Billie Joe Armstrong

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That's nice. That's not what it was.

:lfao:


I just want to say thanks to all for one of the most amusing and delightful discussions I've seen on MartialTalk in a long time....:lfao:....What's 'punk'?....:lfao:....takes me back......not even going to get into New York in the 70's and 80's....Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Velevet Underground, the Voidoids, Richard Hell, the Strokes,the Dictators, Talking Heads.....all shows I saw or did security for, got spat on and shat on......:lfao:

Hey, they were from Ohio, but, the Dead Boys:

Velvet Underground:


Richard Hell and the Voidoids:


Talking Heads, doing my theme song in 75:
there was no "New Wave," yet, so it was "punk," in spite of having a beat and a melody...:lfao:


What's punk? WHen yer not making me feel old,you guys crack me up! :lfao:

Green Day? Who cares? The most punk thing he's done is smash his guitar, spit and give the finger.
 
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I did a little searching online, since I'm curious now. I know that no one in the 'scene' called punk 'hard core' or 'hardcore' punk back in the day. But I wanted to be sure.

I see a couple references using Google Books. In 1978, I found a reference in the Los Angeles Times to

"Bands, too, have begun running for cover. Many of the aggresive, hard-core punk units have adopted new battle slogans - power pop or new wave - and softened their stance. Punk is now a commercial liability. No one wants to be associated with it. Except the Clash.

"We're a punk rock band," boasts the Clash's Mick Jones. "We're true to the spirit of '76 (in England). When other bands saw what was happening, they thought punk was going to be the next 'big thing.' So they wanted in.

"Most of them were crap. They were just trying to cash in on what a few good people had started. But then the Pistols came over here and kinda flunked, so the rush to punk has skidded to a stop. The bands are rushing off somewhere else. Good riddance. We'll carry on. In a year, those other bands will be crawling back."''


In the above reference, although the LA Times uses the term, they seem to be using it as a descriptor, not as a name. Like saying I am a 'hard-core' IT worker. There is no designation for that, it's just a modifier. The use the term 'punk rock' repeatedly throughout the article, and do not use the term 'hard-core' again.

In 1981, Rolling Stone Magazine used the term thusly:

"But instead of coming up with a mere handful of Nuggets, both Echo and the Bunnymen and the Teardrop Explodes strike solid rock by applying recent history — hard-core punk bash, the harmonic tangents of Public Image Ltd. and Joy Division, electronic pop à la Ultravox — to the sounds of yesteryear."

Once again, the term seems to be used as a modifier, not a label. And frankly, Echo and the Bunnymen, punk? NO.

Billboard Magazine used the term once in 1982, referring to the Bad Brains as a "Hard-core punk band from Washington, DC..." This is the first time I see the term used as a label, something that says it is a 'thing'. And for all I know, Bad Brains could have referred to themselves that way - they were not a SoCal band, so I never saw them or heard much about them.

Cincinnati Magazine used the term in 1983, but they used it to refer to how college students were dressing, saying that "they don't go in for the hard-core punk look, that is, leather, chains, and studs." So to them, apparently, 'hard-core' punk was a fashion trend that they didn't care for (their students, they said, were wearing madras prints).

Now, by 1984, the term was starting to pop up in various places, clearly referring to a genre. Bands mentioned? Metal Moo Cow, Cottage Cheese from the Lips of Death, a compilation CD called "Rat Music for Rat People," The Dead Kennedys, Throbbing Gristle, and independent record label "Savoy Records."

One reference I found was in Billboard from 1980, referring to an album I have and bands I listen to, Rodney on the ROQ Vol 1, referring to the music as "hardcore punk sounds," but classifying it under 'Pop Music'. So I'm not sure what to make of that.

On the whole, if I had to venture a guess, it would be that the term 'hardcore' or 'hard-core' was a way to differentiate various types of sounds bands that were calling themselves 'punk' were making; applied first as a descriptor and only LATER as a label. It's kind of like the Marines of WWI being known as the "Old Breed." They certainly were not called that at the time. That came later and was a label applied by others.

If one wants to refer to what was punk at the time I was going to the shows as 'hard core' punk, I guess I get it now; but I can assure you that neither I nor anyone I knew was calling it that at the time. We called it punk and that is all we called it. That someone else came up with a name for it later doesn't change what it was then.
 
I am not a Punk Rock aficionado and you may not consider Iggy Pop punk but he goes back to 1963.

The Ramones, Sex Pistols and Clash show up in the mid 70s.

Where do you feel Punk began?

I think of Iggy and The MC5, the Fugs, and other bands of that type as 'proto-punk', but that's not what they called themselves then, so I do not call them that, I just think of them that way. They certainly didn't call themselves that. That's just a way to think of what came before punk and what probably fed into it to a large extent. The Ramones were probably the last 'pre' punk band that didn't specifically call themselves a punk band, to the best of my knowledge.

I always felt that punk began in the UK, with bands like The Sex Pistols and The Clash, and then moved back to the US, where it was taken up in NY, DC, SoCal, Arizona, and lots of other places all more or less at once. But punk was also regional. The national acts were Black Flag, X, Bad Brains, etc, but the rest were mostly known on local labels, local radio stations, and at local venues. In SoCal, I had the best seat in the house - KROQ was the station, the Whiskey A-Go-Go was the venue, Flipside was the fanzine. If you couldn't be in NYC, then SoCal was where it was mostly happening at the time.

By the time I went overseas in 1983, the scene was nearly dead. By the time I got back in 1984, it was over and done. Sure Flipside was still around. Sure, Rodney was still on KROQ. But it was over and everybody knew it. You could go by Oki-Dog at on Santa Monica Bvd if you wanted to, but no one would be there except people eating hot dogs.
 
:rofl::rofl::rofl: LOL The guy who was a member of Minor threat who helped Henry Rollins to do Black Flag and was his best friend who pretty much started the Straight Edge movement and is most likely one of the leading authorities on what Black Flag played what Minor Threat played and all the bands associated with them played called it HARDCORE PUNK, not my words his words.Bill you may have been there but Ian is one of the people who founded it and he says Hardcore Punk so maybe he and Black Flag are Hardcore Punk.
 
Hard core punk my *** :lol:. Get in line late comers :p.

Meantime, this may not be punk but it sure is awesome {and, no, it's not Metal either :lol:}:

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:lfao:


I just want to say thanks to all for one of the most amusing and delightful discussions I've seen on MartialTalk in a long time....:lfao:....What's 'punk'?....:lfao:....takes me back......not even going to get into New York in the 70's and 80's....Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Velevet Underground, the Voidoids, Richard Hell, the Strokes,the Dictators, Talking Heads.....all shows I saw or did security for, got spat on and shat on......:lfao:

there was no "New Wave," yet, so it was "punk," in spite of having a beat and a melody...:lfao:

What's punk? WHen yer not making me feel old,you guys crack me up! :lfao:

Green Day? Who cares? The most punk thing he's done is smash his guitar, spit and give the finger.

I never got into punk much, I listened to Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop, Clash and a few others but I was never a big fan and I never went to a show and I am not all that upset I didn’t. Now you want to talk Metal and I can take you back to the 60s pretty easy, although I really did not get into it until the mid 70s, to young before that.


Although these days I listen to more Mozart than Motorhead :D
 
I am genuinely puzzled that bands like the Velvet Underground are being roped in to a chat about Punk. Iggy I can understand - some of his attitude definitely fits the 'ethos' but VU :confused:.
 
Oh now You finally see the difference of
PUNK ROCK AND HARDCORE PUNK. I mean dude they even sound different.

I mean Gorilla Biscuits and The Clash are way different one is Punk Rock and the other is Hardcore Punk a sub genre.
Let's look it from a Hip Hop perspective. You have Hip Hop from the 80's which which with the MC who was more into rapping during the breaks
and hype. Later on you have the battle MC who was into MC battles or rap battles. You have then go into sub genres like Booty, Dirty south, Gangsta Rap, Conscious Hip Hop/Political Hip hop. It is all Hip Hop and people will say oh Lil Wayne is Hip hop and he is but he is a particular style, flavor or hip hop. His Hip hop is not the same as The Roots because they have a different sub genre.

You know that Rock has multiple genres Chuck Berry and Cannibal Corpse are way apart but they are in the rock section not the classical or Jazz section. To really appreciate the music you need to know were it is coming from what makes it different from other genres.

Like Martial arts is the whole but it is the distinct characters that make something Karate, Judo and so on.

Anyway at the end of the day it doesn't matter this debate of what is Punk or not has been going on for decades lol.
 
I am genuinely puzzled that bands like the Velvet Underground are being roped in to a chat about Punk. Iggy I can understand - some of his attitude definitely fits the 'ethos' but VU :confused:.

Glad ya asked that, Mark-speaks to the entire argument, that does.

In NY, in the 70's, that's how Lou Reed and company defined themselves, and that's the scene they were part of-didn't matter that they could play.....of course, their drummer only had one beat, and they couldn't really sing......sort of proto-punk like the MC5.......Lou Reed's post VU career was punkish, and, again, that's how the ******* defined himself-among other..erm things....but without VU's and Lou Reed's influence you don't get Iggy, or Patti Smith, or Television-the list goes on, and on, and on.....without VU, you get no Sex Pistols-get it?
 
:grins: No, not really. If I was drawing a mental 'family tree' of Punk then none of those bands are in it. Punk was a revocation of the British music scene of the early to mid 70's. It was a rejection of both the chart music of the time and of the established rock and progressive scenes.

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Having said that, in searching for some history of punk clips I did notice that VU and Patti Smith did show up in the side bar :D. Iggy gets a mention early on by the way :). Sorry for the horrid quality - don't know why this low res vid is so bad to download.
 
Interesting related video by one of my heroes, the late John Peel:

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Rumor has it that on his return from New York in 1975, Malcom McClaren, their manager, had the band that would become the Sex Pistols practice Velvet Underground covers.......of course, the Sex Pistols were also directly influenced by NY punk bands like the Ramones. The way I've always understood it, "punk" kind of started in New York, and was brought to the British scene from the U.S.,just like the rest of rock music , (ducks for cover, laughing,.....:lfao: )
 
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:rofl::rofl::rofl: LOL The guy who was a member of Minor threat who helped Henry Rollins to do Black Flag and was his best friend who pretty much started the Straight Edge movement and is most likely one of the leading authorities on what Black Flag played what Minor Threat played and all the bands associated with them played called it HARDCORE PUNK, not my words his words.Bill you may have been there but Ian is one of the people who founded it and he says Hardcore Punk so maybe he and Black Flag are Hardcore Punk.

The video was made recently. It's the word he uses NOW to describe what happened THEN. No one called it that then; I'd wager he didn't call it that either.

You can't retrofit history to make it seem like something happened that didn't. We did not call punk anything but punk in the day. Not me, not him, nobody. Simple as that.
 
LOL @ Elder - you had better duck mate ... I have a particularly fluffy cushion here I can throw if I am pressed :D

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Looks like I shall have to say that there seems to be two forms of Punk - one that I agree is punk and the other is American :p.
 
I just can't see a post about Punk as being complete without




So do you think the sex pistols ever apologized for Johnny Rotten?


Yeah... I be an old school metal head form the old days


It ain't punk but I can pretty much guarantee the other members of Motorhead never apologized for anything Lemmy did :lfao:


Green Day...pfhht... bunch of pansies
 
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Here ya go, 1975-before the Sex Pistols were the Sex Pistols:


And 1977, London, a show attended by future members of Siouxie and the Banshees, the Clash, and the Sex Pistols.

 
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