Punk Rock, how much of it truly was "Punk Rock?"

[The Great Saiyaman]

Eversince Punk Rock became genre people have a strict view of what Punk is like and it basically came down to:

- Lyric-wise the stone cold truth: songs about alienation, being angry at the local government, angry at your parents, being unemployed, having no dime to spend, typical teenage problems.

- Music wise, fast and loud and you didn't need to be proficient at playing your instrument, the least capability you had the better.

- Crappy instruments, you're on the dole, you cannot afford anything fancy.

- Attitude, there shouldn't be a brotherhood of punk rock, every band was at war with each other.

- Fakers are not allowed.

- Disown everything that came before. Rock Dinosaurs went extinct for a reason.

BUT...

Singing it like you lived it actually went up for very few of the original punk rock bands. When the Ramones sang about "Beat the brat with a baseball bat" they sang about assault and murder but they never went out and actually did it. Exceptions are the Buzz***** with songs like "Boredom." But truly singing it like you lived it was something which Punk bands very rarely actually did.

As for not being musically proficient. There's no denying that Paul Cook and Steve Jones were a very proficient unit on "Nevermind the bollocks" they were tight and threw in some musical curve balls that people with no musical talent would never come up with in the first place. Same with the Clash, Topper Headon and Joe Strummer had been doing the club scene before punk broke and were seasoned veterans and in due time Mick Jones and Paul Simonon mastered their instruments and started writing songs themselves. John Lydon always maintained that Punkrock as music was too conventional, he envisioned it being totally UN-listenable. Public Image Limited's first two albums show what his vision for punk was and even those show amazing musicianship with Jah Wobbles bass lines and Keith Levene's metallic guitars.

Then there's Nina Hagen who is considered to be the princess of punk but she had received classical training and her band are top notch musicians.


Crappy instruments eh?

Well Pete Shelley of the Buzz***** played a guitar with the top half broken off but as soon as he could afford to buy himself a better guitar he did just that. And look at what the others were playing, Fenders, Rickenbackers and a LOT of Gibsons, the Les Paul Custom which has become an Icon of Punkrock because of Mick Jones and Steve Jones using them was even back then a very fancy and expensive guitar.

At war with each other also is a well known fable but the reality was that bands in order to score gigs would help each other out by phoning in where a good venue was and would lend each other instruments if needed.

Fakers are not allowed, just ask Plastic Bertrand.

Who clearly was a creation of the record industry who wanted to cash in on the punk craze. Nobody in the Punk Rock scene took him seriously, certainly not when it came out that he NEVER sang on his songs. BUT for some reason bands like Sonic Youth covered "Ca plan pour Moi" and post punk bands praised the song. The Tubes "White punks on dope" became a punk rock anthem while the song itself was meant to be a spoof on glam rock and featured prog-inspired synthesizers.

As for disowning all that came before. Paul Cook and John Lydon once ran into Pete Townshend who totally was into what punk rock was about and apologized for having been become a Rock Dinosaur at which Lydon told him "No, not at all, we really love the 'Oo." expressing that with the Punk movement Townshend was considered to be a true pioneer. Or what about Sid Vicious covering Frank Sinatra's "My way"

Hindsight is always 20/20 but John Lydon had a point when he ended the Sex Pistols' final show by saying

But even as he was saying it, the ground had already started shifting.

Because in the wake of Punk, came new wave and Reggae. The latter one might make people go "REALLY, where do THOSE two musical genres connect?"

Well that happened because Punk rock shows were all inclusive and black youths came to them too and understood the anger in the lyrics and their own songs had the same message. Between band performances at Punk rock shows the deejay would spin reggae songs and the punks liked what they heard.

UB 40 "One in ten"
This band named themselves after the Unemployment Benefit form, which is a Punk Rock thing to do but listen to that song, how angry and desolate it is. Sang from a band who KNEW that reality, they knew it VERY well indeed.


This is Georg Ruthenberg, AKA Pat Smear, who these days is known among the general public as being the guitarist for the Foo Fighters.

But Pat came into the public eye when being the guitarist for this punk band called "the Germs" who took those rules I mentioned to heart and to an extreme level. According to Smear, everybody described the band's sound as "Noise and screaming" and that made them decide to go with that, to have a band that was INDEED just "Noise and screaming"

Musical proficiency?
-Nope, if it weren't for the subtitles you probably wouldn't have even figured out what the hell Darby was singing.
Singing it like they lived it?
- You'd better believe it!
Crappy instruments?
- They didn't even own their own instruments, always played shows using loaners.
Faking it?
- Oh no, they were the real deal!

In their wake a third post-punk scene came to be: Hardcore.


These days there are fashion shops which sell punk rock clothing, the legendary New York City club CBGB'S is now such a store. You can go into a barbershop and they'll make you a Mohawk no questions asked.

So, in closure, what was Punk Rock really?

Was it a true youth movement?
- Yes it was.
Was a fashionable thing?
- Yes, no denying that fact.

And that in itself is pretty Punk too.