If you haven’t read them, these books are fascinating and essential reading on the punk/indie scene in the U.S.:
Please Kill Me: An Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain - Legs is the guy who siggested the word “punk” for the name of a magazine, which evolved into the overall name for the genre. He was there, and this book is totally inside.
Our Band Could be Your Life by Michael Azzerad - an super well-written, easy to read, fascinating look at key indie bands who shaped the scene leading up to Nirvana breaking through. Includes chapters on Black Flag, Minor Threat, Husker Du, Minutemen, Mission From Burma, etc…
Wire - Straddling punk and post-punk, I think this band is one of the most important, most innovate, most original rock bands ever. For more punky flavor, get “Pink Flag,” feature the punk classic “12XU.” For a little more post-punk (although it’ll probably still sound punky to most people) get “Chairs Missing.” Both amaaazing albums. They’ve also just released the hyper-manic Send, which is just a sonic assault of thunderous drums, and repetitive one- or two-chord progressions with a definite industrial tinge to it. Can’t believe these guys are still making albums that rock so hard and continue to sound like nothing they’ve ever done before.
Gang of Four - Also generally lopped into post-punk, but Entertainment is worth listening to, and if you enjoy Wire you might enjoy this as well.
Mission of Burma - “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver” and “Academy Fight Song” are two more punk standards for you.
If want some punky music with a little bit of estrogen in it, try The Slits or The Au Pairs.
If you want something recent and loud and in the original spirit, you may try: Turbunegro, Refused or The Hives.
And if you want to hear the greatest rock band of the late 80s-early 90s, please do yourself a favor and pick up The Pixies, preferably Doolittle.
I was speaking to a good friend of mine on the phone last night. She lives in Melbourne, Australia, and told me that next week she’s going to see Henry Rollins.
I expressed a relative lack of interest, as much of his spoken word stuff strikes me as self-indulgent crapola. However, she told me that he and the Rollins Band were going to be performing Black Flag songs, and apparently this is about the first time in 15 years or so that he’s doing this. Original Black Flag singer and Circle Jerks front man Keith Morris was apparently on the tour with him for the US leg, but i don’t think Morris is in Australia.
Has anyone else seen him on this current tour? What were the shows like?
One of the few “girl” bands I love (along with Throwing Muses and the previously mentioned X-Ray Spex). Even though they don’t sound similar to, say, the Sex Pistols or the Ramones, they were uberpunk in the sense that they truly stripped music down to its basics. Odd harmonies, thumping drums. Nice screechy violin as well.
Kudos, pulykamell on mentioning Wire. They’re quickly becoming my favorite punk band.
And nobody has mentioned Japanese heroes Guitar Wolf (kinda Ramonesy) or the seminal chaos of The Plasmatics? Think Wendy O Williams, think dynamite (literally) in the stage act…think power
I used to catch Rollins whenever he toured and his yearly spoken words back in the late 80’s/early 90’s at City Gardens (aka Shitty Garbage) in Trenton, NJ. He used to be really good, and the spoken words was packed every year. To me at least, he started to lose it in the early/mid 90’s. The first time he played a cop in a movie was damn amusing, but c’mon, how many times before that shtick runs thin? What was really depressing was that I caught an hour long public access cable commercial for one of his albums in the mid-90’s. Don’t know what he’s like live nowadays, but he used to be really good. Even when the material started to slip a bit, his stage presence made up for it.
Punkkid, huh. For some reason that seems sick and wrong.
But anyway punk music has exploded into so many different things, there’s noise rock, grunge, psychedelic postpunk, stoner rock (which actually has more influence from a more Black Sabbath-ish heavy metal) ETC.
But I would say to check out
Big Black (or any other Steve Albini groups, ie. Rapeman, Shellac)
Butthole Surfers
Cows
Scratch Acid
Jesus Lizard
all of which are bizarre mutations of punk.
oh yeah and since you’re evidently australian, try the Birthday Party.
As a fairly decent guide, I would say check out everything mentioned in Our Band Could be Your life. To save you the trouble this includes:
Black Flag
Minutemen
Mission of Burma
Minor Threat
Husker Du
Replacements
Sonic Youth
Butthole Surfers
Big Black
Dinosaur Jr.
Fugazi
Mudhoney
Beat Happening
