Punk

[Greeny]

Still my favourite punk song. The ascending guitar lines on the chorus turn me on, lol.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT1KBh8WpXY

[Geir]

One "debate" this week was enough.

I see my timing and my less than eloquent post was bad judgement on my side. Thanks to all the good people here it seems like it has landed quite well down on earth tho, and I've had much pleasure in reading up on both this and Nigels Prog-thread.

I guess what got me to post this was that the discussion I had, surfaced some emotions about music in general, and the "exclusiveness" of different genres that really turns me off. OK, so some of the "dinosaurs" were getting pretentious, but by Thor, so was some of the "punks". I guess I just want to listen to music that stirs something in me, and not being told that this is good and this is bad. I enjoy quite different music. From Genesis to the Clash, from Stravinsky to Johnny Cash, from Mozart to Beatles, from Deep Purple to Zappa, Steely Dan to the Bee Gees, from The Corrs to the Damned. And Yes ... I do have "Tales ..." in my vinyl-collection

And I don't find that passion and attitude is something that's reserved punk.

I like both kinds of music. Country AND Western.

U2? so do I !!

Gotta agree with baldeagle, something had to give, the old guard had completely lost it, lost in some Roger Dean cover and out of touch with those around them.

I quite liked being lost in a Roger Dean cover What's wrong about dreaming ??

Punk quickly became a parody of itself - that started when Sid joined the Pistols, and continued as every idiot jumped the bandwagon (and the suits started signing second rate punk acts). But out of it grew new wave and post punk, with intelligent bands like PiL, Magazine and Talking Heads that took the punk ethos but generated much deeper and more challenging music over a longer period of time.  Bands like them and acts like Nirvana, the Foos and U2 owe a lot to punk.

I guess I was a bit late in discovering Punk ('79). I got too much of the bad sides of the coin, that is both the totally untalented punks that thought attitude was all it took (I need a bit more) and the "converts" ( the really good musicians that thought they had to play punk to be heard and didn't have the attitude). But the good thing was that some really good music had come on the punk scene (Still remember when I heard the Damned's "Love song" on the radio for the first time).

I was 16 years old in 1979
.
.
No more top 40.  I stopped "feeling it in the air tonight".
.

So was I, but sometimes I can feel it in the air

Did music improve? Clearly this is a lot more subjective, and I wouldn't dream of saying that one type of music is better than another. Obviously I have my own personal preferences.  All I would say is that edge, attitude and style (sorry to quote you, Nigel) were never important musical attributes as far as I was concerned.  In fact they were, and remain, totally irrelevant. I look for other things - which I frequently find in "progressive" music, and rarely, if ever, in punk.

Agree, we are all different - we need music that "speaks" to us, and that may be different. Go and read my philosophical essay on prog and you'll see another side of me! I personally value originality and passion over musicianship, but that's just me. Interesting discussion all round.

I think I find myself somewhere in between the two of you (and AndyR), and from all your comments on this and the prog-thread, that is a narrow gap

I missed prog.  It completely passed me by. I was listening to Tchaikowski, Copeland, Handel, Dvorak just to name a few. I had no life in popular music.

Geek Harry

I think what we're all doing here is ethically punk.....

        No Bullshit, No Hype, No Market Targets, No Money, No Hope....

                                  Punks not Dead, it just moved house.

                                                Long live Punk.

                                                                Where's my safety pin?...

                                                                                        henphlegm

Even before you posted this, when I started typing this long comment, I had almost excatly the same thought !!!

[Ferryman]

Still my favourite punk song. The ascending guitar lines on the chorus turn me on, lol.

Which gives me the opportunity to post this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybUqM8jf3mU

It's the same song but done by Magazine. The co-writer of the song, Howard Devoto, left the Buzzcocks to form Magazine, a hugely influential but not widely known band. More "cerebral" and with one of the best guitarists from the whole new wave scene, John McGeoch (sadly dead now). Magazine were the kind of band that typified how punk could go further than three chords (but the Buzzcocks and others made some fantastic music with just a few chords).

Geir, I agree that passion isn't reserved for one genre. I remember seeing Genesis perform Watcher of the Skies live in 1973, and those opening chords on the mellotron coupled with the stage show stirred incerdible emotions in me - I'd never experienced anything like it and that's when I knew I wanted to do make music my life. In which I failed of course, but that's another story!

Cheers,

Nigel

[Oldrottenhead]

one of my faves too, plus something else we had in common.
we both had songs written for us, making plans for nigel and jimmy jimmy lol.

[ODH]

Still my favourite punk song. The ascending guitar lines on the chorus turn me on, lol.

Which gives me the opportunity to post this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybUqM8jf3mU

It's the same song but done by Magazine.

F#ck me, you're right!  You just gave me an epiphany moment.  I've lived with both those songs since they came out, never made the connection (although of course I knew all about the Devoto - Buzzcocks connection, Spiral Scratch was one of the biggest influences on my whole attitude to life).

If anyone needs a reminder of just what a musical wasteland there was immediately before punk, just look at the BBC4 re-runs of 1976 Top Of The Pops.  It's like a spoof, everything is so completely clueless to the point of being hilarious (except for the very occasional Bowie and Roxy Music).  Even my missus agreed that punk would have been a breath of fresh air (and she hates punk).

[Oldrottenhead]

been watching the reruns of top of the pops and the documentary about totp in 1976.

at least music on the bbc is treated more seriously now, and dave lee travis  oh my gawd the voice of the nation lmao.

[Greeny]

and dave lee travis  oh my gawd the voice of the nation lmao.

Did you see all that stuff recently about The Hairy Cornflake? I kid you not...

"Dave Lee Travis has been credited as an unlikely lifeline by the Burmese pro-democracy leader and Nobel Prize Winner Aung San Suu Kyi during her time under house arrest"

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Showbiz-News/Nobel-Peace-Prize-Winner-Aung-San-Suu-Kyi-Listened-To-Dave-Lee-Travis-Whilst-Under-House-Arrest/Article/201106316015499



^^^^ Now that's a picture! And a shirt!

[Bluesberry]

Rember Wendy O Williams and the Plasmatics..........punk? or metal? crap? or brilliant? WTF? of FTW? Revolutionaly? or Reactionary? Sure brings back some memories watching her.  


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8DxhsLHhRM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5HAN1ycAeA

[Gritter]

Here are the songs (albums) that changed me...

The Clash self titled:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoJYM3krDWQ

The Jam - All Mod Cons:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf4EFDGP4yg

I heard these a few years after they came out as I was only 9 or 10 when they were released. By 8th grade (1980) these were spinning regularly on my phono.

[Gritter]

One of the few bands that were able to capture the true punk vibe since the late 70's would have to be the Libertines in the UK:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLYsIESNtUc

and of course Rancid in the USA:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rvuae0Y-Spg