Hell yeah!
Jim Morrison Is arguably Proto-Goth…Alice Cooper, even more so.
What I admire is a local band that experiments and plays whatever they want. They aren’t worried about impressing a talent scout or selling out a club.
They are there to make great music. They take their music seriously and practice regularly. If you like it great! If not, then find another club.
That’s a punk attitude imho.
It sounds like you are talking about “rock” here, but “jazz” would be even better for this description.
(more on the Doors in a second)
Yeah, I do agree that it is a man-made label that is ill-suited to describe the real, amorphous, squishy things within the label. But, it’s the language we’ve got.
I don’t agree that the Cramps didn’t think of themselves as punks. They certainly challenged what Rockabilly was supposed to be, and where it should be played. I mean, they played a state mental hospital and apparently had a delightful time. Also, they had to notice they were on bills with other punk bands, playing for punks.
Oh yeah, totally Goth. Back when we called Goths D-Rockers, a bunch (like perhaps 10) showed up to a party at around 3am. One noticed the girl who was throwing the party had a copy of The Soft Parade. They put on side 2, and the group of D-Rockers knew every word of it.
Well, in ace’s defense, being one doesn’t preclude the other. Naked City is jazz as hell, and at least 6-7 other genres. I don’t think that you necessarily have to practice a lot to play punk, but being good and practicing doesn’t hurt. Not giving much of a fuck what others think about your music does help a lot.
If the definition doesn’t clarify whether it’s jazz or rock or punk then isn’t it possible that the definition could be honed down? Scientific method and all that. It gives a chance to get closer to what you mean and more importantly, reflect on why.
Practicing and being good were exactly what punk wasn’t. It was BS for sure. Steve Jones knew he had to get tight to be good. But you can’t ID punk as “practiced” when it goes against the whole reason it got started in the first place. This needs to be part of the meaning of punk.
Careful now, wouldn’t want to get… D’oh! :smack:
Again, NONE of the usual definitions of Punk really work.
The common definitions include:
“Punk is the return to simple, amateurish, energetic rock, after years of pompous, pretentious, overly complicated progressive rock.”
But as we’ve noted, a LOT of punk wasn’t simple at all. In their own ways, many were very “progressive.”
“Punk Was The Angry Response Of The Working Class to Margaret Thatcher.”
Except most leading English punks WEREN’T working class. Joe Strummer was a diplomat’s son who never worked a day in his life.
“Punk was raw, REAL music played with REAL emotion.”
Sid Vicious wasn’t a REAL musician. He was a fraud who couldn’t play the bass at all. Glen Matlock was the kind of sloppy, crude, amateurish but energetic bassist Vicious pretended to be.
Bottom line: the myth of Punk is mostly bullshit. There wasn’t any real movement and there’s no definition that truly covers even half the acts usually labeled as Punk.
I don’t find the definition you’re trying to push very useful at describing the genre, to be honest. For instance, this is nonsense:
You can decide that punk means “people that don’t practice” to you if you like, but you’re going to have to work pretty damn hard to convince me. If anything, it shows you buy into the image others place on the music and that you know little about the reality. I know that folks such as the Wright Brothers, Tony Lombardo and Billy Zoom practiced the hell out of their instruments, and their bands practiced just as much.
Yeah, I agree with most of this. That’s pretty much why I started the thread. But…
I disagree with this, mostly. I do think that the popular conception of punks as “musicians that couldn’t play” or “immature political musicians” are stupid and shortsighted definitions, much like the sterotypical definitions of “hippies”. But something certainly happened from the mid-70’s to the present, and we could probably arrive at a more useful definition.
Originally Posted by drad dog View Post
Practicing and being good were exactly what punk wasn’t. It was BS for sure. Steve Jones knew he had to get tight to be good. But you can’t ID punk as “practiced” when it goes against the whole reason it got started in the first place. This needs to be part of the meaning of punk.
I haven’t defined it and I’m not pushng a definition. Can you explain why my above is not true though?
Punk defined needs to be more than a projection. It’s about how it came to be. If you’re going to ignore that you’re just projecting your own needs onto it. “No that never happens! Not in rock talk!”
People who played loud fast music and practiced a lot, and we all love, and it’s great, and it’s precisely played etc etc. all happened before punk. It was called rock, and then it happened again and it was called psych, and then it happened again and it was called progressive/underground.
SO what’s so special about punk?
You just quoted yourself pushing that definition, thanks. I already explained why you’re wrong in my view. You haven’t presented anything defending your point of view other than to disparage my motivations with attacks that could just as easily be asked of yourself.
Because another group of people did it at another time, once again took it much further and called it punk. Pretending anyone who self identified with this movement inherently couldn’t play and that somehow was the point ignores evidence already presented. Myage and Beyond and Back aren’t easy to play, trust me.
Where did I define anything? Where did I push anything?
Who took it further and called it punk? Oh, your fave band.
The movement was based on “no virtuosos.” If you were a kid who was not in a band yet you could imagine that position for yourself. The kids who did that became the next punk bands, and they did it very much because of that.This is not an agenda I am pushing. Go read about it.
If you can’t distinguish punk from jazz, rock, psych, or prog, then you haven’t begun to even think about it. And you sure weren’t there.
You quoted yourself doing it. If you didn’t have a definition you were pushing, you wouldn’t be arguing, genius. Seriously, this is the stupidest position you’ve ever held on this board. Again, people can scroll back up and read what you posted, even if you weren’t so ham-handed to quote it when you deny it.
Examples already provided, and lots others can be sent your way as soon as you can be bothered to actually refute anything.
I don’t have to read about it. I actually was there, in punk bands. Why should I take the word of someone who pretends they were everywhere, yet hardly seems to only know the basic jist of the headlines? In short: What am I going to believe? You, or my lying ears and the examples I provide?
Since I was there, I can tell you that you didn’t have to be a virtuoso and be in a rock band of any stripe at the time, so that doesn’t make the punks that different. Hell you didn’t have to be a virtuoso to be in one before the punks, either. Similarly, being able to play incredibly well didn’t preclude you from being a punk. If you’d like be to just smother you with examples, fine. Bad Brains were absolutely punk rock, and not many folks wouldn’t call them virtuosos.
If you think there are hard lines between the styles you mention, you really don’t know much about music at all, and I’ll quit wasting my time with you.
You mentioned a number of things common to all of them and expect that to serve as a definition? It doesn’t
Just answer one thing I said adequately. Whats my def of it? How is it different from other forms?
Some people need ideas about punk to feel cool. What actually is isn’t the point.
In fact if all your saying is that what you like is punk and what you like is also technical so, ipso facto…something is punk, why are you asking anyone else?
This is the same argument as “what is rock” or “what is metal” or “what is (some musical subset further up the metal genre colon…)”
Practice? Why does practice distiinguish punk rock from other music, or any other art form?
I just got the word, man! Punk is when you never think about the 1 or the 4! Phew. Glad we got something done today.
Sure.
Now, I don’t know how else to address you that’s fit for this forum. If you have the slightest bit of imagination, you’ll know where to find further replies.
To me, punk is anything that thumbs its nose at, and is highly, deliciously, self-righteously, scornful of the conventional wisdom and traditions of the times. Punk is nihilistic and iconoclastic and irreverent.
In music…think the Sex Pistols; The Clash; early Lou Reed; the Ramones. More recently, Green Day could be considered punk…though just barely. Call it mellowed out West Coast Punk. LOL. I band my nephew was in, The Ataris, also were punky. In his own way, when he first came on the scene, Elvis might have had a bit of punk to him. Though he was before my time and I was never a huge fan. Billy Idol had a good dose of punkishness about him. Helped greatly by that lovely sneer of his. LOL
Punk is also when a band takes something once thought of as reverent and traditional and, yes, even beautiful, and trashes it up a bit.
Like here…
The really punk thing to do would be to not argue about the true meaning of punk, endlessly, forever.
Argue? “Endlessly?”
This was my first and only post on this topic.
Thanks for your well-thought comment, however.
And. FYI…it is VERY punk to argue and to irritate people.
Just sayin’.
[quote=“Lickety_Split, post:57, topic:666396”]
To me, punk is anything that thumbs its nose at, and is highly, deliciously, self-righteously, scornful of the conventional wisdom and traditions of the times. Punk is nihilistic and iconoclastic and irreverent.
In music…think the Sex Pistols; The Clash; early Lou Reed; the Ramones. More recently, Green Day could be considered punk…though just barely. Call it mellowed out West Coast Punk. LOL. I band my nephew was in, The Ataris, also were punky. In his own way, when he first came on the scene, Elvis might have had a bit of punk to him. Though he was before my time and I was never a huge fan. Billy Idol had a good dose of punkishness about him. Helped greatly by that lovely sneer of his. LOL
Punk is also when a band takes something once thought of as reverent and traditional and, yes, even beautiful, and trashes it up a bit.
Like here…
[/QUOTE]Ohhhh… Well In That Case, Remember when the Nice burned the US flag on stage at the Albert Hall?
Keith Emerson was a punk!!! (Duck- heads are exploding around us!)
This thread started four years ago