Punk bands

[Ebenezer Prout]

One wonders which of the innovative bands that flourished in the period 1977 - 1981/2, so memorably featured on John Peel's late night programmes, most impressed, left the most lasting impression upon Members?

[Reiner Torheit]

At the time I suppose I was interested in Stiff Little Fingers, The Smiths and The Stranglers.  I suppose I've always followed Madness (who were never a punk band, but were contemporaneous with them), not least because I was at primary school with Carl  (I think we might have been nicer to him if we'd known he would turn out to be Carl out of Madness).

But surely the bard par excellence  to have come out of the punk era was... Elvis Costello?

Are we actually, errr, allowed to talk about The Stranglers, The Pistols or Buster Bloodvessel on this forum?  :)

BTW you haven't imagined you've lived until you've heard "The Ukrainians" cover of "Pretty Vacant"...

[autoharp]

One of the problems with early punk was its apparent fascistic overtones. I've never been popular for saying this especially since a number of punk bands were mobilised/mobilised themselves against fascism in the late 1970s. But I do have distinct memories of an early Crass (possibly their first?) gig, punk aggression towards ethnic minorities (particularly Afro-Caribbeans), the frequent presence of swastikas (which seemed irresponsible at best) - all of which suggested some kind of ideology which was "anti-people", an impression which seemed to be confirmed by the character of the music. Those features may have disappeared as time went on, but the memories are still there.

[IanP]

Siouxsie (of Siouxsie and the Banshees fame) says something about the use of the swastika in Jon Savage's book on the punk movement (I don't have it with me, this is just my recollection). It had to do with how her parents' generation were making so much of having defeated fascism in WW2, so the ultimate statement of rebellion was to adopt the symbol most opposed to all they apparently stood for. To me this speaks volumes about how unfocused rebellion or idle nihilism in no sense necessarily leads to a progressive politics - though that process can be traced back through numerous other artistic movements opposed to some status quo. It's a mistake to assume a continuity between old-fashioned conservatism and fascism, even though the two can enter into alliances.

[Reiner Torheit]

One of the problems with early punk was its apparent fascistic overtones.

Of course that's true, but not universally so - there were as many early punk bands lined up on the "left" too.  Stiff Little Fingers were Marxists - before taking a slightly different path related to their geographic/cultural location in N Ireland and commenting on "the Troubles".   The Mekons have always been on the far-left end of things (I was amazed to find they are still going after all these years).

American "punk" was quite a different thing from its British relation..  it's hard to square the idea of Talking Heads as a punk band...  and yet they called themselves that in their earlier days.

[guest2]

Can any one tell us the derivation and original meaning of the word "punk"? I have seen a few suggestions but it is not a subject I have to any great extent investigated.

[Reiner Torheit]

I somehow doubt that the term "punk" - as used in the late 1970s in "punk rock" etc - had much connection with earlier uses of the word?   ::)

I say this with some conviction, since - by pure chance - I was a school classmate of the author of the first published punk novel, rather unimaginatively titled "The Punk", by Gideon Sams (which he wrote in 1977 when he was 15 - not 14, as is claimed in some sources).  If there were historical analogies or parallels to be drawn, then Gideon certainly wasn't letting on, and in his view, punk was an entirely new ethos whose function was to blow away all that had come before it.  Gideon lived-out the entire punk miasma to the full, and sadly left this world in the mid-80s, without ever hitting the presses successfully again.  He was, incidentally, expelled from our school for having written it, although not for slashing his trousers and safety-pinning them... which speaks volumes about the kind of school it was, really.

http://www.punk77.co.uk/groups/thepunk.htm

The Narrator (aka The Criminologist - a role I've once, ehem, played myself) in THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW (1973) dismisses Eddie the Messenger-Boy as "a low-down, cheap little punk!" and this might have stuck in the minds of seminal punk-culture figures like Malcolm McClaren?  (It's hard to overestimate the cult influence of ROCKY in the 1970s... and indeed later too).

Although there is (allegedly) a Shakespearean use of the word "punk" to mean "a prostitute", a fresh meaning - implying a dissolute young man - had emerged by the middle of the C17th.  Playford's THE ENGLISH DANCING MASTER (first publ 1651, but going through many reprints thereafter) has a tune "The Punke's Delight", which subsequently made its way into other popular songbooks, even inspiring some sets of divisions for viol.  These were, of course, pressed into service in concert-programs with a great deal of mirth in the early 1980s (Philip Pickett even released a whole lp called "The Punke's Delight"), although the musical value of the tune is, err, slight ;)