the famous Pop Group t shirt, recently sported by Agyness Deyn
The word ‘punk’ embraces many genres of music, united primarily by their DIY ethic and rejection of the mainstream, major record label way of doing things.
The godfathers of punk as we know it today came from the USA in the 1960’s and 70’s; bands like Iggy and the Stooges, the MC5, Patti Smith, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, the Velvet Underground, Television, the Ramones and the New York Dolls all pioneered the raw, agressive sound and rebellious stance that came to be known as punk.
The British punk scene was born in London in 1976; teenagers began rejecting the old rock ‘dinosaurs’ that had been dominating the band scene with their virtuoso musicianship, and forming their own bands where the only qualification to join was the right attitude. The fanzine ‘Sniffing Glue’ produced by Danny Baker with Mark Perry of early punk band ATV proved highly influential and spawned many imitations. Punk music itself had no rules although usually it was loud, aggressive and amphetamine-fuelled.
The Sex Pistols were born in Chelsea where a young John Lydon, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock used to hang out at Vivienne Westwood’s boutique, and met Malcom McLaren who had previously managed the New York Dolls. Under his direction, the band was formed and the rest is history. Other faces on this new scene included Siouxie Sioux (later of the Banshees), Adam Ant , and Billy Idol to name but a few. Also worth a mention are X-Ray Spex, The Slits, Crass and Bristol punk band The Pop Group whose famous t shirt bore a picture of Margaret Thatcher with the words ‘We are all prostitutes’ emblazened across it. The Pop Group’s Mark Stuart went on to collaborate with producer Adrian Sherwood as Mark Stuart’s Mafia and is credited with inventing the ‘Bristol Sound’, still alive today in the music of Massive Attack.
Many independent record labels sprung up at this time to release the new music, creating a whole new infrastructure to record, release and distribute records without involving major corporations. Artists have frequently found themselves much more fairly treated by these indie labels. However, some punk bands maintained a non-conformist stance whilst signing big deals with major labels.. eg the Sex Pistols and the Clash. Quite a few bands gained recognition through the punk scene by adopting the style and attitiude of punk, including the Police, the Jam and the Stranglers, even though their excellent musicianship had more in common with the old school musos that punk supposedly rejected.
The ‘anything goes’ attitude of punk also paved the way for a rich and diverse post-punk DIY music scene. In the late 1970’s, the Industrial Records label was set up by experimental band Throbbing Gristle which in turn spawned a whole scene of its own that still exists today in the music of bands like Sonic Youth. More side effects of punk could be seen when Rough Trade records signed Joy Division, the Fall and the Smiths and Fiction records released proto-goths the Cure.
The Grunge music scene evolved in America in the late 1980’s in much the same way as punk; young bands unconcerned with commercial sucess playing music to entertain themselves and each other and releasing their material on small independent labels. Influenced by late 70’s/early 80’s punk acts like the Ruts, the Butthole Surfers, NOFX, Swans and the Dead Kennedys as well as British post-punk, the Pixies were one of the first grunge bands and inspired many bands that followed; from Nirvana to Dinosaur Junior to L7. More recently, Green Day have achieved massive success with their own brand of pop punk, inspiring hoards of youngsters to pick up a guitar and learn those first 3 chords.