers groups such as Green Day, Fall Out Boy & Avenged Sevefold it seems to be more of an MTV, kiddie pop-punk website.. just thought this should go here.

Deathrocker 18:23, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Inspirations and fatuous acts

I'm interested in opinions on contemporary (70s) acts that the first punks were inspired by, and those they were acting against. David Bowie has recently been moved from the former category to the latter. (We can also consider the extent to which the same acts may fall into both categories). Whatever one says about the punk's relation to him, I don't think Bowie can be fairly characterized as a "sixties" act, which is how it reads now. Also, the reference to the influence of "art" or "glam" rock bands has been totally taken over by the "glam,"—Sweet , Bolan and Gary Glitter. There's a mention of a film that I'm not familiar with to support the Bowie-was-fatuous claim... I'd appreciate some more description of how that was shown to be the case.

My recollection, which I think would be bourne out by an examination of the music press at the time, is that the more self-consciously art-oriented pop acts: Roxy Music and Eno in particular, but also Sparks, solo Lou Reed and others, were an important part of the milieu in which punk emerged--while the punk bands may have reacted against those acts in some respects, the early fans and critical admirers of punk (and early new wave acts like Televison and Talking Heads that were part of the same US movement as the Ramones) were largely drawn from the fans of Roxy, etc. At least that seemed true on the US side of the pond. I guess my own tendency would be to weight Roxy's influence, say. much more heavily than that of Gary Glitter. But influence and affinity is a tough thing to parse, and I don't want to inappropriately impose my own anecdotal experience on the whole history. Thoughts? BTfromLA 18:39, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I certainly agree on the importance of Roxy (especially the first 2 albums) and Reed, and think that punks mostly tended to have mixed feelings on Bowie. Gary Glitter, though, rides high. I was in London a lot during the 70s, and I think almost every punk band I knew pointed to Gary as part of what made them see again what 3-chord rock could be. In the U.S., he was nothing, the only things of his most Americans know are "Rock'n'Roll, Part 2" (and most don't even know the name of that) and maybe some covers of his stuff by Joan Jett, but in the UK he had about a dozen chart-topping hits. "Do You Want to Touch Me", "My Gang", things like that, were a major part of the musical formation of punk. Ironic that an old, stage-savvy pro in a sequined suit influenced punk, but he really did. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:05, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Especially in light of what he is now better-known as being: Gary Glitter
Very informative response, thanks. Anyone else? (And although I haven't seen the film in question, I concur wih the sense of your assessment of the "Party People" remarks, below). BTfromLA 04:50, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

24 Hour Party People

"...as displayed in the film on the subject 24 Hour Party People..." Huh? It's a fiction film, very specific to the Manchester scene in the post-punk era. If there was a point here it's unclear, please rewrite. If not, I will delete. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:38, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Mixed bag of additions

There were several recent mostly anonymous additions, some of them good, some probably not. It's too complicated to sort out by just editing, so I'm bringing it here.

The term "punk rock" &hellip was originally used to describe &hellip U.S. bands of the mid-1960s such as The Seeds and The Standells, who now are more often categorized as "garage rock".

became

The term "punk rock" &hellip was originally used to describe &hellip U.S. bands of the mid-1960s such as The Seeds, The Sonics, Pink Fairies, The Dinosaurs from Saint Louis, Missouri 1960's-1980's, Hawkwind, MC5, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Witches' Brew, and The Standells, who now are more often categorized as "the founding members of the punk rock genre of music".

  • I have no problem adding The Sonics (although I will point out that with The Seeds that means we are listing two Seattle-area bands).
  • MC5 are already mentioned below. I seen no need to add them here.
  • Pink Fairies and Hawkwind probably deserve mention in the article, but I think not in this context. They are UK, not U.S. bands. They aren't who the term originally referred to (they were called "Peoples’ Bands"). Can we put in a separate sentence about them instead?
  • The Dinosaurs from Saint Louis, Missouri 1960's-1980's: What the heck kind of link is that? If they merit an article, write it (under a better name than that), demonstrate their notability, but until I see it I say they don't belong here. Similarly Witches' Brew (who?).
  • the founding members of the punk rock genre of music: just silly, especially as a link. Revert to garage rock

Including "The Sex Pistols, Billy Idol and Generation X, The Clash" in the British Invasion is so wrong I've simply reverted it.

'Although in the 1970's Blondie bridged the gap between disco, punk rock and rap with their song "RAPTURE"' is a sentence fragment hanging out in the middle of nowhere (and there is no reason for the song title to be all caps). The statement may well belong in the article somewhere; any thoughts?

Punk also rejected the remnants of the hippie counterculture of the 1960s Bands such as Jefferson Airplane which had survived the 1960s were regarded by most punks as having become fatuous…

became

Punk also rejected the remnants of the hippie counterculture of the 1960s with band such as the Pink Fairies in the 1960's who were ahead of their times with notions of "sticking it to the man" (oppressive governments and authority figures). The Pink Fairies are just now being appreciated for their contributions to music and society. Bands such as Jefferson Airplane which had survived the 1960s were regarded by most punks as having become fatuous…

Speaking of fatuous… I'm going to just delete "The Pink Fairies are just now being appreciated for their contributions to music and society", and I think that can stay deleted. I don't think "with band such as the Pink Fairies in the 1960's (sic) who were ahead of their times with notions of 'sticking it to the man' (oppressive governments and authority figures)" is much better. Like there is supposed to be something unusual about a late 1960s band having been associated with radical politics? And it doesn't work with what else is being said here. I'm going to delete it from here; if someone can say something substantive about how the Pink Fairies influenced punk, though, as I said above, that would belong in the article. Certainly the spirit was similar. But Jefferson Airplane were also (very) political in their day (and I'd say their work from their first 4 or 5 years stands up beautifully: that isn't what the punks thought was fatuous).

The (new) paragraph beginning "The 1980's were full of underground bands all over the world..." is POV fan writing. It may have something worth keeping. I didn't look closely. Will someone else please look at that one? -- Jmabel | Talk 05:45, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)

I cut that paragraph--it really didn't add anything meaningful. I also trimmed the inaccurate "original" punks, restoring the Standells and preserving the Sonics, cutting the others. I don't know if we even need three examples there, but at least those three are correct. (And what's this about the Seeds being from Seattle? They were certainly based in Southern Cal (as were the Standells) during most of their career--did Sky and the boys migrate south?). I'm sorry if wholesale deletions of these contributions seem harsh--I hate to discourage an editor--but those additions really didn't add much of enclopedic value. If the contributors want further clarification (Though JMabel was more than generous in spelling out the reasons these were problematic), please bring it up here, on the talk page. BTfromLA 06:37, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I agree with the "the 1980's were full. . . ." cut. While undoubtedly heartfelt, the writing was really bad. There was a good idea buried in there (i.e. that not all punk rock attitudes were negative) which I tried to incorporate in the revision I've just made to that section. Check it out. Soundguy99 15:44, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)Soundguy99
  • Not sure of the full history on the Seeds, but they were here in Seattle at least part of their career. Sky himself was around the U. District when I moved here (1977) and still here as late as the late '80s; not sure where he is now or even if he is alive. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:52, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)
Sky is still kickin': [1]. I don't know the details of the bands' origin, but they were definitely LA-area based in the 60s. ~~

Does this belong?

Recently added external link:

This almost certainly doesn't belong as the first external link. I doubt it belongs at all. I didn't get any farther into this Flash-based site than to see that the first thing that came up was a request for money. I figured I'd give someone else a chance to speak up before deleting, but I'm inclined to delete. -- Jmabel | Talk 17:54, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

I'd say it is marginally appropriate link on the Clash page (it actually does address the history of the band, and I poked around a bit without running into solicitations for money). As it isn't primary material and doesn't deal with punk rock as a whole, though, I vote delete here. BTfromLA 18:35, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • I think we're in agreeement then, as far as this page goes. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:59, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

Power Chord?

I find it hard to believe that throughout the entire article there was no reference to the power chord... All the bits about 'three chords' should give guitarists the general idea, but don't you think that a link to the power chord article would be appropriate in this article? Punk rock basically ruined classic rock (not necessarily a bad thing) because they opened up a gate for people who only needed to memorize three hand positions.

  • Well, this article has shaped up to be primarily a general origin and history rather than a musical analysis, but if you think that you can create a useful paragraph or two of musical analysis, including a link to power chord, then go for it. Remember, anyone can edit. Soundguy99 18:27, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

P.S. you can sign your name & date to Talk pages postings by typing four tildes, like so: ~~~~

    • Ideally, I think this article should have quite a bit of musical analysis along with history. A more detailed history of punk rock should be spun out when the article gets overlong. Tuf-Kat 21:41, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

Additions to 90's punk

I made some additions to the section on punk of the 90s and today. I added information on the Epitaph Records/Gilman Street-fueled skate-punk craze of the mid-90s, the brief ska-punk revival of the later 90s, how Bush and Blair have become to today's political punks what Reagan and Thatcher were to yesterday's (i.e. PunkVoter and Rock Against Bush), a bit on how the Internet and filesharing have affected the DIY aspect of today's punk, and many of the controversial issues surrounding punk now, ex. whether or not you can sign to a major label and be on MTV while still being considered punk.

I also changed the wording of the last little bit lamenting that punk has become more of a fashion statement than a genuine counterculture, since while that is an unignorable debate in current times, I thought it was phrased a little too overdramatically for an encyclopedia article.

Lastly, regarding the current emo trend: I don't listen to emo, so I could be wrong (hence why this is on the Talk Page) but I'm quite certain that emo has been around since the 80s, albeit in a different form, and isn't just a term conjured up by the media to create another fad. While the emo bands of today are often dismissed as being just a fad for angsty teenagers, I don't think the genre itself was begun as a media-hyped trend. Inanechild 14:59, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Anonymous comment

The following anonymous remark was recently placed at the top of the page. I've moved it down here and added a pseudo-sig. I don't claim to know the point of the remark. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:47, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

NNPOV:
Punk quickly became more accessible to the average person, amid complaints from underground punk fans that, by being signed to major labels and appearing on MTV, these bands were buying into the system that punk was created to rebel against, and as a result, could not be considered true punk. This debate continues with the popularity of pop-punk in the early 2000s, and the emo trend of recent times.
? (anon 3 May 2005)
To the anonymous commenter: I wouldn't consider that not NPOV. It would be ridiculous to pretend as though these debates over what's punk and what's not don't happen. Inanechild 22:14, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

on the origin of the phrase "punk rock"

I was under the impression that the tag "punk rock" originated in a 1969 Rolling Stone review of the MC5's "Kick Out the Jams" written by Lester Bangs. However, I don't have the issue in question, so I really have no way of confirming it. My only source that Lester Bangs and not Dave Marsh coined the term is a short story by Bruce Sterling called "Dori Bangs" which deals with a might-have-been senario involving Lester Bangs and a comic book writer named Dori Senda. This story can be found in the book Globalhead. Since this may not be a 100% reliable source, I'd appreciate any research that could be done by the Wikipedia community.

Remarkably, that Lester Bangs review is online.[2] Bangs doesn't coin the phrase "punk rock." One sentence does include the word "punks": "Never mind that they came on like a bunch of 16 years old punks on a meth power trip - these boys, so the line ran, could play their guitars like John Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders played sax!" He comes much closer to talking about punk rock later in the review—"Musically the group is intentionally crude and aggressively raw. Which can make for powerful music except when it is used to conceal a paucity of ideas, as it is here. Most of the songs are barely distinguishable from each other in their primitive two-chord structures. You've heard all this before from such notables as the Seeds, Blue Cheer, Question Mark and the Mysterians, and the Kingsmen." While he clearly sees a tendency that later was labelled "punk rock," Bangs didn't coin a phrase to describe it. He just says, somewhat dismissively, "you've heard this all before"-- BTfromLA 15:11, 22 May 2005 (UTC).
Still, Bangs was an early user of the term "punk" in the relevant sense. A year ago, the article used to say:

Probably the first use of the term "punk" music was in Lester Bangs' 1971 essay "Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung": "... punk bands started cropping up who were writing their own songs but taking the Yardbirds' sound ..."

until someone found the earlier Dave Marsh usage. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:45, May 28, 2005 (UTC)
The question isn't when the word punk was first used to describe a band. The question is when was a new genre named punk? The early uses meaning beginner. Just because someone called some musicians punks or called a band a punk band does not mean that they named the new genre. --Gbleem 08:29, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
You are replying to a year-old discussion. But I'll take it back up. There is no clean line where the word started referring to a genre, just like there is no clean barrier around the genre. The Bangs quotation is, indeed dismissive; a few years later in his essay "Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung" it starts to refer to the genre that would later be called "garage rock"; Lenny Kaye picked that up and used it as a genre name (in that sense) in the notes to Nuggets. A few years after that, Kaye was playing with Patti Smith, and they were using the name to talk about their own music. That seems to me to be the lineage; it may not be the only lineage, though. - Jmabel | Talk 00:11, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Roundhouse '76 nitpicking, etc.

Allow me to fuss over trivia for a moment: the Flamin' Groovies were the top billed act and, I think, the last to perform at that famous show. That they were upstaged is clear. So the Stranglers were third on the bill, if we want to be precise. As long as I'm fussing, I'm pretty sure that the '76 version of the Groovies was totally a Cyril Jordan project, and Roy Loney was no longer with the group.

A more significant question about the article is how to accurately describe the migration of the term punk from the sixties garage bands to the CBGB's scene to the Pistols/UK scene. This probably involves describing the evolving distinction(s) between punk and new wave, which is a bit knotty. BTfromLA 30 June 2005 07:00 (UTC)

I think you are right about the Stranglers coming on last, but I'm pretty sure you are wrong about Loney no longer being with the Groovies. Damn, though, it's scary that I can't remember firmly. Oh, well, like they say about the Sixties, if you can remember, then you weren't really there. There must be a solid account of that show by someone who wrote things down at the time instead of trying to remember in middle age.
I'm pretty certain that circa '77 the term "New Wave" for music wasn't even around. "Pub rock" covered people like Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, and Alex Harvey. -- Jmabel | Talk July 1, 2005 06:12 (UTC)
A quick search (see [3] and [4]) seems to confirm that Loney left the band in 1971 or '72, right after "Teenage Head." And, to clarify, my recollection of 7/4/76 is: Stranglers took the stage first, then Ramones, finally Groovies. That is certainly the way the were billed. If I searched through my old magazines, I could probably come across a contemporary review of the show.
As it happens, I was sorting through some such zines recently, and came across a self-described "intellectual rock 'n' roll magazine" from 1978 called Terminal Zone. It categorized the Ramones, Sex Pistols, Talking Heads, Wire, Patti Smith, Pere Ubu, XTC, etc. all as "new wave." "Punk" was not an option, though they do talk about "punk-rock" in some detail in a longer discussion of the Sex Pistols later in the issue. Basically, they seem to treat "punk rock" as a sub-genre of "new wave," and I think this was a fairly common perception at the time, at least from the US POV. I'm not at all sure that the idea that "new wave" was purely a marketing invention by Seymour Stein is accurate.
By the way, the magazine's other categories for recent records included "A little Art, sans Linkletter", including Eno, Ferry, Bowie, Kraftwwerk, Cale, Hawkwind..., "Rock 'n' Roll, holdover division," with Rolling stones, Dylan, Beach Boys, Johansen, Groovies, Lou Reed... "Pop, Power, Pure and otherwise," Elton John, Dwight Twilley, Abba, Generation X, Joan Armatrading... "Pure Product for the Manipulated Masses" Debby Boone, Fleetwood Mac, John Denver, Dolly Parton... --BTfromLA 1 July 2005 17:52 (UTC)

It was indeed a Flamin' Groovies gig; Stranglers up first, then The Ramones, then the Groovies. All three groups reconvened the following night just down the road at Dingwalls, Camden Lock. I think this was rather hastily organised; I don't remember any publicity but word of mouth. At the Roundhouse, Joey started The Ramones' set by shouting something along the lines of "We're The Ramones, and you better shut up!", followed by absolute silence. The was no power to anybody's amplifier at all. I don't know exactly what went wrong but I do remember it took an age to get it fixed.BTLizard 10:35, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Whole Earth Catalog as foundation of punk?

While I'm an admirer of Stewart Brand and I think the Whole Earth Catalog is woefully under-recognized, it seems to me that it's a real stretch to include it in a short encyclopedic article on punk rock. I'm afraid I vote for deleting that new paragraph on WEC/SF/DIY, on grounds that it is too digressive. Other opinions? BTfromLA 2 July 2005 23:44 (UTC)

  • I'm with you on this. While the link from the Whole Earth DIY ethic to Gilman Street in particular might be worth mentioning in an article on Bay Area culture, or even on the DIY ethic, its inclusion in an article on punk is dubious. San Francisco was not the crucible of punk, although it has something of a claim as a crucible of DIY. -- Jmabel | Talk July 3, 2005 03:24 (UTC)

Nirvana, Punk eh NO

Nirvana is not punk rock. Kurt has even explicity said that they were not punk. In the booklet inside With the Lights Out there is even a mention saying that Nirvana were labeled punk by critics who didn't know what punk was. Jobe6 05:37, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

Nirvana is definately not punk, nirvana is grunge...grunge is the FUSION of punk,hard rock and metal...get it right kiddies... (anon - but of course - 13 Aug 2005)

Nirvana is a grunge band. They are FAR from punk. TearAwayTheFunerealDress 15:08, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Make sure no one changes the info to say Nirvana is a punk band. In fact, Wikipedia even states that Nirvana is a grunge band. Newguineafan 16:43, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Ok. Will do. I would have to keep changing it anyway because it gets vandalized so much. TearAwayTheFunerealDress 15:04, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Nirvana, Punk hell yes!

Well, allmusic.com would differ Job. I mean, what other form of music could have the power and juice to single handedly deal a death blow to the bloated hair metal that was so prevalent at the time? While admittedly they melded metal into their sound as well, there is little doubt that Nirvana is punk. I knew Nirvana was punk the first time I heard it. If not punk, then what? "Grunge"? That's a bogus term. Metal? There is more to the story than that, for sure. "Alternative", - that term is way too ambiguous. Nirvana was prominently featured in the recent documentary "Punk: Attitude". I am actually puzzled that one might think that this music is *not* punk, and believe me, I know my punk. Since you seem to specialize in Soundgarden, (who were more metal than anything), perhaps you are defending the term "grunge" as an actual artistic movement, in the simillar vein as punk? I don't care what Kurt said while he was headed downhill, he was probably a complete wreck at the time, you can't go by that or some booklet in a compliation album. I know punk when I hear it, and I am very confident of this assertion. Listen to "Breed", or "Negative Creep" and tell me this is not punk. Perhaps you did not realize that you actually like punk rock music?

A nirvana fan site has an interview with nirvana in november of 1989.

Kurt: Maybe we're more like the Stooges type of punk rock, before punk rock was a trendy fashion statement. And, where people would expect to try to act as punk rock as possible.

Chad: That's why we're not punk rock. [Kurt chuckles]

The band themselves said they are not punk rock so i guess they are not punk rock. Jobe6 06:35, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

--- Chad was a member for a short time, before the definitive lineup inlcuding Dave Grohl. Also, take a look at your reference. It seems clear to me it was sarcasm/humor. Why else would Kurt laugh? In that quote he stated that they *are* punk rock, in the vein of the Stooges.

Try a google search for Nirvana + punk -> more than 750,000 hits!

Nirvana is not punk turns up more than 1,000,000 hits. Jobe6 06:50, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, but most of the hits are cases where the terms Nirvana, punk, and the word "not" happpen to appear on the same page. For example, one of this first hits is from http://www.mp3.com/nirvana/artists/4318/biography.html

"Prior to Nirvana, alternative music was consigned to specialty sections of record stores and major labels considered it to be, at the very most, a tax write-off. After the band's second album, 1991's Nevermind, nothing was ever quite the same, for better and for worse. Nirvana popularized punk, post-punk, and indie rock, unintentionally bringing it into the American mainstream like no other band before it."

I guess we have to agree that Wikipedia is the definitve source, if not allmusic.com? Take a look at the Nirvana entry, "Nirvana was a popular rock band founded in 1987 in Aberdeen, Washington. Their music was an offshoot of punk and alternative rock and was labeled grunge rock by the mainstream press and media of the time." Seems pedantic to argue the differences between my phrase "Nirvana was essentially a punk rock band", and "Nirvana was an offshoot of punk..." (unsigned 29 July 2005)

"Breed" and "Negative Creep" are certainly punk. "Smells Like Teen Spirit"? Something new entirely. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:42, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

Michael Azzerad discusses how Nirvana sprang out of the underground scene that had been created by punk rock in Our Band Could Be Your Life an awful lot. Rather than digress into original research, it would be better to refer to the "experts"; it's a complicated topic, and deserves a complicated discussion. siafu 22:10, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
Crass declaring "Punk is Dead" did not mean they were no longer punk. I think that musically, lyrically and all other -lys I could add that Nirvana were punk. If NOFX can be considered punk, so can Nirvana. In fact, Nirvana is a hell of a lot more punk than most "punk" bands these days. Especially early Nirvana. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.168.14.42 (talk • contribs) 12 Sept 2005.

Of course Nirvana is punk. Punk is an attitude more than a musical style. In the new documentary, Punk: Attitude, Darryl Jenifer of the Bad Brains said in reference to Chuck Berry duck walking across the stage "Now that's some punk shit!" He's right of course. The Pixies were some punk shit too. (Cries will now ensue- "No, no, no!! The Pixies are INDIE ROCK!! Please don't blur the lines or mix the categories!") Punk isn't about three chords and adhering to preordained musical forms, it's about rebellion, overturning the status quo and opening eyes. Yup, Nirvana... that's some punk shit! -- Buster 15:58, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

They were Punk influenced but not actually Punk, as has already been said about 1,000 times already on this page they were Grunge.

Deathrocker 18:23, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

i gotta differ on one thing.... there are musical elements that set nirvana apart from punk. specifically, nirvanas music is much more tense and dark, while the music of punk is just way more happy (lots of kind of sing-song major melodies, none of the tense harmonies or melodic nuances that you find in nirvana). as far as the production and sound design go, they are certainly very similar... in fact, cobain always wanted his music to be produced exactly like never mind the bollocks... "everything totally compressed and in your face" (his producers never quite did it like that, but cobain has certainly said that he always wanted that kind of production). and of course bad brains is a huge inspiration to cobain. lots of punk had inspired him, and he always said he regretted that he wasn't "punk" enough.

Grunge is just some term created by the early 90s music press, Nirvana is a punk band. Jacknife737 03:16, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[...]the music of punk is just way more happy (lots of kind of sing-song major melodies, none of the tense harmonies or melodic nuances that you find in nirvana)
What punk do you listen to? Maybe pop-punk is happy with sing song melodies, but that is rare in most other punk genres. There is less "tense harmonies" and "melodic nuance", but it does happen occasionally. The Ungovernable Force 03:42, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Nirvana were punk! To say that they "weren't punk, they were grunge" is really shortsighted. It's possible for a band to fall into more than one genre. That's like saying "Neil Young wasn't a coutnry musician, he was a rock musician." You listen to "Nevermind," close your eyes, forget the name of the band, and try to tell me that it wasn't punk rock. You can hear definite Stooges influences, definite Ramones influences, I know Kurt was a big fan of The Raincoats and a million other punk bands. If Glenn Branca calls you a punk, then you're a punk. If Steve Albini thinks you're a punk, then you're a punk. I would be willing to argue that if they never sold a million copies, all of the neysayers would be hailing them as a great punk band. --128.205.167.6 06:16, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


Nirvana killed hair metal with GRUNGE and Green Day killed grunge with real music. touche.

I humbly disagree. To label Nirvana a punk rock band is, to me, inaccurate. There is an esthetic to punk music (think Stiv Bators), almost a sneer. Obviously there were elements of punk in Nirvana. But what they popularized ("grunge" or "alternative") was much more introspective, personal, and borderline depressing (or narcissistic if you didn't care for it.)

To me, what is in play here is what I call piggy-backing. Fans of a certain genre want to "piggy-back" rock's most successful musical acts and claim them as their own. The new documentary on the "History of Metal" tries the same stunt with Nirvana. The band was an amalgam of several styles.

I agree with the theorem: Punk:Rock::BeBop:Jazz. - —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JeromeParr (talk • contribs) 9 August 2006.

Origins of the term

I had an issue with the often-asserted belief restated in the paragraph:

The term was coined by rock critic Dave Marsh, who used it to describe the music of ? and the Mysterians in the May 1971 issue of Creem magazine. The term was adopted by many rock music journalists in the early 1970s. For example, in the liner notes of the 1972 anthology album Nuggets, critic and guitarist Lenny Kaye uses the term "punk-rock" to refer to the Sixties "garage rock" groups, as well as some of the darker and more primitive practitioners of 1960s psychedelia. Shortly after the time of those notes, Lenny Kaye formed a band with avant-garde poet Patti Smith. Smith's group, and her first album, Horses, released in 1975, directly inspired many of the mid-1970s punk rockers, so this suggests a path by which the term migrated to the music we now know as punk.

This is not, in fact, the origin of the term. Rather, as the other portions of the "punk rock" entry suggest, the term was first applied to garage rock in contradistinction to "punk rock" as such. My interactions with Dave Marsh personally have convinced me that his knowledge of punk rock is limited, and I do not believe he intended to apply the term in the manner suggested by the paragraph quoted above.

In addition, there are competing claims to coining the term. Such as the creators of Punk Magazine, who discuss this in the book "Please Kill Me".

In short, I believe the quote paragraph (in using the word "suggest") indicated that the proferred history of the term is at best speculative, and furthermore is the subject of competing claims of origin. I suggest the quoted paragraph should be deleted. I think it's indicative of many changes needed in this entry, which I believe innacurately suggests the origins of the musical genre (e.g., by ignoring bands like The Stooges, Rocket From the Tombs, and many of the influences of punk rock like French poet Arthur Rimbaud, the Beats, etc. etc.).

I think you are misreading the paragraph--nowhere does it imply that Marsh wanted to apply the term to the Sex Pistols, etc. The the application of the term to an ongoing scene by Punk magazine is acknowleged elsewhere in the article, and if you want to beef up the section on historical precidents, I don't see how cutting this paragraph servs that end. I really don't understand what you disagree with here. BTfromLA 16:41, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Nirvana was just a very good Punk Rock Band. I don't like to over categorize. They transcended Punk but all in the same went back to Punk Roots in their music similar to Green Day. I hate that when a band gets so good they have to be recategorized. Bands like Nirvana and Green Day can go beyond the rock riffs that the Sex Pistols produced. (anon 10 Aug 2005)

The Misfits in the first paragraph?

I think The Misfits are misplaced in the opening paragraph, since (1) they were largely derivative of the other bands listed with them and (2) they were little-known and not influential outside the US, until the late 1980s at least. Grant65 (Talk) 14:31, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

I agree--it's a stretch to include them in the first generation. BTfromLA 16:32, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

True. Also the Misfits were instrumental in bridging the gap between Punk and Thrash Metal. When Metal reached in the Punk bin most of the time it was Sex Pistols-Misfits. (anon 10 Aug 2005)

the art attacks: do they belong here?

I don't think the art attacks are (even nearly) notable enough to merit mention in this article. Someone keeps adding them. Yes, they merit an article themselves. No, mentioning them is not useful to explain what punk is. I wouldn't include Big in Japan or the Fastbacks here, either, though I think both are great bands. I won't keep reverting unilaterally, but I'd appreciate it if others who have been significantly involved in the article would weigh in. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:16, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

The Art Attacks clearly don't belong in a short intro to punk. I think that whole section could use trimming: the list of UK bands is overlong, and the LA bands list could also stand to shed a name or two. BTfromLA 04:43, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
I agree, they were not influential.Grant65 (Talk) 15:12, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

We still get shit

It is incorrect to state that punks faced hostility and violence from others "in its heyday". I, and many other street punks, are very often harrassed and subject to harsh violence from passersby who feel provoked by our appearance and actions(and that's before we get to the nazis and policemen who seem to attack us reflexively). I suggest it is edited to reflect this more contemporary fact. Tias 12:28, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

the reason everyone acts that way is you look suspect to begin with and don't look all that friendly either and can scare a lot of people too

Oh, and that's justification for beating the shit out of me? You seem to be an apologist for discrimination and violence, that's scares me! Tias 07:06, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
If by "street punk" you mean that you loiter about and make a public nusiance of yourself, that probably has more to do with why you get harassed than your clothes or haircut. Or perhaps you live in a small town where stereotypical punk rock attire is still somehow regarded as "shocking" after all these long years? In any case, I can assure as a former punk who is now within sniffing distance of age 40, whatever static you're getting today, it's nothing compared to what most punks had to deal with 25 years ago. Not trying to deride your way of life, just stating a fact. Druff 00:36, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Street punk means that I have had to live day to day, sometimes without a home. I don't make anymore a nuisance of myself than I am constitutionally entitled to, unless you consider my appearance and attire worthy of harassment(which you do not). I live in the capital of Denmark, and punk has been here since '78, so it can hardly be considered unusual at all - maaany punks here, there's just as many fuckjobs who can't handle it. Not that I mind being yelled at, it goes with the "job", but I still don't get the reason some people attack me reflexively. The reason for my posting here is that harassment and violence against punks, even those who do not ACT provocatively, is something that happens today, it is not some mythical phenomenon from punk rock's heyday. - Tias
It's as I thought, then. Little garners more resentment from the local citizenry than a young, able-bodied bum sitting in their streets and doing nothing to contribute. Whatever reasons you have for being homeless, what they see is a lazy, shiftless kid who refuses to work for a living. That's why you get harassed. The fact that you put all of your energy into dying and spiking your hair and painting and studding your leather jacket instead of making an living is why they give you crap. When you grow up, you'll understand. Until then- Anarchy, Peace, and Equality, kiddo. ;) Druff 18:45, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
I put my energy into writing here, going to school, making music and helping out my community(Not that I don't have time over to do my hair, though ;) ); but they still harass and violate because OF WHAT THEY SEE. We can agree that is wrong, yesno? I'm legally an adult, if you cannot explain it to me without saying I have to be grown up, you don't have anything worthwhile to impart, as I see it. We should continue this in user talk, I think. It's waay off-topic. Tias 08:35, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm amazed at Druff's attitude- surely anybody has the right to live free from the threat of violence and intimidation, no matter how they look or dress or spend their time??? That is fundemental human rights, and the ignorance of those elements of the 'citizenry' who attack those who are 'different' or that they are making assumptions about should be condemned rather than excused. BTW I used to dres like a 'punk' myself 20 odd years ago (pink mohican, ripped trousers, Crass teeshirts, etc- thats me lying down on the train seat in the photo on the Punk rock page BTW...), but never got any shit for it that I can remember, nor did I deserve any either. I Did used to get the odd tourist in London wanting to take my picture, I always told them I'd prefer they didn't, I was a person, not a postcard novelty.... Anarchy and peas quercus robur 09:58, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm really not getting into the "right" or "wrong" aspect of the issue. I don't think it's "right" that people make assumptions about others based on their their appearance. But no matter if you or I think it's right or wrong, it's simply what many people do. And they always will, unless we as a species somehow achieve Total Englightenment a few thousand years from now. Until then, it's basic human nature. I don't condone it. However, I have come to accept it as an inevitability of human society. Sure, people have the right to dress however they want. But everything has its consequences. If you're going to dress up as an outcast, then be prepared to live the part. Druff 22:26, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

The Stooges

I think the Stooges really solidified everything it means to be a Punk band (coming from gritty (Detroit/Chicago not wimpy Seattle) and they were the first ones to do this extremley. I can see The Sonics as a starting point. Interesting how Punk came back around to Seattle with Nirvana but then these bands were the best I think. Shouldn't American Idiot be up there and its cover? Pretty good right or no? It's funny how America invented Punk Rock and Britain invented Heavy metal music. I am more of a Heavy Metal man myself. More the standard fare but we all love Sex Pistols and Misfits which contributed greatly to Thrash metal music. Now the Metal scene needs to produce a Rock opera. Judas Priest 'Angel of Retribution' is close. Also interesting how Green Day is from very Liberal San Francisco. So that's why they put out such a political album now. (anon 10 Aug 2005)

The Stooges were certainly very important in the early scene, as major influences on folks like the Ramones, who directly or indirectly inspired nearly every punk act since. But, of course, if you look closely the antecedents go much further back than that, I would argue all the way to Link Wray and the Wraymen, who really deserve a passing mention and a link in this article FAR more than most of the bands that are mentioned. Arker 23:47, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
I'd favor a mention of Link Wray. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:46, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Flipperdick

I see that Flipper (presumably that should be Flipper (band)) and the Dicks have found their way into the article in talking about early hardcore. Flipper are certainly a good band. Were they notable enough to belong mentioned here? The Dicks I only know by reputation. Again, were they notable enough to belong mentioned here? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:48, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

  • Flipper certainly belongs, I believe. Whereas most HC was stripped-down punk rock played at a faster pace, Flipper was stripped down and played slower. Many critics are still perplexed about how to pigeonhole them, but as originators of a distinctive style, they primarily found their fans among punk rockers, shared stages mostly with other punk and hardcore bands, and thus gave inspiration to myriad punk and hardcore bands including Fang, Blight (Tesco Vee's pre-Meatmen band), No Trend, Broken Talent ("My God Can Beat Up Your God"), Drunks With Guns, Stickmen With Rayguns, and the Melvins; all of these bands were mentioned in "American Hardcore" by Steven Blush. --RickEle

The Skate-Rock Line

I believe this line should be revised or deleted:
Epitaph Records, an independent record label started by Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion, would become the home of the "skate punk" sound, characterized by bands like Pennywise, NOFX, The Offspring, and blink-182.
The four bands mentioned in this line don't fit well with the "skate punk" label. The bands mentioned in the skate punk article should be used as refrence instead (JFA, Circle Jerks, Black Flag, Dr. Know, Faction, etc.)Also, I've always believed Epitaph to be a pop-punk label, better skate-punk examples would be Mystic Records or Spontaenous Combustion.
ThisOrder 02:55, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

A bit outside of my musical expertise, but yes, I would identify your list more with skate punk than the list in the article. I suggest you edit accordingly. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:17, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
This may be a generational issue: skate punk in the 1990s was identified closely with bands like NOFX and Pennywise, and by that time bands like Black Flag were seen as "old-school hardcore". --Delirium 13:44, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Could well be; I'm certainly one of "the old guys" (or old-school guys) on this page. So can we reword to be inclusive of both? -- Jmabel | Talk 00:05, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

A few amendments 5 Oct 05

Couldn't let a couple of things go unchecked. The reference to Gary Glitter as a glam/art rock influence has been changed to David Bowie (the Bromley set were obsessed with him, Glen Matlock says the riff for "God Save The Queen" was ripped off The Spiders From Mars in his autobiography). The band Suicide have been included as CBGB's significants, the band Magazine as a major UK post-punk act. Included a reference to what is recognised as the first punk single of the '76 London scene. A few spelling corrections and a slant on the Grundy interview. Oh, and the excellent England's Dreaming in the references. Needs a page, I'll try to bash one out this weekend. I'd like to do more so let me know if approval has been earned. / JC

Mixed bag of edits

I think these edits by User:81.103.219.167 are a mixed bag. Some seem arbitrary, just substitutions of one minor band or piece of near-trivia for another, and I will leave it to others to decide what to do with them. One is a correction: somehow, in one place Sex Pistols had been changed to Sex . The addition of Jon Savage's England's Dreaming to the references is welcome. One thing I am reverting: in the mention of glam rock influences on punk, Gary Glitter was far more of an influence than David Bowie. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:58, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't see the previous comment before writing mine; I'll put Bowie back in there, but Gary should also stay: his stripped down sound (despite his excessive packaging) was cited constantly as an influence by London punks in the late '70s. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:09, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I guess I'm gonna have to try harder to convince you then! Ok, I replaced Manster (who?) with Suicide who went on to influence Sparks, Wire (listen to Heartbeat from Chairs Missing), Human League (Seconds from Dare for example), OMD, Soft Cell and Tourists/Eurythmics. Bruce Springsteen covered them and the Cars had a big crush too. I replaced This Heat (virtually unheard of) with Magazine, Howard Devoto's next outing after seminal work with Buzzcocks. They are a clear link between Roxy Music and Pil, Gof4 etc and have been cited by Radiohead among others. I replaced "Sex" with "Sex Pistols" which seemed to be a typo. The Grundy interview is hardly trivia seeing as it accelerated the Pistols notoriety into overdrive. New Rose was a significant release because it pipped Anarchy as the first piece of vinyl from the '76 uk scene, third being Buzzcocks Spiral Scratch ep. As for Mr Glitter, I have genuinely never read or heard anyone cite him as an influence but I guess I'm just wrong there. / JC

  • God knows I won't miss Manster or This Heat being mentioned. I'll assume you know what you are talking about on Suicide, to be honest I don't know them well. The Buzzcocks certainly (already mentioned), but Magazine? Maybe. I really don't care either way. Are they really more the link here than Joy Division? I agree that the Grundy interview is not trivia. "New Rose": no opinion. Glitter: hope this at least shows I'm not crazy, I wish I had better citations handy, and I'm sure I could find them if you really doubt me (but frankly I'd rather spend my research time on other things if you will take my word). He was nothing in the U.S. until "Rock'n'roll Part 2" became a ballpark standard, but he had something like 7 number 1 hits in the UK, and despite his stage excess, he kept 3-chord rock alive in the UK in the age of ELO and similar bloated crap. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:09, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Respect to you sir, good article. May I recommend the first Suicide album and also the piece written by Lester Bangs called "The Sound of NYC" inside their "Half Alive" ROIR cassette. / JC

EMO

Emo bands are such stupid american bands. High pitched whining vioces crying about how crap their life is. blah blah blah. i have no girlfriend. blah blah blah. i just got 2 billion us from my record company. blah blah blah. the sex pistols rule them all. and, i agree with the other guy. nirvana is not a punk band. they suck penis. full stop.

How did we get on the discussion of Emo bands on a punk discussion. Whoa...that was random! TearAwayTheFunerealDress 16:20, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

wait.... actually i think punk rock is 100% responsible for emo and all the irritation that it brings us. all the main emo bands grew out of underground punk and ska scenes, specifically in new jersey (midtown, saves the day, etc)...

That's pretty POV of you. whether you liek it or not, punk has influenced emo. and yes, as much as i agree that emo really blows, some of emo's influences were'nt that bad (see Husker Du, Rites of Spring, even Fugazi). --128.205.167.6 06:23, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Image at the top of the page

If you're going to have a visual for punk at the top of the page it shouldn't be like the one that's there. The studded jacket/mohawk trend tends to mislead people unfamiliar with punk into thinking that people have always followed that image since the mid 70s. There really is no one image for punk but it would be better to have an image of punk in its "first wave", since that has the most relevence to the top paragraph.

And HOLY FUCK where are the Dead Kennedys???? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.139.176.4 (talk • contribs) 11 Oct 2005.

Mentioned in passing in the section on Punk attitudes and fashion, but I think they deserve more prominent mention. Probably the most influential U.S. politically oriented punk bands, especially if one looks at influence beyond the punk/hardcore scene itself. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:11, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

If you're going to have a visual for punk at the top of the page it shouldn't be like the one that's there. The studded jacket/mohawk trend tends to mislead people unfamiliar with punk into thinking that people have always followed that image since the mid 70s.

Eh, that's allright by me. Postcards can be as punk as any of them - I don't consider it misleading, if people want more indepth information on how to 'look like a real punk'(what are you guys smoking?), they can check the punk rock fashion wikis. Tias 07:09, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Apart from that its also a possible copyvio image, in fact it looks just like one of those postcards thats just been scanned in. I've got lots of photos of 'real' punks, when I get time maybe I'll scan one of these and replace this image. quercus robur 09:46, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, allright. Appreciated if you did! Tias 08:55, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Yeah they do look like 'postcard punks' or fashion victims rather than 'real' punks quercus robur 07:03, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Maybe the picture of Ebba Grön should be changed to a Black Flag album. Also, as the Ramones are grouped with the Pistols et al in the first paragraph maybe the first sentence should read "around the mid 70s" or similar. And the Wire sound snippet replaced with one of "Anarchy". / JC

The Ebba Grön picture, yeah. Ebba Grön evolved away from punk at about the same speed as The Clash, and that 1981 image seems a bit post-punk. The Image of Punk, to me, is someone like the Sex Pistols drummer; a british teenager, badly dressed, bad haircut, with pimples and bad teeth, and a stupid grin on his face because it's so fun to play. Jgrahn 22:17, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

The Plugz

Do the Plugz really merit mention in the article? I'm all for recognizing Chicano music, which I'm guessing was the reason for inclusion, but is it at all useful to mention this not terribly well known band in a list, without giving any context as to why they might be worthy of mention? -- Jmabel | Talk 05:14, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Punk metal

"Punk Metal (also known as "Crossover")": is there any basis for this? Any crossing of audiences can be called "crossover" (and usually a mix of genres is called a "fusion" not a "crossover"). Is there any basis to suggest that "Crossover" is a name used for punk metal, rather than punk metal just being an example of a crossover or fusion of genres? If so, this should be cited. If not, the parenthetical remark should be removed. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:09, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I can confirm that back in the mid to late 1980s, some people did refer to metal/punk as "Crossover". I think it was mainly used by folks on the metal side of the fence, not so much by punks; Iron Maiden fans who discovered the joys of Discharge and COC. I'm sure it's been a very long time since anyone used the term in this way (along with "metalcore") but it's legitimate. Druff 00:52, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

External links

There are now an awful lot of external links on this article. I don't think any are really bad, but perhaps someone could organize some subsections and group them intelligibly? -- Jmabel | Talk 00:46, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I was just thinking the same thing.. i think the following are in need of removal
There also seem to be alot of punk news websites.. some of which aren't needed
Sub-categories doesn't sound like a bad idea, such as..
  1. News
  2. Directories
  3. Articles
  4. History
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by ThisOrder (talk • contribs) 3 Nov 2005.
I'm certainly with you on the first 7 removals (down to and including Derry). Does anyone else want to chime in? -- Jmabel | Talk 07:27, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree. They don't really contribute to the punk movement. TearAwayTheFunerealDress 15:07, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I've removed the seven we seem agreed on. - Jmabel | Talk 22:10, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

That's cool with me. Those seven didn't really work for me anyway. As I said above...punk movement. Much Love, Helena Rayne TearAwayTheFunerealDress 15:21, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

"Unity is has now been bandage."

At the end of the Los Angeles/Orange County remarks: "A rivalry between the Los Angeles punk scene and O.C. scene took place in the 1980s. Unity is has now been bandage." The last sentence is simply incomprehensible to me, can someone please clarify? And the one before that strikes me as a dubious generalization, at the very least requiring citation. If no one fixes this in the next 48 hours or so, I'll probably remove it. -- 03:51, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

A CULTURE

I THINK THAT THE PUNK, MORE THAN BE A FASHION IS A CULTURE OR LIFE STYLE........PUNK NOT DEAD .... THE PUNK LIVES FOR EVER.... FROM:GaBo_PuNk_284

I have a badge- given to me by Dick Lucas of Citizen Fish/Pubhumans (and yer don't get alot older than that... unless yer Charlie Harper)- it reads "Old punks never die- they just stand at the back"... quercus robur 00:13, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

hahahaha. punk's not dead it just deserves to be. and btw, try telling malcolm mclaren taht punk isn't about fashion. --128.205.167.6 06:24, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

punk and jazz

i was wondering if anyone could give me some information on the connections between punk rock and free jazz. i have heard that some original punk bands (the clash, the sex pistols, the dead kennedys, etc.) can trace their roots back to the original jazz movements. Does anyone have more information on that?

Free jazz and punk have similar sensibilities in my opinion, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, etc were making noise with a really punk edge right back in the sixties! There must have been many at the more creative and imaginative edge of the early punk movement who were aware of these sort of antecedents... Heres some examples;
  • Crass definately had free jazz influences, these are explicit now with the post-Crass project Last Amendment, but were always there if you knew how to listen to them.
  • John Lydon had very wide ranging musical tastes, he cited Captain Beefheart and Can (not quite free jazz, but cetainly musically left-field) as influences right back in the early days of punk, much to the annoyance of Malcolm McLaren, who wanted the public to think of him as an uncultured yob.
  • The Slits also had free jazz connections, working with free improvisers like Steve Beresford. I also remember seeing memebers of the Slits in the audience at a London Derek Bailey concert in the late 70s.
  • The Damned did a gig or 2 with free jazzer Lol Coxhill, he also apears on their second album.
  • The Pop Group worked with cello improviser Tristan Honsinger, as well as The Last Poets and others- theres some 'free jazz' moments on both of their first 2 albums.
  • In more recent years John Zorn has utilised many elements of punk into his work.

quercus robur 20:07, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

The free jazz influences seemed to be more apparent in teh New York scene as I saw it (however, I'd love it if someone were to prove me otherwise ;) ). Velvet Underground were obviously hugely influenced by free jazz, see white light/white heat. The New York no wave scene was probably the most influenced of all, see the contortions, lounge lizards, 8 eyed spy, et. al. other than taht, I think the attitude of free jazz is what was more important. people keep forgetting that punk isn't "3 chords really fast" because the talking heads, television, and suicide would be right out the window on that one. punk is about attitude, fashion (FUCK YOU IT IS ABOUT FASHION YOU PRETENSIOUS DICKS), culture, and music. teh attitude aspect of it was really nothing new. it was about eliminating the old orchestrated dinosaur rock and bringing in something new, rebellious, minimalist, and snotty. coltrane did it for jazz. schoenberg did it for classical. fuck, wordsworth did it for poetry. dada did it for art.

  • Before punk became a recognized genre, it was being pioneered by "weird people doing weird stuff." New York City's East Village was the scene of many early free jazz performances, and the neighborhood's earliest adopters to embrace the form were these "weird people," including beatniks, street artists, and DIY music self-starters who were diversely influenced. Bands such as The Fugs and The Godz were inspired to turn their folk-rock "free" with the inspiration of free jazz, and it's little surprise then that these bands would become labelmates on ESP-Disk with so many free jazz pioneers. But before New Yorkers get a little too proud about inventing or being the first to adopt every meaningful or interesting new development in American culture, it should be mentioned that "free music" was happening in other pockets, such as in Los Angeles where Ornette Coleman made an impression on Captain Beefheart, whose disciples in the Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS) may have been the first to adopt the phrase "free music." --RickEle 01:53, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
This morning BBC radio had a story about the history of punk. It might have been called "History of Punk" but I can't find it on the web site. It said Iggy Pop and others studied blues but felt there was something wrong with ripping off blues singers so instead he should copy the essence of the music but do there own thing. He then gave some examples of how punk did not used the traditional blues riffs. --Gbleem 08:36, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Style and Structure

I'd like to start off by saying to everyone you've written a great history of Punk Rock but there's little in the article said about the actual style and structure of punk, you could read the whole article and still not recognise a punk song if it hit you in the face.

So I'm adding a part of my own, and I want everyone to feel free to edit, add to, change, slash and/or burn what I've written if you have a legitimate reason to contradict me, write something I've omitted etc.

Thanks.

(Justinboden86 22:52, 20 November 2005 (UTC))

Ramones

Recently added, I am reverting: "(although it must be noted that the Ramones were more conservative, and that Johnny Ramone, the true founder of the band, was a hardcore conservative and avidly supported the US Republican Party.)" This replaced my reference to the "nihilistic humor" of their early lyrics.

  1. Yes, Johnny Ramone was a conservative, probably most precisely a right libertarian domestically and a pro-military unilateralist internationall. Joey Ramone, on the other hand, was your basic New York Jewish social liberal. They were not, by any account, the best of friends, but they stayed in a band together and, remarkably, each played even on the other's political songs. Most remarkably, Johnny seems to have willingly performed "The KKK Took My Baby Away" even though it was almost certainly about him!
  2. In the context of talking about the style and structure of early punk, Johnny's (or Joey's) politics are not relevant. Early Ramones songs were not political. They were nihilistic. "Beat on the Brat (with a baseball bat)", "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue", "Teenage Lobotomy": how much more nihilistic can humor get? -- Jmabel | Talk 05:17, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Don't forget New York's other favorite right wing punks, MURPHY'S LAW....

bombastic rock

Wasn't it John Lydon who called what the stadium-bands were doing "bombastic rock"? --24.221.8.253 06:41, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

random comment removed

Removed newly inserted sentence; Many UK street punk bands like The Exploited, G.B.H., Blitz, Abrasive Wheels, UK Subs, to name a few, influenced many bands and punx today.

as it seems to have been plonked at random in the middle of a paragraph discussing a totally different genre (ie, 'metal crossover punk', eg, Amebix, etc, rather than 'street punk', eg, GBH, Blitz, etc.) maybe it can be worked in somewhere else, but not in this particular paragraph quercus robur 23:12, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Suicide

Do Suicide really merit mention in talking about the early New York punk scene? I was around that scene and have no memory of having ever heard of them until later; I'd be interested in hearing from others on this. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:02, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Like you, I don't remember Suicide as having an especially high profile in that scene, though I wasn't (except as a tourist) in New York at the time. I did monitor the press and the record stores pretty closely, though. For that abrasive arty side of the scene, I'd say Teenage Jesus and the Jerks or James Chance and the Contortions probably figured more prominently, but I'm not lobbying to add them to the sentence. I suggest limiting that list to the handful of acts most associated with the CBGB's scene: Televison, Ramones, Blondie and Talking Heads. Maybe Richard Hell and the Voidoids and Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, since both are key to what we now think of as "punk." I'd cut the others: Wayne County was certainly part of the scene (espcially at Max's K. C.) but doesn't seem essential to this brief list. Ditto Mink Deville. Cherry Vanilla--I don't remember her being very prominent: was she?
I've been away from the article for awhile and it seems to me that it has developed some other problems: I don't think that the "Style and structure" section belongs at the top (and some of it just repeats stuff that was already in the article), and I'm pretty confident that Jimi LaLumia & the Psychotic Frogs don't belong in here at all. Agreed? BTfromLA 08:14, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks certainly more prominent than Suicide; James Chance and the Contortions, probably also; none of them promininent enough to merit mention, in my view. I agree strongly with our recent anonymous contributor's addition of Max's (as important as CBGB in that era, how soon we forget), and some of these other additions are harmless. I'm (clearly) with you on leaning toward dropping Suicide. Richard Hell, Johnny Thunders: sure, why not, but not Jimi LaLumia & the Psychotic Frogs, probably the most obscure band Johnny Thunders ever played in. I have a certain affection for Wayne/Jayne and he/she was certainly part of the scene; I can go either way, so to speak. Mink Deville? Again, I like Willy Deville, but no big deal to me either way. Cherry Vanilla, I agree not prominent.
Re: "Style and structure". Someone else started it, a lot of it was just plain wrong, I went in there and tried to write something useful about style and structure. As far as I'm concerned, feel free to move within article, refactor, whatever. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:41, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
Re: "Style and Structure" I don't think what i wrote really was plain wrong.... I was trying to tie in the modern side of punk rock into this article. There is a far too large emphasis on punk rock of the 70s in London....not nearly enough on modern punk rock that has become something unique and very distinct. Bands like NOFX and their albums "Punk in Drublic" and "Heavy Petting Zoo", the Offspring and their albums "Ignition" and "Smash", Rancid with "...And Out Come The Wolves" and Pennywise with "Full Circle." These are all great albums even if they didn't come out when the majority of the writers here were 16. Lots of stuff needs to be cut, the origins section is way too long. There was a background to punk in the local New York scene, best illustrated by but not limited to bands like the Stooges and MC5. But overall it was a very spontaneous thing, and you can over analyse it talking about the Rolling Stones and Skiffle... why not start talking about early tribal music if we're gonna go back that far?

Also there needs to be less said about UK punk bands. The UK punk scene is dead today while the American one is still live and kicking, and ultimately the pistols released one album and the Clash moved on from punk to quickly become a great rock band but not a punk band. In London it was more about "looking punk" then it was about the music, it was just about pointless teenage rebellion "Im 16 and my mum wont give me my pocket money so im gonna stick a safety pin through my ear and piss on the carpet. I think the London punk rock scene should be given equal emphasis to the US punk scene, but it has almost completely taken over. I would like to see a less 70s London orientated article and a more international, and more general time frame structured article.

I made a bunch of edits consistent (I hope) with the above comments. Please take a look. BTfromLA 18:12, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
I disagreee totally with this exclusion of Suicide and description of them as "minor". Like the Velvet Underground before them, what they lacked in record and ticket sales at the time is more than made up for in their stylistic innovations and ongoing influence. The primary thing is that they were the only band playing punk - or any kind of rock - using only two synthesisers and no guitars. They expanded the possibilities of what punk was and could be. Their live shows were also documented to be infamously confrontational, demonstrating fully the punk idea of breaking barriers between performer and audience even if that meant a fist fight or mini-riot, like the one recorded on 23 minutes over Brussels. Strange that part of the objection to their inclusion was that "Teenage Jesus and the Jerks or James Chance and the Contortions probably figured more prominently" when a read of Rip It Up and Start Again by Simon Reynolds (p55) reveals that "Suicide were the godfathers of No Wave", mentoring both Lydia Lunch and James Chance before either got their bands going. Suicide should be in there. Harveyspeed 00:51, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

WHAT!?!?! Suicide were one of THE most important punk bands ever. They are point proven taht punk doesn't have a specific sound. And as much as I love teenage jesus and the jerks, they are actually far less important to punk and more important to no wave. Lydia Lunch actually "hated" punk; I believe she was the one that coined the phrase "sped up chuck berry riffs", she also recieved a lot of criticism for calling patti smith a "sandle-wearing hippie" in the Voice. But back to Suicide. Suicide are far more known in punk communities both now and then. They are one of the most artistic punk bands ever, if not the most artistic. If Suicide didn't exist, punk as we know it today wouldn't be the same.--128.205.167.6 06:36, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm with Harveyspeed on this one. To reiterate: I replaced Manster (who?) with Suicide who went on to influence Sparks, Wire (listen to Heartbeat from Chairs Missing), Human League (Seconds from Dare for example), OMD, Soft Cell and Tourists/Eurythmics. Bruce Springsteen covered them and the Cars had a big crush too. May I recommend the first Suicide album and also the piece written by Lester Bangs called "The Sound of NYC" inside their "Half Alive" ROIR cassette. But like, hey, whatever. / JC

OK, looks like a good case has been made on Suicide being an important band, but saying they influenced Sparks, the Eurythmics, and Bruce Springsteen doesn't exactly scream out that their importance is within the realm of "punk". Again, I really don't know them (which I promise I will remedy some time), so I won't argue with (or revert) people who obviously know the band, and seem pretty convinced it belongs here. Just finding the claims a little confusing relative to the topic at hand. - Jmabel | Talk 05:58, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Seems the time is now right to add Suicide back in. I've been re-reading the relevant chapters in Clinton Heylin's From the Velvets to the Voivods to make sure I get this right. Turns out that Suicide were very early in starting back in 1970 and played more with the New York Dolls at the Mercer Arts Centre from '71 to '73 until the building collapsed and had big trouble getting other bookings, venue owners taking exception to Alan Vega swinging a bicyle chain knocking holes in the wall and driving the audience out into the street with atonal noise, so they pretty much went off the scene until Max's booked them in Easter '76.

Although they are very much on the art experiment side of punk, and existed outside the core groups that were playing CBGBs whilst Hilly Kristal refused to book them, their punk credentials, as i see them, lie in their confrontational attitude, the minimalist simplicity, extreme repetition and intensity in their sound, alienated, violent or sometimes nihilist lyrical themes (c.f. 'Rocket USA', 'Frankie Teardrop') although with radically different instrumentation to the Ramones. Plus the first group of musicians that openly cited their influence and mentoring being the No Wave scene. Also a big influence on a lot of post-punk, as well as lots of bands outside of punk. During the time they weren't playing gigs they were part of the audience scene at CB's and Max's almost every night, if that counts for anything. All this referenced in Heylin's book, which is a top recommended read to anyone into NY & Cleveland punk and is like me not old enough and too British to have been there at the time.

Anyways given the above it wouldn't be right to slot them into the list of CBGB's bands, they deserve a reference slightly earlier reflecting their proto-punk origins alongside the Dolls and taking their influence from the Velvets, even though they only really got known when they toured Europe with The Clash and Elvis Costello in '78 causing the odd riot along the way. Sorry about the length of the above, i'll probably use some of it to update Suicide's page soon.Harveyspeed 23:38, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Edits against consensus

The persistent re-insertion of Jimi LaLumia & the Psychotic Frogs, removal of CBGB, etc., by anonymous editors from a variety of anonymous IP addresses—I have to presume that this is actually a single individual editing from a variety of addresses—is clearly against consensus, and, given the failure even to give any explanations here on the talk page, is absolutely inappropriate. It is beginning to border on vandalism. I believe that BT and I are probably prepared to revert this until hell freezes over, if necessary, but would appreciate if others also help, since each of us usually only checks this page once or twice a day. Or, if someone actually thinks this edit is correct, please make a case for it. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:21, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Will try to keep an eye on this as well quercus robur 10:41, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
This guy is making a lot of edits on the entry for Disco Demolition Night. I admit I don't know much about obscure punk bands. How important where the Psychotic Frogs? Ace-o-aces 13:26, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Not at all. Remembered only because Johnny Thunders played with them. But none of what Thunders is remembered for was with this band. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:28, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
I see Jimi LaLumia has his own page now. Maybe this will keep our friend busy for a while. Ace-o-aces 13:26, 5 January 2006 (UTC)