Punk!

I want to talk about Punk. It may not be dead... but it's already a senior element despite its untidy and provocative manners...

(Please do not move this to "literature and arts": it's general history - even if modern).

So let's start:


Though it can be tracked up to the 60s (and even to classical Greece if you wish) with people like The Stooges or The Doors paving the way, Punk culture and music is something that truly doesn't start until the late 70s.


It is around 1976-77 when Punk explodes.

It seems this was one of the first Punk zines that gave name to the new cultural phenomenon...

And this one of the emblematic places that multiplied it via musical and other sorts of expression...

Of course, one can't talk of Punk without mentioning the Pistols...

... and the outrage that they caused in the uplift British society...


But even if the Pistols are emblematic... they are not the only band of that time, nor probably the most important...


Dead kennedies, The Ramones and The Clash are some other best known Punk bands that made it explode...

... when I was just 9 y.o. !!!

...

But there was a second wave...

In the mid-80s Punk consolidated and created offshots like Hardcore music, Grunge, etc.


One of the best know bands of this period is surely L7... but the number is inmense.

It was surely also the time when Punk and Hardcore music creatd many niches outside the English-speakng area. First hand I can tell you about the Basque country: totally off the scene in the 70s (when folk was dominant) but deeply Punk in the 80s, when many bands formed and the Punk subculture spread trhought the country (city and village equally) thanks to a very active squatter movement that liberated for use of the youth many "gaztetxeak" (youth houses), where concerts, primarily (but not exclussively) of Punk bands took place every or every other weekend.

The most purely Punk band of all was Eskorbuto, who challenged everyone and followed the path of heroin until their self-destruction (the drummer is the only one alive).

Evaristo lead a more balanced group that nevertheless had maybe more influence than any other one: La Polla Records.

But maybe more emblematic than these two was Hertzinak, who made melodic Punk with strong Ska influences and Basque lyrics:




Zarama (L), BAP (R), MCD,  RIP were some other memorable bands of the 80s

Well, anyhow, I have introduced the history... but I want to talk specially about what it meant ideologcally.

It seems pretty clear that, even if not all Punk bands and people share it, Anarchism and other anti-system ideologies were and are dominant in the movement...

But Punk went further: it didn't played politics: it broke all cultural limits. In this sens, I would say that Punk is the more perfect cultural manifestation of the social worker - in a sense that it needed to challenge and actually challenged the agonizing disciplinary system and it hypocrisy.

I have the feeling that if any single event marks a change i history, that one is not the fall of Rome, the rise of Islam or the coming of industrialization... I'm almost possitive that it is Punk. There was one world before Punk and one after it. And some cultures are totally obsolete becuase they haven't been transformed by it or by something equivalent.

How can a post-Punk and an Islami Fundamentalist talk to each other? The Punk would spit diretly in the face of the Fundi, the Fundi will try to kill the Punk there will be a deadly fight...

Well, your turn...

I hope that this intro is useful.

Hmm, i'd never really associated the Doors with Punk, but AFAIK, punk kicked off as an anti-facist thing.

I was thinking on focusing more in the cultural phenomenon. I always find myself, when talking to people who lived their teens before the Punk era or who come from other cultural contexts... like they are amiss. And that hasn't been caused by anything but Punk...

If something defines post-modernity it is Punk.

I look at those Islamists... and I think what were they doing when our minds were blossoming in counter-culture? How can they still believe in God... at least in such a fanatic and blind fashion...

... but on the other hand Nordamericans of my generation are that way too (but not so much though).

Maybe it's not just Punk - after all it all started in the late 60s, when Punk was still unexistent or at most embrionary...  but it's that counter-culture whose top (or bottom) expression is Punk.

How has that affected our society, our way of thinking, our way of life...

What does "NO FUTURE" mean now that we have reached the future and pigs glow in the night...


... when the wost hybrid of techno and disco music have taken over the planet...

... when the inquisition is again trying to rebirth...

Has Punk changed the world? How much? Can it be reversed? Will Punk be forgotten like the cnics were before us?

Is Punk dead?

punk - that was for me ,born 1959 , a kind of music that expressed the feelings of second after war generation. the first had the rock'n roll and r&b, but we had punk. i prefered the punk with political lyrics as an expression of a conflict every young generation has with it's parents,teachers and all others ,who want to ristrict them. punk as a fashion was not my matter. i din't shoot pins through my cheek or didn't had green hairs.
the kind of music of some bands , like residents and throbbing gristle was hard to suffer some times ,but to know that the establishment disliked that music, was reason enough for me to listen to it. and there was a good temper punk music as well ,the undertones f.e. made ,that hat it roots in r&b and r&r ,we liked to hear it at partys.
but it was only an attendance to the political fight, that was finally won by the establishment ,to which i now belong as well ,how i must declare sadly. but the same thing happend to many of the musicans of the 70s ,except of those, who had gone the consequent way ,right into the coffin.
but the music had made a steep downfall since then and never reached such an intellectual niveau again. oh ,i do suffer when i hear all this crap that's coming out of the airwaves today. no ,punks not dead, but it's burried alive. someone has to recover it.

Originally posted by Act of Oblivion ..it has been also suggested that the idea of 'punk' could be seen in the jazz scene during the 20's and 30's....where heroin was the drug that defined the underground culture, and the use of free-form, ad-libbed music music saw musicians experimenting with a less structured form of sound.... ...John Lydon (Rotten) always argued that British punk was always contrived and that he and some of his associates acted and dressed in a 'punk' fashion because that was what they were REALLY like....the rest just copied the styles and culture....... ...i remember my older brother in the late 70's having the nickname 'punk' just because his hair was spikey but naturally so....and he was a big fan of dub-reggae and Rod Stewart!!!!!!...no-one ever connected this nick name to the 'punks' that displayed the 'safety-pins in noses' and kilt wearing brigade, it was more like an attitude of character rather than a fashion.......

You're right in a sense: counter culture was always there, trying to break through hypocrisy...

... but it was never so strong and radical and influential as when it became Punk. That's why I think that the Punk explosion of the late 70s and 80s mark a line between the before and the after... more maybe than the failed revolutions of 1968.

Originally posted by Maju ... but it was never so strong and radical and influential as when it became Punk. That's why I think that the Punk explosion of the late 70s and 80s mark a line between the before and the after... more maybe than the failed revolutions of 1968.

I really don't see any noticeable influence punk had on where I live (at least no more than any other style).  I'd almost swear punk was bigger here in 2001 than in 1981.

I do notice a transition from "70's" to "80's" right around 1982-83.  I think this was stylistically influenced by music, but i think the brunt of it was economic change, and the beginning of high-tech.

Where I lived the 60's were by far a stronger cultural change.  I don't think it was music  that had so much to do with it though.  During the mid-60's the middle-class emptied out of our cities, causing a loss of tax base and a strong urban decline.  I believe suburbia has had a profound effect on mainstream american culture and living.

With that said I think the shoe is on the other foot and this inevitable urban decay/rise of suburbia influenced music.  Afterall at any given time theres dozens of genres, its just a matter of what the people want to turn their ears to, as what fills their current cultural needs.

In the late 60's people wanted idealism, they continued to ride this wave well into the 70's, though the need was no longer there.  By the mid 70's society was largely decaying and people hid from it with pickett fences and fondu fridays.

I wouldn't call the Doors punk. Early The Who ('My Generation') is possibly the earliest proto-punk example. Iggy Pop and the Stooges is also quite punkish. They have a weird/simple music, they are young and they smash their instruments, unhearad of until that point...

There was a small Turkish punk scene in the 80's in the big cities of the West, especially in Istanbul. Athena, a famous Turkish ska band, used to be a punk band back then with fancy mohawks. I used to be (and still am, to a degree) a punk fan in high school in early 90s. I never had the punk look though, Fascist Turkish highschools wouldn't let us. I was pretty much a 'poser', wore boots and Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys t-shirts, and safety pins attached to torn jeans, now and then.

My favourite (classic) punk bands were Dead Kennedys (I still listen to), The Clash (I still listen to), Sex Pistols (almost never nowadays), Die Toten Hosen (ocassionally). I was in the Toten Hosen concert in Istanbul. Most of the punks of the early 90s were there. It ended in a riot, the audience invaded the stage and destroyed the equipment. Those were the days...

I think punk is not dead, but became an integral part of the mainstream. When it first came out it was new, and everyone noticed it. Now it is normal, thus less visible.

Edited by Beylerbeyi

I wouldn't call punk music hard or heavy music for starters. maybe these days it strives more to that side with better sound equipment, but not in the 80's.

We had punks in the 80's. I don't really know what good they did, but theu protested to the communists power here. But as punks support some from of anarchy, i don't know if they supported a free Estonia or what.

They walked on streets and were incarcarated for a day or two usually. They didn't really have to do anything, it depended on which "milits" you happened to walk in to.

I wouldn't say they had anyhting too deep of an effect on Estonian politics, the protest towards communism during the end of the 80's (The Singing Revolution, the Baltic chain)was mainly performed by the average Joe, the punks were a separate entity.

But todays punks are just kids who find it cool. Punks should have some philosophy of showing their anarchy-like mind, but they are mostly just under educated kids who work for the system as much as anyone. I mean, what are they protesting against, probably against their parents who gave them too little allowance.

I can't believe it's taken me this long to discover Blondie. To think it was all down to a perfume ad by Nina Ricci