First Punk Band?

Electrophonic Tonic · 01-20-2017, 06:19 PM

I think between The Sonics, The Stooges, MC5 and VU, you can't really go wrong between them as who is the "first" punk band.

I think it gets more interesting if you go back to the early 60's and guys like Link Wray. Stuff like this sounds totally like punk. But, is Link Wray playing punk/proto punk, or is he just hanging on to the original sound from the 50's that he came from and we associate that sound with punk?

Psy-Fi · 01-20-2017, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Electrophonic Tonic

I think between The Sonics, The Stooges, MC5 and VU, you can't really go wrong between them as who is the "first" punk band.

I think it gets more interesting if you go back to the early 60's and guys like Link Wray. Stuff like this sounds totally like punk. But, is Link Wray playing punk/proto punk, or is he just hanging on to the original sound from the 50's that he came from and we associate that sound with punk?

I was just about to post this...

The Batlord · 01-20-2017, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Electrophonic Tonic

I think between The Sonics, The Stooges, MC5 and VU, you can't really go wrong between them as who is the "first" punk band.

I think it gets more interesting if you go back to the early 60's and guys like Link Wray. Stuff like this sounds totally like punk. But, is Link Wray playing punk/proto punk, or is he just hanging on to the original sound from the 50's that he came from and we associate that sound with punk?

Is it just me or is that "Penetration" from the Stooges?

Neapolitan · 01-20-2017, 06:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elphenor

Would you say that, maybe, punk is also a broad term

Broad in the same sense that indie doesn't necessarily define one particular sound or style. Garage was used as not-as-popular, or not-as-mainstream as bands that were on top of the charts, and had sell out concert. There is a list of names they used to indicate something other than just mainstream: Prat Rock, Garage Rock, Underground, Experimental, Punk, College, Alternative/Alt, indie etc. Sometimes a band might have one foot in mainstream and the other foot in obscurity, like one hit wonders. Sometimes a genre like Punk could include both pop bands and underground bands.

Quote:

Originally Posted by elphenor

I mean you're not gonna tell me with a straight face that there wasn't surf rock influence in Ramones for instance

I don't where you got that from. I said Garage was more that just Rockabilly. I didn't say anything about the Ramones.

Quote:

Originally Posted by elphenor

And garage rock was used for American bands too

I said that they were bands that weren't big as the "British Invasion" bands, I didn't say they only came from Britain. Honestly, I don't know why I bother sometimes.

Got Live if You Like It

They say that a band usually speeds up the tempo when they play live, faster that whats on an album. The Rolling Stones are no exemption. They had a very fast and energetic sound when they played live. "Got Live if You Like It" is good proof. I am not saying their sound is Punk, but they show they had some element that shows up in Punk.

EPOCH6 · 01-20-2017, 07:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Electrophonic Tonic

I think it gets more interesting if you go back to the early 60's and guys like Link Wray. Stuff like this sounds totally like punk. But, is Link Wray playing punk/proto punk, or is he just hanging on to the original sound from the 50's that he came from and we associate that sound with punk?

Could call it proto-punk but really it's just Link Wray playing a typical surf rock 12-bar harder, faster, and with more distortion.

Bands like The Stooges and MC5 broke into new territory by disassembling the traditional 12 bars and boogies and just playing chunks of them over and over again while going ballistic on their instruments. Without a major change to the music you don't have a new genre, you just have the same genre played harder. In the case of punk it wasn't so much a "change", it was more like a removal of certain elements, simplifying it, telling everybody to go **** themselves, and then setting the music on fire.

EPOCH6 · 01-20-2017, 08:45 PM

Never played punk with an E major shape before, actually sounds great, thanks for that.

William_the_Bloody · 01-20-2017, 10:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lovedreams

What do you consider the first punk band and why?

This stupid argument again. The first punk band of course is the Sex Pistols. They are the reason the whole genre got labelled punk in the first place. The term may have been used in obscurity before the Pistols, but it was Caroline Coon's use of the term punk to describe the British scene, that got picked up by the media and turned into a widespread phenomenon.

The Sonics, MC5, Death and all that 60's so called proto punk is not punk, its psychedelic garage rock. The closest thing was Iggy and the Stooges, and they were still a drugged out hippy garage rock band. No one in 68 was walking around saying "hey lets form a punk band."

I suppose you could argue that the Ramones were the first punk band in sound, but again without the Pistols the New York scene would have been nothing but a few art school college kids with limited impact (Blondie Aside)

The Pistols brought the nihilistic sound, attitude and look, and the politics and violence that attracted millions of imitators in the UK and the US to form bands like Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, Misfits, Discharge, The Exploited, Green Day, Offspring ect, ect. Without the 70's there would have been no 80's, without the 80's no 90's.

Anyways punk is irrelevant now. It was a youth culture movement that existed when big urban centers like London and New York had large inhabitants of urban white kids running around, rebelling against arena rock. Try finding that today. Grime and hip hop are the punk of today, punk is dead, no more, get with the times.

Chula Vista · 01-20-2017, 10:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by William_the_Bloody

This stupid argument again. The first punk band of course is the Sex Pistols. They are the reason the whole genre got labelled punk in the first place. The term may have been used in obscurity before the Pistols, but it was Caroline Coon's use of the term punk to describe the British scene, that got picked up by the media and turned into a widespread phenomenon.

The Sonics, MC5, Death and all that 60's so called proto punk is not punk, its psychedelic garage rock. The closest thing was Iggy and the Stooges, and they were still a drugged out hippy garage rock band. No one in 68 was walking around saying "hey lets form a punk band."

I suppose you could argue that the Ramones were the first punk band in sound, but again without the Pistols the New York scene would have been nothing but a few art school college kids with limited impact (Blondie Aside)

The Pistols brought the nihilistic sound, attitude and look, and the politics and violence that attracted millions of imitators in the UK and the US to form bands like Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, Misfits, Discharge, The Exploited, Green Day, Offspring ect, ect. Without the 70's there would have been no 80's, without the 80's no 90's.

Anyways punk is irrelevant now. It was a youth culture movement that existed when big urban centers like London and New York had large inhabitants of urban white kids running around, rebelling against arena rock. Try finding that today. Grime and hip hop are the punk of today, punk is dead, no more, get with the times.

Tristan_Geoff · 01-20-2017, 11:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chula Vista

Lol don't tell me you're into the whole punk is dead rhetoric.

Tristan_Geoff · 01-20-2017, 11:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elphenor

Was the question which punk band was the first to sell a lot of records because then you're totally right

You've finally won me over elphenor. Get the **** on my friends list.

01-20-2017, 06:19 PM	#51 (permalink)
Electrophonic Tonic Your Ad Here Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: The Twilight Zone Posts: 876	I think between The Sonics, The Stooges, MC5 and VU, you can't really go wrong between them as who is the "first" punk band. I think it gets more interesting if you go back to the early 60's and guys like Link Wray. Stuff like this sounds totally like punk. But, is Link Wray playing punk/proto punk, or is he just hanging on to the original sound from the 50's that he came from and we associate that sound with punk?