Ah
yes the old US and UK punk debate.....'I
mean after all we were PUNK magazine. We had come up with the name and had
defined punk as this underground American rock & roll culture that had
existed for almost 15 years with the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, the
MC5 etc etc.'
Legs McNeil
- Please Kill Me |
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Except that’s not quite right though. As we've seen as we've trawled
through rock music since Elvis there’s no exclusivity here but there is
both sides of the Atlantic adding to the unholy punk brew that was
coming. Its like saying England invented heavy Rock with Cream.
'Hey if you
want to start your own youth movement, fine but this one’s already
taken.' Sorry
Legs there was no owner. Just the next to carry the torch.
I think its time to reassess US Punk in the mid seventies and make some
radical claims. |
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My
first claim is that there was no US punk scene as such until the UK’s
influence began to seep back into the US in early 1977. Here are my
reasons:
The US punk scene leaving out Iggy etc seemed to involve only a handful of
bands over a period of 3 years from 1974 – 1977 and mainly New York based.
They were and in no particular order and not a complete list:
Television, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Heartbreakers, Blondie, Talking
Heads, Dictators, Pere Ubu and Dead Boys.
In this time there
was no coherent youth movement around these bands, no style of dress
associated, no particular sound associated. In fact the only thing that
linked these bands apart from temporally was they played CBGB’s or Max’s
or both. Out of these bands how many of them kickstarted a generation? I'd
argue that The Ramones initial influence was minimal due to poor sales of
their records. |
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A
scene also implies a turnover of new bands coming into existence and
providing propulsion forward but did this happen?
It’s a telling fact that Legs quotes in
Please Kill Me
that there were about 100 people into the scene and out of that 100
50% were arty types who liked hanging out.
So no NEW audience and no new bands - just insularity. This was reflected
in the content of Punk magazine that concentrated on the above bands, had
no coherent philosophy, and featured bands that were not punk at all.
Apart from Punk magazine what other magazines formed to capture this
mythical scene. If I’m right none. So that leaves no sound, look, new
bands or media. Oh sorry I forgot Richards Hells haircut and clothes. Big
deal!
The one thing these bands do share with the Dolls, VU and Iggy apart from
Patti Smith is an unbroken line of commercial failure and the American
public ignoring them. The other key point is these bands played the record
companies game, played them at their own rules and lost. |
Hell &
that groovy punk look |
The US Mid Seventies
Pt2 |
US Punk Bands |
Punk Clubs |
'Punk' Magazine Back
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