Punk Culture and Influence

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Punk Culture and Influence
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How Punk are you?

• http//punkrock.org/
• History of Punk
• What are some characteristics of punk?
• Pre-70s punk- term to describe a young, male
  hoodlum or gangster
• Fast, hard music (often not pleasing)
• Short songs with stripped down instrumentation
• Usually 2 electric guitars, bass guitar, drums
  and singers
• Distorted power chords by guitars, guitar solos
  are self-indulgent and unnecessary. Relentlessly
  repetitive Bass rhythms.
• Lyrics often shouted and typically
  confrontational and to the point. Vocal
  characterized by lack of variety and shifts in
  pitch.
• Political or nihilistic themes
• Youthful rebellion (anti-convention,
  anti-authority, androgyny)
• Do-It-Yourself attitude (connection to Gandhi)
• Wildly energetic performances
• Destruction of instruments on stage
• Crowd pogos, body slams, body surfs
• Self mutilation and body contortions (Iggy Pop)
• Goading, Insulting the audience (Johnny Rotten)

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Schleim KeimAka Saukerle

• Schleim Keim (Slimy Germs) YouTube Video
  Selection
• One of most popular E German bands and the first
  to release in West
• Otze (one of founders) once said "In the
  beginning punk meant for me I stuck a safety pin
  in my cheek, hung a chain on it and thought, that
  rocks! And on my back I had an Elvis patch. We
  had heard two punk songs on the radio and we
  immediately tattooed 'punk' into our arms with a
  needle.
• Equipment Klaus built his guitar himself, some
  wires from a bicycle had to do as strings Their
  amplifiers were built from old radios. The band's
  first practice space was in the washroom of
  Otze's parents' farmhouse. Bassist Dippel said
  about this early stage "Thinking back I have to
  say, I never heard such music, as it was played
  in that washroom back then, again!
• To buy instruments Drummer Otze sold brass
  knuckles to hooligans
• They played their first gigs in churches
  churches were the only place were the authorities
  and the Stasi (Staatssicherheit, the secret
  police) had no power resistance against the
  state was formed there! More rarely, they played
  art galleries or universities, because artists
  and students were sometimes involved with
  (illegal) civil rights movements and the likes.

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Other German Punk Bands

• Feeling B (YouTube Video Selection)
• Pankow (YouTube Video Selection)
• Die Skeptiker (YouTube Video Selection)

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The Sex Pistols (YouTube Vide0 Selection)

• Featuring Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious
• Short-lived career (3 years as this line-up), 4
  singles and one studio album
• the Sex Pistols have been described by the BBC as
  "the definitive English punk rock band."1 The
  Pistols are widely credited with initiating the
  punk movement in the United Kingdom2 and
  creating the first generation gap within rock and
  roll.3
• The Sex Pistols emerged as a response to the
  "increasingly safe and bloated" progressive
  rock,4 disco and manufactured pop music of the
  mid-1970s. The band created controversies which
  captivated Britain,5 but often eclipsed their
  music.6 Their shows and tours repeatedly faced
  difficulties with organizers and authorities, and
  public appearances often ended in mayhem. Their
  1977 single "God Save the Queen" was regarded as
  an attack on the British monarchy and British
  nationalism.7

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CBGBs Home to Some Major Pop Punk (Power Pop)

• The Ramones (YouTube)
• Formed 1974 and believed by many to be 1st punk
  band
• 2002 Rock N Roll Hall of Fame
• The band members adopted a uniform look of long
  hair, leather jackets, t-shirts, torn jeans, and
  sneakers, which emphasized minimalism
• Tommy Ramone recalled that, both musically and
  visually, "we were influenced by comic books,
  movies, the Andy Warhol scene, and avant-garde
  films. I was a big Mad Magazine fan myself."39
• They were a loud-fast punk-pop band, mixing humor
  and horror in equal measure and giving their
  urbanized fans a way to purge all the pent-up
  energy that comes from living in a concrete
  jungle (a localized New York scene).
• A Ramones set, especially in the early years,
  rarely lasted half an hour, and they might
  perform fifteen or more songs during the sonic
  blitzkrieg.

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CBGBs Home to Some Major Pop Punk (Power Pop)

• Blondie (YouTube) scroll down for X Offender
  (more punk) and In the Flesh (more pop)
• Band originally called Angel and Snake but
  changed to Blondie because that is what truck
  drivers called out their windows as they passed
  her.
• According to their producer, she performed with
  "utter aplomb and involvement throughout even
  when she's portraying a character consummately
  obnoxious and spaced-out, there is a wink of
  awareness that is comforting and amusing yet
  never condescending."

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High Punk in the New York Scene
(1965-1970) (1970-1973)

• Velvet Underground (YouTube Video Selections)
• Rolling Stone wrote of their seminal album, The
  Velvet Underground and Nico the androgynous
  sexuality of glitter punk's raw noir the
  blackened-riff howl of grunge and noise rock. It
  is a record of fearless breadth and lyric depth.
• The instrumentation has an experimental quality
• Nico was a German model, who joined the Velvet
  Underground and wanted to be as ugly as
  possible.
• She explains that she was judged and adored as
• an object of beauty for so long that her
  quest to be
• ugly is a means of empowerment.
• Her lyric has almost a masculine strength to it.
• The music functions in a way that creates a mood
• that opens the door to heightened
  awareness and
• challenges the sensibilities of musical
  conventions
• to that point.
• They often performed at Andy Warhols Warehouse
• Warhol Shot a film in 1966 with title of the same
  
• name as the album above.

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THE CLASH (YOUTUBE VIDEO SELECTIONS)

• Paul Simonon came up with the band's name, The
  Clash, after they had considered alternatives
  including "The Weak Heartdrops" and "The
  Psychotic Negatives".
• Simonon explained how he came up with the name,
  "It really came to my head when I start reading
  the newspapers and a word that kept recurring was
  the word 'clash', so I thought 'the Clash, what
  about that,' to the others. And they and Bernard
  they went for it.
• The music was often criticized for not being
  radio friendly
• The band's music was often charged by a leftist
  political ideology. They are credited with
  pioneering the advocacy of radical politics in
  punk rock, and were known as the "Thinking Man's
  Yobs by many simply for voicing a political
  slant other than anarchism.
• They were never driven entirely by money even at
  their peak, tickets to shows and souvenirs were
  reasonably priced.

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GLAM PUNK ZIGGY STARDUST (YOUTUBE)

• Gender Bending and Androgyny / Works against
  conventions of gender
• "Ziggy Stardust" is a Martian who comes to Earth
  to liberate humanity from banality. It is the
  fictional rock superstar in Bowies 1972 album
• "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The
  Spiders From Mars" arrived with the audacity of a
  slap in the face.   Bowie offered noise and glitz
  and sexual ambiguity as a statement - a finger up
  the nose of pop sincerity a gob in the face of
  chart-fodder and froth a boot in the collective
  sagging denim behind of hippie singer-songwhiners"
  - Rykodisc SoundVision booklet (1990)
• "Ziggy, particularly, was created out of a
  certain arrogance. But, remember, at that time I
  was young and I was full of life, and that seemed
  like a very positive artistic statement. I
  thought that was a beautiful piece of art, I
  really did. I thought that was a grand kitsch
  painting. The whole guy." - Bowie (1977)

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IGGY POP/THE STOOGES (YOUTUBE)

• Prior to first recording The Stooges performed 5
  songs. Believing that would be enough for the
  for their first album, the Stooges were told by
  Elektra that they needed more material. According
  to Iggy Pop, "We handed (the five-song version of
  the album) in and they refused it. They said,
  'There aren't enough songs!' So we lied and said,
  'That's OK, we've got lots more songs.'" (liner
  notes of 2005 reissue, p.9)
• 3 more songs written overnight
• The Stooges listed as 185 of 500 by Rolling
  Stones Best Albums of All-Time
• Known for wild stage antics and provocation
  through shock value (i.e. contortions and
  self-mutilation)
• Also glam punk (or proto punk)

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New York Glam Punk

• The New York Dolls (YouTube Video Selections)
• Also promoted androgyny
• Raw, loose style. They created a sound that
  critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote "doesn't
  really sound like anything that came before it.
  It's hard rock with a self-conscious wit, a
  celebration of camp and kitsch that retains a
  menacing, malevolent edge."
• Had major influence on New Wave music and 80s
  hair bands
• Other notable acts who have been described as
  glam punk include Hanoi Rocks, Manic Street
  Preachers and D Generation.

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Punks with a satirical side

• Die Toten Hosen YouTube Video Selection
• Die Ärzte YouTube Video Selection
• The Dead Milkmen YouTube Video Selection

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Contemporary Punks - KMFDM

• Kein Mitleid fuer die Mehrheit (no sympathy for
  the masses)
• German industrial band formed in the 80s and
  still going.
• KMFDM describes their sound as "the Ultra-Heavy
  Beat"
• Bombastic beats with heavy synth riffs and
  effected vocal
• The band claims its music is highly political,
  anti-capitalism, anti-convention many of its
  songs, however, seem more focused on
  self-aggrandizement and creating a MOOD for the
  stompy crowd that body slams and slings.
• You might recognize some skin head types (Nazi
  Punks) in the violent scrum on the dance floor.
• KMFDM (YouTube Selections)

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In the Punk Spirit

• Old school industrial frontrunners, Skinny Puppy
  perform their identity as animal rights and peace
  advocates.
• Their politically and liberally charged music
  along with their stunning stage performances
  provoke and challenge.
• Skinny Puppy (YouTube Selections)

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Cyber Punks Continue to Provoke Social
Consciousness

• Tactical Sekt, an electro-industrial band from
  Germany, and other aggrotech bands like The Us
  Electric and Suicide Commando are anti-fascist,
  anti-oppression, anti-capitalism, etc.
• Tactical Sekt have been called pessimists. We
  have been called negative. Two labels with which
  we disagree. What Tactical Sekt will say is that
  it has become discontent with guile. We will not
  stand by and watch the world eat itself up with
  its desire to play the part of God and forcing
  nature's hand to create the monstrosity that is
  immortality or the "perfect" child. Playing with
  the power of the human gene. Sentencing our
  fellow men to death. Life is a puzzle and these
  abominations are the pieces that Tactical Sekt
  wishes to lose.
• Tactical Sekt is our way of shouting at the
  masses. It is our instrument of change. If this
  small voice is heard amidst the chaos then to us
  it is worth it.
• Tactical Sekt (YouTube Selections)
• Suicide Commando (YouTube Selections)

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Sources for this Presentation

• YouTube.com
• Various interviews, guest appearances and
  performances
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
• Individual Band Pages
• Rolling Stone Magazine Archival Materials
• BBC
• Nico Icon (1995)
• http//www.fastnbulbous.com/punk.htm
• Filth and Fury (2000)