US Versus UK Punk – The History Of Punk
Ah yes, the old US punk versus UK punk debate…..
Legs McNeil 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. Please Kill Me
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. It’s 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 and set fire to something
I think it’s time to reassess US Punk in the mid seventies and make some radical claims.
The first 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 the 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 and no style of dress or 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 in the US was minimal due to poor sales of their records in their own country
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 which 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 Richard Hell’s haircut and clothes. Big deal!
The one thing these bands do share with the New York Dolls, Velvet Underground and Iggy Pop/The Stooges, 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.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not slating the US bands. I love em’ to death but let’s consider the UK now.
The argument is that the US scene was more intellectual, arty and a wider frame of styles and musical modes and that UK punk was media driven aggressive, political, dole queue rock.
Are we seriously trying to say that the UK scene that took in the R&B of Dr Feelgood, the anger of The Clash, the energy of the Damned, the youth of Eater, the lyricism of the Buzzcocks, the breadth of ideas from Magazine and The Stranglers, the oblique points of reference from Siouxsie and Joy Division was not as diverse as the US? I could go on and on here.
Let’s add to that thousands of bands who formed overnight, hundreds of record labels formed as a way around signing to majors, hundreds or records released under band’s own steam in an explosion of creativity and a deluge of fanzines as an alternative press.
Let’s not forget the record covers, poster art, badges and shirts that revolutionized how products are presented even today; from the polemics of Jamie Reid’s Sex Pistols sleeves and Ludus’s Buzzcocks sleeves to the clothes that emanated from SEX, Acme Attractions and BOY and a hundred other places.
And let’s remember who recognised those US bands while the US ignored them – take a bow Television, Blondie, Modern Lovers, Heartbreakers, Ramones and Electric Chairs.
And lastly let’s remember the man who Johansson and others like to refer to insultingly as the ‘haberdasher’ – Malcolm McLaren. It was he who through luck, ill fate and cunning helped engineer the Sex Pistols publicity machine and forever burn Punk rock UK style into two continents psyches. All this while the Bowery remained some insular musical ghetto, the UK did something.
Take this description of punk…
It was about advocating kids to not wait to be told what to do, but make life up for themselves, it was about trying to get people to use their imaginations again, , it was about not being perfect…the real creativity came out of making a mess.
It’s from Legs again describing what was ruined as Punk UK style hit the USA. I think he got it wrong. He has perfectly described UK punk. If the US had actually got that message across then it would have been a tidal wave. Instead, it had to wait some 20 years for Nirvana et al to do what they failed to do.
This is not supposed to be a polemic, more a nudge in the ribs to take a fresh look at the history. I love all the US bands on these pages and if you were there in the Bowery or wherever at these times then you were in my view one of the privileged people to be a part of momentous times in rock’n’roll. And if these bands had been called something else instead of punk I would still love them. Enjoy!
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Check out the excellent Please Kill Me site for in fo, interviews and much more
TalkPunk
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