So when I grew up we had Dead Kennedy's, sex pistols, GBH, Exploited, TSOL, Black Flag. What I would call American punk ( yes I know exploited is Manchester) Then we had Siouxsie and the Banshees, Ian Dury, Madness, Devo ( yes they were yanks) which was British sort of punk. Nowadays I keep hearing of punk bands in the 80s, Billy idol, Trans Vision Vamp etc which are in no way shape or form punk. Now I hear bands I love ( sorry Aussie Bands) like Violent Soho, Smith Street band and Waax getting labelled punk. Great bands but surely not punk, like Green Day, Offspring etc. So what is punk?
I always thought it was the shit ass that pulls up to a convenience store, gets out and leaves his stereo blaring while he's inside.
Aussie bands hate getting labled as any genera. Just do your thing & if the punters don't like it you move on.. pigeon holing is a American thing...blah blah blah type bands/ music. There was blues, country, rock'n'roll until the "American" record companies learned how to make money out of their blah, blah ,blah bullshit. So pretty much the rest of the world dont give a fuck. Music wasn't invented in America it was exploited by America...take note of the casualties.
I always thought it started as an anti corporate backlash against the megabands and labels of the 70's. A stripped down ballsier more primitive form of rock music. A lot of bands could fall into that category.
I think a lot of emoisic got there. I'm thinking 27 seconds to Mars " the kill" or my chemical romance with dead, fuck I love that song. But.....
Punk is easy ...anti-anything. I think the core of Punk lies in the antisocial and introverted characteristics of its very makeup. Unlike Rock that was anti-authority, be it a parent, school teacher, Mr. Dickhead Adams down the street (because you put one foot on his lawn), or a judge, Punker's I believe really just had an issue with the mirror more than anything else. Who didn't though back then ...them probably just a little more though. Not that this is a bad thing. I just think they were of the most insecure. I could have been one myself as a kid, but it also took a lot of nerve to style-up like one. You had to be ready for an imminent fight back then. No dissin' ...just sayin'. Every Punker I met as a kid was actually a very nice person with their guard down. Also, I remember hangin' out at a White Castle once in a while when we were on a certain side of town. Apparently some old "square" (as it would have been like then) was looking at a group of punkers a bit too much. One was a punker-ette too. They all started to bark and growl like a pack of dogs at him. Now, to me that was some geniune PUNK.
Funny, I don't think there was a day in high school I didn't get punched in the face. Most suspended kid. In school yet I never Punched first, if at all
Yea ..it was rough back then ...even more than some might realize. Baseball bat fights (I didn't know of anyone actually batting though, thank goodness) - usually "Rockers" vs. "Punkers". The punkers were never looking for trouble either. They just wanted to be left alone, but their image made it hard for some to make that possible. It's funny, because hair back then (early mid '80s) was not negotiable - we hadn't come to "unnatural" hairstyles yet. I remember "Punker Joe" simply had a shorter cut style with even shorter cut wedges into the sides a bit. It was like at the time. This is back when you wouldn't even get hired if a guy had an earring. If you were lucky enough to actually get hired it was certainly to be removed for shift.
he blames US for the few twits at Rolling Stone magazine & MTV... They are the ones that thought it was hip to create a trend of naming new genres & changing old ones... I remember when R&B (rhythm & blues) referred to guys like Chuck Berry, not this black adult contemporary nonsense that's called R&B today...
&... Alternative was bands like U2 & the Alarm, that echo heavy music, that was harder edged than New Wave, but still not Rock (or as now known Classic Rock), or Metal...
everyone that I knew that were real Punk, were addicted to heroin. They lived a degenerate life. They hated social constructs, which left them conflicted, because buying into non-conformity is buying into a social construct, even if it is an anti-social construct. They'd conform to non-conformity. A lot of them pushed anarchy, but wanted rules of their own. Punk music, was sort of an offshoot of that mindset. I think they were angry at "establishment". Whatever someone said is "hip", "cool" or "proper". They didn't want anyone telling them what was. In fact, they were pissed off & intolerant of anyone that told them what societal norms were to be. They were the original social justice warriors, but, even they had mistaken ideas about a lot of things. Once you become a loud mouth activist, especially using boisterous sounds to make your point, you can easily become an annoyance to those that see the flaw in your thinking. The OP seems to describe a point, where, the music birthed out of hate of corporatism, was taken over by corporate conglomerate & polished up to have commercial appeal. The corporates turned Punk into a cash cow for those who sold out & they became sharers in the corporatist capital... $$$
