CHAPTER 2 - MUSIC! With a Purpose.
The time is 1973, the place London, England or was it New York, New York, who knows, who cares, the fact is the world is a crap hole, the music of disco is bleeding our ears and rock n' roll has been taken over by hippies, pre-teens, and goons in corporate suits. There needs to be a change and it needs to happen now, the governments of the world are too caught up in stupidity to see the error of their ways, the industries of the world want to work us to death for a pittance and the religions of the world want us to pay and pray in order to find salvation. We need something new, something bold, we need ANARCHY!
The beginnings of the punk movement are rooted in what is termed the protopunk wave of the late 60s. Bands such as Velvet Underground, Patti Smith and MC5 were making music that instead of saying "we need peace and love" said, "we needed a revolution to change things and change it quickly". John Lennon's penning of the Beatles hit "Revolution" was widely thought to be in direct effect of his reading the "Communist Manifesto" by Engles & Marx, however, even though it did influence his decision to hang in certain circles, it was the things that people inside these circles were saying that lead to the lyrics. (That one's for free folks.)
The protopunks wanted change through removal of industrial workplaces, forceful removal of government officials and the tearing down of the 'love train' generation. Though many of these acts started out in the hippie movement, they realized that peaceful protest meant being ignored. The music that they played and the lyrics that they sang spoke volumes of rhetoric, but frankly was not all that well received by the public. It was not much different from the hippie ballads but, the lyrics were more depressing, therefore, most people ignored them. However, in the industrial centers of the Western world, the young people were listening, their families were scrapping by on the wages of their parents, their future was belittled by their teachers and instructors and they were generally ignored by their more affluent 'disco' loving yuppie scum.
The young wanted action, they wanted freedom, they wanted revenge! Punk wanted the world to know that rock n roll had lost its way and therefore, they were bound to point it back in the right direction. Rock n Roll of the early 70s included anything that wasn't classified in another genre, such as the Carpenters, Billy Joel and Simon and Garfunkel; also bands such as Chicago were trying to cross the disco and rock world in order to sell records. This was unacceptable, rock n' roll is noisy, rebellious, and gritty, the Carpenters were anything but. So where disco was polished, punk was raw, where rock n' roll was namby pamby, punk was in your face, where folk was about peace, punk was about anarchy and revolution through force, where these forms had designer drugs, punk had heroine, shot like their music, straight into the veins.
Often punk was performed by players that had something to say, but didn't really have a means to say it, so they chose music, often times, the performers had little or no experience on their instruments and it was with energy not musicianship that this message was driven home. The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Heartbreakers (not Tom Petty's band), Johnny Thunders and Blondie began performing in clubs in London and New York, especially CBGBs ripping their guitars and screaming for anarchy. However, as punk music espoused anarchy, so too did the bands cling to their own 'respective' styles of punk. The Ramones became movie stars with their coverage in "Rock and Roll High School", Blondie transitioned with the crossover hits "Heart of Glass" and "Call Me" into the discos and later helped to launched the rap revolution by releasing "Rapture", The Clash received mainstream radio airplay and the Sex Pistols received word of mouth street cred.
This varied way of 'doing business' led to the eventual takeover and absorption of punk into the New Wave music of the late 70s and early 80s, with former punkers becoming hard rockers (Joan Jett of the Runaways leading the Blackhearts up the charts), Disco Divas (the aforementioned Blondie), avante garde indie music acts (The Talking Heads), heavy metal guitar mavens (Lita Ford, also from the Runaways) and pop music queens (The Go-Gos). But even with the music gone, the message stayed and all through the 80s the message was clear, this isn't enough. By the time the end of the 80s arrived, the thrash and speed metal scene had absorbed the remaining punks and pushed their loud obnoxious music to the very edge of what they once were and beyond.
So what was it that made punk appealing, the message that we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore. Even when neutered by the very corporate stooges that they were thumbing their noses at, the message was there, this has to change, and the sooner the better. This attitude prevailed under the surface and eventually spawned another musical devolution, grunge.
And for those that want to know about 'modern punk', the term is actually incorrect, the Emo and Screamo wannabes of the modern era wouldn't know punk rock if bit them on their hairy...Hey, you can't do this, I will rise up against you, I will prevail, BOLLOX!