13/10 On This Day in Punk History

Punk history was made this day when The Who recorded ‘My Generation’ in 1965. Lester Bangs once said ‘Rock & Roll is an attitude, and if you’ve got the attitude you can do it, no matter what anybody says… whatever anybody ever called it, Punk Rock has been around from the beginning – it’s just Rock honed down to its rawest elements, simple playing with a lot of power… PASSION IS WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT’. What boasts that spirit attitude better than ‘My Generation’? This song sums up why we have Rock & Roll, why it is so necessary. This day in 1965 The Who made Punk history.

A couple of days ago in 1976 an unsigned Wreckless Eric gave a tape of his material to Stiff Records. Well, this day 76 he’s called back to the label and offered a contract. Eric will become a big name for the label and New Wave music in the UK.

It was also one day ago in 1978 that Nancy Spungen was killed. Today Sid Vicious appears in court, charged with second degree murder. The New York press infest the story, claiming he’s been proven guilty before the trail has even begun. Bail has been set at $50,000 and Vicious is now looking to Malcolm McLaren for help.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, Penetration release their first album, the glow-in-the-dark Moving Targets. Here’s the lead track ‘Future Daze’:

This day 1990, Iggy Pop is in the charts with a duet withB52’s Kate Pierson entitled ‘Candy’. A decade earlier, Jim Carroll, the drug addict-cum-poet-cum-punk release his first album. Jim Carroll is probably most famous for The Basketball Diaries, an autobiographical account of his teenage years of heroin addiction (made into a film with Leonardo DiCaprio). He became a succesful poet in 70s New York and was an early supporter of Patti Smith. She in turn encouraged him to start a band, which he did. It was this day in 1980 that The Jim Carroll Band released their debut album featuring the classic song ‘People Who Died’. Here’s the late Carroll:

10/10 On This Day in Punk History

It was October 1975 that The Sex Pistols are putting in some serious rehersal time. Now with lead singer Johnny Lydon (who they nickname Rotten after his decaying teeth) and manager Malcolm McLaren the group are coming together well. They’re currently doing covers of Small Faces, Count Five, The Who and Dave Berry’s ‘Don’t Give Me No Lip Child’, all Sixties Garage-Punk material.

Of course it will only be a year later that the band are signing to EMI records. The next day (that is, this day 1976) they waste no time and begin recording their single ‘Anarchy in the UK’ at Lansdowne Studios. The following year, Pistols associates Siouxsie & the Banshees have yet to even be signed! And so someone, no one knows who, spray-painted ‘Sign Siouxsie Now’ across record company offices around London. The band of course deny any connection.

And, the last note about signings, The Undertones signed to Sire this day 1978. A good fit, Sire were the label who signed The Ramones, often called America’s version of The Undertones.

This day in 1970 Punk took notes from Heavy Metal when Black Sabbath released their 2nd album Paranoid. This classic record includes the title song as well as ‘Iron Man’ and ‘War Pigs’. ‘Paranoid’ in particular will have a big impact on the developing Punk scene – after all, as the Sixties ended and Rock bands were moving towards lofty Psychedelic experimentation and ‘Progresssive’ Rock here was a band that kept the aggression and noise in their music. The album would also be a huge influence on Grunge acts like Soundgarden (and don’t tell me ‘In Bloom’ doesn’t sound like Sabbath).

This day in 1991 Iggy Pop was finally getting some recognition. He’s inducted into the National Association of Brick Distributers’ Brick Hall of Fame for services to the brick industry for titling his latest album Brick by Brick. He recieved a trophy made of brick.

And finally, this day in 1980 Punk’s resident weirdos The Residents tried to sell out with The Commercial Album. Guests on the album include Fred Frith and Andy Partridge.

Welcome to the Fun House

In 1976 The Ramones played songs so fast they only lasted a couple minutes. Songs about sniffing glue, male prostitution and the joys of being different. But these were meant to be pop songs. They were punks.

In 1969 Iggy Pop rolled around in glass and flew across the stage topless in a dog collar and sequined gloves. He sang, or shouted, self-deprecating lyrics about life on the fringe of society. He was a punk.

In 1958 Eddie Cochran told you that music and dancing is more important than keeping in your parents’ good book. He was a punk.

Sometime in the 90s Gisele did a shoot wearing a Sid Vicious t-shirt. But she’s not a punk.

However, this tiny example does show the enormous effect that such an arguably small movement has had on popular, and unpopular, culture across the world. Not only in the music we hear today, from indie to dubstep via heavy metal, hip-hop and reggae, but in the films we watch, books we read and the clothes we wear. From Topshop windows to spotty teens’ bedrooms where some people still rip up tops with safety pins (I’m one of them). It’s in our politics, in the words we use, the pictures we see, the products we buy; it’s on the TV, the internet and painted on the walls of our towns. All around the globe people are turning to punk as a way of making a statement, from pseudo-genre Taqwacore to Russian rascals Pussy Riot. 30 years after this music was made kids are still walking down the street listening to ‘London Calling’ on their phones.

Punk-proper came around in 1975/76 and was arguably dead by 1980. People can, do and will continue to debate whether punk is dead, evolved, or still kicking. But this can’t be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’; because punk is more than one particular look, one particular sound, or one particular attitude. Through all the white riots, black flags and green mohawks, I think one overriding principle remains -the principle that drove bands and poets and artists from Fulham pubs to Shea Stadium. The principle that whoever you are, wherever you are, you can do what you wanna do. You don’t have to have a classical education to express yourself nor must you follow society’s expectations. I think that the true lesson, and legacy, of punk is that having what Calvin Johnson calls ‘that beautiful teenage spirit’ is all that’s required to start a band, or a record label, or fashion label, or be a painter, or designer, or anything you wanna achieve. You don’t have to dress, or dance, or talk, or smell a certain way to be cool and happy; you can decide that for yourself. Punk happened in the seventies because for years people like Iggy Pop, Jonathan Richman and Lou Reed had been following this principle. And their style was called ‘underground’ because it strayed from the mainstream. But people had had enough of being pushed underground. So The Ramones, The Clash, the Sex Pistols, Television, John Cooper Clarke, Patti Smith and countless others got all in your face about it, shouting ‘yeah we’re different, and we like it!’

And music and culture exploded. The rules were gone to the land of lost morals. To be in a band now you didn’t have to fit a stereotype, you didn’t even have to be good (as some punk bands showed us). Songs challenged the establishment (God Save the Queen), and even their own labels (EMI), and some bands did away with record labels entirely (Crass, Buzzcocks). This isn’t to say music and culture got complete freedom. Record labels still try to cram their radio friendly garbage down our throats, maybe more so now than ever. But the effects of punk are undeniable. Without it Lady Gaga, Russell Brand and Nicki Minaj would be in the gutter, rather than LA mansions. So to give this some sort of meaningful or sentimental conclusion, in the mid-seventies – everything changed.

But it didn’t just happen out of nothing – nothing really does. Punk took it’s time developing, through art-rock, garage bands, British invasion, psychadelia and even good old Rock ‘n’ Roll. Some even argue that punk is the culmination of all post-war youth culture – either its logical conclusion or when it all went wrong. All the fads, fashions and styles before it; mods, rockers, skinheads, even hippies; fed into punk, and everything afterwards; new wave, grunge, Goth, emo; owes debt to it.

But there are particular people and bands that standout, people such as Iggy Pop, Link Wray, David Bowie, Third World War, Lou Reed & Andy Warhol, Death, the New York Dolls, the Seeds, John Waters & Divine, Jim Morrison, Jayne County and Eddie Cochran. Each of these, and so many others, can in their own way be called ‘Protopunk’. And this is the focus of my blog. Protopunk, the diverse attitude/genre/ethos that developed for potentially two decades (or even more) to start the big bang we call punk. Many, and still not enough, have added to the annals of punk history and tried to explain Protopunk. But this is no easy task considering the diversity of styles and sounds going into and coming out of Punk.

However, I now propose that I can compile the definitive Protopunk discography. This discography will be a chronology of every important record, recording and bootleg that traces the story of how this complex and confrontational idea(s) emerged. I also aim to bring in the art, fashion, theatre, film, literature, poetry and politics that influenced those influential people. Updated regularly with additions and corrections as I trawl through piles of books, magazines, newspapers, websites, LPs, CDs, Tapes, liner notes and whatever I can find, on my metaphorical hands and knees (with great pleasure).

But that ain’t all. Every (or almost every) day will be an update of ‘On This Day in Punk History’. And expect news and reviews on gigs and releases. My regular blog updates will not only reveal what I’ve discovered in my garbage quest but offer my opinions on the music, art and culture for all who care/dare to hear them. And please – this cannot be done without your opinions too. Comment and criticise everything I add to make sure this is truly the ultimate discography.

Rebellious Jukebox will mine the rich history of Protopunk and in its own irreverent way, pay respect to the people behind it. Because Aerosmith, Genesis and ABBA are shit. These are the songs that saved your life, and how they came to be.

Oi! Oi! Oi!