154-410: The Mekons are a British band formed in the late 1970s as an art collective. They are one of the longest-running and most prolific of the first-wave British punk rock bands. The band's style has evolved over time to incorporate aspects of country music , folk music , alternative rock and occasional experiments with dub . They are known for their raucous live shows. The band was formed in 1976 by
308-475: A DIY ethic ; many bands self-produce recordings and distribute them through independent labels . The term "punk rock" was previously used by American rock critics in the early 1970s to describe the mid-1960s garage bands. Certain late 1960s and early 1970s Detroit acts, such as MC5 and Iggy and the Stooges , and other bands from elsewhere created out-of-the-mainstream music that became highly influential on what
462-676: A "dirty bastard", a "dirty fucker", and a "fucking rotter", triggering a media controversy. The episode had a major impact on the history of the scene and the punk term became a household name in 24 hours thanks to the press coverage, and several front covers of newspapers. Two days later, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned, and the Heartbreakers set out on the Anarchy Tour, a series of gigs throughout
616-465: A "national scandal". Jamie Reid 's "anarchy flag" poster and his other design work for the Sex Pistols helped establish a distinctive punk visual aesthetic . On December 1, 1976, an incident took place that sealed punk rock's notorious reputation, when the Sex Pistols and several members of the Bromley Contingent , including Siouxsie Sioux and Steven Severin , filled a vacancy for Queen on
770-424: A "one-finger fretless guitar". The placement of a slide on a string determines the pitch , functioning in the manner of a steel guitar. The slide is pressed lightly against the treble strings to avoid hitting against the frets . The frets are used here only as a visual reference, and playing without their pitch-constraint enables the smooth expressive glissandos that typify blues music. This playing technique creates
924-596: A "punk mass" for the next couple of years. In the March 1971 issue of Creem, critic Greg Shaw wrote about the Shadows of Knight 's "hard-edge punk sound". In an April 1971 issue of Rolling Stone , he referred to a track by the Guess Who as "good, not too imaginative, punk rock and roll". The same month John Medelsohn described Alice Cooper 's album Love It to Death as "nicely wrought mainstream punk raunch". Dave Marsh used
1078-409: A "style of adornment calculated to disturb and outrage". Among the other facets of the punk rock scene, a punk's hair is an important way of showing their freedom of expression. The typical male punk haircut was originally short and choppy; the mohawk later emerged as a characteristic style. Along with the mohawk, long spikes have been associated with the punk rock genre. Between the late 16th and
1232-530: A 1974 interview for his fanzine Heavy Metal Digest , Danny Sugerman told Iggy Pop "You went on record as saying you never were a punk" and Iggy replied "...well I ain't. I never was a punk." By 1975, punk was being used to describe acts as diverse as the Patti Smith Group , the Bay City Rollers , and Bruce Springsteen . As the scene at New York's CBGB club attracted notice, a name was sought for
1386-413: A Thinkin'". "Black Ace" Turner (born Babe Karo Turner), a blues artist from Texas, was befriended and mentored by Buddy Woods. Historian Gérard Herzhaft said, "Black Ace is one of the few blues guitarists to have played in the purest Hawaiian style, that is, with the guitar flat on the knees." Turner played a square-neck National "style 2" Tri-cone metal body guitar and used a glass medicine bottle as
1540-535: A band who can lay claim to influencing the movement, "the seeds of punk remain blatant in the howling ultimatum Erickson transferred from his previous teen combo to the Elevators" as well as describing other bands in the Houston , Texas psychedelic rock scene as "a prime example of the opaque proto-punk undertow at the heart of the best psychedelia ". Hippie proto-punk David Peel of New York City 's Lower East Side
1694-464: A blues player performed in a local train station: "As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularised by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. The effect was unforgettable." Blues historian Gérard Herzhaft notes that Tampa Red was one of the first black musicians inspired by the Hawaiian guitarists of the beginning of the century, and he managed to adapt their sound to
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#17328510803011848-463: A blues player, Hooker explored using a wah-wah pedal in the 1960s to further emulate the human voice. Possibly the most influential electric blues slide guitarist of his era was Elmore James , who gained prominence with his 1951 song " Dust My Broom ", a remake of Robert Johnson's 1936 song, "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom". It features James playing a series of triplets throughout the song which Rolling Stone magazine called "one immortal lick" and
2002-519: A characteristic sound described by Christgau as a "buzzsaw drone". Some punk rock bands take a surf rock approach with a lighter, twangier guitar tone. Others, such as Robert Quine , lead guitarist of the Voidoids , have employed a wild, " gonzo " attack, a style that stretches back through the Velvet Underground to the 1950s recordings of Ike Turner . Bass guitar lines are often uncomplicated;
2156-763: A compilation of old recordings, the band ceased activity for a while, with Langford forming The Three Johns . Corrigan became a tour manager for many years before founding a company that provides visa and immigration services specialising in the entertainment industry. By the mid-1980s (revitalised by the 1984 coal miners' strike ) the Mekons had returned as an active group. The band was now augmented by vocalist Sally Timms , violinist Susie Honeyman, ex- Damned member Lu Edmonds , accordionist/vocalist Rico Bell (a.k.a. Eric Bellis ), and former The Rumour drummer Steve Goulding . They began to experiment with musical styles derived from traditional English folk (tentatively explored on
2310-603: A distinct musical style. Even where they diverged most clearly, in lyrical approach – the Ramones' apparent guilelessness at one extreme, Hell's conscious craft at the other – there was an abrasive attitude in common. Their shared attributes of minimalism and speed, however, had not yet come to define punk rock. After a brief period unofficially managing the New York Dolls, Briton Malcolm McLaren returned to London in May 1975, inspired by
2464-557: A former member of New York's experimental rock group the Velvet Underground , who inspired many of those involved in the creation of punk rock. The New York Dolls updated 1950s' rock 'n' roll in a fashion that later became known as glam punk . The New York duo Suicide played spare, experimental music with a confrontational stage act inspired by that of the Stooges. In Boston, the Modern Lovers , led by Jonathan Richman , gained attention for their minimalistic style. In 1974, as well,
2618-405: A gold-plated National Tricone style 4, and was one of the first black musicians to record with it. Delta blues pioneer, Son House, played this type of guitar on many songs including the classic, " Death Letter ". A resonator guitar with a metal body was played by Bukka White (" Parchman Farm Blues " and " Fixin' to Die Blues " ). "Lap slide guitar" does not refer to a specific instrument, rather
2772-631: A group of University of Leeds art students: Jon Langford , Kevin Lycett, Mark White, Andy Corrigan and Tom Greenhalgh — Gang of Four and Delta 5 formed from the same group of students. They took the band's name from the Mekon , an evil, super-intelligent Venusian featured in the British 1950s–1960s comic Dan Dare (printed in the Eagle ). The Mekons were described as a more chaotic version of Gang of Four; Lycett stated
2926-456: A guitarist, he was best known for his electric slide playing. Muddy Waters helped bring the Delta blues to Chicago and was instrumental in defining the city's electric blues style. He was also one of the pioneers of electric slide guitar. Beginning with "I Can't Be Satisfied" (1948), many of his hit songs featured slide, including " Rollin' and Tumblin' ", " Rollin' Stone " (whose name was adopted by
3080-601: A hard object against a plucked string goes back to the diddley bow derived from a one-stringed African instrument. The diddley bow is believed to be one of the ancestors of the bottleneck style. When sailors from Europe introduced the Spanish guitar to Hawaii in the latter nineteenth century, the Hawaiians slackened some of the strings from the standard guitar tuning to make a chord – this became known as "slack-key" guitar , today referred to as an open tuning . With
3234-441: A hybrid of the attributes of a steel guitar and a traditional guitar in that the player's remaining (non-slide) fingers and thumb still have access to the frets, and may be used for playing rhythmic accompaniment or reaching additional notes. The guitar itself may be tuned in the traditional tuning or an open tuning. Most early blues players used open tunings, but most modern slide players use both. The major limitation of open tuning
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#17328510803013388-497: A legion of players from rural Mississippi." Most players of blues slide guitar were from the southern US, particularly the Mississippi Delta , and their music was likely from an African origin handed down to African-American sharecroppers who sang as they toiled in the fields. The earliest Delta blues musicians were largely solo singer-guitarists. W. C. Handy commented on the first time he heard slide guitar in 1903, when
3542-422: A lot of 1960s stuff was innovative and exciting. Unfortunately, what happens is that people who could not hold a candle to the likes of Hendrix started noodling away. Soon you had endless solos that went nowhere. By 1973, I knew that what was needed was some pure, stripped down, no bullshit rock 'n' roll." John Holmstrom , founding editor of Punk magazine, recalls feeling "punk rock had to come along because
3696-503: A major cultural phenomenon in the UK. It gave rise to a punk subculture that expressed youthful rebellion through distinctive styles of clothing , such as T-shirts with deliberately offensive graphics, leather jackets, studded or spiked bands and jewelry, safety pins, and bondage and S&M clothes. In 1977, the influence of the music and subculture spread worldwide. It took root in a wide range of local scenes that often rejected affiliation with
3850-463: A metal slide. Nighthawk's sound was extremely clean and smooth, with a very light touch of the slide against the strings. He helped popularize Tampa Red's " Black Angel Blues " (later called "Sweet Little Angel"), "Crying Won't Help You", and "Anna Lou Blues" (as "Anna Lee") in his electric slide style-songs which later became part of the repertoire of Earl Hooker, B.B. King , and others. His style influenced both Muddy Waters and Hooker. Nighthawk
4004-582: A motorcycle accident at age 24, was hailed by NPR 's Nick Morrison as "the most inventive slide guitarist of his era". He extended the role of the slide guitar by mimicking the harmonica effects of Sonny Boy Williamson II , most clearly in the Allman Brothers' rendition of Williamson's "One Way Out" , recorded live at the Fillmore East and heard on their album Eat a Peach . The slide guitar, according to music educator Keith Wyatt, can be thought of as
4158-414: A player's finger can be made with any type of smooth hard material that allows tones to resonate. Different materials cause subtle differences in sustain , timbre , and loudness ; glass or metal are the most common choices. Longer slides are used to bridge across all six guitar strings at once, but take away the fretting ability of that finger entirely. A shorter slide allows the fingertip to protrude from
4312-521: A requisite item for punk fans. The BBC banned "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" due to its controversial lyrics. In October, the Sex Pistols hit number eight with " Holidays in the Sun ", followed by the release of their first and only "official" album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols . Inspiring yet another round of controversy, it topped the British charts. In December, one of the first books about punk rock
4466-480: A resemblance to the human singing voice and music writer Andy Grigg commented: "He had the uncanny ability to make his guitar weep, moan and talk just like a person ... his slide playing was peerless, even exceeding his mentor, Robert Nighthawk." The vocal approach is heard in Hooker's instrumental, "Blue Guitar", which was later overdubbed with a unison vocal by Muddy Waters and became " You Shook Me ". Unusual for
4620-401: A single, "Little Johnny Jewel". In the words of John Walker, the record was "a turning point for the whole New York scene" if not quite for the punk rock sound itself – Hell's departure had left the band "significantly reduced in fringe aggression". Early in 1976, Hell left the Heartbreakers to form the Voidoids , described as "one of the most harshly uncompromising [punk] bands". That April,
4774-474: A slide guitar break by Brian Jones , which may be the first appearance of a slide on a rock record. Critic Richie Unterberger commented, "Particularly outstanding was Brian Jones's slide guitar, whose wailing howl gave the tune a raunchy bluesiness missing in the Beatles' more straightforward rock 'n' roll arrangement." Jones also played slide on their 1964 single " Little Red Rooster ", which reached number one on
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4928-487: A slide, but this was largely for special effects. Jimi Hendrix also used a cigarette lighter for part of his solo on " All Along the Watchtower ". It is one of the few recordings with Hendrix on slide, and biographer Harry Shapiro notes he performed it with the guitar on his lap. For guitars designed to be played on the lap, the performer uses a solid piece of steel rather than a hollow tube. The choice of shape and size
5082-660: A slide. Turner was also a good storyteller, which enabled him to host a radio program in Fort Worth called The Black Ace . His career effectively ended when he entered military service in 1943. His album, I Am the Boss Card in Your Hand , contained Turner's original 1930s recordings as well as new songs recorded in 1960. Turner was featured in a 1962 documentary film entitled The Blues . Freddie Roulette (born Frederick Martin Roulette)
5236-420: A style of playing blues or rock music with the guitar placed horizontally, a position historically known as Hawaiian style. This is a lap-steel guitar, but musicians in these genres prefer the term slide instead of steel; they sometimes play the style with a flat pick or with fingers instead of finger picks. There are various instruments specifically made (or adapted) to play in the horizontal position, including
5390-620: A traditional rock 'n' roll verse-chorus form and 4/4 time signature . However, later bands often broke from this format. Punk music was not a standalone movement in the 70’s and 80’s. Major punk communities gather across the globe as punk perseveres among contemporary musicians and listeners today. The vocals are sometimes nasal, and the lyrics often shouted in an "arrogant snarl", rather than conventionally sung. Complicated guitar solos were considered self-indulgent, although basic guitar breaks were common. Guitar parts tend to include highly distorted power chords or barre chords , creating
5544-405: A two-month-long weekend residency at CBGB that significantly raised the club's profile. The Television sets included Richard Hell's "Blank Generation", which became the scene's emblematic anthem. Soon after, Hell left Television and founded a band featuring a more stripped-down sound, the Heartbreakers , with former New York Dolls Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan . In August, Television recorded
5698-514: A vehement, straight-ahead punk rock style with a committed anarchist mission, and played a major role in the emerging anarcho-punk movement. Sham 69, London's Menace, and the Angelic Upstarts from South Shields in the Northeast combined a similarly stripped-down sound with populist lyrics, a style that became known as street punk . These expressly working-class bands contrasted with others in
5852-594: Is a San Francisco-based lap steel blues artist who became interested in the lap steel guitar at an early age and became proficient enough to play in Chicago blues clubs with prominent players. He played an A7 tuning with a slant-bar style and never used finger picks. He earned a spot in Earl Hooker's band and recorded with Hooker in the 1960s. Roulette had played lap steel in other genres before focusing on blues – he stated this helped him add more complex chords to
6006-605: Is credited as one who helped bring music from Mississippi into the Chicago blues style of electric blues . As a teenager, Earl Hooker (a cousin of John Lee Hooker ) sought out Nighthawk as his teacher and in the late 1940s the two toured the South extensively. Nighthawk had a lasting impact on Hooker's playing; however, by the time of his 1953 recording of "Sweet Angel" (a tribute of sorts to Nighthawk's "Sweet Little Angel"), Hooker had developed an advanced style of his own. His solos had
6160-684: Is heard in many blues songs to this day. Although Johnson had used the figure on several songs, James' overdriven electric sound made it "more insistent, firing out a machine-gun triplet beat that would become a defining sound of the early rockers", writes historian Ted Gioia . Unlike Nighthawk and Hooker, James used a full-chord glissando effect with an open E tuning and a bottleneck. Other popular songs by James, such as " It Hurts Me Too " (first recorded by Tampa Red), " The Sky Is Crying ", " Shake Your Moneymaker ", feature his slide playing. Although Muddy Waters , born McKinley Morganfield, made his earliest recordings using an acoustic slide guitar, as
6314-412: Is meant to be our freedom. We're meant to be able to do what we want to do." Authenticity has always been important in the punk subculture—the pejorative term " poseur " is applied to those who adopt its stylistic attributes but do not actually share or understand its underlying values and philosophy. Scholar Daniel S. Traber argues that "attaining authenticity in the punk identity can be difficult"; as
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6468-481: Is much less the rule. Hardcore drumming tends to be especially fast. Production tends to be minimalistic, with tracks sometimes laid down on home tape recorders or four-track portastudios. Punk rock lyrics are typically blunt and confrontational; compared to the lyrics of other popular music genres, they often focus on social and political issues. Trend-setting songs such as the Clash's " Career Opportunities " and Chelsea 's "Right to Work" deal with unemployment and
6622-481: Is our condition. As symbols of protest, swastikas are no less fatuous than flowers. — Robert Christgau in Christgau's Record Guide (1981) Technical accessibility and a do it yourself (DIY) spirit are prized in punk rock. UK pub rock from 1972 to 1975 contributed to the emergence of punk rock by developing a network of small venues, such as pubs, where non-mainstream bands could play. Pub rock also introduced
6776-442: Is possible as more than an evanescence. They still wear the old jewelry of the punk ideology of 1976: No Future, which was somehow turned into an adventure, which got the Mekons a major-label contract. If anything, their music today is stronger than it ever was, but against the confidence of mainstream music, it carries an unmistakable undertone of self-mockery, of humiliation, of shame, because it cannot count. Langford has worked as
6930-566: Is slide vibrato that is achieved by shaking a slide back and forth. Muddy’s slide vibrato was insane, both manic and controlled. That added to the excitement of his playing." Rock musicians began exploring electric slide guitar in the early 1960s. In the UK, groups such as the Rolling Stones , who were fans of Chicago blues and Chess Records artists in particular, began recording songs by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf , and others. The Stones' second single, " I Wanna Be Your Man " (1963), featured
7084-400: Is that usually only one chord or voicing is easily available and is dictated by how the guitar is originally tuned. Two-note intervals can be played by slanting the slide on certain notes. In the sixteenth century, the notes of A–D–G–B–E were adopted as a tuning for guitar-like instruments, and the low E was added later to make E–A–D–G–B–E as the standard guitar tuning . In open tuning
7238-463: Is used by many slide players. This tuning allows for power chords , which contain root, fifth and eighth (octave) notes in the bass strings and conventional tuning for the rest of the strings. Robert Johnson, whose playing has been cited by Eric Clapton , Keith Richards , Jimi Hendrix , and Johnny Winter as being a powerful influence on them, used tunings of standard, open G, open D, and drop D. The National String Instrument Corporation produced
7392-577: The Los Angeles Times , reviewing the debut album by a hard rock band, Aerosmith , declared that it "achieves all that punk-rock bands strive for but most miss." A March 1973 review of an Iggy and the Stooges show in the Detroit Free Press dismissively referred to Pop as "the apotheosis of Detroit punk music". In May 1973, Billy Altman launched the short-lived punk magazine in Buffalo, NY which
7546-517: The CBGB club, also in Lower Manhattan . At its core was Television , described by critic John Walker as "the ultimate garage band with pretensions". Their influences ranged from The Velvet Underground to the staccato guitar work of Dr. Feelgood 's Wilko Johnson . The band's bassist/singer, Richard Hell , created a look with cropped, ragged hair, ripped T-shirts, and black leather jackets credited as
7700-599: The English Dancing Master EP prior to the hiatus), and American country music . Fear and Whiskey (1985), The Edge of the World (1986) and The Mekons Honky Tonkin' (1987) exemplified the band's new sound, which built on the innovations of Gram Parsons and blended punk ethos and left wing politics with the minimalist country of Hank Williams . Subsequent albums, such as The Mekons Rock 'n Roll , continued to experiment with diverse instrumentation (notably
7854-582: The Fall , the Human League , and Stiff Little Fingers . For several years the band played noisy, bare-bones post-punk , releasing singles on a number of labels. The Mekons' first album, The Quality of Mercy Is Not Strnen , was recorded using Gang of Four 's instruments, and due to an error by the Virgin Records’ art department, featured pictures of Gang of Four on the back cover. After 1982's The Mekons Story,
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#17328510803018008-529: The Krautrock tradition of groups such as Can . In Japan, the anti-establishment Zunō Keisatsu (Brain Police) mixed garage-psych and folk . The combo regularly faced censorship challenges, their live act at least once including onstage masturbation. A new generation of Australian garage rock bands, inspired mainly by the Stooges and MC5 , was coming closer to the sound that would soon be called "punk": In Brisbane ,
8162-617: The Rising Sons , one of the earliest blues rock bands. His early guitar work appears on Captain Beefheart 's debut Safe as Milk album (1967) and several songs on Taj Mahal's self-titled 1968 debut album . Also in 1968, he collaborated with the Rolling Stones on recording sessions, which resulted in Cooder playing slide on " Memo from Turner ". The Jagger/Richards song was later included on
8316-547: The fiddle , accordion , slide guitar , and saz ). The Mekons Rock 'n Roll , released by A&M Records in 1989, was the band's first (and only) album to be put out by a major label. It was not a commercial success, reportedly selling only around 23,000 albums in the U.S., but was met with critical acclaim. It was named eighth of the top 10 albums of 1989 in the Village Voice 's Pazz & Jop critics poll. In 1991, New York Times critic Jon Pareles called it "one of
8470-428: The safety-pin aesthetic —was a major influence on Sex Pistols impresario Malcolm McLaren and, in turn, British punk style. ( John D Morton of Cleveland's Electric Eels may have been the first rock musician to wear a safety-pin-covered jacket.) McLaren's partner, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood , credits Johnny Rotten as the first British punk musician to rip his shirt, and Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious as
8624-540: The "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" in 2003. Duane Allman ’s slide-playing with the Allman Brothers Band was one of the formative influences in the creation of Southern rock . He also added memorable slide guitar to Derek and the Dominos ’ Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs album, notably its title track, which was ranked at number 13 on Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitar Songs". Allman, who died in
8778-529: The "Mekonville" festival near Ipswich , England, with both the current 2017 line-up and the re-united original 1977 lineup performing. At that festival, Mekonville , a 12-inch "split single" was released, with one new song from each of the two line-ups. The "current" line-up, still as "The Mekons", also performed several concerts in the UK and elsewhere in Europe in July and August, 2017. Jon Langford and Tom Greenhalgh are
8932-422: The "slack-key" the Hawaiians found it easy to play a three-chord song by moving a piece of metal along the fretboard and began to play the instrument across the lap. Near the end of the nineteenth century, a Hawaiian named Joseph Kekuku became proficient in playing this way using a steel bar against the guitar strings. The bar was called the "steel" and was the source of the name "steel guitar". Kekuku popularized
9086-578: The 18th centuries, punk was a common, coarse synonym for prostitute; William Shakespeare used it with that meaning in The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602) and Measure for Measure (1603–4). The term eventually came to describe "a young male hustler, a gangster, a hoodlum, or a ruffian". The first known use of the phrase "punk rock" appeared in the Chicago Tribune on March 22, 1970, when Ed Sanders , co-founder of New York's anarcho-prankster band
9240-476: The Alex Harvey Band — their influence was enormous. And they try to write that all off and wrap it around Patti Smith. It's so wrong!". In October 1976, the Damned released the first UK punk rock band single, " New Rose ". The Vibrators followed the next month with "We Vibrate". On November 26, 1976, the Sex Pistols' released their debut single " Anarchy in the U.K. ", which succeeded in its goal of becoming
9394-408: The British charts. One of his last contributions to a Stones recording was his acoustic guitar slide playing on " No Expectations ", which biographer Paul Trynka describes as "subtle, totally without bombast or overemphasis ... the perfect embodiment of the journey he'd embarked on in 1961." In Chicago, Mike Bloomfield frequented blues clubs as early as the late 1950s – by
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#17328510803019548-454: The Clash , which was joined by Joe Strummer . On June 4, 1976, the Sex Pistols played Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall in what became one of the most influential rock shows ever. Among the approximately forty audience members were the two locals who organised the gig—they had formed Buzzcocks after seeing the Sex Pistols in February. Others in the small crowd went on to form Joy Division ,
9702-569: The Clash's debut had included a cover of the recent Jamaican reggae hit " Police and Thieves ". Other first wave bands such as the Slits and new entrants to the scene like the Ruts and the Police interacted with the reggae and ska subcultures, incorporating their rhythms and production styles. The punk rock phenomenon helped spark a full-fledged ska revival movement known as 2 Tone , centered on bands such as
9856-453: The Dead Boys. They were soon playing regularly at Max's Kansas City and CBGB. At this early stage, the term punk applied to the scene in general, not necessarily a particular stylistic approach as it would later—the early New York punk bands represented a broad variety of influences. Among them, the Ramones, the Heartbreakers, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and the Dead Boys were establishing
10010-645: The Detroit band Death —made up of three African-American brothers—recorded "scorching blasts of feral ur-punk", but could not arrange a release deal. In Ohio, a small but influential underground rock scene emerged, led by Devo in Akron and Kent and by Cleveland's Electric Eels , Mirrors and Rocket from the Tombs . Bands anticipating the forthcoming movement were appearing as far afield as Düsseldorf , West Germany, where "punk before punk" band Neu! formed in 1971, building on
10164-527: The Electric Lady in New York City. Underground and pub rock scenes became filled with cacophonous sounds, haziness brought by drugs and alcohol, and unassuming fashion. American punk represented a new generation that combined bohemian atmosphere with an aggressive guitar distortion. The Dead Boys' debut LP, Young, Loud and Snotty , was released at the end of August. October saw two more debut albums from
10318-546: The Fall , and – in the 1980s — the Smiths . In July, the Ramones played two London shows that helped spark the nascent UK punk scene. Over the next several months, many new punk rock bands formed, often directly inspired by the Sex Pistols. In London, women were near the center of the scene—among the initial wave of bands were the female-fronted Siouxsie and the Banshees , X-Ray Spex , and
10472-537: The Fugs described his first solo album as "punk rock – redneck sentimentality". In 1969 Sanders recorded a song for an album called "Street Punk" but it was only released in 2008. In the December 1970 issue of Creem , Lester Bangs , mocking more mainstream rock musicians, ironically referred to Iggy Pop as "that Stooge punk". Suicide 's Alan Vega credits this usage with inspiring his duo to bill its gigs as "punk music" or
10626-522: The Heartbreakers' 1976 and 1977 tours of Britain, Thunders played a central role in popularizing heroin among the punk crowd there, as well.) The Ramones' third album, Rocket to Russia , appeared in November 1977. The Sex Pistols ' live TV skirmish with Bill Grundy on December 1, 1976, was the signal moment in British punk 's transformation into a major media phenomenon, even as some stores refused to stock
10780-515: The Jerks led what became known as no wave . The Misfits formed in nearby New Jersey. Still developing what would become their signature B movie –inspired style, later dubbed horror punk , they made their first appearance at CBGB in April 1977. The American youth were searching for authenticity and newcomers like The Ramone, The Clash and The Stooges. They brought their unique sound to venues like CBGB and
10934-578: The Mekons, directed by Joe Angio. The film premiered in 2013 at the DOC NYC festival with members of the band in attendance. The band has toured and recorded with a mostly unaltered lineup (Langford, Greenhalgh, Timms, Goulding, Bell, Edmonds, Honeyman, and bassist Sarah Corina ) throughout the 1990s and early 21st century, and has a highly devoted following. Sarah Corina left in 2015, and Dave Trumfio , of Chicago and Southern California, replaced Corina on bass. The Mekons celebrated their 40th anniversary with
11088-476: The Pine Valley Cosmonauts name. In 2014, some of The Mekons, dubbing themselves the "mini-Mekons", along with Robbie Fulks , went to northern Scotland to perform, sample the local whisky , and write and record an album on the island of Jura , in the studio of world and roots producer Giles Perring , a long-term collaborator with Mekon Susie Honeyman in the band Echo City . The record, named Jura,
11242-739: The Ramones", when nothing could have been further from the truth. In Perth , the Cheap Nasties formed in August. In September 1976, the Saints became the first punk rock band outside the U.S. to release a recording, the single " (I'm) Stranded ". The band self-financed, packaged, and distributed the single. "(I'm) Stranded" had limited impact at home, but the British music press recognized it as groundbreaking. A second wave of punk rock emerged in 1977. These bands often sounded very different from each other. While punk remained largely an underground phenomenon in
11396-460: The Ramones' debut album was released by Sire Records ; the first single was " Blitzkrieg Bop ", opening with the rallying cry "Hey! Ho! Let's go!" According to a later description, "Like all cultural watersheds, Ramones was embraced by a discerning few and slagged off as a bad joke by the uncomprehending majority." The Cramps , whose core members were from Sacramento, California and Akron, Ohio , had debuted at CBGB in November 1976, opening for
11550-666: The Saints evoked the live sound of the British Pretty Things , who had toured Australia and New Zealand in 1975. The origins of New York's punk rock scene can be traced back to such sources as the late 1960s trash culture and an early 1970s underground rock movement centered on the Mercer Arts Center in Greenwich Village , where the New York Dolls performed. In early 1974, a new scene began to develop around
11704-405: The Sex Pistols as central players in a new youth movement, "hard and tough". As described by critic Jon Savage , the band members "embodied an attitude into which McLaren fed a new set of references: late-sixties radical politics, sexual fetish material, pop history, [...] youth sociology". Bernard Rhodes , an associate of McLaren, similarly aimed to make stars of the band London SS , who became
11858-556: The Specials , the Beat , Madness , and the Selecter . In July, the Sex Pistols' third single, " Pretty Vacant ", reached number six and Australia's the Saints had a top-forty hit with " This Perfect Day ". In September, Generation X and the Clash reached the top forty with, respectively, "Your Generation" and " Complete Control ". X-Ray Spex's " Oh Bondage Up Yours! " did not chart, but it became
12012-449: The T-shirt, motorcycle jacket, and jeans ensemble favored by American greasers of the 1950s associated with the rockabilly scene and by British rockers of the 1960s. In addition to the T-shirt, and leather jackets they wore ripped jeans and boots, typically Doc Martens . The punk look was inspired to shock people. Richard Hell 's more androgynous, ragamuffin look—and reputed invention of
12166-670: The Teenage Wasteland" in his review of the Stooges July 1972 performance at King's Cross Cinema in London for a British magazine called Cream (no relation to the more famous US publication). In the January 1973 Rolling Stone review of Nuggets , Greg Shaw commented "Punk rock is a fascinating genre... Punk rock at its best is the closest we came in the '60s to the original rockabilly spirit of Rock 'n Roll." In February 1973, Terry Atkinson of
12320-725: The UK. Many of the shows were cancelled by venue owners in response to the media outrage following the Grundy interview. A punk subculture began in Australia around the same time, centered around Radio Birdman and the Oxford Tavern in Sydney's Darlinghurst suburb. By 1976, the Saints were hiring Brisbane local halls to use as venues, or playing in "Club 76", their shared house in the inner suburb of Petrie Terrace . The band soon discovered that musicians were exploring similar paths in other parts of
12474-802: The US, in the UK it had become a major sensation. During this period punk music also spread beyond the English speaking world, inspiring local scenes in other countries. The California punk scene was fully developed by early 1977. In Los Angeles, there were: the Weirdos , The Dils , the Zeros , the Bags , Black Randy and the Metrosquad , the Germs , Fear , The Go-Go's , X , the Dickies , and
12628-567: The album Radios Appear on its own Trafalgar label. By 1979, the hardcore punk movement was emerging in Southern California . A rivalry developed between adherents of the new sound and the older punk rock crowd. Hardcore, appealing to a younger, more suburban audience, was perceived by some as anti-intellectual, overly violent, and musically limited. In Los Angeles, the opposing factions were often described as "Hollywood punks" and "beach punks", referring to Hollywood's central position in
12782-625: The all-female the Slits . There were female bassists Gaye Advert in the Adverts and Shanne Bradley in the Nipple Erectors , while Sex store frontwoman Jordan not only managed Adam and the Ants but also performed screaming vocals on their song "Lou". Other groups included Subway Sect , Alternative TV , Wire , the Stranglers , Eater and Generation X . Farther afield, Sham 69 began practicing in
12936-466: The band operated on the principle that "anybody could do it ... anybody could get up and join in and instruments could be swapped around; that there'd be no distance between the audience and the band." By their second show, supporting the Rezillos at the F Club , they were approached with a record deal by Bob Last of Fast Product . The Mekons were the first band signed to the label. The band's first single
13090-473: The band to a more folk-flavoured sound. In April 2009 the Mekons returned to the studio to complete a new collection of songs, released in 2011 as Ancient & Modern 1911–2011 on Bloodshot Records , and, in a September 2010 interview, Jon Langford revealed that the band would tour the United States in 2011. In a February 2011 interview, Langford discussed the music documentary about the band, Revenge of
13244-572: The basic blues played by Hooker and said, "it worked". Roulette was recruited to San Francisco in the mid-1970s by Charlie Musselwhite . In 1997, he recorded a solo album, Back in Chicago: Jammin' with Willie Kent and the Gents , which won Best Blues Album of 1997 by Living Blues Magazine . Roulette's contribution to the lap slide guitar was to prove that a lap-played instrument was capable of holding its own in Chicago blues style. A slide used around
13398-415: The basis for punk rock visual style. In April 1974, Patti Smith came to CBGB for the first time to see the band perform. A veteran of independent theater and performance poetry, Smith was developing an intellectual, feminist take on rock 'n' roll. On June 5, she recorded the single " Hey Joe "/" Piss Factory ", featuring Television guitarist Tom Verlaine ; released on her own Mer Records label, it heralded
13552-547: The best albums of the 1980s." Just as the Mekons began to grow in critical stature, their relationship with A&M Records became tense, and the Mekons were soon dropped by the label, unable to fulfill their commercial expectations. However, they continued to record at a prolific rate, releasing such notable albums as 1991's Curse of the Mekons , 2000's Journey to the End of the Night , and 2002's OOOH! (Out of Our Heads) Natural moved
13706-473: The blues. Tampa Red, as well as Kokomo Arnold , Casey Bill Weldon , and Oscar Woods adopted the Hawaiian mode of playing longer melodies with the slide instead of playing short riffs as they had done previously. In the early twentieth century, steel guitar playing was divided into two streams: bottleneck-style, performed on a traditional Spanish guitar held flat against the body; and lap-style, performed on an instrument specifically designed or modified for
13860-529: The broader culture it represented, and their musical predecessors: "No Elvis , Beatles or the Rolling Stones in 1977", declared the Clash song "1977". 1976, when the punk revolution began in Britain, became a musical and a cultural "Year Zero". As nostalgia was discarded, many in the scene adopted a nihilistic attitude summed up by the Sex Pistols ' slogan "No Future"; in the later words of one observer, amid
14014-493: The classic lineup of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Their first album, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band (1965), features Bloomfield's slide guitar work on the band's adaptations of two Elmore James songs. " Shake Your Moneymaker " shows his well-developed slide style and " Look Over Yonders Wall " is ranked at number 27 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time". Around
14168-435: The developing sound. Club owner Hilly Kristal called the movement "Street rock" ; John Holmstrom credits Aquarian magazine with using punk "to describe what was going on at CBGBs". Holmstrom, Legs McNeil , and Ged Dunn's magazine Punk , which debuted at the end of 1975, was crucial in codifying the term. "It was pretty obvious that the word was getting very popular", Holmstrom later remarked. "We figured we'd take
14322-486: The early Who , the British punks also reflected the influence of glam rock and related artists and bands such as David Bowie , Slade , T.Rex , and Roxy Music . However, Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten (real name John Lydon) insisted that the influences of the UK punk scene were not from the US and NY. "I've heard an awful lot of American journalists pretending that the whole punk influence came out of New York." He argued: "T. Rex, David Bowie, Slade, Mott The Hoople ,
14476-518: The early 1960s Muddy Waters and harmonica virtuoso Little Walter encouraged him and occasionally allowed him to sit in on jam sessions. Waters recalled: "Mike was a great guitar player. He learned a lot of slide from me. Plus I guess he picked up a little lick or two from me, but he learned how to play a lot of slide and pick a lot of guitar." Bloomfield's slide playing attracted Paul Butterfield and, together with guitarist Elvin Bishop , they formed
14630-514: The early 1970s to refer to mid-1960s garage acts. In the liner notes of the 1972 anthology LP, Nuggets , musician and rock journalist Lenny Kaye , later a member of the Patti Smith Group, used the term "punk rock" to describe the genre of 1960s garage bands and "garage-punk", to describe a song recorded in 1966 by the Shadows of Knight. Nick Kent referred to Iggy Pop as the "Punk Messiah of
14784-483: The early evening Thames Television London television show Today to be interviewed by host Bill Grundy . When Grundy asked Siouxsie how she was doing, she made fun of him saying, "I've always wanted to meet you, Bill". Grundy who was drunk, told her on the air; "we shall meet afterwards then". This instantly generated a reaction from Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones who pronounced a series of terms inappropriate for prime-time television. Jones proceeded to call Grundy
14938-497: The first metal-body resonator guitars in the late 1920s ( see image at beginning of article ). Popular with early slide players, these featured a large aluminum cone, resembling an inverted loudspeaker, attached under the instrument's bridge to increase its volume. It was patented in the late 1920s by the Dopyera brothers and became widely used on many types of guitars, and was adapted to the mandolin and ukulele . Tampa Red played
15092-508: The first recording of slide guitar was by Sylvester Weaver in 1923. Since the 1930s, performers including Robert Johnson , Robert Nighthawk , Earl Hooker , Elmore James , and Muddy Waters popularized slide guitar in electric blues and influenced later slide guitarists in rock music , including the Rolling Stones , George Harrison , Duane Allman , and Ry Cooder . Lap slide guitar pioneers include Oscar "Buddy" Woods , "Black Ace" Turner , and Freddie Roulette . The technique of using
15246-812: The first to use safety pins, although few of those following punk could afford to buy McLaren and Westwood's designs so famously worn by the Pistols, so they made their own, diversifying the 'look' with various different styles based on these designs. Young women in punk demolished the typical female types in rock of either "coy sex kittens or wronged blues belters" in their fashion. Early female punk musicians displayed styles ranging from Siouxsie Sioux 's bondage gear to Patti Smith 's "straight-from-the-gutter androgyny". The former proved much more influential on female fan styles. Over time, tattoos, piercings , and metal-studded and -spiked accessories became increasingly common elements of punk fashion among both musicians and fans,
15400-473: The first wave (e.g., X , the Adicts ) also flourished. Many musicians who identified with punk or were inspired by it went on to pursue other musical directions, giving rise to movements such as post-punk , new wave , thrash metal , and alternative rock . Following alternative rock's mainstream breakthrough in the 1990s with Nirvana , punk rock saw renewed major-label interest and mainstream appeal exemplified by
15554-563: The following: Buddy Woods was a Louisiana street performer who recorded in the 1930s. He was called "The Lone Wolf" after the title of his most successful song, "Lone Wolf Blues". Between 1936 and 1938, he recorded ten songs that are today considered classics, including "Don't Sell It, Don't Give It Away". Woods recorded five songs for the US Library of Congress in 1940 in Shreveport, Louisiana, including "Boll Weevil Blues" and "Sometimes I Get
15708-606: The founder and member of several solo and band projects including The Three Johns , the Waco Brothers , a punk-meets- Johnny Cash -like ensemble, and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts , a project that explores the music of Bob Wills , Johnny Cash and others. Besides his solo albums Langford has released CDs with Richard Buckner , Kevin Coyne , Kat Ex (Katherina Bornefeld) of The Ex , Roger Knox , and The Sadies , in some cases using
15862-591: The garage phenomenon gathered momentum around the US. By 1965, the harder-edged sound of British acts, such as the Rolling Stones , the Kinks , and the Who , became increasingly influential with American garage bands. The raw sound of U.S. groups such as the Sonics and the Seeds predicted the style of later acts. In the early 1970s some rock critics used the term "punk rock" to refer to
16016-561: The grim realities of urban life. Especially in early British punk, a central goal was to outrage and shock the mainstream. The Sex Pistols' " Anarchy in the U.K. " and " God Save the Queen " openly disparaged the British political system and social mores. Anti-sentimental depictions of relationships and sex are common, as in "Love Comes in Spurts", recorded by the Voidoids . Anomie , variously expressed in
16170-412: The human singing voice. It typically involves playing the guitar in the traditional position (flat against the body) with the use of a slide fitted on one of the guitarist's fingers. The slide may be a metal or glass tube, such as the neck of a bottle, giving rise to the term bottleneck guitar to describe this type of playing. The strings are typically plucked (not strummed ) while the slide is moved over
16324-425: The idea of independent record labels , such as Stiff Records , which put out basic, low-cost records. Pub rock bands organized their own small venue tours and put out small pressings of their records. In the early days of punk rock, this DIY ethic stood in marked contrast to what those in the scene regarded as the ostentatious musical effects and technological demands of many mainstream rock bands. Musical virtuosity
16478-523: The job. Adopting a new name, the group played its first gig as the Sex Pistols on November 6, 1975, at Saint Martin's School of Art , and soon attracted a small but dedicated following. In February 1976, the band received its first significant press coverage; guitarist Steve Jones declared that the Sex Pistols were not so much into music as they were "chaos". The band often provoked its crowds into near-riots. Rotten announced to one audience, "Bet you don't hate us as much as we hate you!" McLaren envisioned
16632-459: The kind of "cerebral mix of musical ferocity and rebellious posture" that would characterize much of the later British punk rock of the 1970s. The garage/beat phenomenon extended beyond North America and Britain. In America, the psychedelic rock movement birthed an array of garage bands that would later become influences on punk, the Austin Chronicle described the 13th Floor Elevators as
16786-496: The mainstream. In the late 1970s, punk experienced a second wave, when new acts that had not been active during its formative years adopted the style. By the early 1980s, faster and more aggressive subgenres, such as hardcore punk (e.g., Minor Threat ), Oi! (e.g., Sham 69 ), street punk (e.g., the Exploited ), and anarcho-punk (e.g., Crass ), became some of the predominant modes of punk rock, while bands more similar in form to
16940-528: The method and some sources claim he originated the technique. In the first half of the twentieth century, this so-called "Hawaiian guitar" style of playing spread to the US. Sol Hoʻopiʻi was an influential Hawaiian guitarist who in 1919, at age 17, came to the US mainland from Hawaii as a stow-away on a ship heading for San Francisco. Hoʻopiʻi's playing became popular in the late 1920s and he recorded songs like "Hula Blues" and "Farewell Blues". According to author Pete Madsen, "[Hoʻopiʻi's playing] would influence
17094-441: The mid-1960s garage genre, as well as for subsequent acts perceived to be in that stylistic tradition, such as the Stooges. In Britain, largely under the influence of the mod movement and beat groups, the Kinks' 1964 hit singles " You Really Got Me " and " All Day and All of the Night ", were both influenced by "Louie, Louie". In 1965, the Who released the mod anthem " My Generation ", which according to John Reed, anticipated
17248-470: The most distinctive styles in the recorded idom" of the time. He adds: Johnson was the first such player to achieve a real balance between treble and bass melodic lines, which acted as complementary voices in his arrangements of Baptist spirituals ... Tampa Red's [playing was] innovative for the late 1920s ... Thanks to his distinctive approach and suave sound, the Chicago-based Red became
17402-558: The most influential bottleneck player of the blues age, his smooth-sound work echoing in the playing of Blind Boy Fuller , Robert Nighthawk, Elmore James, and Muddy Waters. When the guitar was electrified in the 1930s, it allowed solos on the instrument to be more audible, and thus more prominently featured. In the 1940s, players like Robert Nighthawk and Earl Hooker popularized electric slide guitar; but, unlike their predecessors, they used standard tuning. This allowed them to switch between slide and fretted guitar playing readily, which
17556-571: The movement: the Vibrators , formed as a pub rock–style act in February 1976, soon adopted a punk look and sound. A few even longer-active bands including Surrey neo-mods the Jam and pub rockers Eddie and the Hot Rods , the Stranglers , and Cock Sparrer also became associated with the punk rock scene. Alongside the musical roots shared with their American counterparts and the calculated confrontationalism of
17710-519: The name before anyone else claimed it. We wanted to get rid of the bullshit, strip it down to rock 'n' roll. We wanted the fun and liveliness back." The early to mid-1960s garage rock bands in the United States and elsewhere are often recognized as punk rock's progenitors. the Kingsmen 's " Louie, Louie " is often cited as punk rock's defining " ur-text ". After the success of the British Invasion ,
17864-450: The new scene he had witnessed at CBGB. The King's Road clothing store he co-owned, recently renamed Sex , was building a reputation with its outrageous "anti-fashion". Among those who frequented the shop were members of a band called the Strand, which McLaren had also been managing. In August, the group was seeking a new lead singer. Another Sex habitué, Johnny Rotten , auditioned for and won
18018-721: The non-profit organization Kentuckians for the Commonwealth . Each time, the Freakons performed at the Hideout in Chicago , and elsewhere in Wisconsin . In 2013, they also performed at San Francisco 's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival. In 2017, they were accompanied by violinists Jean Cook of New York City and Anna Krippenstapel of Louisville ( The Other Years , Joan Shelley , etc.), and, only in Chicago, by Chicago/Louisville guitarist James Elkington ( The Horse's Ha , etc.). In 2021,
18172-583: The only members common to both line-ups. They recorded their 2019 album Deserted in a studio near to Joshua Tree National Park . In an interview, they described how "the rugged landscape informed the highly diverse collection of songs they wrote". For 2022, The Mekons announced at least one performance in Europe. Alongside Bob Dylan and The Clash , the Mekons are the only other band or musician to make it twice onto Robert Christgau 's Dean's Lists (begun in 1971), that is, Christgau selected both Fear and Whiskey (1985) and OOOH! (2002) as his album of
18326-439: The original L.A. punk rock scene and to hardcore's popularity in the shoreline communities of South Bay and Orange County . Slide guitar Slide guitar is a technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues music. It involves playing a guitar while holding a hard object (a slide ) against the strings , creating the opportunity for glissando effects and deep vibratos that reflect characteristics of
18480-490: The poetic terms of Richard Hell's " Blank Generation " and the bluntness of the Ramones' " Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue ", is a common theme. The controversial content of punk lyrics has frequently led to certain punk records being banned by radio stations and refused shelf space in major chain stores. Christgau said that "Punk is so tied up with the disillusions of growing up that punks do often age poorly." The classic punk rock look among male American musicians harkens back to
18634-551: The punk scene matured, he observes, eventually "everyone got called a poseur". Cultural scholars and music journalists have often attributed ‘true’ punk rock as a movement and cultural fad confined to western world in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The early punk bands emulated the minimal musical arrangements of 1960s garage rock . Typical punk rock instrumentation is stripped down to one or two guitars, bass, drums and vocals. Songs tend to be shorter than those of other rock genres and played at fast tempos. Most early punk rock songs retained
18788-567: The purpose of being played on the performer's lap. The bottleneck-style was typically associated with blues music and was popularized by African-American blues artists. The Mississippi Delta was the home of Robert Johnson , Son House , Charlie Patton , and other blues pioneers who prominently used the slide. The first known recording of the bottleneck style was in 1923 by Sylvester Weaver who recorded two instrumentals, "Guitar Blues" and "Guitar Rag". Guitarist and author Woody Mann identifies Tampa Red and Blind Willie Johnson as "developing
18942-471: The quintessential approach is a relentless, repetitive "forced rhythm", although some punk rock bass players—such as Mike Watt of the Minutemen and Firehose —emphasize more technical bass lines. Bassists often use a pick due to the rapid succession of notes, making fingerpicking impractical. Drums typically sound heavy and dry, and often have a minimal set-up. Compared to other forms of rock, syncopation
19096-521: The records and radio airplay was hard to come by. Press coverage of punk misbehavior grew intense: On January 4, 1977, The Evening News of London ran a front-page story on how the Sex Pistols "vomited and spat their way to an Amsterdam flight". In February 1977, the first album by a British punk band appeared: Damned Damned Damned (by the Damned) reached number thirty-six on the UK chart. The EP Spiral Scratch , self-released by Manchester's Buzzcocks ,
19250-753: The relocated Tupperwares, now dubbed the Screamers . Black Flag formed in Hermosa Beach in 1976 under the name Panic. They developed a hardcore punk sound and played their debut public performance in a garage in Redondo Beach in December 1977. San Francisco's second wave included the Avengers , The Nuns , Negative Trend , the Mutants , and the Sleepers. By mid-1977 in downtown New York, bands such as Teenage Jesus and
19404-672: The rise of the California bands Green Day , Social Distortion , Rancid , the Offspring , Bad Religion , and NOFX . The anti-government stance and nihilistic impression of the future provided by capitalism united the punk scene in the 1970’s in the United Kingdom as other bands emerged in the 70’s and 80’s like X-Ray Spex and Steel Pulse. The first wave of punk rock was "aggressively modern" and differed from what came before. According to Ramones drummer Tommy Ramone , "In its initial form,
19558-539: The rock scene had become so tame that [acts] like Billy Joel and Simon and Garfunkel were being called rock and roll, when to me and other fans, rock and roll meant this wild and rebellious music." According to Robert Christgau , punk "scornfully rejected the political idealism and Californian flower-power silliness of hippie myth." Hippies were rainbow extremists; punks are romantics of black-and-white. Hippies forced warmth; punks cultivate cool . Hippies kidded themselves about free love ; punks pretend that s&m
19712-621: The same line-up, without Elkington, performed, and they released the live album Freakons , recorded at the 2017 Chicago performances. Punk rock Punk rock (also known as simply punk ) is a music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock , punk bands rejected the corporate nature of mainstream 1970s rock music. They typically produced short, fast-paced songs with hard-edged melodies and singing styles with stripped-down instrumentation. Lyricism in punk typically revolves around anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian themes. Punk embraces
19866-566: The same time, he recorded with Bob Dylan for the Highway 61 Revisited album and contributed the distinctive slide guitar to the title track . On the second Butterfield album, East-West (1966), songs such as " Walkin' Blues " and " Two Trains Running " include slide playing that brought him to the audience's attention. Ry Cooder was a child music prodigy and at age 15 began working on bottleneck guitar techniques and learned Robert Johnson songs. In 1964, Cooder, along with Taj Mahal , formed
20020-529: The scene's DIY ethic and has often been cited as the first punk rock record. By August, Smith and Television were gigging together at Max's Kansas City . In Forest Hills, Queens , the Ramones drew on sources ranging from the Stooges to the Beatles and the Beach Boys to Herman's Hermits and 1960s girl groups, and condensed rock 'n' roll to its primal level: " '1–2–3–4!' bass-player Dee Dee Ramone shouted at
20174-409: The scene: Richard Hell and the Voidoids' first full-length, Blank Generation , and the Heartbreakers' L.A.M.F. One track on the latter exemplified both the scene's close-knit character and the popularity of heroin within it: " Chinese Rocks " — the title refers to a strong form of the drug – was written by Dee Dee Ramone and Hell, both users, as were the Heartbreakers' Thunders and Nolan. (During
20328-467: The second wave that presaged the post-punk phenomenon. Liverpool's first punk group, Big in Japan , moved in a glam, theatrical direction. The band did not survive long, but it spun off several well-known post-punk acts. The songs of London's Wire were characterized by sophisticated lyrics, minimalist arrangements, and extreme brevity. Alongside thirteen original songs that would define classic punk rock,
20482-413: The slide and allow that finger to be used to fret. Improvised slides are common, including pipes, rings, knives, spoons, and glass bottlenecks. Early blues players sometimes used a knife, such as Blind Willie Johnson ( pocket - or penknife ) and CeDell Davis (butterknife). Duane Allman used a glass Coricidin medicine bottle. Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett was fond of using a Zippo lighter as
20636-602: The soundtrack to the 1970 film Performance ; Rolling Stone included it at number 92 on its "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time" list. In 1970, he recorded his own self titled debut album , which included the Blind Willie Johnson classic slide instrumental " Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground " (re-recorded in 1984 for the soundtrack to Paris, Texas ). Recognized as a master of slide guitar by 1967, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at number eight on their list of
20790-411: The southeastern town of Hersham . In Durham , there was Penetration , with lead singer Pauline Murray . On September 20–21, the 100 Club Punk Festival in London featured the Sex Pistols, Clash, Damned, and Buzzcocks, as well as Paris's female-lead Stinky Toys . Siouxsie and the Banshees and Subway Sect debuted on the festival's first night. On the festival's second night, audience member Sid Vicious
20944-429: The start of every song as if the group could barely master the rudiments of rhythm." The band played its first show at CBGB in August 1974. By the end of the year, the Ramones had performed seventy-four shows, each about seventeen minutes long. "When I first saw the Ramones", critic Mary Harron later remembered, "I couldn't believe people were doing this. The dumb brattiness." That spring, Smith and Television shared
21098-424: The strings are tuned to sound a chord when not fretted, and is most often major. Open tunings commonly used with slide guitar include open D or Vestapol tuning: D–A–D–F ♯ –A–D; and open G or Spanish tuning: D–G–D–G–B–D. Open E and open A , formed by raising each of those tunings a whole tone, are also common. Other tunings are also used, in particular the drop D tuning (low E string tuned down to D)
21252-480: The strings to change the pitch . The guitar may also be placed on the player's lap and played with a hand-held bar ( lap steel guitar ). Creating music with a slide of some type has been traced back to African stringed instruments and also to the origin of the steel guitar in Hawaii. Near the beginning of the twentieth century, blues musicians in the Mississippi Delta popularized the bottleneck slide guitar style, and
21406-517: The term in the May 1971 issue of Creem , where he described ? and the Mysterians as giving a "landmark exposition of punk rock". Later in 1971, in his fanzine Who Put the Bomp , Greg Shaw wrote about "what I have chosen to call "punkrock" bands—white teenage hard rock of '64–66 ( Standells , Kingsmen, Shadows of Knight , etc.)". Lester Bangs used the term "punk rock" in several articles written in
21560-503: The unemployment and social unrest in 1977, "punk's nihilistic swagger was the most thrilling thing in England." While "self-imposed alienation " was common among "drunk punks" and "gutter punks", there was always a tension between their nihilistic outlook and the "radical leftist utopianism" of bands such as Crass , who found positive, liberating meaning in the movement. As a Clash associate describes singer Joe Strummer 's outlook, "Punk rock
21714-473: The well-known rock band and the magazine), "Louisiana Blues", and "Still a Fool". Waters used an open G tuning for several of his earlier songs, but later switched to a standard tuning and often used a capo to change keys . He usually played single notes with a small metal slide on his little finger and dampened the strings combined with varying the volume to control the amount of distortion . According to writer Ted Drozdowski, "One last factor to consider
21868-435: The world. Ed Kuepper , co-founder of the Saints, later recalled: One thing I remember having had a really depressing effect on me was the first Ramones album. When I heard it [in 1976], I mean it was a great record [...] but I hated it because I knew we'd been doing this sort of stuff for years. There was even a chord progression on that album that we used [...] and I thought, "Fuck. We're going to be labeled as influenced by
22022-483: The year. The Mekons are also one of Greil Marcus ' favourite bands About the Mekons Fear and Whisky Marcus said: If Fear and Whiskey can only be heard as an aphorism, what evanescence does it consider essential? A bitter sentimentality. This is the music of a small group of people who, in a pop moment now almost a decade gone, once thought all things were possible, and who now live in a society where nothing they want
22176-510: Was "Never Been in a Riot", a satirical take on the Clash 's White Riot . The release was made Single of the Week in NME . Their second single, "Where Were You?" was released by the end of 1978 and sold out of its 27,500 copies. At this time, Last convinced the band to sign to a larger label— Virgin . The Mekons’ popularity peaked as they played on the same bill as other "new music" groups like Gang of Four,
22330-467: Was a benchmark for both the DIY ethic and regionalism in the country's punk movement. The Clash 's self-titled debut album came out two months later and rose to number twelve; the single " White Riot " entered the top forty. In May, the Sex Pistols achieved new heights of controversy (and number two on the singles chart) with " God Save the Queen ". The band had recently acquired a new bassist, Sid Vicious , who
22484-489: Was an advantage in rhythm accompaniment. Robert Nighthawk (born Robert Lee McCollum) recorded extensively in the 1930s as "Robert Lee McCoy" with bluesmen such as John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson (also known as Sonny Boy Williamson I ). He performed on acoustic guitar in a style influenced by Tampa Red. Sometime around World War II, after changing his last name to "Nighthawk" (from the title of one of his songs), he became an early proponent of electric slide guitar and adopted
22638-504: Was arrested for having thrown a glass at the Damned that shattered and destroyed a girl's eye. Press coverage of the incident reinforced punk's reputation as a social menace. Some new bands, such as London's Ultravox !, Edinburgh's Rezillos , Manchester's the Fall, and Leamington 's the Shapes , identified with the scene even as they pursued more experimental music. Others of a comparatively traditional rock 'n' roll bent were also swept up by
22792-463: Was largely devoted to discussion of 1960s garage and psychedelic acts. In May 1974, Los Angeles Times critic Robert Hilburn reviewed the second New York Dolls album, Too Much Too Soon . "I told ya the New York Dolls were the real thing," he wrote, describing the album as "perhaps the best example of raw, thumb-your-nose-at-the-world, punk rock since the Rolling Stones ' Exile on Main Street ." In
22946-447: Was often looked on with suspicion. According to Holmstrom, punk rock was "rock and roll by people who didn't have very many skills as musicians but still felt the need to express themselves through music". In December 1976, the English fanzine Sideburns published a now-famous illustration of three chords, captioned "This is a chord, this is another, this is a third. Now form a band". British punk rejected contemporary mainstream rock,
23100-464: Was published: The Boy Looked at Johnny , by Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons . In February 1977, EMI released the Saints ' debut album, (I'm) Stranded , which the band recorded in two days. The Saints had relocated to Sydney; in April, they and Radio Birdman united for a major gig at Paddington Town Hall . Last Words had also formed in the city. The following month, the Saints relocated again, to Great Britain. In June, Radio Birdman released
23254-457: Was released in November 2015 on Black Friday and is made up of original songs written on the trip, traditional songs, and a new recording of one Mekons song. In 2013, and again in September 2017 and July 2021, Janet Bean and Catherine Irwin of Freakwater joined together with Jon Langford and Sally Timms of the Mekons to be the Freakons, performing original and cover songs about coal mining in Appalachia , England , and Wales , to support
23408-457: Was seen as exemplifying the punk persona. The swearing during the Grundy interview and the controversy over "God Save the Queen" led to a moral panic . Scores of new punk groups formed around the United Kingdom, as far from London as Belfast 's Stiff Little Fingers and Dunfermline , Scotland's the Skids . Though most survived only briefly, perhaps recording a small-label single or two, others set off new trends. Crass , from Essex , merged
23562-401: Was the first person to use the word " motherfucker " in a song title and also directly influenced the Clash . In August 1969, the Stooges , from Ann Arbor , premiered with a self-titled album . According to critic Greil Marcus , the band, led by singer Iggy Pop , created "the sound of Chuck Berry 's Airmobile —after thieves stripped it for parts". The album was produced by John Cale ,
23716-435: Was to come. Glam rock in the UK and the New York Dolls from New York have also been cited as key influences. Between 1974 and 1976, when the genre that became known as punk was developing, prominent acts included Television , Patti Smith , and the Ramones in New York City; the Saints in Brisbane ; the Sex Pistols , the Clash , and the Damned in London, and the Buzzcocks in Manchester. By late 1976, punk had become
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