lfunkhouse
08-31-2006, 03:33 PM
this is going to be an on-going collective, so bear with me.
today's lesson will be pre-punk.
Pre-Punk: Before 1975
The phrase punk rock (from punk, meaning a beginner or novice) was originally applied to the untutored guitar-and-vocals-based rock and roll of United States bands of the mid-1960s such as The Standells, The Sonics, and The Seeds — bands that now are more often categorized as garage rock.
The term punk rock 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, and it was adopted by many rock music journalists in the early 1970s. For example, in the liner notes of the 1972 anthology album Nuggets, Lenny Kaye uses the term "punk-rock" to refer to the 1960s garage rock bands, as well as some of the darker and more primitive practitioners of 1960s psychedelic rock. Shortly after he wrote those notes, Kaye formed a band with avant-garde poet Patti Smith. Smith's group, and her first album, Horses (released 1975), directly inspired many of the mid-1970s punk rockers.
Punk means many different things to different people. Punk is part of the "next" generation's "fumbled attempts to get drunk, listen to the band, get laid, and get the last bus home." (Chamberlain 1) Punk is "really creative rock 'n' roll music that is fun and upbeat, excellent melodies." (Cuellar 4) Punk is "hard-driving, in-your-face music, but at the same time, there's intelligence behind it. That's the thing I really latched on, because that was a combination that is very rare to find." (Cuellar 3) "Part of it [being a 'punk'] is not caring and being what you damn well want to be." (Cuellar 3) "Punk's about boredom and partying, pure and simple." (Cuellar 3) "Punk was a new music, a new social critique, but most of all, it was a new kind of free speech." (Marcus 2)
Just two years after the Beatles hit America (1966), Iggy Pop decided to form a band that would be completely unlike anything that anyone had ever heard. Iggy formed the Stooges in Detroit, Michigan, with friends who could barely play their instruments. They had very little musical knowledge to interfere with the ideas that they had.
Their 1968 performances consisted of an aural background for Iggy's body contortions, self mutilation, dives into the audience, and screamed insults at those who had come only to be entertained, not to be involved in the show. The Stooges' extreme bizzareness did not make them popular like the Doors', whose antics they pre-dated. As a Neanderthal version of the Velvet Underground, the band managed to achieve the distinction of the first true influence on punk.
Ironically, they were signed by the major label Elektra, and their 1969 debut was produced by John Cale. It was highlighted by the classic "I Wanna Be Your Dog," and the pre-punk "No Fun." In "1969," they revealed the source of their outrageousness to be boredom, chanting "another year with nothing to do." They were bored with the music scene, and bored with being poor, a condition that they remained in after not achieving anything above a cult status.
Also from Detroit, MC5 articulated their boredom in a slightly more politicized and distinctly blue collar manner, coming to prominence in the 1968 Democratic Convention riots as figureheads of John Sinclair's White Panther Party.
While their heavy sounding music was not particularly original, (They were largely derivative of the Who.) their attitude inspired many future punk bands, prophesizing the Sex Pistols' with EMI and Virgin. Like the Stooges, MC5 was scooped up by Elektra. They were soon embroiled in controversy over the lyric "Kick out the jams mother****ers!" When one record store called Harvey's refused to stock the album, the group responded by taking out a full page advertisement in a local newspaper that read "**** Harvey's!" Elektra was not amused, especially when MC5 went further and plastered stickers bearing the Elektra logo all over the record store's windows. MC5 and Elektra parted shortly after that.
Punk rock may have been influenced by the snotty attitude, on- and off-stage violence, and aggressive instrumentation, overt sexuality and political confrontation of artists like: The Who; Rolling Stones, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and The Velvet Underground, Alice Cooper, The Stooges and MC5, Deviants; the New York Dolls. Other likely influences include the English pub rock scene, political UK underground acts such as Mick Farren, and British glam rock and art rock acts of the early 1970s, including David Bowie, Gary Glitter and Roxy Music. Influence from other musical genres, including reggae, funk, and rockabilly can also be detected in early punk rock.
By 1970, the provocative Detroit scene lured the Alice Cooper away from San Francisco and Frank Zappa's Straight Records to claim the Motor City as their new home. Singer Vincent Furnier, who acquired the name "Alice Cooper" from a Ouija board, expanded upon the theatrics of Iggy Pop's brand of Theater of the Possessed with his own style of shock-rock. With a Theater of the Absurd stage show consisting of garish make-up, live boa constrictors, and toy dolls meeting their death in electric chairs and gallows, combined with the new artistic credibility in the albums "Love It To Death" (1970) and "Killer" (1971), it became increasingly difficult to remain bored in Detroit.
Punk rock served as a reaction against 1970s popular music such as disco music, heavy metal, progressive rock and arena rock. Punk also rejected the remnants of the 1960s hippie counterculture. The cultural critiques and strategies for revolutionary action of the European Situationist movement of the 1950s and 1960s influenced the vanguard of the British punk movement, particularly the Sex Pistols. Their manager, Malcolm McLaren, consciously embraced situationist ideas, which are also reflected in the clothing designed for the band by Vivienne Westwood (she rocks, check her out! (http://www.viviennewestwood.com/flash.php) ), and in the band's promotional artwork, much of it designed by the Situationist-affiliated Jamie Reid.
The British punk movement may have drawn upon the do-it-yourself attitude of the Skiffle music craze that emerged amid the post-World War II austerity in Britain. Punk rock in Britain coincided with the end of post-war consensus politics that preceded the rise of Thatcherism, and many British punk bands have expressed an angry attituded based on social alienation.
Punk rock is generally considered to have surfaced in 1975, but exactly who the first punk act was is undetermined. If anybody were to tell you that they can pinpoint the first punk band, they are either lying or confused. Many early bands such as Iggy and the Stooges, the MC5, Richard Hell and the Voidoids displayed some aspects of punk, but no band combined all of the elements, in my opinion, until the Ramones gathered in 1975.
today's lesson will be pre-punk.
Pre-Punk: Before 1975
The phrase punk rock (from punk, meaning a beginner or novice) was originally applied to the untutored guitar-and-vocals-based rock and roll of United States bands of the mid-1960s such as The Standells, The Sonics, and The Seeds — bands that now are more often categorized as garage rock.
The term punk rock 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, and it was adopted by many rock music journalists in the early 1970s. For example, in the liner notes of the 1972 anthology album Nuggets, Lenny Kaye uses the term "punk-rock" to refer to the 1960s garage rock bands, as well as some of the darker and more primitive practitioners of 1960s psychedelic rock. Shortly after he wrote those notes, Kaye formed a band with avant-garde poet Patti Smith. Smith's group, and her first album, Horses (released 1975), directly inspired many of the mid-1970s punk rockers.
Punk means many different things to different people. Punk is part of the "next" generation's "fumbled attempts to get drunk, listen to the band, get laid, and get the last bus home." (Chamberlain 1) Punk is "really creative rock 'n' roll music that is fun and upbeat, excellent melodies." (Cuellar 4) Punk is "hard-driving, in-your-face music, but at the same time, there's intelligence behind it. That's the thing I really latched on, because that was a combination that is very rare to find." (Cuellar 3) "Part of it [being a 'punk'] is not caring and being what you damn well want to be." (Cuellar 3) "Punk's about boredom and partying, pure and simple." (Cuellar 3) "Punk was a new music, a new social critique, but most of all, it was a new kind of free speech." (Marcus 2)
Just two years after the Beatles hit America (1966), Iggy Pop decided to form a band that would be completely unlike anything that anyone had ever heard. Iggy formed the Stooges in Detroit, Michigan, with friends who could barely play their instruments. They had very little musical knowledge to interfere with the ideas that they had.
Their 1968 performances consisted of an aural background for Iggy's body contortions, self mutilation, dives into the audience, and screamed insults at those who had come only to be entertained, not to be involved in the show. The Stooges' extreme bizzareness did not make them popular like the Doors', whose antics they pre-dated. As a Neanderthal version of the Velvet Underground, the band managed to achieve the distinction of the first true influence on punk.
Ironically, they were signed by the major label Elektra, and their 1969 debut was produced by John Cale. It was highlighted by the classic "I Wanna Be Your Dog," and the pre-punk "No Fun." In "1969," they revealed the source of their outrageousness to be boredom, chanting "another year with nothing to do." They were bored with the music scene, and bored with being poor, a condition that they remained in after not achieving anything above a cult status.
Also from Detroit, MC5 articulated their boredom in a slightly more politicized and distinctly blue collar manner, coming to prominence in the 1968 Democratic Convention riots as figureheads of John Sinclair's White Panther Party.
While their heavy sounding music was not particularly original, (They were largely derivative of the Who.) their attitude inspired many future punk bands, prophesizing the Sex Pistols' with EMI and Virgin. Like the Stooges, MC5 was scooped up by Elektra. They were soon embroiled in controversy over the lyric "Kick out the jams mother****ers!" When one record store called Harvey's refused to stock the album, the group responded by taking out a full page advertisement in a local newspaper that read "**** Harvey's!" Elektra was not amused, especially when MC5 went further and plastered stickers bearing the Elektra logo all over the record store's windows. MC5 and Elektra parted shortly after that.
Punk rock may have been influenced by the snotty attitude, on- and off-stage violence, and aggressive instrumentation, overt sexuality and political confrontation of artists like: The Who; Rolling Stones, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and The Velvet Underground, Alice Cooper, The Stooges and MC5, Deviants; the New York Dolls. Other likely influences include the English pub rock scene, political UK underground acts such as Mick Farren, and British glam rock and art rock acts of the early 1970s, including David Bowie, Gary Glitter and Roxy Music. Influence from other musical genres, including reggae, funk, and rockabilly can also be detected in early punk rock.
By 1970, the provocative Detroit scene lured the Alice Cooper away from San Francisco and Frank Zappa's Straight Records to claim the Motor City as their new home. Singer Vincent Furnier, who acquired the name "Alice Cooper" from a Ouija board, expanded upon the theatrics of Iggy Pop's brand of Theater of the Possessed with his own style of shock-rock. With a Theater of the Absurd stage show consisting of garish make-up, live boa constrictors, and toy dolls meeting their death in electric chairs and gallows, combined with the new artistic credibility in the albums "Love It To Death" (1970) and "Killer" (1971), it became increasingly difficult to remain bored in Detroit.
Punk rock served as a reaction against 1970s popular music such as disco music, heavy metal, progressive rock and arena rock. Punk also rejected the remnants of the 1960s hippie counterculture. The cultural critiques and strategies for revolutionary action of the European Situationist movement of the 1950s and 1960s influenced the vanguard of the British punk movement, particularly the Sex Pistols. Their manager, Malcolm McLaren, consciously embraced situationist ideas, which are also reflected in the clothing designed for the band by Vivienne Westwood (she rocks, check her out! (http://www.viviennewestwood.com/flash.php) ), and in the band's promotional artwork, much of it designed by the Situationist-affiliated Jamie Reid.
The British punk movement may have drawn upon the do-it-yourself attitude of the Skiffle music craze that emerged amid the post-World War II austerity in Britain. Punk rock in Britain coincided with the end of post-war consensus politics that preceded the rise of Thatcherism, and many British punk bands have expressed an angry attituded based on social alienation.
Punk rock is generally considered to have surfaced in 1975, but exactly who the first punk act was is undetermined. If anybody were to tell you that they can pinpoint the first punk band, they are either lying or confused. Many early bands such as Iggy and the Stooges, the MC5, Richard Hell and the Voidoids displayed some aspects of punk, but no band combined all of the elements, in my opinion, until the Ramones gathered in 1975.