Dave's Punk Op-ed-us, part 2
Punk was not an evolution inasmuch as was a redefinition. Punk is still blues based rock and roll, it is just inherently simplified. The idea of the New York Dolls as women was to satirize the gluttony of the genre model. And this gives a lot more credit to the band then they likely intended. The players were terrible musicians and their music was even worse. But it was a scene, and it attracted those sick of the clubs and radio.
Where punk went from there was pull a Thoreau on the music. The Dolls was essentially a gimmick, but there mode of commentary was a statement that the males of the genre had become over impressed with their own self image and not with the music. A visceral gimmick, an aural statement to simplify.
The first era of punk was one where each major great release of bands that were faster was a new argument of the new anti-rock vs. old rock establishment dialect (think the Ramones vs. Kansas; Beat on the Brat vs. Dust in the wind). The bands were going against the old, and their revolution centralized in CBGB’s and the NY underground. The revolution came in the way of dress, the actions against everyone not in the fold, and with a middle finger to everyone with wealth.
This era was a war and the enemies were clear: Arena Rock (think Kiss) and Disco. While disco died, arena rock mutated to the norm, with every band, not just superacts like the Stones but artists like Jackson Browne, now playing to mass audiences in stadiums when they went on tour. Without those enemies established in the birth of punk around, the point of being punk became almost ridiculous. By the time the Sex Pistols reached the West Coast, they were all but done as a band. Their spirit of the Pistols, which lead them to sing God Save the Queen on the River Thames, overran the band and consumed the whole.
Hidden inside each revolution are the seeds of its destruction. – Frank Herbert
The spite that fueled the birth of punk had run its course as a rallying point and flamed out. Add to the fact many of the fans had grown older, the punk scene dissipated, and everything cherished as holy by rock critics was taking the same course. The original musicians had moved on to different music. Now I wanna sniff some glue was a bygone thought, and the band expanded their music-taking the musical definition of the genre they helped create- to songs like Bonzo goes to bitburg, which clocks in a nearly 4 minutes, nearly 3 times as long as Judy is A Punk.
By the time the pistols reached Frisco or the people outside of New York and the industry knew what CBGB’s was, (somewhere between 1977-1979) the music and scene that was the real definition of what punk was when it started was over, and it would never be replicated. To be fair, lets put the date at somewhere during 1978. Two (of many) reasons: Star Wars had come out the year before and siphoned probably half to three quarters of the disaffected teens who would be drawn into punk, and with Saturday Night Fever coming out in the same year, the hipster wannabes switched out their clothespins and hate for coke and rhinestones. Hell one more, the Ramones sold out and did the theme song for Rock and Roll High School. Even if that movie came out in 1979, and I do not fault the band for being in the movie or really accuse them of selling out (#1 reason, Roger Corman’s involvement), I do not think the 1975 Ramones would have been in the movie.
But at this point, Punk split into two sects, and two wildly different definitions, the musical and the cultural. The spirit of the culture was one of blind faith and devotion to a cause many of those who championed Punk weren’t there at the beginning. To be punk was to be like those people in CBGB’s circa 1975. Say a four year old was to cut their own hair, style it, and dye it to what they wanted, only to mess up and cut more hair trying to make it look salvageable, making it even worse. Where the hair is at, right before the mother comes in and shaves their hair, is about what the motif of punk hair became after the split.
The fact that there were people arguing about what was real punk vs. poser punk in both people and music probably signaled the end of the real meaning. As soon as fundamentalism can be applied to a movement, you are in dangerous territory. When critics and pundits are discussing it, (like myself) it’s probably not a good thing. When the fans are discussing it, it’s a bad thing. East Coast vs. West Coast rap, Speed vs. Death metal, punk vs. neo punk. Take your pick, in each, the music suffers as the artists are forced to adhere to new cults, and the ever evolving definition moves away from the original message. In a nutshell, this was punk as a non-musical adjective.
While the scene and people of punk mutated into a hyper realistic mesh of the meaning of original punk, the spirit of what was punk music didn’t change too much. Because the formation of punk was one of counterculture music, the point of punk was to not sound like the crap on the radio. Punk music was originally supposed to be fast, raw, and loud. By the time round two came along, real punk music didn’t have to be anything in particular other than the fact it couldn’t sound like the masses, and it couldn’t be faked.
This second, new, era launched with London Calling. L.C. was originally called, and fittingly so, the New Testament. It was dead on for a title. This was what punk really was, and the rules are set within. To call an album The New Testament is too esoteric for any band, save the Clash. The called it London Calling, from their first song off the radio. In the grand tradition of pop music, the Americans create a new form; the British co-opt it and make it great. Punk in America was a near farce, and inching closer to ridiculous every time a kid chose punk over Goth because it pissed their parents off. Punk’s epicenter moved from New York to London. What stayed in America would eventually become the music of bands from The Cure and Duran Duran (both British, I know, and like the whole of this post there are huge gaps in the history and jumps in logic, but when Punk and Disco in America meshed in the early 80’s, those bands were the offspring, and glam metal was the aborted fetus that went on to live).
London, where the original fuck the establishment still lived due to the class system, allowed the Punk world to grow sonically. Punk there became what punk was in NY in the mid 70’s. Call it a Thatcher effect on the lower classed, but punk there still had a point.
But thank god the British music scene is progressive. Everything that happened in the 80’s in terms of progression in punk was due to the Brits. After The Clash and the Specials made Ska cool, and gave music nerds a chance to feel cool as well. But for every progression made, every evolution to occur, no matter how awkward or genius, it was never the same. Punk as music, as an art form, as a revolution was dead. And in all revisionist looks, it was London Calling that did it. How can one top the definitive statement. The old way was done, all that was left were offshoots, and most of the off shoots came from London Calling.
The Old punk was dead. What was good that was left was a style of music that didn’t adhere, and a bunch of posers claiming title to a throne long gone.
Where punk went from there was pull a Thoreau on the music. The Dolls was essentially a gimmick, but there mode of commentary was a statement that the males of the genre had become over impressed with their own self image and not with the music. A visceral gimmick, an aural statement to simplify.
The first era of punk was one where each major great release of bands that were faster was a new argument of the new anti-rock vs. old rock establishment dialect (think the Ramones vs. Kansas; Beat on the Brat vs. Dust in the wind). The bands were going against the old, and their revolution centralized in CBGB’s and the NY underground. The revolution came in the way of dress, the actions against everyone not in the fold, and with a middle finger to everyone with wealth.
This era was a war and the enemies were clear: Arena Rock (think Kiss) and Disco. While disco died, arena rock mutated to the norm, with every band, not just superacts like the Stones but artists like Jackson Browne, now playing to mass audiences in stadiums when they went on tour. Without those enemies established in the birth of punk around, the point of being punk became almost ridiculous. By the time the Sex Pistols reached the West Coast, they were all but done as a band. Their spirit of the Pistols, which lead them to sing God Save the Queen on the River Thames, overran the band and consumed the whole.
Hidden inside each revolution are the seeds of its destruction. – Frank Herbert
The spite that fueled the birth of punk had run its course as a rallying point and flamed out. Add to the fact many of the fans had grown older, the punk scene dissipated, and everything cherished as holy by rock critics was taking the same course. The original musicians had moved on to different music. Now I wanna sniff some glue was a bygone thought, and the band expanded their music-taking the musical definition of the genre they helped create- to songs like Bonzo goes to bitburg, which clocks in a nearly 4 minutes, nearly 3 times as long as Judy is A Punk.
By the time the pistols reached Frisco or the people outside of New York and the industry knew what CBGB’s was, (somewhere between 1977-1979) the music and scene that was the real definition of what punk was when it started was over, and it would never be replicated. To be fair, lets put the date at somewhere during 1978. Two (of many) reasons: Star Wars had come out the year before and siphoned probably half to three quarters of the disaffected teens who would be drawn into punk, and with Saturday Night Fever coming out in the same year, the hipster wannabes switched out their clothespins and hate for coke and rhinestones. Hell one more, the Ramones sold out and did the theme song for Rock and Roll High School. Even if that movie came out in 1979, and I do not fault the band for being in the movie or really accuse them of selling out (#1 reason, Roger Corman’s involvement), I do not think the 1975 Ramones would have been in the movie.
But at this point, Punk split into two sects, and two wildly different definitions, the musical and the cultural. The spirit of the culture was one of blind faith and devotion to a cause many of those who championed Punk weren’t there at the beginning. To be punk was to be like those people in CBGB’s circa 1975. Say a four year old was to cut their own hair, style it, and dye it to what they wanted, only to mess up and cut more hair trying to make it look salvageable, making it even worse. Where the hair is at, right before the mother comes in and shaves their hair, is about what the motif of punk hair became after the split.
The fact that there were people arguing about what was real punk vs. poser punk in both people and music probably signaled the end of the real meaning. As soon as fundamentalism can be applied to a movement, you are in dangerous territory. When critics and pundits are discussing it, (like myself) it’s probably not a good thing. When the fans are discussing it, it’s a bad thing. East Coast vs. West Coast rap, Speed vs. Death metal, punk vs. neo punk. Take your pick, in each, the music suffers as the artists are forced to adhere to new cults, and the ever evolving definition moves away from the original message. In a nutshell, this was punk as a non-musical adjective.
While the scene and people of punk mutated into a hyper realistic mesh of the meaning of original punk, the spirit of what was punk music didn’t change too much. Because the formation of punk was one of counterculture music, the point of punk was to not sound like the crap on the radio. Punk music was originally supposed to be fast, raw, and loud. By the time round two came along, real punk music didn’t have to be anything in particular other than the fact it couldn’t sound like the masses, and it couldn’t be faked.
This second, new, era launched with London Calling. L.C. was originally called, and fittingly so, the New Testament. It was dead on for a title. This was what punk really was, and the rules are set within. To call an album The New Testament is too esoteric for any band, save the Clash. The called it London Calling, from their first song off the radio. In the grand tradition of pop music, the Americans create a new form; the British co-opt it and make it great. Punk in America was a near farce, and inching closer to ridiculous every time a kid chose punk over Goth because it pissed their parents off. Punk’s epicenter moved from New York to London. What stayed in America would eventually become the music of bands from The Cure and Duran Duran (both British, I know, and like the whole of this post there are huge gaps in the history and jumps in logic, but when Punk and Disco in America meshed in the early 80’s, those bands were the offspring, and glam metal was the aborted fetus that went on to live).
London, where the original fuck the establishment still lived due to the class system, allowed the Punk world to grow sonically. Punk there became what punk was in NY in the mid 70’s. Call it a Thatcher effect on the lower classed, but punk there still had a point.
But thank god the British music scene is progressive. Everything that happened in the 80’s in terms of progression in punk was due to the Brits. After The Clash and the Specials made Ska cool, and gave music nerds a chance to feel cool as well. But for every progression made, every evolution to occur, no matter how awkward or genius, it was never the same. Punk as music, as an art form, as a revolution was dead. And in all revisionist looks, it was London Calling that did it. How can one top the definitive statement. The old way was done, all that was left were offshoots, and most of the off shoots came from London Calling.
The Old punk was dead. What was good that was left was a style of music that didn’t adhere, and a bunch of posers claiming title to a throne long gone.
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