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A Brief Overview of Punk Rock · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello, Maine and Greater New England. We're coming to see
0:03
Speaker 1: you guys in Portland and we can't wait. We would
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Speaker 1: love to see you there. Yep, we'll be at the
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Speaker 1: State Theater on August. If you're interested, you can get
0:11
Speaker 1: tickets and information at s y s K live dot com.
0:15
Speaker 1: There's some lobster at us. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
0:19
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
0:28
Speaker 1: you're welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
0:32
Speaker 1: Thrash core By I'm already regretting this. There's Chuck Bryan
0:38
Speaker 1: over there, Charles W. Chuck Bryan, There's Jerry Droome Roland
0:43
Speaker 1: and uh, like I said, I'm Josh should know. Hey, ho,
0:48
Speaker 1: let's go exactly. I want to issue a c I
0:51
Speaker 1: A off the top here, Okay, to fans of punk music,
0:57
Speaker 1: get ready to be mad at us. Yeah, please don't
1:01
Speaker 1: beat us up though. Yeah. Here's the thing. Punk it's
1:05
Speaker 1: sort of like the hip hop episode. It's not just music,
1:07
Speaker 1: it's a culture. It's a movement and it is so
1:11
Speaker 1: there are so many tentacles, alternative tentacles, so many subgenres,
1:17
Speaker 1: so many Like the more I started getting into it,
1:20
Speaker 1: I was like, why are we even doing this in
1:23
Speaker 1: a single episode. I had the same feeling because it
1:26
Speaker 1: can only disappoint. But we're doing anything now. There's a
1:28
Speaker 1: lot of people out there who don't know squad about punk.
1:31
Speaker 1: We're gonna be like, cool, I'm punk now, I get it,
1:34
Speaker 1: and the people who are punked now we're gonna love
1:36
Speaker 1: us for it. Well, I mean, you know, there are
1:39
Speaker 1: certainly podcast I'm sure that are dedicated to the history
1:43
Speaker 1: of punk right now. I know. And the thing is
1:45
Speaker 1: is with a big distinction here between the hip hop
1:48
Speaker 1: episode and this episode is that the hip hop episode
1:52
Speaker 1: doesn't beat you up if you show up to it.
1:55
Speaker 1: There shows and you're not wearing the right thing. That's true.
1:59
Speaker 1: Punk's kind of protective of punk, which makes sense because
2:03
Speaker 1: that's pretty punk, right, like you kinda you can't allow
2:08
Speaker 1: for commercialization of punk or else it stops being punk.
2:11
Speaker 1: So by definition it has to be vigilantly defended and protected.
2:17
Speaker 1: But the irony of the whole thing is when you
2:19
Speaker 1: do that, you actually strangle it from becoming anything ever,
2:23
Speaker 1: and you kind of killed punk strangling in the cradle
2:28
Speaker 1: the end. Yeah, And I listened to a lot of
2:30
Speaker 1: music while researching this, and there's just so many things
2:35
Speaker 1: that could possibly fall under the banner of punk, and
2:38
Speaker 1: probably so many real punk fans that will fight you
2:41
Speaker 1: on any of them if you say, like, you know,
2:46
Speaker 1: the Talking Heads were punk, our television was punk, not really,
2:50
Speaker 1: but were a new wave I don't know. Yeah, the
2:53
Speaker 1: New York Dolls, I was listening to them proto punk.
2:57
Speaker 1: When you listen to them, though, they sound like sort
2:59
Speaker 1: of like dressed up rock and roll, like rocky horror
3:02
Speaker 1: picture show style, right, But make no bones about it,
3:05
Speaker 1: the New York Dolls were a direct predecessor of punk. Yeah.
3:09
Speaker 1: But then I started listening to things I never listened
3:11
Speaker 1: to growing up at all. Like I wasn't a punk kid,
3:14
Speaker 1: but I saw all the Jackets with Minor Threat and
3:16
Speaker 1: Circle Jerks and Dead Kennedy's on them, and I started
3:20
Speaker 1: listening to that stuff today and I liked a lot
3:22
Speaker 1: of it. It's good music, and some of it I
3:24
Speaker 1: didn't quite love, Okay, which one I think. You know.
3:28
Speaker 1: My deal is I like vocals and vocalists and punk
3:30
Speaker 1: is not known for that. But stuff like that had
3:34
Speaker 1: a really unique bent and it wasn't just screaming. I
3:37
Speaker 1: liked a lot more so you like the Misfits a lot.
3:39
Speaker 1: I like the Misfits, I like the Damned, I like
3:42
Speaker 1: the Circle Jerks. Did not like the Germs. I was
3:46
Speaker 1: never into the Germans. What about the Cramps? Uh, I
3:48
Speaker 1: didn't listen to the Cramps yet, they're like rockabilly punk.
3:51
Speaker 1: I'll probably like it. But stuff that had a little
3:53
Speaker 1: more melody, little more vocal styling I liked much more
3:57
Speaker 1: than the Germs, which you know, dar we crashed, just
4:01
Speaker 1: it's just screaming things that you can hardly understand. Didn't
4:04
Speaker 1: love Black Flag, What Little Icel listen to? Like the
4:08
Speaker 1: Henry Rawlins black Flag. I listened to a little bit
4:10
Speaker 1: of both. But um, it's all very interesting to me,
4:14
Speaker 1: and I dig the music for sure. Yeah, it's hard
4:16
Speaker 1: not to in some way, shape or form like punk
4:21
Speaker 1: when you hear it like it's it's it's just too
4:24
Speaker 1: it just gets under your skin just too easily, really quickly,
4:27
Speaker 1: and you might not even realize, like you're like your
4:30
Speaker 1: head's like kind of nodding in your knees like shaking
4:33
Speaker 1: or whatever. But like, no matter who you are, punk
4:36
Speaker 1: and get to you like that now, whether you're like
4:38
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start buying punk records and like get a
4:42
Speaker 1: mohawk or something like that. That's that's maybe a couple
4:45
Speaker 1: of steps down the road. Most people probably wouldn't, but
4:48
Speaker 1: I think everybody can appreciate punk on some level. Especially
4:52
Speaker 1: to me. The greatest punk band of all time, and
4:54
Speaker 1: what I would argue would be the first punk band
4:57
Speaker 1: is the Remotes. If you like melody and you like singing,
5:01
Speaker 1: but you also like punk, they've got everything you need. Yeah,
5:04
Speaker 1: And if you like songs that are seconds long, sure
5:07
Speaker 1: well that was a big thing. Like punk grew out
5:10
Speaker 1: of this idea that led Zeppelin had like eleven minutes
5:13
Speaker 1: songs they were playing on the radio, and guys like
5:16
Speaker 1: the Ramones were like shut up. So they purposefully and
5:20
Speaker 1: deliberately went the opposite way and they started making songs
5:24
Speaker 1: or sometimes less than a minute, like one of the
5:26
Speaker 1: greatest punk songs of all time in my opinion, Circle
5:29
Speaker 1: Jerk's Wasted is like fifty fifty two seconds long, Get
5:33
Speaker 1: and get out. It's all you need. He gets the
5:35
Speaker 1: point across. He talks about all the drugs he's on.
5:38
Speaker 1: She talks about all the stuff he does when he's
5:39
Speaker 1: on drugs. All unless than a minute. Yeah, but I
5:42
Speaker 1: think you bring up an important point is punk was
5:45
Speaker 1: a reaction. It was a reaction to the bloated money
5:50
Speaker 1: and the bloated song links and the arena rock, Cucumber
5:54
Speaker 1: in the pants, hard rock, Mackeismo getting the eighties. Like
6:01
Speaker 1: this great quote from one of the Ramones, these were
6:04
Speaker 1: kids on the outside and he said, Uh, Johnny Ramon
6:07
Speaker 1: in ninety six and Rolling Stones said, you know, they
6:11
Speaker 1: got together because none of them could get girls, so
6:14
Speaker 1: they all found solace in each other. And he said
6:16
Speaker 1: girls always wanted to go with guys who had corvettes,
6:18
Speaker 1: so we had nothing to do but climb on rooftops
6:20
Speaker 1: and sniff glue. The Rams in a nutshell. But if
6:24
Speaker 1: you look at nineteen seventy seven, like the albums that
6:26
Speaker 1: came out in nineteen seventy seven, Um, you know you've
6:29
Speaker 1: got the sex Pistols and the Ramons and stuff like that,
6:32
Speaker 1: but you've got Eric Clapton, Slowhand, Fleetwood, Max Rumors, Point
6:38
Speaker 1: of No Return from Kansas, Uh The Stranger from Billy Joel,
6:44
Speaker 1: which one was that it was one of the great ones,
6:47
Speaker 1: but they all work great. Uh Asia from Uh Steely
6:51
Speaker 1: Dan and like these are like the big chart toppers,
6:56
Speaker 1: and so punk came along and was just like, no,
6:59
Speaker 1: screw through all that to heck with you guys, That's
7:03
Speaker 1: what it says. So it was an ethos and a
7:05
Speaker 1: spirit even as much as it was music. Yeah, And
7:08
Speaker 1: I think, um one of the other things that commonly
7:11
Speaker 1: ran across and researching this was that, um, it was
7:15
Speaker 1: not just kind of like rock sucks because it's getting
7:18
Speaker 1: so you know, eleven minutes long per song and there's
7:21
Speaker 1: lots of guitar solos and stuff like that, but also
7:24
Speaker 1: that it was hopelessly commercialized, and so punk was like,
7:29
Speaker 1: there's nothing inherently wrong with rock, it's just gone on
7:33
Speaker 1: this path that it's been on for so long that
7:34
Speaker 1: it's it's just become I think, like you said, bloated, Um,
7:38
Speaker 1: let's take rock back and scrape away all the all
7:42
Speaker 1: the blow and just get back to like the core
7:45
Speaker 1: and the point of it originally, which was rebellion, which
7:49
Speaker 1: is that was what punk was built on in the
7:52
Speaker 1: in the late seventies and the Ramons again, I will
7:55
Speaker 1: go to my grave saying they were officially the first
7:58
Speaker 1: punk band that ever existed, But there were there was
8:01
Speaker 1: music that's that led up to that immediately before it,
8:05
Speaker 1: and even a decade or so before it, that really
8:09
Speaker 1: laid the foundation in the groundwork for for bands like
8:12
Speaker 1: the Ramona and this the punk that that um, the
8:14
Speaker 1: punk music that took off right afterwards. Yeah, and you
8:18
Speaker 1: also got to remember that coming into the early seventies
8:20
Speaker 1: where some of these proto punk bands started, this was
8:23
Speaker 1: coming off of the late sixties and the hippie movement
8:27
Speaker 1: and Nixon and Vietnam, which so all that had proved
8:30
Speaker 1: a failure. Yeah, and and flower power and the peace
8:34
Speaker 1: and love and all that stuff. Uh. There there's still
8:37
Speaker 1: Crisy Stills and Nash and stuff hanging around, but there's
8:41
Speaker 1: also a younger generation that thumb their nose or more
8:43
Speaker 1: specifically their middle finger at that whole generation, and that's
8:48
Speaker 1: what sort of birth the punk movement, in the proto
8:52
Speaker 1: punk movement at least. So I saw the earliest proto
8:56
Speaker 1: punk band I could find, um that you could trace
8:59
Speaker 1: his line too, is actually from Peru, Okay. They were
9:03
Speaker 1: around in nineteen starting in ur Los Sakos s A
9:07
Speaker 1: I c O. S. And if you go listen to
9:09
Speaker 1: a Los Sakos song, you will it's quite clear that
9:13
Speaker 1: this was proto punk. Did it have the speed a
9:16
Speaker 1: little bit? Yau, I think that's a bit of the distinction,
9:19
Speaker 1: Like there was that whole uh Nuggets era garage rock
9:24
Speaker 1: of the sixties. You can hear a little bit of that,
9:26
Speaker 1: but it still didn't have that chugga chugga chugg a
9:29
Speaker 1: speed that punk rock would be known for. You know
9:32
Speaker 1: it did. Yeah, no, um, like another proto punk band
9:36
Speaker 1: that's more garage rock, but kind of some of the
9:39
Speaker 1: sentiments they came up with the Chocolate Watch band at
9:42
Speaker 1: this anthem called like I'm not like everybody else and
9:45
Speaker 1: it's like real kind of um, it's groovy, but if
9:50
Speaker 1: you listen to the words, it's like those guys talking
9:52
Speaker 1: about being a punk but it's long before punk. But
9:55
Speaker 1: there musically they were not punk at all. Los Sachos
9:59
Speaker 1: was punk, Like there's their sound is definitely punk and
10:02
Speaker 1: they were around the same time. Yeah, And the and
10:05
Speaker 1: the specifics of what you're doing musically on a guitar
10:08
Speaker 1: with punkt is the down stroke. So you know, it's
10:13
Speaker 1: hard to talk about it without showing you but if
10:15
Speaker 1: you're playing like a an Eric Clapton rhythm part, it's
10:20
Speaker 1: like you know, you're stroking down and up ching ching,
10:22
Speaker 1: ching ching. If you're playing punk, you're just going down
10:25
Speaker 1: that ching ching ching ching ching ching ching. Uh. And
10:28
Speaker 1: that's really And the Ramons made a career out of
10:33
Speaker 1: two or three chords played fast, playing that same rhythm
10:37
Speaker 1: and down stroke over and over and over and over,
10:40
Speaker 1: like I'm convinced you just did two seconds snippet of
10:44
Speaker 1: a misfit song. I could hear it like playing his Day.
10:47
Speaker 1: It's great. Though I was listening to stuff that I
10:49
Speaker 1: was like, man, I really like a lot of this
10:50
Speaker 1: and I missed out. So I see myself diving into
10:53
Speaker 1: it again or diving in for the first time. Rather
10:57
Speaker 1: I mean, I know about the Clash and the Ramons
10:59
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, for but oh there's like I mean,
11:02
Speaker 1: as you know, a whole world world. And then the
11:06
Speaker 1: thing about punk is the more like you find, oh
11:08
Speaker 1: I like this band, and then oh that it turns
11:10
Speaker 1: out this guy was used to be in this other band.
11:12
Speaker 1: There from the same scene as this other band. It
11:14
Speaker 1: just keeps going and going and going, because one of
11:18
Speaker 1: the through lines of punk is that anybody could be
11:22
Speaker 1: in a punk band. It was super democratized in the
11:26
Speaker 1: d I Y ethos um was was basically the foundation
11:30
Speaker 1: of punk music. All right, well, let's take a break.
11:34
Speaker 1: We'll go back in time a little bit and talk
11:36
Speaker 1: about New York and London, and then we'll get to that.
11:39
Speaker 1: What I think is kind of the coolest part of
11:41
Speaker 1: this whole thing is that d I Y aesthetic. Okay,
11:55
Speaker 1: al right, so I mentioned London in New York. I
11:58
Speaker 1: sourced this from a bunch of articles. I can't remember
12:01
Speaker 1: if this was the Pitchfork win or not, but the
12:03
Speaker 1: headline of this part is the tale of two cities,
12:06
Speaker 1: New York in l A. And I'm sorry New York
12:08
Speaker 1: in London, but l A would come along a bit
12:11
Speaker 1: later with its own scene. And also London gets mentioned
12:15
Speaker 1: here at the expense of Manchester, which I would say
12:17
Speaker 1: is like, that's ground zero next to New York. Right.
12:21
Speaker 1: Also ground zero, which doesn't get nearly enough press is Australia. Yeah,
12:26
Speaker 1: these things were going on in parallel all over the world.
12:29
Speaker 1: That's really interesting to think, like this stuff is happening
12:33
Speaker 1: like almost independently. It was, because it's not like someone
12:37
Speaker 1: in Australia heard someone on the internet in nine But
12:41
Speaker 1: there are a couple of bands, one called Cheap Nasties
12:43
Speaker 1: on the Western I think in Perth, and then The Saints,
12:46
Speaker 1: probably the biggest punk band to come out of Australia.
12:48
Speaker 1: This is at the same time that cb gbs uh
12:52
Speaker 1: and the Studges were like getting big. It's crazy. Yeah,
12:54
Speaker 1: so the Studges would technically qualify as proto punk too,
12:58
Speaker 1: but they came from Michigan along with m C five
13:02
Speaker 1: and Death Death is an even earlier proto punk band
13:05
Speaker 1: than The Stages. That documentary is great. I actually I
13:08
Speaker 1: haven't seen that one. Yeah, there's one on death it's
13:10
Speaker 1: just called like a band called death Right. Yeah. Yeah,
13:13
Speaker 1: it's very like they're amazing and they were, um I
13:15
Speaker 1: think three three African American brothers from Detroit just killing it.
13:20
Speaker 1: Who in like a punk band? Yeah yeah, and this
13:24
Speaker 1: is before the Stages. I think this is before MC
13:26
Speaker 1: five Bad Brains for sure, for sure. Um, So all
13:29
Speaker 1: of these bands are starting to kind of lay the
13:31
Speaker 1: groundwork and then it's almost like it just kind of ignites,
13:35
Speaker 1: like we're saying in different parts of the world virtually
13:39
Speaker 1: at the same time, which I just find endlessly fascinating. Yeah,
13:42
Speaker 1: and I think that's what really lends a lot of
13:44
Speaker 1: credence to the fact that it was a movement. It
13:47
Speaker 1: was a feeling people were rebelling against more than anything
13:51
Speaker 1: which can happen parallel in different parts of the country
13:53
Speaker 1: in world. You know, if there's anything that can bring
13:55
Speaker 1: the whole world together, it's disdained for hippies, you know,
14:00
Speaker 1: they really bring that out. And everybody, did you see
14:03
Speaker 1: the Tarantino movie Yet Once upon a Time. Yes, there's
14:07
Speaker 1: a lot of the anti hippies suffing. It was pretty funny, Yeah,
14:09
Speaker 1: a little some of them are beaten to death. Literally. Well,
14:13
Speaker 1: I just mean all the DiCaprio stuff was really funny.
14:15
Speaker 1: Hated the hippies. But but Tarantino really like pointed out,
14:20
Speaker 1: like you know, the Manson family has been celebrated in
14:25
Speaker 1: romanticized at least in some weird ways. Um, and they
14:30
Speaker 1: should not be. And this is why I think he
14:32
Speaker 1: did a really good job of doing that. Uh so sorry,
14:35
Speaker 1: we're talking about the Stooges in MC five in Michigan.
14:38
Speaker 1: Uh In New York City is where things really crystallized
14:40
Speaker 1: with the club CBGB owned by Hilly Crystal. Crystal Crystal
14:47
Speaker 1: is it Crystal? I think so? Like Billy Crystal right,
14:49
Speaker 1: but hilly uh. And originally you know that stands for
14:52
Speaker 1: a country, blue, blue grass, and blues, and that was
14:56
Speaker 1: what it was supposed to be when I opened in nineteen.
15:00
Speaker 1: But then in about two years the Ramones started playing there,
15:03
Speaker 1: talking Heads started playing their nineteen seventy five Blondie um Television,
15:08
Speaker 1: I think Television. I'm okay with them, Like I don't
15:12
Speaker 1: love them, they don't, I don't hate them, but um,
15:15
Speaker 1: they were they were essential to that scene happening, sure,
15:20
Speaker 1: um and a lot of people kind of overlook them.
15:22
Speaker 1: I think is like one of the the foundation bands
15:25
Speaker 1: for punk. Yeah, which is interesting, like I mentioned earlier,
15:29
Speaker 1: like it's such different kinds of music, Like I love
15:32
Speaker 1: Talking Heads and Television and Blondie and the Go Goes,
15:35
Speaker 1: and they were all on that early scene. But I
15:37
Speaker 1: don't think it's that's anything like the Misfits or the
15:40
Speaker 1: Damned or the Ramons. No, but the Misfits uh and
15:44
Speaker 1: the Ramons both started their careers at cbgby So it
15:48
Speaker 1: was like the place where punk began in the United States. Yeah,
15:52
Speaker 1: but also at Max's Kanzie Kansas City and New York
15:55
Speaker 1: Legendary Club. This is where like Patti Smith is hanging out,
15:58
Speaker 1: the Velbot Underground is hanging out again. They're not punk
16:01
Speaker 1: at all, but they were in that scene, right. And
16:05
Speaker 1: one thing that we're kind of not really mentioning that
16:08
Speaker 1: is a common thread to all these bands, not necessarily music,
16:11
Speaker 1: but heroin was a huge thread. They shared their deep, deep,
16:15
Speaker 1: deep love of heroin UM in common and that definitely
16:19
Speaker 1: bound them together at CBGB for sure. And that was
16:23
Speaker 1: a huge factor on the early punk scene was heroin,
16:28
Speaker 1: which I mean this is you know, if you remember
16:31
Speaker 1: back just a few years ago, for oxycotton turned everybody
16:34
Speaker 1: into junkies in the world, UM, heroin was not a
16:38
Speaker 1: big drug at all, and back then especially it was
16:42
Speaker 1: like you were a total burnout if you were doing heroin,
16:46
Speaker 1: like it was not done. So the fact that these
16:48
Speaker 1: people were like shooting heroin like in the clubs, that
16:52
Speaker 1: was a that was a another kind of badge that
16:56
Speaker 1: they took on UM that separated them from every buddy else. Yeah,
17:01
Speaker 1: you know, even their preference of drugs was super hardcore. Yeah,
17:04
Speaker 1: for sure. Another interesting thing happened early on in nineteen
17:08
Speaker 1: seventy seven when these two scenes sort of exported one
17:12
Speaker 1: of their UM early UM big bands to play in
17:17
Speaker 1: the other city. Uh In nineteen seventy seven, the Damned
17:21
Speaker 1: played in the United States and less than a year
17:25
Speaker 1: before that, the Ramons had gone to the UK to
17:27
Speaker 1: play shows in London, and that was a big deal
17:30
Speaker 1: because all of a sudden you had these two different
17:32
Speaker 1: scenes swapping bands. Of course, it wasn't anything they planned,
17:36
Speaker 1: but they got a taste of New York City in
17:37
Speaker 1: London with the Ramons in a big, big way, and
17:40
Speaker 1: the same can be said in New York City with
17:43
Speaker 1: The Damned very British. And then a month before the
17:45
Speaker 1: Ramons played in London, in Manchester on June six, the
17:53
Speaker 1: sex Pistols had their first show. And a lot of
17:55
Speaker 1: people point to this is this is when UK punk happened.
17:59
Speaker 1: It was this one show at the um Lesser Free
18:02
Speaker 1: Trade Hall, which is like a hall might as well
18:06
Speaker 1: be a VFW basically, and that's where the sex Pistols
18:08
Speaker 1: are there first show. But some of the people who
18:10
Speaker 1: were there were so influential, including a seventeen year old
18:14
Speaker 1: Morrissey who went to cover the thing for New Music
18:17
Speaker 1: Express um that that it just spread out like a
18:22
Speaker 1: germ like It was the single point that that UK
18:25
Speaker 1: punk spread out from and this was UH June of
18:31
Speaker 1: and within six months, the major record labels were lining
18:36
Speaker 1: up to sign any and every punk act they could
18:39
Speaker 1: get their hands on. Six months Like That's so not
18:42
Speaker 1: only did it spread and grow in parallel around the
18:45
Speaker 1: world at the same time when it hit the scene.
18:49
Speaker 1: It's hard to overstate how quickly it just blew up,
18:55
Speaker 1: like just from nothing to it in six months. Yeah.
19:00
Speaker 1: I mean, if there's one thing I mean, I don't
19:02
Speaker 1: I don't know about the music industry today, but previous
19:04
Speaker 1: to you know, digital content, the music industry was always
19:08
Speaker 1: there waiting to commodify the next big thing. Yeah, and
19:12
Speaker 1: they did it to punk big time. Yeah. So let's
19:14
Speaker 1: talk about this d I Y thing for a little bit.
19:16
Speaker 1: It was really cool this article about these um, these
19:21
Speaker 1: d I Y origins in punk music. What happened was
19:26
Speaker 1: when punk started coming around in the mid nineteen seventies.
19:29
Speaker 1: This coincided with a big shift in UH equipment and
19:33
Speaker 1: recording gear and modernizing recording gear among the big labels.
19:37
Speaker 1: Yeah sure, um, And so all of a sudden there
19:39
Speaker 1: was all of this these rooms in this gear that
19:42
Speaker 1: you could either rent cheap or buy cheap. Yeah, they're
19:45
Speaker 1: old stuff that they didn't need anymore. Yeah, and so
19:47
Speaker 1: the punks came along and UH started using it, and
19:51
Speaker 1: the very first punk labels were self started, Miles Copeland
19:55
Speaker 1: started Step Forward, Bob Last started Fast Product, and of
19:59
Speaker 1: course very Miss Lee Tony Wilson started Factory Records. Yes dude, which,
20:03
Speaker 1: by the way, see Party of People if you never
20:07
Speaker 1: have Everybody. It's amazing to see that again. I saw
20:10
Speaker 1: it once when it came out. Yeah, it's a good movie. Um,
20:12
Speaker 1: but it follows this progression of punk into new wave,
20:16
Speaker 1: UH into the eighties. Um. It just does it in
20:21
Speaker 1: a spectacularly great way because it's Steve Coogan who's created
20:24
Speaker 1: so good. But people trace the um punk on record
20:31
Speaker 1: or on recorded tape rather to the very first single
20:36
Speaker 1: they claim very first punk single November seventy six, The
20:39
Speaker 1: Damns New Rows, which I thought that was weird because
20:43
Speaker 1: the Ramons released their album before them. But maybe because
20:47
Speaker 1: the Ramons were on the label when they release their album,
20:49
Speaker 1: they're saying like this is the first d I y,
20:51
Speaker 1: maybe when was the Ramons first? Off? I think like
20:54
Speaker 1: the full year before. I'm pretty sure, if not at
20:58
Speaker 1: least seventy six, then but I'm pretty sure. Well, the
21:01
Speaker 1: buzz Cox put out an EP and I listened to
21:03
Speaker 1: a lot of that today. I enjoyed that UM Spiral
21:07
Speaker 1: Scratch was this EP was apparently the first British homemade
21:11
Speaker 1: record and that was a really big deal. Uh, this
21:14
Speaker 1: is a seven. They sold out a thousand copies that
21:17
Speaker 1: they printed, then they went on to sell another sixteen
21:20
Speaker 1: thousand and UM. The influence on Spiral Scratch really spread
21:25
Speaker 1: out and told everyone because they printed it was very cool.
21:28
Speaker 1: They printed on the little record jacket like how much
21:32
Speaker 1: it cost, how they produced it, and what the money
21:35
Speaker 1: was all about for a hundred and fifty three pounds,
21:38
Speaker 1: basically saying go do this right, like and here's how
21:40
Speaker 1: to do it. Yeah. Um they all all like. That
21:43
Speaker 1: kind of set the tone for other records, like other
21:46
Speaker 1: punk bands released their own records, also included instructions on
21:50
Speaker 1: their sleeve that the record came in UM and the
21:54
Speaker 1: whole d I Y record released thing that the buzz
21:57
Speaker 1: Cox kicked off. UM. Other people started to find other
22:02
Speaker 1: ways to to kind of make it so punk could
22:06
Speaker 1: exist outside of the influence of the record companies, Like
22:10
Speaker 1: people would release records in zip block baggies Like that
22:15
Speaker 1: was the record sleeve that your record came in and
22:17
Speaker 1: people loved it like you didn't You didn't need like
22:19
Speaker 1: this expensive sleeve for the thing to come in, Like
22:22
Speaker 1: you could just pop it in for in a zip
22:24
Speaker 1: block bag and sell it. It's super punk. And then also, um,
22:30
Speaker 1: if you can form a band that it was put
22:33
Speaker 1: like this, like the sex Pistol showed that anybody could
22:36
Speaker 1: be in a punk band. You didn't even need be
22:38
Speaker 1: very talented, right, you didn't even need to know how
22:41
Speaker 1: to play an instrument. Um, and you could be in
22:43
Speaker 1: a punk band. And the buzz Cocks came along and
22:46
Speaker 1: showed that anybody could press a record. But there's still
22:49
Speaker 1: one very essential ingredient missing, and that was distribution. And
22:53
Speaker 1: like you said, mail order made up for a lot
22:56
Speaker 1: of the Buzzcocks ep UM sales. But they they realized
23:01
Speaker 1: that there were more people out there who wanted this
23:03
Speaker 1: stuff but didn't have a way to get to it.
23:05
Speaker 1: So a what was called the Cartel was formed, which
23:08
Speaker 1: was a group of independent record stores around the UK
23:12
Speaker 1: that would basically serve as a distribution network for these
23:18
Speaker 1: d I Y punk records. So cool um. Not only
23:22
Speaker 1: that but zines were very important early on and the
23:26
Speaker 1: punk and really kind of a lot of music genres.
23:28
Speaker 1: Zines were really big. Which are these, you know, fan
23:31
Speaker 1: made magazines? Yeah, maybe with like photocopy, you don't even
23:35
Speaker 1: photo copy like mimiographs stuff, yep, And you would just
23:37
Speaker 1: pronount your zine. And some of these zanes got to
23:39
Speaker 1: be pretty big and they would attach distribution to the
23:42
Speaker 1: zines sometimes and sneak forty five not sneaking, but a
23:46
Speaker 1: pack of forty five in the zine, and that's how
23:49
Speaker 1: you could release your stuff. And it was just this
23:51
Speaker 1: uh again. It sounds so trite to say, very punk
23:54
Speaker 1: rock attitude, but that's exactly what it was. The way
23:57
Speaker 1: they were doing things was all under the radar, all
23:59
Speaker 1: on their own, uh. And that changed pretty quickly. It
24:03
Speaker 1: did is because the the big, the big players came in.
24:08
Speaker 1: They smelled money, they smelled something new, the next big thing,
24:11
Speaker 1: and they started signing everybody they could left and right.
24:15
Speaker 1: And these punks were going like, nah, bollocks, I don't
24:17
Speaker 1: want your money. They're like, what if we pay you
24:19
Speaker 1: in heroin? They said, okay, yeah, I like it that
24:23
Speaker 1: you could buy drugs with money, right, So um again
24:27
Speaker 1: within six months of what most people point to as
24:31
Speaker 1: the source of UK punk, that one specific show by
24:36
Speaker 1: the sex Pistols. The sex Pistons were so new. Sid
24:39
Speaker 1: Vicious wasn't even in the band. He was still Susie
24:42
Speaker 1: and the Banshee's drummer. So this is how young this
24:45
Speaker 1: stuff was. Within six months they were signed on to
24:48
Speaker 1: a major record label. The Clash was signed onto a
24:51
Speaker 1: major record label, The Fall, the Jam, the Stranglers, everybody
24:55
Speaker 1: got signed in this feeding frenzy where everyone who had
25:00
Speaker 1: punk band could get a record deal with a major label.
25:03
Speaker 1: Six months after The sex Epistols had their first show, Yeah,
25:06
Speaker 1: Generation X with a young Billy idol, Uh, which I
25:10
Speaker 1: did ever do? That? Danceing with Myself was originally a
25:12
Speaker 1: Generation X song. They released it, then he re released
25:15
Speaker 1: it as a solo artist like a year later and
25:18
Speaker 1: it became a much bigger hit. Sure, they were like
25:20
Speaker 1: thanks a lot, but yeah, sex Pistols went with E
25:23
Speaker 1: M I UM, the Stranglers at you A. The Clash
25:27
Speaker 1: signed to CBS, The Jam went to Polydor, Generation X
25:30
Speaker 1: and Stiff Little Fingers went to Chrysalis and even the
25:33
Speaker 1: Buzz Cox. They were very quick to hop on that
25:36
Speaker 1: train too with United Artists, which actually that's not too bad.
25:39
Speaker 1: You could have signed with worse because United Artists was
25:42
Speaker 1: started by Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, um, Charlie Chaplin in
25:48
Speaker 1: d W. Griffith so that artists could have more control
25:52
Speaker 1: and ownership over their work. Yeah. I mean it was
25:54
Speaker 1: a movie company, and I guess they dabbled in records.
25:57
Speaker 1: So one of three things happened basedically to the little
26:01
Speaker 1: d I Y small label movement. Um you either got Pilford.
26:05
Speaker 1: They use one example in Belfast, the Good Vibrations label.
26:09
Speaker 1: Four of its first six bands were stolen away or
26:13
Speaker 1: signed away. I guess so either got Pilford and then
26:15
Speaker 1: just shut down and gave up. Um Or you grew
26:19
Speaker 1: and got bigger to where you were, you know, like
26:21
Speaker 1: Rough Trade and Factory Records, those all became like bigger
26:25
Speaker 1: independent labels. Yeah, rough Trades still around. They have state
26:29
Speaker 1: of the art, cutting edge bands. It's great. Um Or
26:33
Speaker 1: they stayed small and just kept going right, they went
26:38
Speaker 1: punk and went back underground. Yeah, like so they didn't
26:41
Speaker 1: all go away. They didn't all say, you know, we're
26:43
Speaker 1: all getting Pilford, so we're just gonna shut down. They
26:46
Speaker 1: would just find more underground bands and go deeper and
26:49
Speaker 1: deeper and deeper. But then, um, something happened in nineteen
26:52
Speaker 1: seventy nine February of nineteen seventy nine that a lot
26:54
Speaker 1: of people point to, Just as they point to that
26:56
Speaker 1: first sex Pistols show as the beginning of punk in
26:59
Speaker 1: the u K. They point to the death of Sid
27:02
Speaker 1: Vicious as the end of punk, at least the first
27:05
Speaker 1: wave of punk. His death from a heroin overdose um
27:10
Speaker 1: is widely pointed to as as the death of punk,
27:14
Speaker 1: which is a really dumb thing to say, because Punk
27:17
Speaker 1: very clearly went on. But what I think people are saying, sorry,
27:21
Speaker 1: I guess it's not entirely dumb now that I say
27:23
Speaker 1: it out loud, But what people are saying is is
27:25
Speaker 1: that punk transformed into something else and that punk really
27:30
Speaker 1: as as it originally existed, was only around for about
27:33
Speaker 1: to three years, maybe four or five. Some people at
27:37
Speaker 1: a bar right now that are just saying that over
27:40
Speaker 1: and over again, punk only the last said three years. Okay, well,
27:43
Speaker 1: I agree with you, drunk person in this sense, but
27:47
Speaker 1: it's not like punk went away. It transformed and became
27:49
Speaker 1: something else, And so what had transitioned into is commonly
27:54
Speaker 1: called hardcore hardcore punk, where stuff just got faster, louder,
28:00
Speaker 1: a little angrier. Yeah. Um, and it just went in
28:04
Speaker 1: in a different direction, predominantly in the United States. Yeah,
28:09
Speaker 1: and there were there were a couple of scenes. Um,
28:13
Speaker 1: the l A scene had already sort of been born
28:15
Speaker 1: by the late seventies. Uh, if you haven't seen it.
28:18
Speaker 1: The great documentary from Penelope spheris The Decline of Western Civilization,
28:24
Speaker 1: released in eighty one but filmed over I think eight
28:27
Speaker 1: maybe covered the l A scene. And that's the Germs
28:30
Speaker 1: and uh like I think Blondie and the Go Goes
28:34
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Alright, York the best sets ever
28:38
Speaker 1: in the Decline of Western Civilization. Yes, it's very good.
28:42
Speaker 1: And the Germs too, That's where I was. I was
28:45
Speaker 1: watching some of that today and that's when I knew
28:47
Speaker 1: I didn't like the germs. Right. But Pat Smir of
28:50
Speaker 1: course the food Fighters, he was in the Germs. You know,
28:53
Speaker 1: he'd liked money. And also if you're like, who's Penelope Spheres,
28:56
Speaker 1: you may be familiar with their work. If you've seen
28:58
Speaker 1: the movie Waynes World, that's right, or the movie Black Sheet,
29:01
Speaker 1: The Chris Farley David Spade movie or the Decline of
29:05
Speaker 1: Western Civilization. I think she'd ended up doing like three
29:07
Speaker 1: or four of those, right, at least three, because I
29:09
Speaker 1: know she didnt want to metal. The second one was metal,
29:12
Speaker 1: which is good too. Yeah, that's the only two I saw.
29:14
Speaker 1: Did you ever see that documentary about um heavy metal
29:17
Speaker 1: Parking Lot? Yes, yeah, where everybody's smoking PCP at did
29:21
Speaker 1: Judas Priest concert. Yeah, it's pretty great. Did you know
29:23
Speaker 1: early eighties metal head smoked PCP. No, I didn't until
29:27
Speaker 1: the documentary because it was quite a surprise. No, I
29:31
Speaker 1: was scared of all those people. Well, they're kind of
29:33
Speaker 1: scary because they were all on PCP, especially when you're
29:37
Speaker 1: like eight or ten. So American. Uh. We were talking
29:42
Speaker 1: about the you know punk bands releasing their own albums.
29:44
Speaker 1: This started having on the West coast. Um. They started
29:48
Speaker 1: forming their own labels even to release their albums and
29:52
Speaker 1: sign other like bands like SST. Very famous punk label
29:57
Speaker 1: was started from the guy, the original guy for Black
30:00
Speaker 1: Flag right, Yes, Uh, what's his name? Greg? G? I
30:05
Speaker 1: n n either again or Jin. I'm sorry punkers, I
30:09
Speaker 1: know you're mad at me right now that I don't
30:10
Speaker 1: know this. Yeah, I think he was like the founder
30:13
Speaker 1: of Black Flag. Okay, uh Jello Biafro of course, um
30:19
Speaker 1: Dead Kennedy's they formed or he formed Alternative Tentacles. Yeah,
30:24
Speaker 1: in ninety nine and seventy nine was a big year
30:28
Speaker 1: because that's the same year that a band called Bad
30:31
Speaker 1: Brains came out in Washington, d C. Which I didn't love.
30:37
Speaker 1: Did you see the Dave Gold documentary series? So I
30:41
Speaker 1: can't remember what it was called, but he did this
30:43
Speaker 1: like ten part documentary series where he would do the
30:46
Speaker 1: music of a different city and it was really really good,
30:50
Speaker 1: except for the last like fifteen minutes of it. He
30:52
Speaker 1: would get the Food Fighters together in a studio and
30:54
Speaker 1: they would play like some of those songs and if
30:57
Speaker 1: you're really into the food Fighters, imagine you loved it all.
31:00
Speaker 1: Not into the Food Fighters, So I would just stop
31:02
Speaker 1: it there. But he does Seattle. But what got me
31:06
Speaker 1: on this was one of the most interesting episodes was
31:08
Speaker 1: the Washington, DC episode because I didn't know it was
31:11
Speaker 1: such a hardcore scene. Like that's where when people talk
31:15
Speaker 1: about hardcore, yeah, they're like, well, DC is kind of
31:18
Speaker 1: the cradle of it. And Bad Brains, which my friend
31:21
Speaker 1: Jason Jenkins in college introduced me to and that's when
31:24
Speaker 1: it was like really fast, had a little metal edge,
31:28
Speaker 1: but Bad Brains was also started out as like jazz
31:30
Speaker 1: fusion and had reggae roots. Also African American guys, four
31:34
Speaker 1: of them, Yeah, and um, really really good stuff. Yeah.
31:38
Speaker 1: So you've got at the same time l A and
31:42
Speaker 1: d C as the new like seats of punk music
31:46
Speaker 1: in the US punk slash hardcore, and it's going it's
31:49
Speaker 1: going like way more hardcore, way more masculine, way more
31:53
Speaker 1: macho than the UK went. The UK went a different route.
31:57
Speaker 1: They went way more political, way more like class struggle. Um.
32:02
Speaker 1: And there's there's definitely lots of political threads that um,
32:06
Speaker 1: American punk music went through, but I think the UK
32:09
Speaker 1: went to it earlier. Like Crass is a great, great
32:12
Speaker 1: punk band from the UK. Um, they're kind of like, uh,
32:16
Speaker 1: they're just great, check them out. Um. But they were
32:19
Speaker 1: doing like anarchy stuff in the seventies. Yeah. The Clash
32:22
Speaker 1: certainly is notable for their political statement, very political. Um.
32:27
Speaker 1: And then you've got like the Six Sex Pistols talking
32:29
Speaker 1: about anarchy in the UK. They didn't really mean it,
32:31
Speaker 1: they were just saying something right, Um, But there were
32:34
Speaker 1: a lot of like politically motivated bands in the UK
32:38
Speaker 1: in the early seventies that didn't pick up till later
32:40
Speaker 1: in the eighties in the US certainly were not politically
32:44
Speaker 1: they were not political. But the other thing, the other
32:46
Speaker 1: differentiation I saw between UK and US punk was that
32:51
Speaker 1: UK punk didn't take itself quite as seriously as the
32:55
Speaker 1: US started to in the late seventies early eighties, and
32:58
Speaker 1: that this guy I read to I think a Guardian
33:01
Speaker 1: article trace that back to a love of glam rock.
33:04
Speaker 1: That glam rock really led to punk, especially in the UK,
33:08
Speaker 1: and if you're into glam rock, you just can't quite
33:10
Speaker 1: take anything fully seriously, including punk music and the the US.
33:15
Speaker 1: Even though punk came out of the New York Dolls
33:18
Speaker 1: in part um, which was definitely glam rock, Um, it
33:23
Speaker 1: just didn't have that that through thread. So it did
33:27
Speaker 1: get taken way more seriously. And that was a big
33:29
Speaker 1: part of hardcore and what differentiated it from the earlier
33:32
Speaker 1: punk taking things really really seriously and it being a
33:35
Speaker 1: little more political than ever before, and um angsty against
33:39
Speaker 1: things like the boredom of suburban life. Yeah, I mean,
33:42
Speaker 1: I think punk is just as important for things that
33:45
Speaker 1: it uh inspired that happened afterward as it was the
33:49
Speaker 1: actual movement itself, because you can point to stuff in
33:52
Speaker 1: Minneapolis like Whosker Do or bands like the Minutemen, who
33:57
Speaker 1: I loved and they had a very sound to them,
34:01
Speaker 1: and maybe you're even considered punk, probably post punk post
34:05
Speaker 1: I think MENI Men are considered punk, but Hoosker Do
34:09
Speaker 1: would definitely be post post punk, and stuff like Sonic Youth,
34:12
Speaker 1: which I would call them post punk to post punk,
34:15
Speaker 1: straddling into the early grunge though too. Well yeah, I
34:19
Speaker 1: mean it's like it's hard to it's easy sometimes to
34:21
Speaker 1: trace that through line and sometimes it's really difficult. But
34:24
Speaker 1: we want to. We want to be able to say, like,
34:27
Speaker 1: you know, it went from Um from Bad Brains to
34:31
Speaker 1: Hoosker Do to Sonic Youth to Nirvana, you know, four
34:35
Speaker 1: Degrees of Nirvana and they're going, what about us, right exactly? UM,
34:40
Speaker 1: But you just you can't. But at the same time,
34:43
Speaker 1: you also can't discount the effects that these later bands
34:47
Speaker 1: UM got from the earth listening to the earlier bands
34:51
Speaker 1: that came before him, Like, there's undoubtedly an influence, it's
34:55
Speaker 1: just not quite as crisp and clean as as we
34:57
Speaker 1: like to make it. Yeah, And it's even argued in
35:00
Speaker 1: one of these articles that the the birth of hardcore
35:04
Speaker 1: came about because, like you kind of teased earlier on,
35:07
Speaker 1: because punk, you know, flouts the rules and norms of
35:12
Speaker 1: rock and roll. Then they formed their own rules and
35:14
Speaker 1: norms and we're really pretty serious about it, and so
35:18
Speaker 1: hardcore came along because they didn't quite fit in with that,
35:22
Speaker 1: the true punk aesthetic. They took punk even further because
35:26
Speaker 1: punk was being commodified and commercialized otherwise, that's right, which
35:30
Speaker 1: would make it kind of easier to break from, especially
35:33
Speaker 1: if you just go slightly angrier and faster and louder. Right,
35:37
Speaker 1: But you also can look at the stuff like you
35:40
Speaker 1: talk about tracing the through line. Um, if you want
35:43
Speaker 1: to think about early Manchester and stuff like Joy Division
35:47
Speaker 1: that goes to New Order that goes to Orchestral Maneuvers
35:51
Speaker 1: in the Dark and Simple Minds and all of a
35:53
Speaker 1: sudden it's John Hughes soundtrack and it's hard. It's then
35:56
Speaker 1: it's like what is punk about anything? And that like
35:59
Speaker 1: sort of after new Wave. But at the same time
36:01
Speaker 1: you can also say, well, New Order was just straight
36:04
Speaker 1: up new wave, but then new Wave caught on and
36:07
Speaker 1: got commercialized and commodified, and then you end up having
36:10
Speaker 1: a John Hughes soundtrack because the record labels got ahold
36:13
Speaker 1: of the new wave band. Right. So that's kind of
36:16
Speaker 1: like the story with music is somebody comes up with
36:20
Speaker 1: something raw and organic and rebellious, everybody loves it. The
36:25
Speaker 1: big guys come along, get their hands on it, co opted,
36:29
Speaker 1: commodify it, commercialize it, ruin it, and then some thread
36:34
Speaker 1: kind of jumps off of that and it starts something else,
36:36
Speaker 1: and the whole thing always it just continues on and
36:39
Speaker 1: continues on, except until the mid two thousands when music
36:43
Speaker 1: died forever and ever and ever. Alright, well, let's take
36:46
Speaker 1: another break here and we'll talk a little bit about
36:49
Speaker 1: the end of punk. And before that, maybe we'll hit
36:53
Speaker 1: on the fashion of punk. Oh boy, okay, chuck um,
37:10
Speaker 1: we're talking fashion of punk. Yeah, so every every genre
37:16
Speaker 1: has its own look. Well, I cannot remember what it
37:19
Speaker 1: had to have been the safety pin short stuff where
37:23
Speaker 1: we talked about Richard Hell being considered the guy who
37:27
Speaker 1: started the safety pin as a fashion statement, pretty shirt.
37:32
Speaker 1: But it was Richard Hell. He was the guitarist for
37:33
Speaker 1: television and he was like the first guy with the mohawk,
37:37
Speaker 1: like the Elmer's glue kind of mohawk and safety pins
37:41
Speaker 1: holding his shirt together, which is I mean, that's quintessential punk.
37:45
Speaker 1: But at the same time, dressing like a Ramon as
37:47
Speaker 1: quintessential punk too, with like the jeans with the knees
37:51
Speaker 1: in it, back jeans Doc Martin's or Converse low tops
37:55
Speaker 1: or Converse high tops. Uh. Black biker jacket. Yeah. The
38:00
Speaker 1: New York Dolls were very famous for wearing the Jeane jackets,
38:04
Speaker 1: super super small. That jokes in this article that they
38:07
Speaker 1: could barely fit in them. Right. They also wore super
38:10
Speaker 1: tight lycra shiny pants and stuff too. Yeah, but they
38:14
Speaker 1: were glam but that it was really those black ripped jeans. Uh.
38:19
Speaker 1: And this was a time where that wasn't like the
38:20
Speaker 1: cool thing to wear if you you didn't walk around
38:23
Speaker 1: with holes. And you know, now it's become a recurring
38:26
Speaker 1: thing in fashion to have holes in your jeans being cool.
38:29
Speaker 1: At the time, it was not cool. Admit that you
38:32
Speaker 1: were poor exactly. Man. This was like somebody in this
38:36
Speaker 1: article I think from Pitchfork said, you know, Dee de
38:39
Speaker 1: Ramon had uhum holes in the knees of his jeans.
38:45
Speaker 1: Not because it was cool, but because he didn't have
38:47
Speaker 1: any money for some new genes and those his jeans
38:49
Speaker 1: has had holes in them, so that's what he wore.
38:52
Speaker 1: Now you pay like a hundred or two hundred bucks
38:55
Speaker 1: for jeanes that have pre ripped holes that are just right. Yeah,
38:59
Speaker 1: that's a of ag example of the commodity commoditization of punk. Yeah,
39:03
Speaker 1: for sure. Uh other you know, in l A they
39:06
Speaker 1: have their own fashion scene going on because it's l
39:09
Speaker 1: A and they don't have harsh winters in cold, rainy weather,
39:13
Speaker 1: so they went to the thrift stores and bought things
39:16
Speaker 1: and cut them up. And that's where you you never
39:19
Speaker 1: saw a shirt on a punk in the l A
39:22
Speaker 1: scene that didn't have like the net cut out or
39:24
Speaker 1: the sleeves cut off, or in the case of the
39:27
Speaker 1: Go Goes in their earlier punk days, wearing like literal
39:31
Speaker 1: trash bags as fashion. Very funny and blondie too. They
39:36
Speaker 1: all had a very like specific aesthetic in Los Angeles.
39:40
Speaker 1: It's interesting that the Go go started out on the
39:42
Speaker 1: punk scene when they were I think to the casual
39:47
Speaker 1: UH music fan known very much for just sort of
39:51
Speaker 1: a bubblegum sing along pop hits that they had just
39:55
Speaker 1: lovable as all get out as all get out great
39:57
Speaker 1: songs and blend Carlisle too, like her soul of stuff
40:00
Speaker 1: is yeah, just kiss everybody. You couldn't see that, but
40:04
Speaker 1: that's what I get. But it's that whole pop punk thing,
40:07
Speaker 1: which is kind of where it started to go bad.
40:11
Speaker 1: You could make the case that starting in the beginning
40:15
Speaker 1: of nine seven, when all those first record labels came
40:18
Speaker 1: in and started to go bad. Then, but hardcore here's
40:24
Speaker 1: this is where I This is my reading of this, okay,
40:27
Speaker 1: and I'm not a punk or even music historian by
40:29
Speaker 1: any stretch of the imagination, but from what I gathered
40:31
Speaker 1: from this research is that early punk got co opted
40:37
Speaker 1: and commodified by the record labels immediately hardcore grew out
40:42
Speaker 1: of that. Hardcore is way harder to commodify because it's
40:46
Speaker 1: much more raw, there's much less melodic, it's much more
40:50
Speaker 1: in your face and angry than the original was. And
40:54
Speaker 1: it's also jealously guarded and defended by the fans, where
40:59
Speaker 1: at the getting of the show we're saying, please don't
41:01
Speaker 1: beat us up. Like if you go to a hardcore
41:03
Speaker 1: show and they think your opposer like you may get
41:07
Speaker 1: beaten up if this is the eighties or the nineties,
41:09
Speaker 1: I don't know if they still do it today. I
41:11
Speaker 1: remember feeling that threat. Oh yeah, it was the punks
41:16
Speaker 1: at the school, Like you didn't want to cross them.
41:18
Speaker 1: That was part of being a punk, was like you
41:21
Speaker 1: beat somebody up to basically defend punk, don't to keep
41:24
Speaker 1: it from getting commodified. Like like seeing kids like wear
41:29
Speaker 1: Thrasher T shirts today and they have no idea what
41:31
Speaker 1: Thrasher is. Like it's like, if you did that with
41:35
Speaker 1: punk in the eighties and nineties, you would get beaten up,
41:37
Speaker 1: maybe even at school, definitely at a punk show. And
41:40
Speaker 1: so in doing so, they were able to defend hardcore
41:44
Speaker 1: from commoditization because they kept it their own violently. But
41:49
Speaker 1: at the same time, they also it's kind of like
41:51
Speaker 1: how a language evolves the more people speak it and
41:54
Speaker 1: the more free and easy the rules on it are.
41:58
Speaker 1: By by doing these very tight restrictions on what's punk
42:02
Speaker 1: and what's not punking, he's allowed to come to a
42:04
Speaker 1: punk show, which is super ironic for punks to do.
42:07
Speaker 1: To come up with all these rules and regulations, they
42:10
Speaker 1: kept it from evolving, and they definitely kept it underground,
42:14
Speaker 1: and it's still around today. But it's the same thing
42:17
Speaker 1: over and over again because it wasn't allowed to grow
42:20
Speaker 1: and evolved, because the fans have kept it, at least
42:22
Speaker 1: in America, have kept it underground, uh, purposely, deliberately, invioluently.
42:28
Speaker 1: So punks killed punk kind of, they would argue, No
42:31
Speaker 1: punks still around. I go see punk shows all the
42:33
Speaker 1: time and don't come to it because your opposer and
42:35
Speaker 1: will beat you up. So they're still punk. But as
42:38
Speaker 1: far as like you and I walking around are concerned,
42:41
Speaker 1: punk is dead as a doornail for now, Yeah, for now? Well,
42:45
Speaker 1: I mean I remember when we did our UK tour,
42:47
Speaker 1: remember seeing a group of punks in Manchester that looked
42:50
Speaker 1: like they stepped right out of one with the full
42:54
Speaker 1: spiked mohawks and the leather studded leather collars. And I
42:58
Speaker 1: was scared of him a little bit. You're like, those
43:02
Speaker 1: are bad kids. Are going to try to get me
43:03
Speaker 1: to smooth down to do a podcast? Right? Well, what's
43:06
Speaker 1: funny is is that fashion that you're talking about, that
43:09
Speaker 1: quintessential punk fashion that was a commodification immediately to the
43:14
Speaker 1: sex Pistols manager used to be the manager of the
43:16
Speaker 1: New York Dolls, Malcolm McLaren and he owned a shop
43:21
Speaker 1: Gonna b D S m Um fashion shop with Vivian
43:25
Speaker 1: Westwood in London, and he basically used the sex Pistols
43:29
Speaker 1: to promote the fashion he was selling at his shop,
43:31
Speaker 1: to make it fashionable so we could sell more clothes.
43:34
Speaker 1: This is the manager of the first UK punk band
43:37
Speaker 1: ever well, and he had put them together, right. It's
43:39
Speaker 1: not like essentially the sex Pistols all got together because
43:42
Speaker 1: they were mates. Like they were formed by a manager. Yes,
43:45
Speaker 1: by this guy Malcolm. They were the monkeys kind of.
43:47
Speaker 1: They were the monkeys of punk. They were the punkies.
43:49
Speaker 1: So many people are mad at us right now, for sure,
43:52
Speaker 1: but it's true. I mean, go look up your history
43:53
Speaker 1: if your punks are gonna beat us up next time.
43:55
Speaker 1: We got some some thirteen year old just looked done
43:58
Speaker 1: at their sher and win. That's what the sex Pistols are.
44:01
Speaker 1: I had no idea. Well, it's funny though you talk
44:04
Speaker 1: about the the pins and the it was all homemade stuff,
44:08
Speaker 1: like I remember it being a very I mean I
44:11
Speaker 1: was certainly way too square, but I remember seeing the
44:15
Speaker 1: punks in my school doing stuff to their clothes during
44:19
Speaker 1: class and at lunch and thinking it was the coolest thing,
44:22
Speaker 1: whether it was black magic black Sharpie doing the Dead
44:26
Speaker 1: Kennedy's or the anarchy symbol. Well, the Dead Kennedys did
44:29
Speaker 1: have the coolest symbol round, it was pretty cool. Or
44:31
Speaker 1: just fraying their fraying their jackets or adding safety pins,
44:35
Speaker 1: it was all. It was all created out of that
44:38
Speaker 1: homemade aesthetic sort of like the music and it and
44:42
Speaker 1: it appealed to me, but I was afraid of it.
44:45
Speaker 1: And now that's why I'm just now starting to listen
44:47
Speaker 1: to some of this music. Are you gonna turn all
44:49
Speaker 1: punk now? Maybe? Okay, that would be one of the
44:53
Speaker 1: bigger surprises you've ever laid on me, man. But pop
44:57
Speaker 1: punk we should talk a little bit about. Um they
45:00
Speaker 1: call it bitter sweet in this article. Um sweet in
45:03
Speaker 1: the sense that you could get tons of money and
45:06
Speaker 1: be super famous, but bitter because you know, it's spawned
45:09
Speaker 1: a genre that I think a lot of true punk's
45:11
Speaker 1: really loathe. Like I think true punks like a square
45:15
Speaker 1: more than they like Blink Indubita, you know, uh, and
45:21
Speaker 1: that you know that whole scene, the Van's Warped Tour
45:23
Speaker 1: and the Rancid and the Offspring and Green Day and
45:26
Speaker 1: all these groups was a part of a big second
45:28
Speaker 1: wave of these kids who grew up definitely listening to
45:31
Speaker 1: that stuff, and I guess feeling like they were a
45:34
Speaker 1: part of it. I mean, I'm sure Green Day really
45:37
Speaker 1: feels like they're a punk band and part of a
45:39
Speaker 1: punk movement. Whereas I remember the first time I heard
45:42
Speaker 1: Green Day thinking these are guys pretending to be a
45:45
Speaker 1: punk band, which is a really cruddy thing to say,
45:48
Speaker 1: but I mean it is. It's like, it's totally understandable
45:51
Speaker 1: how you would think that, but they they are. It
45:55
Speaker 1: is punk in some way, shape or form. It's punk.
45:57
Speaker 1: The stuff they're talking about is pretty punk. Um, but
46:00
Speaker 1: punk bands don't release acoustic songs. Definitely not the first
46:06
Speaker 1: the first album Dukie, right, that is what we're talking about.
46:10
Speaker 1: I guess was that the first one? I think so.
46:11
Speaker 1: I just remember hearing it and going like, why is
46:13
Speaker 1: that guy trying to sound British? Well that's pretty punk,
46:16
Speaker 1: first big hit. It's very punk, yeah, for sure, an
46:19
Speaker 1: American kid trying to sound British. So um, but yeah,
46:23
Speaker 1: I don't. I would guess you're right though, there on
46:25
Speaker 1: Broadway that punks for God's sake, Well, Yeah, there was
46:28
Speaker 1: a brief, shining moment where you could have conceivably called
46:31
Speaker 1: them a punk band. Here's the thing, though, man, people
46:35
Speaker 1: like money. Yeah, but that's been a through not just
46:39
Speaker 1: in the punk scene, but but it's just a music
46:43
Speaker 1: in general. Although hats off to the punk culture for
46:47
Speaker 1: keeping it at bay better than anybody ever has any
46:50
Speaker 1: other genre I would like to hear. I'm sure there
46:52
Speaker 1: are people listening that Noah punk bands that did stick
46:55
Speaker 1: their middle finger up to the money and say nope,
46:58
Speaker 1: I can tell you one. Fugazi. Uh, well, I loved
47:01
Speaker 1: Pughassi DC or I guess hardcore um and they I
47:07
Speaker 1: think they formed Discord Records. If not, they're a big
47:10
Speaker 1: act on Discord Records. And they have done this whole
47:14
Speaker 1: d I Y thing, like from the get go, they've
47:17
Speaker 1: they've issued the major labels as far as I know
47:20
Speaker 1: their whole career, and they were extremely successful despite that. Yeah,
47:24
Speaker 1: I saw them in Athens once. Oh yeah, what do
47:27
Speaker 1: you think that was great? This is you know, I
47:29
Speaker 1: think they got together in the like seven ishi and
47:32
Speaker 1: this was more like okay, well, they were still huge
47:37
Speaker 1: and probably bigger. That was when they were at their height.
47:39
Speaker 1: I would guess. I mean technically they had a I
47:42
Speaker 1: don't know about how it performed on the literal charts,
47:45
Speaker 1: but they had that one song that had a big
47:47
Speaker 1: MTV hit, Waiting Room. Yeah, it's a good song. It's
47:50
Speaker 1: a really good song. Um So I just want to
47:54
Speaker 1: give some shouts out anybody who's like, this is really interesting.
47:57
Speaker 1: I want to know more. Go listen to the Cramps.
48:01
Speaker 1: I would recommend the Cramps, listen to Crass, Go watch
48:06
Speaker 1: the Decline of Western Civilization. Definitely check out the Circle Jerks,
48:11
Speaker 1: um who else? Chuck, I'm gonna say that for my picks,
48:14
Speaker 1: Bad Brains, and the Damned. Okay, for sure, I'm gonna
48:18
Speaker 1: toss g. G Allen out there, although he kind of
48:21
Speaker 1: transcends everything just punk and you were sending me some um.
48:25
Speaker 1: I didn't catch any of the names, but she said
48:27
Speaker 1: there's a big punk scene in Japan still. And that
48:30
Speaker 1: was another thing too. Somebody said punk's not dying, it's
48:32
Speaker 1: just coming up in other places, like um, in Islamic countries,
48:36
Speaker 1: there's a big punk movement. I saw Mexico has got
48:38
Speaker 1: a big one right now. Apparently Japan has it. And
48:41
Speaker 1: then there's a whole riot girl feminist punk that is. Man,
48:46
Speaker 1: If that's not punk, I don't know like Eastern block punk, right, girls,
48:52
Speaker 1: So punk is still alive. Punk not dead? Punk? No dead,
48:55
Speaker 1: Punk's not dead. Okay. If you want to know more
48:59
Speaker 1: about punk music, go listen to that stuff we just
49:01
Speaker 1: told you to go listen to. And since I said
49:04
Speaker 1: that's time for listener mail. If you want to learn
49:08
Speaker 1: more about punk music, you can probably go to literally
49:10
Speaker 1: any other place other than this episode and learn more
49:12
Speaker 1: about If you want to know more about punk music,
49:15
Speaker 1: go to your local library and read up. It's fundamental.
49:19
Speaker 1: All right, guys, I'm gonna call this uh poop no
49:22
Speaker 1: no poop. On that short stuff about the guy who
49:25
Speaker 1: didn't eat for a year. Uh, we talked about the
49:28
Speaker 1: fact that he didn't poop that much, and she said
49:31
Speaker 1: this is the norm for people with a colostomy or iliostomy.
49:36
Speaker 1: I had a temporary iliostomy and ostomy connected to the
49:39
Speaker 1: ilium instead of the colon due to Crone's complications. My
49:43
Speaker 1: colon was completely severed from the rest of my digestive
49:46
Speaker 1: system during this time and basically sat dormant while food
49:50
Speaker 1: exited into an ostomy pouch. No food means no poop,
49:55
Speaker 1: but the body still produces a normal gut stuff like
49:57
Speaker 1: mucus and cells and needs to evacuate on a Asian
50:00
Speaker 1: which I think, Well, that's what we talked about for
50:03
Speaker 1: people with years about issues such as pain and running
50:06
Speaker 1: to the bathroom every thirty minutes. This can be a
50:08
Speaker 1: literal lifesaver. Anyway, my colon is currently now reattached to
50:13
Speaker 1: the rest of my intestine and my crones is in remission.
50:16
Speaker 1: I had no idea. So this person had a colostomy
50:19
Speaker 1: and it was reversed. Yes, that's I had no idea
50:23
Speaker 1: they could do that. Yeah, we should do something on
50:25
Speaker 1: crones and just tie all the stuff together. I just
50:29
Speaker 1: wanted to give you a little perspective on the topic. Um, actually,
50:31
Speaker 1: ostomes would be an interesting topic for you to tackle.
50:34
Speaker 1: Thanks for doing the best podcast around. According to my
50:37
Speaker 1: podcast app, I've listened to over four hundred episodes. Yikes, Well,
50:41
Speaker 1: Sonia in Canada, you have another what seven fifty, eight hundred?
50:46
Speaker 1: What are we up to? Now? What number of episodes?
50:50
Speaker 1: Eight fifty we're up to? Like, well, she's listened to
50:53
Speaker 1: four hundred. Okay, so just do a little math. Okay,
50:58
Speaker 1: hold on, So another like eight hundred or so. Yeah,
51:00
Speaker 1: I would say something all right, well, you're a third
51:03
Speaker 1: of the way there, keep at it. Yeah, roughly, yeah,
51:07
Speaker 1: you got a third. Guys shouldn't just seemed chuck like
51:10
Speaker 1: look up into the air from the side of his eye.
51:12
Speaker 1: She said, Uh, we'd love to see you to the
51:14
Speaker 1: come out to the Prairie provinces. So I know in
51:17
Speaker 1: Canada we do Toronto and Vancouver, but there's a lot
51:20
Speaker 1: of country in the middle there that we should probably
51:21
Speaker 1: go to at some point. In the US would call
51:23
Speaker 1: them flyover states Canada, they call it Prairie country. Right. Well,
51:29
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with this, like
51:32
Speaker 1: did Sonia, thanks again, Sonia UM, you can go on
51:35
Speaker 1: to stuff you Should Know dot com and check out
51:37
Speaker 1: our social links, and you can also send us an
51:39
Speaker 1: email to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff
51:46
Speaker 1: you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios. How
51:48
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51:53
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.