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What is your favourite GG Allin song? Personally I like "Bite It You Scum", "Needle Up My cock", and particularly the catchy "I Kill Everything I Fuck" for its awesome refrain of "I'm infected with AIDS...I fuck every day....I....kill everything I fuck" and sweet riffs.

I know that GG is an easy target for dismissal for having been a musical joke, but all piss-taking aside, he has some great songs. For example, "Sitting In This Room" is a very slow, sad insight into a man's depression and has a very strong "Dead Flowers" vibe to it.

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Oh boy. Here is this great 'PUNK RAWKER" and people claim to love his music,yet he is best known for eating shit and then throwing it at the audience. Wow, how punk! What a great gimmick-shitting on stage then throwing it at your audience :rolleyes:

You like wrestling. Enough said.

On-topic: I find him really interesting. If you see beyond his image and his lyrics, his music is definitely very decent punk rock. Like "Watch Me Kill", for instance. And who can dislike his cover of "Carmelita"?

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Guest Len B'stard

My favorite GG tracks

Carmelita -

blowjobs -

(this songs actually amazing insanely catchy, i always wanted to learn play it on guitar)

bite it you scum -

die when you die - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVTHwltTalY

scum my ass it smells (i cant believe this ones even a fucking song...all 23 seconds of it, this ones great on comic value alone) http://www.youtube.com/watchv=KKs94E10pUc&feature=PlayList&p=E78968CE367A4402&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=3

Expose Yourself to Kids -

Hanging Out With Jim -

Cunt Sucking Cannibal - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2_pgRbXEr0

Sleeping In My Piss - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXHgEv4fHKQ

2, 3 and 4 are actually respectable (best word i can think of :lol:) three chord punk songs and at least blowjobs is catchy as fuck, gonna be singing that all day night now :lol: His voice is a fairly decent sorta sneer on it too instead of the whiskey damaged bark it ended up being.

Edited by sugaraylen
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Guest deleted_19765

And who can dislike his cover of "Carmelita"?

*Raises hand*

What is there to like about it? Its the original with a grainy accordion and incompetent vocals. This is a good version of the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rky1XdRnHYI

With much respect to fans of the genre, and especially sugaraylen who I respect immensely, I would rather listen to just about anything other than most Punk. The Clash and The Damned are the only early Punk bands I have any respect for. They were actually musicians who took their instruments and the execution of their art seriously. The rest seems to me to be about "How many cool and different ways can I sound like shit?" Punk might have been necessary for political reasons in the music industry at the time, but that isn't what I listen to music for. I don't think there's anything appealing about blatant musical incompetence and desperate attempts at bad taste.

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Guest deleted_19765

There's plenty of good Punk bands. The Damned, Sex Pistols, Richard Hell & The Voidoids, The Clash, Ramones, The Dead Boys, The Dictators, and Dead Kennedys are all great.

All of these are above par within Punk, and I've listened to them all a bit, but it still holds that I have never been intent on listening to them for any prolonged period and probably never will be. Once again, I'm not saying its all bad, but most of it just isn't good or better than much else.

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And who can dislike his cover of "Carmelita"?

*Raises hand*

What is there to like about it? Its the original with a grainy accordion and incompetent vocals. This is a good version of the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rky1XdRnHYI

With much respect to fans of the genre, and especially sugaraylen who I respect immensely, I would rather listen to just about anything other than most Punk. The Clash and The Damned are the only early Punk bands I have any respect for. They were actually musicians who took their instruments and the execution of their art seriously. The rest seems to me to be about "How many cool and different ways can I sound like shit?" Punk might have been necessary for political reasons in the music industry at the time, but that isn't what I listen to music for. I don't think there's anything appealing about blatant musical incompetence and desperate attempts at bad taste.

Musically there's nothing special about it, but it has always seemed like a personal statement to me, and that's what really shines through.

As for what you wrote about punk rock - I agree about the guys playing like shit as an image-thing. Personally, I see punk as a movement that took what, say, Elvis did one step further; the whole "fuck you, I don't care" deal, which was, or has become, one of the fundamental parts of rock music. But I can definitely see how some people don't like that.

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Guest Len B'stard
With much respect to fans of the genre, and especially sugaraylen who I respect immensely, I would rather listen to just about anything other than most Punk. The Clash and The Damned are the only early Punk bands I have any respect for. They were actually musicians who took their instruments and the execution of their art seriously. The rest seems to me to be about "How many cool and different ways can I sound like shit?" Punk might have been necessary for political reasons in the music industry at the time, but that isn't what I listen to music for. I don't think there's anything appealing about blatant musical incompetence and desperate attempts at bad taste.

I actually sort of agree with you...sort of. A lot of what gets called punk misses what i've come to understand as the point of punk, i always thought punk was the spirit of invention...stuff being just...different. I never understood punk to exclusively be mohawks and leather jackets and chasing three chords to the end of a song as quickly as possible. Sonic Youth, Joy Division, The Slits, PiL, a lot of the sort of puritanical punk that came about as a result of Americas interpreting of punk and i think there's a lot to be said for the sort of concise razor sharp disciplined and pointed and purposeful music of bands like Minor Threat and all these hardcore punk bands.

Just anything that fresh, thats inventive, that doesn't give a fuck and does its thing and does it differently and isn't afraid to mix it, thats punk as i understand it and under that definition a lot of things qualify that perhaps don't fit preconcieved notions of what we're told punk is. I think thats why punk and reggae and even hip hop kinda overlapped early on because they all came from a similar place originally. Iggy Pop, there ya go, thats punk...look at that fuckin Preliminaries album, now where the fuck did that come from?!?! :):)

What has been come to be accepted as punk (i.e. three chords, verse chorus verse, fast playing), it takes a very exceptional band (The Ramones for instance) to make a noteworthy career of all of that and thats only because that was THEIR thing, as for the rest of us, i think that stuff gets tired within a couple of albums and if you don't move forward you die, nature has a way of seperating the wheat from the chaff in that respect because a lot of the bands that made such a mass movement of punk fell to the wayside and i think part of the reason for that is that they didn't have a lot else to say aside from the whole three chords verse chorus verse thing...and good for them, it can be a very definitive and very seminal statement if done right like say The Sex Pistols did. I don't think they really had anything else in them as a unit...and they didn't need to have anything else, they SHOULD'VE broken up when they did, if not how they did.

Edited by sugaraylen
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With much respect to fans of the genre, and especially sugaraylen who I respect immensely, I would rather listen to just about anything other than most Punk. The Clash and The Damned are the only early Punk bands I have any respect for. They were actually musicians who took their instruments and the execution of their art seriously. The rest seems to me to be about "How many cool and different ways can I sound like shit?" Punk might have been necessary for political reasons in the music industry at the time, but that isn't what I listen to music for. I don't think there's anything appealing about blatant musical incompetence and desperate attempts at bad taste.

I actually sort of agree with you...sort of. A lot of what gets called punk misses what i've come to understand as the point of punk, i always thought punk was the spirit of invention...stuff being just...different. I never understood punk to exclusively be mohawks and leather jackets and chasing three chords to the end of a song as quickly as possible. Sonic Youth, Joy Division, The Slits, PiL, a lot of the sort of puritanical punk that came about as a result of Americas interpreting of punk and i think there's a lot to be said for the sort of concise razor sharp disciplined and pointed and purposeful music of bands like Minor Threat and all these hardcore punk bands.

Just anything that fresh, thats inventive, that doesn't give a fuck and does its thing and does it differently and isn't afraid to mix it, thats punk as i understand it and under that definition a lot of things qualify that perhaps don't fit preconcieved notions of what we're told punk is. I think thats why punk and reggae and even hip hop kinda overlapped early on because they all came from a similar place originally. Iggy Pop, there ya go, thats punk...look at that fuckin Preliminaries album, now where the fuck did that come from?!?! :):)

What has been come to be accepted as punk (i.e. three chords, verse chorus verse, fast playing), it takes a very exceptional band (The Ramones for instance) to make a noteworthy career of all of that and thats only because that was THEIR thing, as for the rest of us, i think that stuff gets tired within a couple of albums and if you don't move forward you die, nature has a way of seperating the wheat from the chaff in that respect because a lot of the bands that made such a mass movement of punk fell to the wayside and i think part of the reason for that is that they didn't have a lot else to say aside from the whole three chords verse chorus verse thing...and good for them, it can be a very definitive and very seminal statement if done right like say The Sex Pistols did. I don't think they really had anything else in them as a unit...and they didn't need to have anything else, they SHOULD'VE broken up when they did, if not how they did.

Bingo. People have always had these miconceptions about what Punk is and isn't. Totally agreed with what you just said.

Punk Rock means freedom ;)

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Guest deleted_19765
With much respect to fans of the genre, and especially sugaraylen who I respect immensely, I would rather listen to just about anything other than most Punk. The Clash and The Damned are the only early Punk bands I have any respect for. They were actually musicians who took their instruments and the execution of their art seriously. The rest seems to me to be about "How many cool and different ways can I sound like shit?" Punk might have been necessary for political reasons in the music industry at the time, but that isn't what I listen to music for. I don't think there's anything appealing about blatant musical incompetence and desperate attempts at bad taste.

I actually sort of agree with you...sort of. A lot of what gets called punk misses what i've come to understand as the point of punk, i always thought punk was the spirit of invention...stuff being just...different. I never understood punk to exclusively be mohawks and leather jackets and chasing three chords to the end of a song as quickly as possible. Sonic Youth, Joy Division, The Slits, PiL, a lot of the sort of puritanical punk that came about as a result of Americas interpreting of punk and i think there's a lot to be said for the sort of concise razor sharp disciplined and pointed and purposeful music of bands like Minor Threat and all these hardcore punk bands.

Just anything that fresh, thats inventive, that doesn't give a fuck and does its thing and does it differently and isn't afraid to mix it, thats punk as i understand it and under that definition a lot of things qualify that perhaps don't fit preconcieved notions of what we're told punk is. I think thats why punk and reggae and even hip hop kinda overlapped early on because they all came from a similar place originally. Iggy Pop, there ya go, thats punk...look at that fuckin Preliminaries album, now where the fuck did that come from?!?! :):)

What has been come to be accepted as punk (i.e. three chords, verse chorus verse, fast playing), it takes a very exceptional band (The Ramones for instance) to make a noteworthy career of all of that and thats only because that was THEIR thing, as for the rest of us, i think that stuff gets tired within a couple of albums and if you don't move forward you die, nature has a way of seperating the wheat from the chaff in that respect because a lot of the bands that made such a mass movement of punk fell to the wayside and i think part of the reason for that is that they didn't have a lot else to say aside from the whole three chords verse chorus verse thing...and good for them, it can be a very definitive and very seminal statement if done right like say The Sex Pistols did. I don't think they really had anything else in them as a unit...and they didn't need to have anything else, they SHOULD'VE broken up when they did, if not how they did.

Bingo. People have always had these miconceptions about what Punk is and isn't. Totally agreed with what you just said.

Punk Rock means freedom ;)

But what does any of that have to do with Punk? Music will always rebel and reinvent and fly off in new directions. Valorizing Punk instead of any other genre doesn't make sense. Weren't the 60s generation of bands (hated by the punks) responsible for giving a similar jolt to music, for providing freedom through invention?

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Music will always rebel and reinvent and fly off in new directions. Valorizing Punk instead of any other genre doesn't make sense. Weren't the 60s generation of bands (hated by the punks) responsible for giving a similar jolt to music, for providing freedom through invention?

Spot on about the 60's bands (well...some of them anyway).

I've always said that the hippies were punks of their era...and on some levels moreso.

The hippies took it to the streets man,they lived their politics....and got their heads beat in for it at every turn.

The Peace thing was a surface ruse...there was a lot more intense underground than that going on.

Being a longhair in 65 was no easier than having spiked hair in 76.

It was a dangerous way to conduct one's life.

Ahhhh but therein lies part of the atrraction.It made you feel alive.

Some people just can not live their lives within the prescribed parameters,it's against the very fibre of their being.

Styx and Supertramp were not cutting it.

Artistic bent was guaged by your comparable (or lack thereof) skills of the likes of Jimmy Page and the other gods on high.

Well,that didn't fly for everyone.

The notion that punk was born out of political need of the era is only partially true.

As I've said it before,punk was rock and roll stripped down to the bare bones.

It was about Gene Vincent simplicity and street corner reckless nothingness.

It wasn't for the masses,it was for the bored and disaffected,and for those with their finger on the pulse of something new and worthy on the horizon.

And most importantly...it was about participation.

No exclusivity,no barometers of technical proficiency.

It was our beat poet coffee house moment with a snarl and a beatup guitar.

And I personally I see nothing wrong with that,in fact,to this day,it was one of the most powerful movements in music I've ever been involved in.

I love my rock and roll but punk holds a high place of honour in my life...always will.

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Music will always rebel and reinvent and fly off in new directions. Valorizing Punk instead of any other genre doesn't make sense. Weren't the 60s generation of bands (hated by the punks) responsible for giving a similar jolt to music, for providing freedom through invention?

Spot on about the 60's bands (well...some of them anyway).

I've always said that the hippies were punks of their era...and on some levels moreso.

The hippies took it to the streets man,they lived their politics....and got their heads beat in for it at every turn.

The Peace thing was a surface ruse...there was a lot more intense underground than that going on.

Being a longhair in 65 was no easier than having spiked hair in 76.

It was a dangerous way to conduct one's life.

Ahhhh but therein lies part of the atrraction.It made you feel alive.

Some people just can not live their lives within the prescribed parameters,it's against the very fibre of their being.

Styx and Supertramp were not cutting it.

Artistic bent was guaged by your comparable (or lack thereof) skills of the likes of Jimmy Page and the other gods on high.

Well,that didn't fly for everyone.

The notion that punk was born out of political need of the era is only partially true.

As I've said it before,punk was rock and roll stripped down to the bare bones.

It was about Gene Vincent simplicity and street corner reckless nothingness.

It wasn't for the masses,it was for the bored and disaffected,and for those with their finger on the pulse of something new and worthy on the horizon.

And most importantly...it was about participation.

No exclusivity,no barometers of technical proficiency.

It was our beat poet coffee house moment with a snarl and a beatup guitar.

And I personally I see nothing wrong with that,in fact,to this day,it was one of the most powerful movements in music I've ever been involved in.

I love my rock and roll but punk holds a high place of honour in my life...always will.

heres a very strange and sad video of GG, just listen to what he says in the last 15 seconds of it, very spooky makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up

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Guest Len B'stard
But what does any of that have to do with Punk?

Its a little less specific than that and more to do with the inate similarity of all of these movements.

And as for why valorize punk well...perhaps because its fresher in the memory than the first wave of rock n roll, perhaps because it was more stark and drastic, perhaps because some percieve it to be, to date, the purest distillation of the rebel spirit, perhaps because of a lot of editorial hindsight that paints it as more of an explosion than original rock n roll which kinda grew and grew and grew and got huge and then kinda spluttered and then british invasion and etc etc whereas punk is easy to sell as this explosive thing that came and it happened and it went bang and then it was gone, perhaps because it gave birth to the first true organised sub culture in the music industry and in contemporary society for disenfranchised people to latch onto, perhaps because, unlike rock n roll, it could never quite be palletable without seriously distorting it whereas some pretty pure forms of original rock n roll (Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley etc) really got an airing in their day, perhaps because of the range of its impact and how much it REALLY REALLY effected attitudes and fashion and filmmaking and awareness in a way thats only really comparable to the hippie movement.

I think one of its first and most lasting positive effects is the independent record label thing, which i think punk is almost singularly responsible for, creating proper underground scenes and creating your own thing thats specific to you and yours as opposed to wanting to be part of something that already exists. Thats a helluva thing y'know, offering people the oppertunity to create their own identity and moreover a community based on that identity. The hippy thing kinda robbed that from people with the whole all in together now idea, whereas with punk it was like OK, you're London, you're New York, you're Boston, you're DC etc etc and ends met but each place and its set of bands had this kinda identity that their respective audiences could identify with and claim as their own (and it was).

Also, despite the people who kinda missed the point, the sheer range of types of bands that can exist under the punk banner and rightfully claim to be punk makes it so more people can identify with it.

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Guest deleted_19765
But what does any of that have to do with Punk?

Its a little less specific than that and more to do with the inate similarity of all of these movements.

And as for why valorize punk well...perhaps because its fresher in the memory than the first wave of rock n roll, perhaps because it was more stark and drastic, perhaps because some percieve it to be, to date, the purest distillation of the rebel spirit, perhaps because of a lot of editorial hindsight that paints it as more of an explosion than original rock n roll which kinda grew and grew and grew and got huge and then kinda spluttered and then british invasion and etc etc whereas punk is easy to sell as this explosive thing that came and it happened and it went bang and then it was gone, perhaps because it gave birth to the first true organised sub culture in the music industry and in contemporary society for disenfranchised people to latch onto, perhaps because, unlike rock n roll, it could never quite be palletable without seriously distorting it whereas some pretty pure forms of original rock n roll (Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley etc) really got an airing in their day, perhaps because of the range of its impact and how much it REALLY REALLY effected attitudes and fashion and filmmaking and awareness in a way thats only really comparable to the hippie movement.

I think one of its first and most lasting positive effects is the independent record label thing, which i think punk is almost singularly responsible for, creating proper underground scenes and creating your own thing thats specific to you and yours as opposed to wanting to be part of something that already exists. Thats a helluva thing y'know, offering people the oppertunity to create their own identity and moreover a community based on that identity. The hippy thing kinda robbed that from people with the whole all in together now idea, whereas with punk it was like OK, you're London, you're New York, you're Boston, you're DC etc etc and ends met but each place and its set of bands had this kinda identity that their respective audiences could identify with and claim as their own (and it was).

Also, despite the people who kinda missed the point, the sheer range of types of bands that can exist under the punk banner and rightfully claim to be punk makes it so more people can identify with it.

That all makes sense, and I have to admit that independent labels and a resurgence of the local were good for music. I think that my lack of appreciation for Punk stems from three factors:

1. I quite simply don't like the music. What motive do I have to attach any more importance to it? When presented with the "innate similarities" that Punk shares with prior and latter movements, it seems most appropriate to devalue Punk as a consequence. "There is nothing new under the sun" says the Bible and I think that one is more or less true. The envelope needs to be pushed and Punk stepped up at one time, but it wasn't the only time and in my opinion, this one time shows itself to have been more about image and ideology than good music. Whether it is good music or not is everything, and I have no choice but to trust my own opinion on that.

2. I am more of a musical conservative. I like Pop and professionalism and I want to hear the best doing their best. The apparently stale music leading up to Punk is more interesting and enduring to me. Great musicians make great music, and that doesn't have to involve a loss of creative energy at all. I also like music that is in touch with its roots. I don't mind hearing old songs again and again and I like to hear the blues in almost everything. That's why I like Country and Classic Rock better than Punk. I don't think its disputed that Punk beat Blues pretty well out of contemporary Rock music, and that is pretty unforgivable as well. Maybe I'm now making the same point as the last? But this should make it clearer anyway.

3. I can't say that I appreciate entirely the political effects of Punk on the music industry. I think that "D.Y.I" and "do it for the music!" ideas have poisoned the business for working musicians who are expected to "love" their craft so much that they play for free everywhere. In the 60s a band could play a dance hall for $1000 a man for a whole summer. There is no work like that anymore. Now, this gig has four or five acts playing 40 minute sets with no pay. This is not a favorable model for professional musicians and I think it began with Punk.

Edited by AgainstAllOdds
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I thought the guy was pretty talented, but after jail and making the talk show rounds, the shows were basically the punk rock Gallagher, living up to the hype and constantly getting himself in trouble... but just a complete waste... had he made it through and given up the "performance art" stuff and moved past playing punk, he might have had some success as an Outlaw Country artist.

Hank III covering PFF -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtv7XK2AB9o

Wonder if Zevon and GG did this one together on the other side:

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Guest Len B'stard
1. I quite simply don't like the music. What motive do I have to attach any more importance to it? When presented with the "innate similarities" that Punk shares with prior and latter movements, it seems most appropriate to devalue Punk as a consequence. "There is nothing new under the sun" says the Bible and I think that one is more or less true. The envelope needs to be pushed and Punk stepped up at one time, but it wasn't the only time and in my opinion, this one time shows itself to have been more about image and ideology than good music. Whether it is good music or not is everything, and I have no choice but to trust my own opinion on that.

Fair dues on that point :)

2. I am more of a musical conservative. I like Pop and professionalism and I want to hear the best doing their best. The apparently stale music leading up to Punk is more interesting and enduring to me. Great musicians make great music, and that doesn't have to involve a loss of creative energy at all. I also like music that is in touch with its roots. I don't mind hearing old songs again and again and I like to hear the blues in almost everything. That's why I like Country and Classic Rock better than Punk. I don't think its disputed that Punk beat Blues pretty well out of contemporary Rock music, and that is pretty unforgivable as well. Maybe I'm now making the same point as the last? But this should make it clearer anyway.

I think pop and professionalism is a great part of punk, a huge part of it, its just the craft stripped to its basics and, in the case of the real good shit, the craft perfected. Fair point about beating the Blues out of contemporary music, i agree it pretty much did that musically, yeah but at the same time, punk has a lot of thematic similarities with Blues...a whole shitload, the blues was (to some degree) about lament and the excorcism of all the shittiness through music although i understand that i'm sort of straying from the point there because i'm pretty sure you meant it beat the musical elements of the blues from contemporary music. The craft end of the blues was a very organic thing though, it kind of just came to be, no one can really tell you who invented the 12 bar blues, the content was in what the music was utilised to express i.e. the subject matter which is very similar to a lot of what punk did/spoke about.

3. I can't say that I appreciate entirely the political effects of Punk on the music industry. I think that "D.Y.I" and "do it for the music!" ideas have poisoned the business for working musicians who are expected to "love" their craft so much that they play for free everywhere. In the 60s a band could play a dance hall for $1000 a man for a whole summer. There is no work like that anymore. Now, this gig has four or five acts playing 40 minute sets with no pay. This is not a favorable model for professional musicians and I think it began with Punk.

I recall you saying this before actually and although i have no experience in the field you make a really decent point there.

Edited by sugaraylen
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Music will always rebel and reinvent and fly off in new directions. Valorizing Punk instead of any other genre doesn't make sense. Weren't the 60s generation of bands (hated by the punks) responsible for giving a similar jolt to music, for providing freedom through invention?

Spot on about the 60's bands (well...some of them anyway).

I've always said that the hippies were punks of their era...and on some levels moreso.

The hippies took it to the streets man,they lived their politics....and got their heads beat in for it at every turn.

The Peace thing was a surface ruse...there was a lot more intense underground than that going on.

Being a longhair in 65 was no easier than having spiked hair in 76.

It was a dangerous way to conduct one's life.

Ahhhh but therein lies part of the atrraction.It made you feel alive.

Some people just can not live their lives within the prescribed parameters,it's against the very fibre of their being.

Styx and Supertramp were not cutting it.

Artistic bent was guaged by your comparable (or lack thereof) skills of the likes of Jimmy Page and the other gods on high.

Well,that didn't fly for everyone.

The notion that punk was born out of political need of the era is only partially true.

As I've said it before,punk was rock and roll stripped down to the bare bones.

It was about Gene Vincent simplicity and street corner reckless nothingness.

It wasn't for the masses,it was for the bored and disaffected,and for those with their finger on the pulse of something new and worthy on the horizon.

And most importantly...it was about participation.

No exclusivity,no barometers of technical proficiency.

It was our beat poet coffee house moment with a snarl and a beatup guitar.

And I personally I see nothing wrong with that,in fact,to this day,it was one of the most powerful movements in music I've ever been involved in.

I love my rock and roll but punk holds a high place of honour in my life...always will.

The hippies led to punk rock? Most of them were just college kids trying to avoid the draft.

There was way more going on, like Martin Luther King talking against Vietnam, and the gov't was concerned there would be a black revolution... that also meant less bodies to send to 'Nam, coincidence that there was a heroin epidemic in the ghettos at the end of the 60s? There was just overall mistrust in the US government when Nixon was busted for Watergate. And people were listening to Bread and James Taylor around that time...

Music brought people together, but face it, it didn't end the war. It might have helped speed the end up a bit.

England wasn't dealing with war, they were dealing with rising unemployment and high taxes (watch the Clockwork Orange documentary on the DVD, it also goes into what was going on at the time)and you can see why kids gravitated towards punk as the 70s wore on, and more crap was being shown on TOTPs.

Don Letts made a great documentary about the history of punk rock, and he names all the influences and why they matter.

Punk rock didn't make a dent in the US, it was seen as cartoonish, but what came in the late 70s and early 80s is another story. The bands like Styx, Supertramp, Fleetwood Mac (who people forget are really a British rock band) did fine in America.

In England, punk rock was taken a lot more seriously, but it was because things really sucked at the time, unemployment was super high, and the establishment was scared of the kids starting a riot. That's why "Clockwork Orange" was banned in England for 20 years.

But as much as the Ramones touring the UK had set a spark, Springsteen's first show in England is probably just as important, and without a doubt, David Bowie is at the heart of it. He produced the Stooges and Lou Reed, and that led to a lot of British kids getting into the Velvet Underground and Iggy Pop...

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