punk rock changed our lives

[Flynnie]

our band could be your life real names'd be proof me and mike watt played for years punk rock changed our lives
we learned punk rock in hollywood drove up from pedro we were fucking corndogs we'd go drink and pogo
mr. narrator this is bob dylan to me my story could be his songs me as his soldier child
our band is scientist rock but i was e. bloom, richard hell, joe strummer, and john doe me and mike watt, playing guitar

definitely changed my life.

[Flynnie]

punk rock changed our lives

I've had some ideas, mainly because posting this has made me watch old videos on youtube for the last half an hour.

Without getting too deeply into analysis, because my depth of knowledge isn't encyclopedic, I feel those lyrics embody a huge difference between American and British punk. Namely an identification with the loser (which the 'Mats took even further than the Minutemen), exposing some raw, vulnerable emotion in their music, and a generally uncomfortable attitude towards being too scene...while still being scene. Which is kinda funny, since the Ramones practically invented the punk look and the Minutemen, who were quite outwardly working-class, had Mike Watt with his checkered shirt deal and George Hurley with the Thing. But the old Clash maxim of passion is a fashion would be horrifying to a lot of American punks.

I identify the fuck out of that.

Of course that's all a load of generalizations but there you go.

[Wyatt Earp]

punk rock changed our lives

Honestly not trying to be arsey, but there's quite a lot of that I don't follow, to the extent that I suspect your point's eluding me.

[Bored Of Education]

punk rock changed our lives

"Punk Rock Changed My Life" is a film, isn't it?

Apart from that, I have no idea what Flynnie is posting about even though punk rock did indeed change my life.

I still consider myself as a punk rock dad, punk rock husband, punk rock mature student, punk rock football coach and, hopefully, a punk rock teacher.

On the subject of the former, this looks interesting while not empirically proven and also with some exceptions that I can think of.

[Furtho]

punk rock changed our lives

Fow what it's worth punk rock only indirectly changed my life - Sarah Records did that a whole lot more - but I'll third WE and BoE on not really grasping either of Flynnie's posts here.

[Renart]

punk rock changed our lives

Not really following Flynnie, either, but I do love the Minutemen. I'm in San Pedro almost every summer and I always get excited when I see the highway sign from the cover of Double Nickels on the Dime. (I'm sure it's been replaced, but it's basically the same thing.)

Anyway, I'm not sure the emphasis on "punk fashion" is an American-British divide, if that's what's being implied. I read an interview with (former Gang of Four bass player) Dave Allen recently in which he kept making digs at London punk bands for being fashion-plates. (And it's true, generally, that the "punk" or post-punk bands from Northern England tended to dress more "normally" than the Sex Pistols or whoever. And there have been American punk bands that adopted the stereotypical look, too.) I think it's more band by band or maybe region by region than country by country.

The Minutemen are kind of a weird case, anyway, since their music is not really particularly punk-sounding. You can hear influences from Wire and Gang of Four, but there's a whole lot more thrown in there, jazz and funk and whatever, and they did affectionate covers of Van Halen and Blue Oyster Cult songs, the kind of thing most punk bands would have avoided like the plague at the time.

[N est à?]

punk rock changed our lives

Punk rock changed everything man, everything. Growing up in Hersham in the 70s, there was nothing for young people, nothing. Just all these prog rock bands doing quintuple album rock operettas on ice(nb subs check this).

[N est à?]

punk rock changed our lives

For what its worth, a recent BBC4 documentary on Augustus Welby Pugin saw fit to compare him to the Sex Pistols...

[WOM]

punk rock changed our lives

Bruno, even when the local rock group down the street is trying hard to learn their songs?

[Lucia Lanigan]

punk rock changed our lives

Haha! I watched twenty seconds of that programme and thought, "no".

Augustus Welby Pugin. A name that both should, and couldn't be invented.

[Bored Of Education]

punk rock changed our lives

Oh, yes, I hated your parents. I have grown to like them since though

[WOM]

punk rock changed our lives

Bruno wrote:

You mean because they can't play their instruments?

No, because they serenade the weekend squire who's just come out to mow his lawn.

...this is going poorly.

[Amor de Cosmos]

punk rock changed our lives

I was too old for punk rock to change my life. It'd already been changed by The Chocolate Watchband, or ? and the Mysterions, or... Fuck it I've forgotten.

Let's be honest, marijuana changed my life.

[The Alan Partridge Project]

punk rock changed our lives

I think that I'm with Bruno on this.

I hated punk when it all kicked off. Mid- to late-70s Britain needed more anger, nihilism and snot like the Sahara Desert needs sunshine. I lived on a shitty council estate and went to the local shitty comprehensive school. I wanted positive messages!!!

On top of all that I watched the Pistols "interview" with Bill Grundy when my parents were in the room and I almost died of embarrassment!

Then I started to like the music.

Didn't change my life particularly, though being (accidentally) headbutted under the heart during an Undertones gig certainly could have been life-changing.

[erwin]

punk rock changed our lives

My best mate at Poly (late 70s) was the first punk-rocker I knew (in the style of the Ramones rather than the Sex Pistols, although Ve Clash was his favourite band) ... and after we left he was the first of our group of friends to get married, have kids and settle down to a gentle, middle-class suburban life.

Generally speaking it passed me by, and only subsequently did I get to like the music a bit, though not fanatically.

[slackster]

punk rock changed our lives

Pretty much agree with that, Sir Reg.

Punk and New Wave were a big feature for teenage me, but changed nowt apart from maybe a vaguely punkish tinge to my soul boy dress sense.

It was actually disco music which was the game changer: it was a much more joyous source of regular fun and it was whilst throwing some dodgy shapes that I met significant others and, eventually, my wife.

[Incandenza]

punk rock changed our lives

Not sure I completely get or agree with everything in Flynnie's second post, but man, those lyrics. What a song. I love the Minutemen.

[Flynnie]

punk rock changed our lives

For a bunch of people who had no clue what I was pottering on about you sure spent a lot of time thinking and dissecting about what I was pottering on about.

I am not always too sure what I'm on about, because trying to analyze something like punk is damn hard to do. Are Talking Heads punk? How does Fear (Lee Ving, in character, would have called me a homo the second I bought up anything about emotion) fit in with more earnest, lefty bands who played weird jazz-punk like the Minutemen? Fear were probably the closest American band to that classic stereotypical British punk band, all anger and vitriol and nihilism. And then you have Joey Ramone practically singing torch songs on stage. And Suicide. And where does it start? MC5? The Stooges? The Kinks? My Generation? Earlier than that?

I'm grasping for some common threads that are uncommonly punk rather than just stuff that is applicable to virtually every rock movement ever. Obviously punk was not the first movement to, like, question authority, man. But it's up there among rock movements to have success as a way of thinking and doing - I mean, you don't really see people saying, "Yeah, I'm prog," or "Yeah, I'm psychedelia" (I suppose you have hippies for that, but I'm pretty sure my parents would have run screaming from Deep Purple's Playground). You do with rockabilly and metal, and metal is probably even bigger than punk, but then again metal has some links with right-wing politics I don't find terribly appealing.

I was trying to think of a punk ethos, and I am struggling for something I would sign off on. It's DIY, it's skepticism (at best) of authority, it's about youth, it's about trying to be a little bit different and it's about trying to express yourself while also being comfortable in your own skin. Maybe above all it's about tolerance and empathy and understanding wants and needs. There are people who would be more sanctimonious than that and think the Clash are sellouts for being part of CBS's portfolio, but I never liked those people, and personally I have never possessed a mohawk or a studded belt. The Clash were good at fashion, so more power to them, but I can't help but be impressed by Greg Ginn shredding in a Grateful Dead t-shirt (!!) or in a short sleeve collared shirt that must have come from Goodwill or worse a bank clerk.

[Bored Of Education]

punk rock changed our lives

There is an element of the DIY ethos that was brought widespread with punk that, in a lot of senses, paved the way for hip-hop. I mean bands were releasing their own singles and albums, promoting their own tours before but punk widened the idea of it. Also, there was the link with the "Here's three chords. Now start a band" as well.

I think that that probably is the single most defining factor about punk.

metal has some links with right-wing politics I don't find terribly appealing.

so has punk which I come against with depressing regularity.

[Renart]

punk rock changed our lives

Flynnie wrote:

For a bunch of people who had no clue what I was pottering on about you sure spent a lot of time thinking and dissecting about what I was pottering on about.

I am not always too sure what I'm on about, because trying to analyze something like punk is damn hard to do. Are Talking Heads punk? How does Fear (Lee Ving, in character, would have called me a homo the second I bought up anything about emotion) fit in with more earnest, lefty bands who played weird jazz-punk like the Minutemen? Fear were probably the closest American band to that classic stereotypical British punk band, all anger and vitriol and nihilism. And then you have Joey Ramone practically singing torch songs on stage. And Suicide. And where does it start? MC5? The Stooges? The Kinks? My Generation? Earlier than that?

I'm grasping for some common threads that are uncommonly punk rather than just stuff that is applicable to virtually every rock movement ever. Obviously punk was not the first movement to, like, question authority, man. But it's up there among rock movements to have success as a way of thinking and doing - I mean, you don't really see people saying, "Yeah, I'm prog," or "Yeah, I'm psychedelia" (I suppose you have hippies for that, but I'm pretty sure my parents would have run screaming from Deep Purple's Playground). You do with rockabilly and metal, and metal is probably even bigger than punk, but then again metal has some links with right-wing politics I don't find terribly appealing.

I was trying to think of a punk ethos, and I am struggling for something I would sign off on. It's DIY, it's skepticism (at best) of authority, it's about youth, it's about trying to be a little bit different and it's about trying to express yourself while also being comfortable in your own skin. Maybe above all it's about tolerance and empathy and understanding wants and needs. There are people who would be more sanctimonious than that and think the Clash are sellouts for being part of CBS's portfolio, but I never liked those people, and personally I have never possessed a mohawk or a studded belt. The Clash were good at fashion, so more power to them, but I can't help but be impressed by Greg Ginn shredding in a Grateful Dead t-shirt (!!) or in a short sleeve collared shirt that must have come from Goodwill or worse a bank clerk.

Yes, punk becomes hard to analyze because it refers both to a musical (and clothing) style and also an ethos. It's sort of like "soul" in that respect, with soul referring both to a specific kind of music as well as an intangible emotional quality in any music or art. Johnny Cash had soul, but he didn't sing soul. The Minutemen were punk, but their music wasn't (always).

Anyway, the punk ethos certainly changed my life as it made me realize you didn't have to accept what corporate America was dishing out. You could bypass it completely by listening to bands like the Minutemen, or even better, starting your own. It's of course possible to realize this without punk/indie rock, but that's what first taught it to me and my friends.)

As for metal's occasional right-wing dabbling, Dave Mustaine has just endorsed Rick Santorum!

[Incandenza]

punk rock changed our lives

Kelly Clarkson endorsed Ron Paul???

[Renart]

punk rock changed our lives

Yes. She wants her gold records to become more valuable.

[Incandenza]

punk rock changed our lives

Boom-tish!

[MsD]

punk rock changed our lives

It didn't change my life because it was already changed, or set on that course. It brought together various strands of the subculture we were part of, and gave it a name. I'm still hanging with many of the same people who were central to the scene in London 76/77, and have become closer to people who I saw around but didn't know well back in the day. For most of us, clubbing (and dancing and Dressing Up) came before and after punk, and is all part of the same thing. It was the late arrivals who were anti soul/disco/dance. We're still doing much the same things, liking the same things, probably saying much the same things, but then, that's what we like. So I guess we're "authentic", ha. Someone slap a preservation order on me. It's not like we haven't all travelled and done loads of mad and interesting stuff, but we keep going back to what we like and are generally on the same wavelength, whether we've spent time in LA or India or wherever.
Most of my original Sex/Seditionaries clothes died in action, but I've bought updated versions ... Some People still have a lot of their 76/77 clothes, I guess they had their mum put them on a hanger when they got home.

It's both weird and completely normal that there are coffee table books about what nearly got us killed 35 years ago.

No apologies from me for being first wave London-centric; other people have their own punk, but this was ours, the most distinctive, shocking and risky, and the most influential. And I'm deliberately talking about it as a whole package, not just the music. Anyone can like the music. Not everyone was brave enough to dive right in, way before it became acceptable to have dyed hair and piercings and fetish gear and be in college or most jobs. or even to walk down the street. That's why we hoighty-toighty now.

Actually .. it's a mixture of a lot of vindication (we knew we were right, but man, did we get shit) and being a little territorial. It does annoy me when I hear people pretend they were into it at the time, when I know just how relatively few really were, until it became "safe". Again, talking about London 77 type punk, not any other kind.

[Amor de Cosmos]

punk rock changed our lives

And where does it start? MC5? The Stooges? The Kinks? My Generation? Earlier than that?

In a different time and place for everyone. For me, Autumn 1965 at the Locarno ballroom, Stevenage, with Keith Moon kicking his drum kit over and Pete Townsend throwing his guitar at him. But I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to claim that was where it started.

Johnny Rivers describes see Elvis for the first time at a county fair in the South. This cat wearing a pink shirt and a guitar on a piece of string walks on stage, leers at the front row, swings his arm and breaks three strings. Not punk rock? I'd beg to differ.