Click here to know about: PUNK ROCK, HARDCORE, PSYCHOBILLY, MOD AND KRAUTROCK.

Punk rock (or simply "punk") is a rock music genre that developed in the early to mid-1970s in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in 1960s garage rock and other forms of what is now known as "proto-punk" music, punk rock bands rejected perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock. Punk bands typically produced short or fast-paced songs, with hard-edged melodies and singing styles, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a DIY ethic; many bands self-produce recordings and distribute them through informal channels.

The term "punk" was first used in relation to rock music by some American critics in the early 1970s, to describe garage bands and their devotees.

 By late 1976, bands such as the New York Dolls, Television, and the Ramones in New York City, and the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Damned in London were recognized as the vanguard of a new musical movement.

 The following year saw punk rock spreading around the world, and it became a major cultural phenomenon in the United Kingdom. For the most part, punk took root in local scenes that tended to reject association with the mainstream. An associated punk subculture emerged, expressing youthful rebellion and characterized by distinctive styles of clothing and adornment (ranging from deliberately offensive T-shirts, leather jackets, spike bands and other studded or spiked jewelry to bondage and S&M clothes) and a variety of anti-authoritarian ideologies.

By the beginning of the 1980s, faster, more aggressive styles such as hardcore (e.g. Black Flag) and street punk (e.g. the Exploited) had become the predominant mode of punk rock. Musicians identifying with or inspired by punk also pursued a broad range of other variations, giving rise to post-punk and the alternative rock movement. At the end of the 20th century, punk rock had been adopted by the mainstream, as pop punk and punk rock bands such as Green Day, the Offspring and Blink-182 brought the genre widespread popularity.

Characteristics

Two UK punks in the 1980s

The punk subculture, which centres on punk rock music, includes a diverse array of ideologies, fashions and forms of expression, including visual art, dance, literature and film. The subculture is largely characterized by anti-establishment views and the promotion of individual freedom. The punk subculture is centered on a loud, aggressive genre of rock music called punk rock. It is usually played by small bands consisting of a vocalist, one or two electric guitarists, an electric bassist, and a drummer.
Punk politics cover the entire political spectrum. Punk-related ideologies are mostly concerned with individual freedom and anti-establishment views. Common punk viewpoints include anti-authoritarianism, a DIY ethic, non-conformity, direct action and not selling out.
There is a wide range of punk fashion, in terms of clothing (including deliberately offensive T-shirts, leather jackets, Doc Marten boots, etc.), hairstyles (including brightly colored hair, spiked hair, mohawks, etc.), cosmetics, tattoos, jewelery and body modification. Early punk fashion adapted everyday objects for aesthetic effect, such as T-shirts, leather jackets (which are often decorated with painted band logos, pins and buttons, and metal studs or spikes), and footwear such as Converse sneakers, skate shoes, brothel creepers, or Dr. Martens boots. Hardcore punk fans adopted a dressed-down style of T-shirts, jeans, combat boots or sneakers and crewcut-style haircuts. Women in the hardcore scene typically wore masculine clothing.

One part of punk was creating explicitly outward identities of sexuality. Everything that was normally supposed to be hidden was brought to the front, both literally and figuratively.
Punk aesthetics determine the type of art punks enjoy, usually with underground, minimalistic, iconoclastic and satirical sensibilities. Punk artwork graces album covers, flyers for concerts, and punk zines. Punk has generated a considerable amount of poetry and prose. Punk has its own underground press in the form of punk zines, which feature news, gossip, cultural criticism, and interviews. Some zines take the form of perzines. Important punk zines include Maximum RocknRoll, Punk Planet, No Cure, Cometbus, Flipside, and Search & Destroy. Many punk-themed films have been made, as have punk rock music videos and punk-oriented skateboarding videos. Some punk films intercut stock footage with news clips and amateur videos of concerts.
Punks can come from any and all walks of life and economic classes, and punk culture has aspects of gender equalist ideology.

History

Punks in 1984

The punk subculture emerged in the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States in the mid-1970s. Exactly which region originated punk has long been a major controversy within the movement. Early punk had an abundance of antecedents and influences, and Jon Savage describes the subculture as a "bricolage" of almost every previous youth culture in the Western world since World War II, "stuck together with safety pins". Various musical, philosophical, political, literary and artistic movements influenced the subculture.

In the late 1970s, the subculture began to diversify, which led to the proliferation of factions such as new wave, post-punk, 2 Tone, pop punk, hardcore punk, no wave, street punk and Oi!. Hardcore punk, street punk and Oi! sought to do away with the frivolities introduced in the later years of the original punk movement. The punk subculture influenced other underground music scenes such as alternative rock, indie music, crossover thrash and the extreme subgenres of heavy metal (mainly thrash metal, death metal, speed metal, and the NWOBHM). A new movement in the United States became visible in the early and mid-1990s that sought to revive the punk movement, doing away with some of the trappings of hardcore.

Music

Buzzcocks at the Cropredy Festival in 2009

The punk subculture is centered on a loud, aggressive genre of rock music called punk rock. Punk rock is usually played by small bands consisting of a vocalist, one or two electric guitarists, an electric bassist and a drummer. In some punk bands, the musicians contribute backup vocals, which typically consist of shouted slogans, choruses or football-style chants.
While most punk rock uses the distorted guitars and noisy drumming that is derived from 1960s garage rock and 1970s pub rock, some punk bands incorporate elements from other subgenres, such as surf rock, rockabilly or reggae.

 Most punk rock songs are short, have simple and somewhat basic arrangements using relatively few chords, and they have lyrics that express punk ideologies and values, although some punk lyrics are about lighter topics such as partying or relationship drama. Different punk subcultures often distinguish themselves by having a unique style of punk rock, although not every style of punk rock has its own associated subculture.

The earliest form of music to be called "punk rock" was 1960s garage rock, and the term was applied to the genre retroactively by influential rock critics in the early 1970s. In the late 1960s, music now referred to as protopunk originated as a garage rock revival in the northeastern United States. The first distinct music scene to claim the punk label appeared in New York City between 1974 and 1976. Around the same time or soon afterward, a punk scene developed in London, England. Los Angeles subsequently became home to the third major punk scene. These three cities formed the backbone of the burgeoning movement, but there were also other punk scenes in cities such as Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney in Australia and Boston in the United States.
The punk subculture advocates a DIY ethic. During the subculture's infancy members were almost all from a lower economic class, and had become tired of the affluence that was associated with popular rock music at the time. So punks would publish their own music or sign with small independent labels, in hopes to combat what they saw as a money hungry music industry. The DIY ethic is still popular with punks today, and has seen great increase with internet.

Andy Warhol

The New York City punk rock scene arose from a subcultural underground promoted by artists, reporters, musicians and a wide variety of non-mainstream enthusiasts. The Velvet Underground's harsh and experimental, yet often melodic, sound in the mid to late 1960s, much of it relating to transgressive media work by pop artist Andy Warhol, is credited for influencing 1970s bands such as the New York Dolls, The Stooges and the Ramones.

 Early New York punk bands were often short-lived, due to widespread use of recreational drugs, promiscuous sex and deep — sometimes violent — power struggles, but the relative popularity of the music led to the evolution of punk into a lifestyle and movement.

Ideologies

A German punk faces a line of riot police at a 1984 protest

Punks burning a U.S. flag in the early 1980s

A mature punk protesting against a counter-protest against refugee policy in Boise, Idaho in November 2015

Although punks are frequently categorised as having left-wing or progressive views, punk politics cover the entire political spectrum. Punk-related ideologies are mostly concerned with individual freedom and anti-establishment views. Common punk viewpoints include anti-authoritarianism, a DIY ethic, non-conformity, direct action and not selling out.
Other notable trends in punk politics include anarchism, socialism, individualism, anti-statism, anti-militarism, anti-capitalism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-nationalism, homophilia, environmentalism, vegetarianism, veganism and animal rights. However, some individuals within the punk subculture hold right-wing views (such as those associated with the Conservative Punk website), neo-Nazi views (Nazi punk), or are apolitical (e.g., horror punk).

Early British punks expressed nihilistic and anarchist views with the slogan No Future, which came from the Sex Pistols song "God Save the Queen". In the United States, punks had a different approach to nihilism which was less anarchistic than the British punks. Punk nihilism was expressed in the use of "harder, more self-destructive, consciousness-obliterating substances like heroin, or methamphetamine"

The issue of authenticity is important in the punk subculture—the pejorative term "poseur" is applied to those who associate with punk and adopt its stylistic attributes but are deemed not to share or understand the underlying values or philosophy.

Fashion

Two UK punks in a train carriage in 1986. Note the hand-stencilled Crass symbol painted on the coat of the man on the right

Japanese punk rock musicians

Early punk fashion adapted everyday objects for aesthetic effect: ripped clothing was held together by safety pins or wrapped with tape; ordinary clothing was customised by embellishing it with marker or adorning it with paint; a black bin liner became a dress, shirt or skirt; safety pins and razor blades were used as jewellery. Also popular have been leather, rubber, and vinyl clothing that the general public associates with transgressive sexual practices like bondage and S&M. A designer associated with early UK punk fashion was Vivienne Westwood, who made clothes for Malcolm McLaren's boutique in the King's Road, which became famous as "SEX".

Malcom Mclaren

Some punks wear tight "drainpipe" jeans, plaid/tartan trousers, kilts or skirts, T-shirts, leather jackets (which are often decorated with painted band logos, pins and buttons, and metal studs or spikes), and footwear such as Converse sneakers, skate shoes, brothel creepers, or Dr. Martens boots. Some early punks occasionally wore clothes displaying a Nazi swastika for shock value, but most contemporary punks are staunchly anti-racist and are more likely to wear a crossed-out swastika symbol than a pro-Nazi symbol. Some punks cut their hair into Mohawks or other dramatic shapes, style it to stand in spikes, and color it with vibrant, unnatural hues. Some punk women wear tight jeans, leather jackets, spiked heels or spiked leather boots, heavy studded leather belts, and piercings.
Some punks are anti-fashion, arguing that punk should be defined by music or ideology. This is most common in the post-1980s US hardcore punk scene, where members of the subculture often dressed in plain T-shirts and jeans, rather than the more elaborate outfits and spiked, dyed hair of their British counterparts. Many groups adopt a look based on street clothes and working class outfits. Hardcore punk fans adopted a dressed-down style of T-shirts, jeans, combat boots or sneakers and crewcut-style haircuts. Women in the hardcore scene typically wore army pants, band T-shirts, and hooded sweatshirts.
The style of the 1980s hardcore scene contrasted with the more provocative fashion styles of late 1970s punk rockers (elaborate hairdos, torn clothes, patches, safety pins, studs, spikes, etc.). Circle Jerks frontman Keith Morris described early hardcore fashion as "the...punk scene was basically based on English fashion.

 But we had nothing to do with that. Black Flag and the Circle Jerks were so far from that. We looked like the kid who worked at the gas station or submarine shop.

"Henry Rollins echoes Morris' point, stating that for him getting dressed up meant putting on a black shirt and some dark pants; Rollins viewed an interest in fashion as being a distraction. Jimmy Gestapo from Murphy's Law describes his own transition from dressing in a punk style (spiked hair and a bondage belt) to adopting a hardcore style (shaved head and boots) as being based on needing more functional clothing. A scholarly source states that "hardcore kids do not look like punks", since hardcore scene members wore basic clothing and short haircuts, in contrast to the "embellished leather jackets and pants" worn in the punk scene.

In contrast to Morris' and Rollins' views, one scholarly source claims that the standard hardcore punk clothing and styles included torn jeans, leather jackets, spiked armbands and dog collars and mohawk hairstyles and DIY ornamentation of clothes with studs, painted band names, political statements, and patches. Another scholarly source describes the look that was common in the San Francisco hardcore scene as consisting of biker-style leather jackets, chains, studded wristbands, pierced noses and multiple piercings, painted or tattooed statements (e.g. an anarchy symbol) and hairstyles ranging from military-style haircuts dyed black or blonde, mohawks, and shaved heads.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art hosted a comprehensive exhibit; PUNK: Chaos to Couture in 2013 that examined the techniques of hardware, destroy and re-purposing in punk fashion.

Gender and gender expression

Louise Distras performing

In the United Kingdom, the advent of punk in the late 1970s with its "anyone can do it" ethos led to women making significant contributions. In contrast to the rock music and heavy metal scenes of the 1970s, which were dominated by men, the anarchic, counter-cultural mindset of the punk scene in mid- and late 1970s encouraged women to participate. "That was the beauty of the punk thing," Chrissie Hynde later said." [Sexual] discrimination didn't exist in that scene." This participation played a role in the historical development of punk music, especially in the U.S. and U.K. at that time, and continues to influence and enable future generations.
Rock historian Helen Reddington states that the popular image of young punk women musicians as focused on the fashion aspects of the scene (fishnet stockings, spiky blond hair, etc.) was stereotypical. She states that many, if not most women punks were more interested in the ideology and socio-political implications, rather than the fashion. Music historian Caroline Coon contends that before punk, women in rock music were virtually invisible; in contrast, in punk, she argues "[i]t would be possible to write the whole history of punk music without mentioning any male bands at all -- and I think a lot of [people] would find that very surprising." Johnny Rotten wrote that ‘During the Pistols era, women were out there playing with the men, taking us on in equal terms ... It wasn’t combative, but compatible.’ Women were involved in bands such as The Runaways, The Slits, The Raincoats, Mo-dettes, and Dolly Mixture, The Innocents X Ray Spex.

Others take issue with the notion of equal recognition, such as guitarist Viv Albertine, who stated that "the A&R men, the bouncers, the sound mixers, no one took us seriously.. So, no, we got no respect anywhere we went. People just didn't want us around." The anti-establishment stance of punk opened the space for women who were treated like outsiders in a male-dominated industry. Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon states, "I think women are natural anarchists, because you're always operating in a male framework."
Women have made significant contributions to punk rock music and its subculture since its inception in the 1970s. In contrast to the rock music and heavy metal scenes of the 1970s, which were dominated by men, the anarchic, counter-cultural mindset of the punk scene in mid-and-late 1970s encouraged women to participate. This participation played a role in the historical development of punk music, especially in the U.S. and U.K. at that time, and continues to influence and enable future generations. Women have participated in the punk scene as lead singers, instrumentalists, as all-female bands, zine contributors and fashion designers.
Rock historian Helen Reddington states that the popular image of young punk women musicians as focused on the fashion aspects of the scene (fishnet stockings, spiky blond hair, etc.) was stereotypical. She states that many, if not all women punks were more interested in the ideology and socio-political implications, rather than the fashion. Music historian Caroline Coon contends that before punk, women in rock music were virtually invisible; in contrast, in punk, she argues, "It would be possible to write the whole history of punk music without mentioning any male bands at all – and I think a lot of [people] would find that very surprising." Johnny Rotten wrote that "During the Pistols era, women were out there playing with the men, taking us on in equal terms ... It wasn’t combative, but compatible." Chrissie Hynde echoed similar sentiments when discussing her start in the punk scene, "That was the beauty of the punk thing: [Sexual] discrimination didn't exist in that scene."
Others take issue with the notion of equal recognition, such as guitarist Viv Albertine, who stated that "the A&R men, the bouncers, the sound mixers, no one took us seriously.. So, no, we got no respect anywhere we went. People just didn't want us around." The anti-establishment stance of punk opened the space for women who were treated like outsiders in a male-dominated industry. Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon states, "I think women are natural anarchists, because you're always operating in a male framework."

History

1970s

Patti Smith

Patti Smith performing at TIM Festival, Marina da Gloria, Rio de Janeiro

Patti Smith (born 1946) is a groundbreaking New York City punk rock singer/songwriter, poet and artist, whose first album, Horses (1975), significantly influenced the New York City punk rock genre. Smith's work went on to receive international recognition. In 2007 she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She was born Patricia Lee Smith in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

Chrissie Hynde

Chrissie Hynde 2013

Chrissie Hynde (born 1951 in Akron, OH) is a singer, songwriter and guitar player and co-founder of the band, The Pretenders. They were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.

Siouxsie Sioux

Siouxie Sioux

Born Susan Janet Ballion in 1957 in Southwark, England, Siouxsie Sioux is best known as the lead singer of Siouxsie and the Banshees, releasing eleven studio albums. She continued to tour with The Creatures before embarking on a solo career.

Nina Hagen

Nina Hagen

Catharina Hagen (born 1955), known as the German singer, Nina Hagen, was born in East Berlin, German Democratic Republic. After working with the band, Automobil, she became a solo artist, and released her first solo album NunSexMonkRock in 1982. This was followed by the 1983 album, Fearless and in 1985, Ekstasy.

Exene Cervenka

Exene

Exene Cervenka co-founded the band X in 1977, with John Doe, Billy Zoom and DJ Bonebrake. Their album, Los Angeles (date) established her as a presence as a powerful vocalist in the punk rock movement.

Joan Jett

Joan Jett

Joan Jett, born Joan Marie Larkin, and her all-female band, The Runaways was started when she was still in high school, and had several "hits" such as Cherry Bomb and American Nights. In the 1980s she founded her own independent label, Blackheart Records. She was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2015.

Lydia Lunch

Lydia Lunch, began her career as the frontwoman for the band, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, and went on to collaborate with numerous other musicians and bands, including Nick Cave, Sonic Youth, Brian Eno, among others.

Poly Styrene

Poly Styrene (1957-2011) founded the punk band X-Ray Spex, whose 1978 album, Germ Free Adolescents established her as a strong contributor as front woman, singer-songwriter and musician.

Ari Up

Ari Up (1962-2010), was born Ariane Daniela Forster in Munich, Germany, and was a vocalist and member of The Slits a British punk rock band. It is written that she took guitar lessons from Joe Strummer of The Clash.

Ari-Up

Gaye Advert

British born Gaye Advert, also known as Gaye Black, was the bass player for The Adverts. She has been called, "one of punk's first female icons", and the "first female punk star."

Palmolive

 

Paloma McLardy (born 1955) is known as the drummer and songwriter for The Slits, as Palmolive. Born in Spain, she moved to London in 1972 to live in the squats with other counter-cultural youths. In London, she befriended Joe Strummer of The Clash who introduced her to Sid Vicious, bass player for the Sex Pistols. Through these alliances she joined the band The Flowers of Romance with guitarist Viv Albertine. Having met 14-year old Ari Up at a Patti Smith concert, they formed the all-women punk band, The Slits, playing gigs with The Clash, the Sex Pistolsthe Buzzcocks and others. In 1979, she joined the all female punk band, The Raincoats who recorded an album for Rough Trade Records.

Poison Ivy

Poison Ivy

Poison Ivy (born 1953) is Californian who is known for her work as a guitarist and songwriter who co-founded the American punk-rockabilly band, The Cramps. Also known as Poison Ivy Rorschach she was born Kristy Marlana Wallace. She also provided vocals, as well as arranging songs and producing records. At Sacramento State College she met Lux Interior (born Erick Lee Purkhiser) in 1972, who became the singer for The Cramps, whose work gained a cult following as well a course of European commercial success.

Debbie Harry

Blondie (Debbie Harry

Debbie Harry is one of the most commercially successful musicians of punk rock/new wave. Her band, Blondie, often performed at CBGB in New York City, and their 1978 album, Parallel Lines, is considered a punk-pop classic. Harry's band, Blondie was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.

1980s

Lene Lovich

Lene Lovitch 1979

Lene Lovich is an American-born English singer, known for her idiosyncratic vocal style. Although active in 1978 & 1979, much of her success was in the 1980s. Her debut studio album Stateless (1978), which produced the single "Lucky Number". She released two more albums, Flex (1979) and No Man's Land (1982), on Stiff Records. In 1989, she independently released the album March, before her 15-year hiatus.

Kim Gordon

The American bassist and singer, Kim Gordon (born 1953) and her band, Sonic Youth were formed in 1981, establishing her as an important presence in the downtown New York City music scene. She wrote and performed music with Sonic Youth through 2012. Her memoir, Girl in a Band was published in 2015.

Lydia Lunch

Lydia Lunch

Lydia Lunch (born 1959) is a US punk rock and No Wave singer. Her career was established with the founding of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks in collaboration with James Chance. In the mid-1980s she formed Widowspeak, a recording and publishing company.

Wendy O. Williams

Wendy O. Williams (1949-1998) was the lead singer and songwriter for the punk band, Plasmatics whose performances included such actions as chain-sawing guitars and blowing up equipment on stage.

Debora Iyall

Debora Iyall was the lead singer in the San Francisco-based punk bank, Romeo Void. She was born in Washington state and is of Cowlitz Native American heritage.

1990s

L7 with Joan Jett

Kathleen Hanna

Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill in 1996

Kathleen Hanna (born 1968) and Tobi Vail co-founded the band, Bikini Kill, establishing the feminist riot grrrl movement. Hanna has also released an album under the name Julie Ruin, which developed into Le Tigre.

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey (born 1969) is an English performers associated with the punk blues and alternative rock movements.

The Breeders

The Breeders are an American band formed in 1990 by Kim Deal of the Pixies, her twin sister Kelley Deal and Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses. The band has experienced a number of lineup changes; Kim Deal has been the band's sole continual member. Their first album, Pod (1990), though not commercially successful, received wide critical acclaim. The Breeders' most successful album, Last Splash (1993), is best known for the hit single "Cannonball".

Elastica

 

Elastica were an English band best known for their 1995 album Elastica, which produced singles that charted in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Republica

Saffron of Republica

Republica are an English band formed in 1994, featuring their lead singer Saffron. Republica are best known for their hit single, "Ready to Go". Their music is described as dance punk or technopop punk rock.

Hole

Hole was formed Los Angeles, California in 1989 by singer and guitarist Courtney Love and lead guitarist Eric Erlandson. The band had a revolving line-up of bassists and drummers, their most prolific being drummer Patty Schemel, and bassists Kristen Pfaff (d. 1994) and Melissa Auf der Maur. Hole went on to become one of the most commercially successful female-fronted rock bands of all time, selling over three million records in the United States alone.

2000s

Carrie Brownstein

Carrie Brownstein (born 1974) rose to prominence by establishing the riot grrrl all-women punk band Sleater-Kinney with Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss.

Pussy Riot

Formed in 2011 as a punk band, artist collective and activist group.

List of other women punk musicians

• Viv Albertine
• Patricia Morrison
• Tessa Pollitt
• Pat Place
• Alice Bag
• Caroline Azar
• Lunachicks
• June Miles-Kingston
• Sara Lee
• Little Annie Anxiety Bandez
• Honey Bane a.k.a. Donna Tracy Boylan
• Bif Naked a.k.a. Beth Torbert
• Christina Billotte
• Kat Bjelland* Sugar Babydoll a.k.a. Jennifer Finch
• Cinder Block a.k.a. Cindy Morgan
• Corin Tucker
• Patti Smith Group
• The Pretenders
• Siouxsie and the Banshees
• X
• Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
• Blondie
• Mo-dettes
• The Slits
• X-Ray Spex
• Au Pairs
• The Nips
• The Raincoats - Gina Birch (bass, vocals), Ane de Silva (guitar, vocals), Palmolive (drums) Vicki Aspinall (violin)
• Sleater-Kinney
• H.U.M.A.N.W.I.N.E. - Holly Brewer
• Wild Flag
• Delta 5
• Babes in Toyland
• Rubella Ballet
• L7
• Kim Deal
• Kelly Deal
• The Breeders
• The Pixies
• Suzi Gardner
• Donita Sparks
• Jennifer Finch
• Dee Plakas
• Heavens to Betsy
• Fabulous Disaster
• Tilt - Cinder Block
• Becca Albee
• Excuse 17
• Romeo Void
• Retching Red
• Dolly Mixture
• The Gymslips
• The Belle Stars
• Bags
• Fifth Column
• Men They Couldn't Hang
• Poison Girls
• Fatal Microbes
• Autoclave
• Essential Logic
• Marine Girls
• Quix*o*tic
• Shanne Bradley
• Beki Bondage
• Lora Logic
• Suzi Gutsy a.k.a. Suzi Webb
• Kate Korus a.k.a. Katherine Korris
• Katastrophy Wife
• Brody Dalle
• Bratmobile
• Le Tigre
• Courtney Love
• Mia Zapata
• Laura Jane Grace
• Excuse 17
• Cherie Currie
• Jemina Pearl
• Penelope Houston
• Kim Shattuck
• Heavens to Betsy
• Cherry Vanilla
• Marie Currie
• Kaia Wilson
• Yanka Dyagileva
• Phranc
• Patricia Morrison
• Regina Zernay Roberts
• Brix Smith
• Theo Kogan
• Jody Bleyle
• Nomy Lamm
• Phew (singer)
• Bleach (Japanese band)
• Subway Sect
• the Subversives
• London (band)
• Chelsea (band)
• Generation X (band)
• Penetration (band)
• Pauline Murray
• Elli Medeiros
• Debora Iyall
• Mecca Normal
• Jackie Fox
• Beth Ditto
• Bush Tetras
• Pat Place
• Jayne County
• Lene Lovich
• Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie Shirley Manson
• Garbage
• Free Kitten
• Lorna Doom
• Kira Roessler

Fashion

A designer associated with early UK punk fashion in the 1970s was Vivienne Westwood, who made clothes for Malcolm McLaren's boutique in the King's Road, which became famous as "SEX". Other designers included Wendy Gawitz and Kate Buck of "Eccentric Clothing" in Collingwood; Melbourne, Australia designers Julie Purvis and Jillian Burt, and fellow Australians Kate Durham and Sara Thorn.

Women in the hardcore punk scene typically wore army pants, band T-shirts, and hooded sweatshirts. The style of the 1980s hardcore scene contrasted with the more provocative fashion styles of late 1970s punk rockers (elaborate hairdos, torn clothes, patches, safety pins, studs, spikes, etc.).

Social change

The Mexico City-based punk rock collective, Hijas de Violencia (the Daughters of Violence) conduct street performances to combat harassment of women.

 MODS

Mod is a subculture that began in London in 1958 which spread throughout Great Britain and, in varying degrees, to other countries and continues today on a smaller scale. Focused on music and fashion, the subculture has its roots in a small group of stylish London-based young men in the late 1950s who were termed modernists because they listened to modern jazz, although the subculture expanded to include women.

A photograph of two mid-1960s mods on a customised scooter
Significant elements of the mod subculture include fashion (often tailor-made suits); music (including soul, ska, and R&B); and motor scooters (usually Lambretta or Vespa). The original mod scene was associated with amphetamine-fuelled all-night dancing at clubs.
In England during the early to mid 1960s, mod culture became more widespread. This led to an element of the mod scene occasionally becoming engaged in fights with the other dominant youth subculture of the period, rockers, which led to many news articles. The mods and rockers conflict led sociologist Stanley Cohen to use the term "moral panic" in his study about the two youth subcultures, which examined media coverage of the mod and rocker riots in the 1960s. In the mid-to-late 1960s, the conflicts between mods and rockers subsided, as original mods grew older and moved away from the soul scene and into psychedelia. London became synonymous with fashion, music, and pop culture in these years, a period often referred to as "Swinging London."
There was a mod revival in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s, which was followed by a mod revival in North America in the early 1980s, particularly in southern California, Vancouver, and Toronto.

Etymology and usage

The term mod derives from modernist, a term used in the 1950s to describe modern jazz musicians and fans. This usage contrasted with the term trad, which described traditional jazz players and fans. The 1959 novel Absolute Beginners describes modernists as young modern jazz fans who dress in sharp modern Italian clothes. The novel may be one of the earliest examples of the term being written to describe young British style-conscious modern jazz fans. This usage of the word modernist should not be confused with modernism in the context of literature, art, design and architecture. From the mid-to-late 1960s onwards, the mass media often used the term mod in a wider sense to describe anything that was believed to be popular, fashionable or modern.

Paul Jobling and David Crowley argue that the definition of mod can be difficult to pin down, because throughout the subculture's original era, it was "prone to continuous reinvention." They claim that since the mod scene was so pluralist, the word mod was an umbrella term that covered several distinct sub-scenes. Terry Rawlings argues that mods are difficult to define because the subculture started out as a "mysterious semi-secret world", which The Who's manager Peter Meaden summarised as "clean living under difficult circumstances."

History

George Melly wrote that mods were initially a small group of clothes-focused English working class young men insisting on clothes and shoes tailored to their style, who emerged during the modern jazz boom of the late 1950s. Early mods watched French and Italian art films and read Italian magazines to look for style ideas.

Early 1960s

Quadrophenia exhibit at the Cotswold Motor Museum in Bourton-on-the-Water in 2007

According to Dick Hebdige, by around 1963, the mod subculture had gradually accumulated the identifying symbols that later came to be associated with the scene, such as scooters, amphetamine pills and R&B music. While clothes were still important at that time, they could be ready-made. Dick Hebdige wrote the term mod covered a number of styles including the emergence of Swinging London, though to him it has come to define Melly's working class clothes-conscious teenagers living in London and south England in the early to mid 1960s.
Mary Anne Long argues that "first hand accounts and contemporary theorists point to the Jewish upper-working or middle-class of London’s East End and suburbs." Simon Frith asserts that the mod subculture had its roots in the 1950s beatnik coffee bar culture, which catered to art school students in the radical Bohemian scene in London. Steve Sparks, who claims to be one of the original mods, agrees that before mod became commercialised, it was essentially an extension of the beatnik culture: "It comes from ‘modernist’, it was to do with modern jazz and to do with Sartre" and existentialism.Sparks argues that "Mod has been much misunderstood ... as this working-class, scooter-riding precursor of skinheads."

The Small Faces in 1965.

Coffee bars were attractive to British youths because, in contrast to typical pubs, which closed at about 11pm, they were open until the early hours of the morning. Coffee bars had jukeboxes, which in some cases reserved space in the machines for the customers' own records. In the late 1950s, coffee bars were associated with jazz and blues, but in the early 1960s, they began playing more R&B music. Frith notes that although coffee bars were originally aimed at middle-class art school students, they began to facilitate an intermixing of youths from different backgrounds and classes. At these venues, which Frith calls the "first sign of the youth movement", young people would meet collectors of R&B and blues records, who introduced them to new types of African-American music, which the teens were attracted to for its rawness and authenticity As the mod subculture grew in London during the early-to-mid 1960s, tensions would often arise between the mods, often riding highly decorated motor scooters, and their main rivals, the rockers, a British subculture who favored rockabilly, early rock'n'roll, motorcycles and leather jackets, and considered the mods effeminate, because of their interest in fashion.^[ Violent clashes would often ensue between the two groups. This period was later immortalized by songwriter Pete Townshend, in the Who's 1973 concept album, Quadrophenia.
However, after 1964, clashes between the two groups largely subsided, as mod expanded and came to be accepted by the larger youth generation in England as a symbol of all that was new. It was during this time that London became a mecca for rock music, with popular bands such as The Who and The Small Faces appealing to a largely mod audience, as well as the preponderance of hip fashions, in a period often referred to as Swinging London.

Mid-late 1960s

Swinging London

"Swinging London," Carnaby Street, circa 1966.

As many British rock bands of the mid-1960s began to adopt a mod look and following, the scope of the subculture grew beyond its original confines and the focus began to change. By the summer of 1966, the proletarian aspects of the scene in London had waned, as the more fashion and pop-culture elements continued to grow, not only in England, but elsewhere.This period, portrayed in Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film Blowup, was typified by pop art, Carnaby Street boutiques, live music, and discothèques. Many associate this era with fashion model Twiggy, miniskirts, and bold geometrical patterns on brightly coloured clothes. It would exert a considerable influence on the worldwide spread of mod, particularly in the United States.

United States and elsewhere

A young American woman wearing a miniskirt in 1966.

As mod was going through transformation in England, it became all the rage in the United States and around the world, as many young people adopted its look. However, the worldwide experience differed from that of the early scene in London in that it was based mainly on the pop culture aspect, influenced by British rock musicians. By now, mod was thought of more as a general youth-culture style rather than as a separate subgroup amongst different contentious factions. Countless American musicians, in the wake of the British Invasion, would adopt the look of mod clothes, longer hair, and Beatle boots. The exploitation documentary, Mondo Mod, provides a glimpse at mod's influence on the Sunset Strip and West Hollywood scene of late 1966. Mod would become increasingly associated with psychedelic rock and the early hippie movement, by 1967, when more exotic looks, such as Nehru jackets and love beads came into vogue.Its trappings were reflected on popular American TV shows such as Laugh-In and The Mod Squad.

Decline

Dick Hebdige argues that the subculture lost its vitality when it became commercialised, artificial and stylised to the point that mod clothing styles were being created "from above" by clothing companies and by TV shows like Ready Steady Go!, rather than being developed by young people customising their clothes and combining different fashions.
As psychedelic rock and the hippie subculture grew more popular in the United Kingdom, much of mod, for a time seemed intertwined with those movements. However, after 1968 it dissipated, as tastes began to favor a less style-conscious, denim and tie-dyed look, along with a decreased interest in nightlife. Bands such as The Who and Small Faces began to change their music styles and, by the end of the decade, had moved away from mod. Additionally, the original mods of the early 1960s were coming to the age of marriage and child-rearing, which meant many of them no longer had the time or money for their youthful pastimes of club-going, record-shopping and scooter rallies.

Offshoots

Some street-oriented mods, usually of lesser means, sometimes referred to as hard mods, remained active well into the late 60s, but tended to become increasingly detached from the Swinging London scene and the burgeoning hippie movement. By 1967, they considered most of the people in the Swinging London scene to be "soft mods" or "peacock mods," as styles, there, became increasingly extravagant, often featuring highly ruffled, brocaded, or laced fabrics in Day-Glo colours. Many of the hard mods lived in the same economically depressed areas of South London as West Indian immigrants, so these mods favored a different kind of attire, that emulated the rude boy look of Trilby hats and too-short trousers. These "aspiring 'white negros'" listened to Jamaican ska and mingled with black rude boys at West Indian nightclubs like Ram Jam, A-Train and Sloopy's. Hebdige claims that the hard mods were drawn to black culture and ska music in part because the educated, middle-class hippie movement's drug-oriented and intellectual music did not have any relevance for them. He argues that the hard mods were attracted to ska because it was a secret, underground, non-commercialised music that was disseminated through informal channels such as house parties and clubs.
By the end of the 60s, the hard mods had become known as skinheads, who, in their early days, would be known for the same love of soul, rocksteady and early reggae. Because of their fascination with black culture, the early skinheads were, except in isolated situations, largely devoid of the overt racism and fascism that would later become associated with whole wings of the movement in the mid to late 70s. The early skinheads retained basic elements of mod fashion—such as Fred Perry and Ben Sherman shirts, Sta-Prest trousers and Levi's jeans—but mixed them with working class-oriented accessories such as braces and Dr. Martens work boots. Hebdige claims that as early as the Margate and Brighton brawls between mods and rockers, some mods were seen wearing boots and braces and sporting close cropped haircuts (for practical reasons, as long hair was a liability in industrial jobs and street fights).
Mods and ex-mods were also part of the early northern soul scene, a subculture based on obscure 1960s and 1970s American soul records. Some mods evolved into, or merged with, subcultures such as individualists, stylists, and scooterboys.

Late-1970s revival and later influences

Mod graffiti in the Netherlands from 2007.

A mod revival started in the late 1970s in the United Kingdom, with thousands of mod revivalists attending scooter rallies in locations such as Scarborough and the Isle of Wight. This revival was partly inspired by the 1979 film Quadrophenia and by mod-influenced bands such as The Jam, Secret Affair, Purple Hearts, The Specials and The Chords, who drew on the energy of new wave music.

Mod revivalists in Box Hill, Surrey, England, in April 2007

The British mod revival was followed by a revival in North America in the early 1980s, particularly in Southern California, led by bands such as The Untouchables. The mod scene in Los Angeles and Orange County was partly influenced by the 2 Tone ska revival in England, and was unique in its racial diversity, with black, white, Hispanic and Asian participants. The 1990s Britpop scene featured noticeable mod influences on bands such as Oasis, Blur, Ocean Colour Scene and The Verve. Popular 21st century musicians Miles Kane and Jake Bugg are also followers of the mod subculture.

Characteristics

Dick Hebdige argues that when trying to understand 1960s mod culture, one has to try and "penetrate and decipher the mythology of the mods". Terry Rawlings argues that the mod scene developed when British teenagers began to reject the "dull, timid, old-fashioned, and uninspired" British culture around them, with its repressed and class-obsessed mentality and its "naffness". Mods rejected the "faulty pap" of 1950s pop music and sappy love songs. They aimed at being "cool, neat, sharp, hip, and smart" by embracing "all things sexy and streamlined", especially when they were new, exciting, controversial or modern. Hebdige claims that the mod subculture came about as part of the participants' desire to understand the "mysterious complexity of the metropolis" and to get close to black culture of the Jamaican rude boy, because mods felt that black culture "ruled the night hours" and that it had more streetwise "savoir faire". Shari Benstock and Suzanne Ferriss argue that at the "core of the British Mod rebellion was a blatant fetishising of the American consumer culture" that had "eroded the moral fiber of England." In doing so, the mods "mocked the class system that had gotten their fathers nowhere" and created a "rebellion based on consuming pleasures".
The influence of British newspapers on creating the public perception of mods as having a leisure-filled club-going lifestyle can be seen in a 1964 article in the Sunday Times. The paper interviewed a 17-year-old mod who went out clubbing seven nights a week and spent Saturday afternoons shopping for clothes and records. However, few British teens and young adults would have had the time and money to spend this much time going to nightclubs. Paul Jobling and David Crowley argue that most young mods worked 9 to 5 at semi-skilled jobs, which meant that they had much less leisure time and only a modest income to spend during their time off.

Fashion

Paul Jobling and David Crowley called the mod subculture a "fashion-obsessed and hedonistic cult of the hyper-cool" young adults who lived in metropolitan London or the new towns of the south. Due to the increasing affluence of post-war Britain, the youths of the early 1960s were one of the first generations that did not have to contribute their money from after-school jobs to the family finances. As mod teens and young adults began using their disposable income to buy stylish clothes, the first youth-targeted boutique clothing stores opened in London in the Carnaby Street and King's Road districts. The streets' names became symbols of, one magazine later stated, "an endless frieze of mini-skirted, booted, fair-haired angular angels". Newspaper accounts from the mid-1960s focused on the mod obsession with clothes, often detailing the prices of the expensive suits worn by young mods, and seeking out extreme cases such as a young mod who claimed that he would "go without food to buy clothes".
Two youth subcultures helped pave the way for mod fashion by breaking new ground; the beatniks, with their Bohemian image of berets and black turtlenecks, and the Teddy Boys, from which mod fashion inherited its "narcissistic and fastidious [fashion] tendencies" and the immaculate dandy look. The Teddy Boys paved the way for making male interest in fashion socially acceptable, because prior to the Teddy Boys, male interest in fashion in Britain was mostly associated with the underground homosexual subculture's flamboyant dressing style.

Royal Air Force roundel, a mod symbol

Jobling and Crowley argue that for working class mods, the subculture's focus on fashion and music was a release from the "humdrum of daily existence" at their jobs. Jobling and Crowley note that while the subculture had strong elements of consumerism and shopping, mods were not passive consumers; instead they were very self-conscious and critical, customising "existing styles, symbols and artefacts" such as the Union flag and the Royal Air Force roundel, and putting them on their jackets in a pop art-style, and putting their personal signatures on their style. Mods adopted new Italian and French styles in part as a reaction to the rural and small-town rockers, with their 1950s-style leather motorcycle clothes and American greaser look.
Male mods adopted a smooth, sophisticated look that included tailor-made suits with narrow lapels (sometimes made of mohair), thin ties, button-down collar shirts, wool or cashmere jumpers (crewneck or V-neck), Chelsea or Beatle boots, loafers, Clarks desert boots, bowling shoes, and hairstyles that imitated the look of French Nouvelle Vague film actors.A few male mods went against gender norms by using eye shadow, eye-pencil or even lipstick. Mods chose scooters over motorbikes partly because they were a symbol of Italian style and because their body panels concealed moving parts and made them less likely to stain clothes with oil or road dust. Many mods wore military parkas while driving scooters in order to keep their clothes clean.
Many female mods dressed androgynously, with short haircuts, men's trousers or shirts, flat shoes, and little makeup — often just pale foundation, brown eye shadow, white or pale lipstick and false eyelashes. Miniskirts became progressively shorter between the early and mid-1960s. As female mod fashion became more mainstream, slender models like Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy began to exemplify the mod look. Maverick fashion designers emerged, such as Mary Quant, who was known for her miniskirt designs, and John Stephen, who sold a line named "His Clothes" and whose clients included bands such as Small Faces. The television programme Ready Steady Go! helped spread awareness of mod fashions to a larger audience.

Music

Pete Townshend of The Who in 1967

The early mods listened to the "sophisticated smoother modern jazz" of musicians such as Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Dave Brubeck and the Modern Jazz Quartet, as well as the American rhythm and blues (R&B) of artists such as Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters. Terry Rawlings writes that mods became "dedicated to R&B and their own dances." Black American servicemen, stationed in Britain during the early part of the Cold War, brought over R&B and soul records that were unavailable in Britain, and they often sold these to young people in London. Starting around 1960, mods embraced the off-beat, Jamaican ska music of artists such as the Skatalites, Owen Gray, Derrick Morgan and Prince Buster on record labels such as Melodisc, Starlite and Bluebeat.
The original mods gathered at all-night clubs such as The Flamingo and The Marquee in London to hear the latest records and show off their dance moves. As the mod subculture spread across the United Kingdom, other clubs became popular, including Twisted Wheel Club in Manchester.
The British R&B/rock bands The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds and The Kinks all had mod followings, and other bands emerged that were specifically mod-oriented.

 These included The Who, Small Faces, the Creation, The Action, The Smoke and John's Children. The Who's early promotional material tagged them as playing "maximum rhythm and blues", and a name change in 1964 from The Who to The High Numbers was an attempt to cater even more to the mod market. After the commercial failure of the single "I'm the Face / Zoot Suit", the band changed its name back to The Who. Although The Beatles dressed like mods for a while (after dressing like rockers earlier), their beat music was not as popular as British R&B among mods.

Amphetamines

Dexamphetamine tablets

A notable part of the mod subculture was recreational amphetamine use, which was used to fuel all-night dances at clubs like Manchester's Twisted Wheel. Newspaper reports described dancers emerging from clubs at 5 a.m. with dilated pupils. Some mods consumed a combined amphetamine/barbiturate called Drinamyl, which was nicknamed "purple hearts". Due to this association with amphetamines, Pete Meaden's "clean living" aphorism about the mod subculture may seem contradictory, but the drug was still legal in Britain in the early 1960s, and mods used the drug for stimulation and alertness, which they viewed as different from the intoxication caused by alcohol and other drugs. Dr. Andrew Wilson argues that for a significant minority, "amphetamines symbolised the smart, on-the-ball, cool image" and that they sought "stimulation not intoxication ... greater awareness, not escape" and "confidence and articulacy" rather than the "drunken rowdiness of previous generations."
Wilson argues that the significance of amphetamines to the mod culture was similar to that of LSD and cannabis within the subsequent hippie counterculture. Dick Hebdige argues that mods used amphetamines to extend their leisure time into the early hours of the morning and as a way of bridging the gap between their hostile and daunting everyday work lives and the "inner world" of dancing and dressing up in their off-hours.

Scooters

1963 VBB Standard 150

Many mods drove motor scooters, usually Vespas or Lambrettas. Scooters were a practical and affordable form of transportation for 1960s teens, and in the early 1970s, public transport stopped relatively early in the night. For teens with low-paying jobs, scooters were cheaper and easier to park than cars, and they could be bought through newly-available hire purchase plans.

Vespa with characteristic collection of mirrors

Mods also treated scooters as a fashion accessory. Italian scooters were preferred due to their clean-lined, curving shapes and gleaming chrome. For young mods, Italian scooters were the "embodiment of continental style and a way to escape the working-class row houses of their upbringing". Mods customised their scooters by painting them in "two-tone and candyflake and overaccessorized [them] with luggage racks, crash bars, and scores of mirrors and fog lights". Some mods added four, ten, or as many as 30 mirrors to their scooters. They often put their names on the small windscreen. They sometimes took their engine side panels and front bumpers to electroplating shops to get them covered in highly reflective chrome.
Hard mods (who later evolved into the skinheads) began riding scooters more for practical reasons. Their scooters were either unmodified or cutdown, which was nicknamed a "skelly". Lambrettas were cutdown to the bare frame, and the unibody (monocoque)-design Vespas had their body panels slimmed down or reshaped.
After the seaside resort brawls, the media began to associate Italian scooters with violent mods. The media described groups of mods riding scooters together as a "menacing symbol of group solidarity" that was "converted into a weapon". With events like the November 6, 1966, "scooter charge" on Buckingham Palace, the scooter, along with the mods' short hair and suits, began to be seen as a symbol of subversion.

Gender roles

Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson argue that compared to other youth subcultures, the mod scene gave young women high visibility and relative autonomy. They write that this status may have been related both to the attitudes of the mod young men, who accepted the idea that a young woman did not have to be attached to a man, and to the development of new occupations for young women, which gave them an income and made them more independent. Hall and Jefferson note the increasing number of jobs in boutiques and women's clothing stores, which, while poorly paid and lacking opportunities for advancement, gave young women disposable income, status and a glamorous sense of dressing up and going downtown to work.
Hall and Jefferson argue that the presentable image of female mod fashions meant it was easier for young mod women to integrate with the non-subculture aspects of their lives (home, school and work) than for members of other subcultures. The emphasis on clothing and a stylised look for women demonstrated the "same fussiness for detail in clothes" as their male mod counterparts.
Shari Benstock and Suzanne Ferriss claim that the emphasis in the mod subculture on consumerism and shopping was the "ultimate affront to male working-class traditions" in the United Kingdom, because in the working-class tradition, shopping was usually done by women. They argue that British mods were "worshipping leisure and money ... scorning the masculine world of hard work and honest labour" by spending their time listening to music, collecting records, socialising, and dancing at all-night clubs.

Conflicts with rockers

In early-1960s Britain, the two main youth subcultures were mods and rockers. While mods were seen as "effeminate, stuck-up, emulating the middle classes, aspiring to a competitive sophistication, snobbish, [and] phony", rockers were seen as "hopelessly naive, loutish, [and] scruffy", emulating the motorcycle gang members in the film The Wild One, by wearing leather jackets and riding motorcycles. Dick Hebdige claims that the "mods rejected the rocker's crude conception of masculinity, the transparency of his motivations, his clumsiness"; the rockers viewed the vanity and obsession with clothes of the mods as immasculine.
Scholars debate how much contact the two subcultures had during the 1960s. Hebdige argues that mods and rockers had little contact with each other because they tended to come from different regions of England (mods from London and rockers from rural areas), and because they had "totally disparate goals and lifestyles". Mark Gilman, however, claims that both mods and rockers could be seen at football matches.
John Covach writes that in the United Kingdom, rockers were often engaged in brawls with mods. BBC News stories from May 1964 stated that mods and rockers were jailed after riots in seaside resort towns on the south coast of England, such as Margate, Brighton, Bournemouth and Clacton. The "mods and rockers" conflict was explored as an instance of "moral panic" by sociologist Stanley Cohen in his study Folk Devils and Moral Panics, which examined media coverage of the mod and rocker riots in the 1960s. Although Cohen acknowledges that mods and rockers had some fights in the mid-1960s, he argues that they were no different from the evening brawls that occurred between youths throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, both at seaside resorts and after football games.
Newspapers of the time were eager to describe the mod and rocker clashes as being of "disastrous proportions", and labelled mods and rockers as "sawdust Caesars", "vermin" and "louts".Newspaper editorials fanned the flames of hysteria, such as a Birmingham Post editorial in May 1964 which warned that mods and rockers were "internal enemies" in the United Kingdom who would "bring about disintegration of a nation's character". The magazine Police Review argued that the mods and rockers' purported lack of respect for law and order could cause violence to "surge and flame like a forest fire". As a result of this media coverage, two British Members of Parliament travelled to the seaside areas to survey the damage, and MP Harold Gurden called for a resolution for intensified measures to control hooliganism. One of the prosecutors in the trial of some of the Clacton brawlers argued that mods and rockers were youths with no serious views, who lacked respect for law and order.

Philosophy

The Ramones' 1976 debut album laid down the musical "blueprint for punk",while its cover image had a similarly formative influence on punk visual style.

 

The first wave of punk rock was aggressively modern, distancing itself from the bombast and sentimentality of early 1970s rock. According to Ramones drummer Tommy Ramone, "In its initial form, a lot of [1960s] stuff was innovative and exciting. Unfortunately, what happens is that people who could not hold a candle to the likes of Hendrix started noodling away. Soon you had endless solos that went nowhere. By 1973, I knew that what was needed was some pure, stripped down, no bullshit rock 'n' roll." John Holmstrom, founding editor of Punk magazine, recalls feeling "punk rock had to come along because the rock scene had become so tame that [acts] like Billy Joel and Simon and Garfunkel were being called rock and roll, when to me and other fans, rock and roll meant this wild and rebellious music." In critic Robert Christgau's description, "It was also a subculture that scornfully rejected the political idealism and Californian flower-power silliness of hippie myth."
Technical accessibility and a DIY spirit are prized in punk rock. In the early days of punk rock, this ethic stood in marked contrast to what those in the scene regarded as the ostentatious musical effects and technological demands of many mainstream rock bands. Musical virtuosity was often looked on with suspicion. According to Holmstrom, punk rock was "rock and roll by people who didn't have very many skills as musicians but still felt the need to express themselves through music". In December 1976, the English fanzine Sideburns published a now-famous illustration of three chords, captioned "This is a chord, this is another, this is a third. Now form a band". The title of a 1980 single by the New York punk band Stimulators, "Loud Fast Rules!" inscribed a catchphrase for punk's basic musical approach.

Some of British punk rock's leading figures made a show of rejecting not only contemporary mainstream rock and the broader culture it was associated with, but their own most celebrated music predecessors: "No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones in 1977", declared the Clash song "1977".The previous year, when the punk rock revolution began in Great Britain, was to be both a musical and a cultural "Year Zero". Even as nostalgia was discarded, many in the scene adopted a nihilistic attitude summed up by the Sex Pistols slogan "No Future"; in the later words of one observer, amid the unemployment and social unrest in 1977, "punk's nihilistic swagger was the most thrilling thing in England." While "self-imposed alienation" was common among "drunk punks" and "gutter punks", there was always a tension between their nihilistic outlook and the "radical leftist utopianism" of bands such as Crass, who found positive, liberating meaning in the movement. As a Clash associate describes singer Joe Strummer's outlook, "Punk rock is meant to be our freedom. We're meant to be able to do what we want to do."

The issue of authenticity is important in the punk subculture—the pejorative term "poseur" is applied to those who associate with punk and adopt its stylistic attributes but are deemed not to share or understand the underlying values and philosophy. Scholar Daniel S. Traber argues that "attaining authenticity in the punk identity can be difficult"; as the punk scene matured, he observes, eventually "everyone got called a poseur".

Body and appearance

For some punks, the body was a symbol of opposition, a political statement expressing disgust of all that was "normal" and socially accepted. The idea was to make others outside of the subculture question their own views, which made gender, gender presentation and gender identity a popular factor to be played with. Men could look like women, women could look like men, or one could look like both or neither. In some ways, punk helped to tear apart the normalized view of gender as a dichotomy. There was a notable amount of cross-dressing in the punk scene; it was not unusual to see men wearing ripped-up skirts, fishnet tights and excessive makeup, or to see women with shaved heads wearing oversized plaid shirts and jean jackets and heavy combat boots. Punk created a new cultural space for androgyny and all kinds of gender expression.
Some scholars have claimed that punk has been problematic towards gender by stating its overall resistance to expressing any kind of popular conceptions of femininity. In trying to reject societal norms, punk embraced one societal norm by deciding that strength and anger was best expressed through masculinity, defining masculine as the "default" in the world they were trying to create, where gender did not exist or had no meaning. However, the main reasoning behind this argument equates femininity with popular conceptions of beauty, which punk rejected.

Carrie Brownstein from the punk-indie band Sleater-Kinney, performing at Vegoose in 2005

One part of punk was a creating explicitly outward identities of sexuality. Everything that was normally supposed to be hidden was brought to the front, both literally and figuratively. This could mean anything from wearing bras and underwear on top of clothing to wearing nothing but a bra and underwear. Although that act would seem sexualized in a normal context, to punks it was just another way to be obscene in the eyes of "others". Punk seemed to allow women to sexualize themselves and still be taken seriously; however, many argue that this was always in terms of what the male punks wanted.
Conversely, the masculine nature of punk allowed many women to recreate an almost farcical masculinity by using their female bodies in the same way men tended to use theirs. Punk women could be filthy and horrible and use their femininity to make what they were doing even more shocking to their audience. It became popular for some punk women to accentuate their bodies in ridiculous ways, such as stuffing their pants to make exaggerated labia outlines, as if parodying male crotch stuffing.At one concert, Donita Sparks, lead singer of the band L7, pulled out her tampon and threw it into the audience. In many ways, female punks were showing unapologetically (and exaggeratedly) what it truly meant to be a woman, with nothing soft or "classically feminine" to hide behind.

Riot grrrl

Riot grrrl is an underground feminist hardcore punk movement that originally started in the early 1990s, in Washington, D.C., and the greater Pacific Northwest, noticeably in Olympia, Washington. It is often associated with third-wave feminism, which is sometimes seen as its starting point. It has also been described as a musical genre that came out of indie rock, with the punk scene serving as an inspiration for a musical movement in which women could express themselves in the same way men had been doing for the past several years.

Visual art

Punk aesthetics determine the type of art punks enjoy, usually with underground, minimalistic, iconoclastic and satirical sensibilities. Punk artwork graces album covers, flyers for concerts, and punk zines. Usually straightforward with clear messages, punk art is often concerned with political issues such as social injustice and economic disparity. The use of images of suffering to shock and create feelings of empathy in the viewer is common. Alternatively, punk artwork may contain images of selfishness, stupidity, or apathy to provoke contempt in the viewer.
Much of the earlier artwork was in black and white, because it was distributed in zines reproduced at copy shops. Punk art also uses the mass production aesthetic of Andy Warhol's Factory studio. Punk played a hand in the revival of stencil art, spearheaded by Crass. The Situationists also influenced the look of punk art, particularity that of the Sex Pistols. Punk art often utilises collage, exemplified by the art of Dead Kennedys, Crass, Jamie Reid, and Winston Smith. John Holmstrom was a punk cartoonist who created work for the Ramones and Punk.

The Stuckism art movement had its origin in punk, and titled its first major show The Stuckists Punk Victorian at the Walker Art Gallery during the 2004 Liverpool Biennial. Charles Thomson, co-founder of the group, described punk as "a major breakthrough" in his art.

Dance

A crowd of fans at a punk show

Two dance styles associated with punk are pogo dancing and moshing. The pogo is a dance in which the dancers jump up and down, while either remaining on the spot or moving around; the dance takes its name from its resemblance to the use of a pogo stick, especially in a common version of the dance, where an individual keeps their torso stiff, their arms rigid, and their legs close together. Pogo dancing is most associated with punk rock and is a precursor to moshing. Moshing or slamdancing is a style of dance where participants push or slam into each other, typically during a live music show. It is usually associated with "aggressive" music genres, such as hardcore punk and genres such as thrash metal which borrowed the practice from hardcore. Stage diving and crowd surfing were originally associated with protopunk bands such as The Stooges, and have appeared at punk, metal and rock concerts. Ska punk promoted an updated version of skanking. Hardcore dancing is a later development influenced by all of the above-mentioned styles. Psychobillies prefer to "wreck", a form of slam dancing that involves people punching each other in the chest and arms as they move around the circle pit.

Literature

UK and US zines, 1994-2004

Punk has generated a considerable amount of poetry and prose. Punk has its own underground press in the form of punk zines, which feature news, gossip, cultural criticism, and interviews. Some zines take the form of perzines. Important punk zines include Maximum RocknRoll, Punk Planet, No Cure, Cometbus, Flipside, and Search & Destroy. Several novels, biographies, autobiographies, and comic books have been written about punk. Love and Rockets is a comic with a plot involving the Los Angeles punk scene.
Just as fanzines, often called zines, played an important role in spreading information about different scenes in the punk era (e.g. British fanzines like Mark Perry’s Sniffin Glue and Shane MacGowan’s Bondage), zines also played an important role in the hardcore scene. In the pre-Internet era, zines enabled readers to learn about bands, clubs, and record labels. Zines typically included reviews of shows and records, interviews with bands, letters, and ads for records and labels. Zines were DIY products, "proudly amateur, usually handmade, and always independent" and in the "’90s, zines were the primary way to stay up on punk and hardcore."  They acted as the "blogs, comment sections, and social networks of their day."
In the American Midwest, the zine Touch and Go described the Midwest hardcore scene from 1979 to 1983. We Got Power described the LA scene from 1981 to 1984, and it included show reviews and band interviews with groups including D.O.A., the Misfits, Black Flag, Suicidal Tendencies and the Circle Jerks. My Rules was a photo zine that included photos of hardcore shows from across the US. In Effect, which began in 1988, described the New York City scene.
Examples of punk poets include: Richard Hell, Jim Carroll, Patti Smith, John Cooper Clarke, Seething Wells, Raegan Butcher, and Attila the Stockbroker. The Medway Poets performance group included punk musician Billy Childish and had an influence on Tracey Emin. Jim Carroll's autobiographical works are among the first known examples of punk literature. The punk subculture has inspired the cyberpunk and steampunk literature genres, and has even contributed (by way of Iggy Pop) to classical scholarship.

Film

Joe Strummer concert footage from the movie, TV, and radio service Punkcast

Many punk-themed films have been made, as have punk rock music videos and punk-oriented skateboarding videos. Some punk films intercut stock footage with news clips and amateur videos of concerts. The No Wave Cinema and Remodernist film movements owe much to punk aesthetics. Several famous punk bands have participated in movies, such as the Ramones in Rock 'n' Roll High School, the Sex Pistols in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and Social Distortion in Another State of Mind. Derek Jarman and Don Letts are notable punk filmmakers. Penelope Spheeris' first installment of the documentary trilogy "The Decline of Western Civilization" (1981) focuses on the early Los Angeles punk scene through interviews and early concert footage from bands including Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Germs and Fear. The third installment of "The Decline of Western Civilization III" explores the gutter punk lifestyle in the 1990s. Loren Cass is another example of the punk subculture represented in film.

Perspectives on drugs and alcohol

Inhalable solvents

"Glue s niffing was adopted by punks because public perceptions of sniffing fitted in with their self-image. Originally used experimentally and as a cheap high, adult disgust and hostility encouraged punks to use glue sniffing as a way of shocking society."  Model airplane glue and contact cement were among the numerous solvents and inhalants used by punks for the euphoria and intoxication that inhaling the products created. Glue was typically inhaled by placing a quantity of glue in a bag and "huffing" (inhaling) the vapour. Liquid solvents were typically inhaled by soaking a rag with the solvent and inhaling the vapour. While users inhale solvents for the intoxicating effects, the solvents can be harmful or fatal, with asphyxiation by the plastic bags used being one of the causes of death.

Straight edge

A straight edge tattoo

Straight edge is a subculture of hardcore punk whose adherents refrain from using alcohol, tobacco and other recreational drugs, in reaction to the excesses of punk subculture. For some, this extends to refraining from engaging in promiscuous sex, following a vegetarian or vegan diet, and/or not using caffeine or prescription drugs. The term straight edge was adopted from the 1981 song "Straight Edge" by the hardcore punk band Minor Threat.

Straight edge emerged amid the early-1980s hardcore punk scene. Since then, a wide variety of beliefs and ideas have been associated with some members of the movement, including vegetarianism and animal rights. Ross Haenfler writes that as of the late 1990s, approximately three out of four straight edge participants were vegetarian or vegan. While the commonly expressed aspects of the straight edge subculture have been abstinence from alcohol, nicotine, and illegal drugs, there have been considerable variations on how far to take the interpretations of "abstaining from intoxicants" or "living drug-free". Disagreements often arise as to the primary reasons for living straight edge. Straight edge politics are primarily left-wing and revolutionary but there have been conservative offshoots.

In 1999, William Tsitsos wrote that straight edge had gone through three eras since its founding in the early 1980s. Bent edge began as a counter-movement to straight edge by members of the Washington, D.C. hardcore scene who were frustrated by the rigidity and intolerance in the scene. During the youth crew era, which started in the mid-1980s, the influence of music on the straight edge scene was at an all-time high. By the early 1990s, militant straight edge was a well-known part of the wider punk scene. In the early to mid-1990s, straight edge spread from the United States to Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and South America. By the beginning of the 2000s, militant straight edge punks had largely left the broader straight edge culture and movement.

Lifestyle and community

A band plays on the tiny stage at the Berkeley, California punk venue at 924 Gilman Street

Punks can come from any and all walks of life and economic classes. Compared to some alternative cultures, punk is much closer to being gender equalist in terms of its ideology. Although the punk subculture is mostly anti-racist, it is vastly white (at least in predominantly-white areas, such as L.A.). However, members of other groups (such as Blacks, Latinos, and Asians) have also contributed to the development of the subculture. Substance abuse has sometimes been a part of the punk scene, with the notable exception of the straight edge movement. Violence has also sometimes appeared in the punk subculture, but has been opposed by some subsets of the subculture, such as the pacifist strain of anarcho-punk.

The graffiti-covered backstage area at the Gilman Street venue.

Punks often form a local scene, which can have as few as half a dozen members in a small town, or as many as thousands of members in a major city. A local scene usually has a small group of dedicated punks surrounded by a more casual periphery. A typical punk scene is made up of punk and hardcore bands; fans who attend concerts, protests, and other events; zine publishers, band reviewers, and writers; visual artists who create illustrations for zines, posters, and album covers; people who organise concerts, and people who work at music venues or independent record labels. Squatting plays a role in some punk communities, providing shelter and other forms of support. Illegal squats in abandoned or condemned housing and communal "punk houses" sometimes provide bands a place to stay while they are touring. There are some punk communes, such as the Dial House. The Internet has been playing an increasingly larger role in punk, specifically in the form of virtual communities and file sharing programs for trading music files.

Authenticity

In the punk and hardcore subcultures, members of the scene are often evaluated in terms of the authenticity of their commitment to the values or philosophies of the scene, which may range from political beliefs to lifestyle practices. In the punk subculture, the epithet poseur (or "poser") is used to describe "a person who habitually pretends to be something he or she is not." The term is used to refer to a person who adopts the dress, speech, and/or mannerisms of a particular subculture, yet who is deemed to not share or understand the values or philosophy of the subculture.
While this perceived inauthenticity is viewed with scorn and contempt by members of the subculture, the definition of the term and to whom it should be applied is subjective. An article in Drowned in Sound argues that 1980s-era "hardcore is the true spirit of punk", because "after all the poseurs and fashionistas fucked off to the next trend of skinny pink ties with New Romantic haircuts, singing wimpy lyrics", the punk scene consisted only of people "completely dedicated to the DIY ethics".

Interactions with other subcultures

Glam rockers such as New York Dolls and David Bowie had big influences on protopunk, early punk rock, and the crossover subgenre later called glam punk. Particularly, Bowie himself supported the spawning punk bands of this time, and he later said after punk somewhat fell out of fashion, "I think it's a crying shame that the category has dissipated its importance." Punk and hip hop emerged around the same time in the late 1970s New York City, and there has been some interaction between the two subcultures. Some of the first hip hop MCs called themselves punk rockers, and some punk fashions have found their way into hip hop dress. Malcolm McLaren played roles in introducing both punk and hip hop to the United Kingdom. Hip hop later influenced some punk and hardcore bands, such as Hed PE, Blaggers I.T.A., Biohazard, E.Town Concrete, The Transplants and Refused.

The skinhead subculture of the United Kingdom in the late 1960s – which had almost disappeared in the early 1970s — was revived in the late 1970s, partly because of the influence of punk rock, especially the Oi! punk subgenre. Conversely, ska and reggae, popular among traditionalist skinheads, has influenced several punk musicians. Punks and skinheads have had both antagonistic and friendly relationships, depending on the social circumstances, time period and geographic location.

The punk and heavy metal subcultures have shared some similarities since punk's inception. The early 1970s protopunk scene had an influence on the development of heavy metal. Alice Cooper was a forerunner of the fashion and music of both the punk and metal subcultures. Motörhead, since their first album release in 1977, have had continued popularity in the punk scene, and singer Lemmy was a fan of punk rock. Genres such as metalcore, grindcore and crossover thrash were greatly influenced by punk rock and heavy metal. The new wave of British heavy metal influenced the UK 82 style of bands like Discharge, and hardcore was a primary influence on thrash metal bands such as Metallica and Slayer. The early 1990s grunge subculture was a fusion of punk anti-fashion ideals and metal-influenced guitar sounds. However, hardcore punk and grunge developed in part as reactions against the heavy metal music that was popular during the 1980s.

In punk's heyday, punks faced harassment and attacks from the general public and from members of other subcultures. In the 1980s in the UK, punks were sometimes involved in brawls with Teddy Boys, greasers, bikers, mods and members of other subcultures. There was also considerable enmity between positive punks (known today as goths) and the glamorously dressed New Romantics.
In the late 1970s, punks were known to have had confrontations with hippies due to the contrasting ideologies and backlash of the hippie culture. Nevertheless, Penny Rimbaud of the English anarcho-punk band Crass said in interviews, and in an essay called The Last Of The Hippies, that Crass was formed in memory of his friend, Wally Hope. Rimbaud also said that Crass were heavily involved with the hippie movement throughout the 1960s and Seventies, with Dial House being established in 1967. Many punks were often critical of Crass for their involvement in the hippie movement. Like Crass, Jello Biafra was influenced by the hippie movement and cited the yippies as a key influence on his political activism and thinking, though he did write songs critical of hippies.
The industrial and rivethead subcultures have had several ties to punk, in terms of music, fashion and attitude.

Power pop music (as defined by groups such as Badfinger, Cheap Trick, The Knack, and The Romantics) emerged in mostly the same time-frame and geographical area as punk rock, and they shared a great deal musically in terms of playing short songs loud and fast while trying to emphasize catchy feelings. More melodic and pop-influenced punk music have also often been wrapped alongside power pop bands under the general "new wave music" label. A good example of a genre-straddling 'power pop punk' band is the popular Northern Ireland group Protex. However, stylistically and lyrically, power pop bands have tended to have a very not-punk top 40 commercial pop influence and a flashier, heavily teen-pop sense of fashion, especially modern power pop groups such as Stereo Skyline and All Time Low.

Global perspectives

The punk subculture has spread to many countries around the world. The fluidity of musical expression in particular makes it an ideal medium for this cross-cultural interpretation.

Mexico

 

In Mexico, punk culture is primarily a phenomenon among middle and upper class youth, many of whom were first exposed to punk music through travel to England. Because of low fees at public universities in Mexico, a significant minority of Mexican punks are university students. It is estimated approximately 5,000 young people are active punks in Mexico City, hosting two or three underground shows a week. These young people often form Chavos banda or youth gangs that organize subculture activity by creating formal meeting spaces and rituals and practices. In Tepic, Nayarit are 1,200 punks actives.
Oral nicknames are a distinguishing feature of Mexican punk, where the tradition of oral culture has influenced the development of nicknames for almost all Mexican punks. Patches are widely used as an inexpensive way to alter clothing and express identity. Though English language bands like the Dead Kennedys are well known in Mexico, punks prefer Spanish-language music or covers translated into Spanish. The slam dance style common in the California punk scene of the early 1980s is very popular.

Performance practices reflect socio-economic circumstances of Mexican punks. Called tocadas, shows are generally held in public spaces like basketball courts or community centers instead of places of business like bars and restaurants, as is more common in the United States and Europe. They usually take place in the afternoon and end early to accommodate the three or four hours it takes many punks to return home by public transit. Mexican punk groups rarely release vinyl or CD recordings, preferring cassettes.
Though Mexican punk itself does not have an explicit political agenda, Mexican punks have been active in the Zapatista Movement, Anarcho-punk Movement, and Anti-globalization movement.

Russia and the Soviet Union

The anti-establishment punk sub-culture has appealed to Russians for decades, with punk media, fashion, and albums becoming enormously popular underground items in the late 1970s onwards. Musically, the sound of punk rock became a clear protest against the disco influenced, heavily electronic official Soviet regime songs. The government suppressed punks and ruthlessly censored their music.

The founder of Russian punk is considered to be Yegor Letov with his band Grazhdanskaya Oborona, which started performing in the early 80's. Letov also invented a word chanted by punk fans during concerts, Hoi (a mixture of the Oi! movement and the Russian profanity word Hui (meaning penis)).
In the late 80's another band started operating in Russia, reaching a cult status, Sektor Gaza. They created a genre called "Kolkhoz punk", which was mixing elements from Russian village life into punk music. Another cult band which started few years later was Korol i Shut, introducing horror punk, using costumes and lyrics in the form of tales and fables. Korol i Shut became one of the best selling and most highly regarded bands in the history of russian Rock.
An internationally well-known current Russian punk band is Pussy Riot.

South Africa

Punk arrived slowly in South Africa during the 1970s when waves of British tradesman welcomed by the then-apartheid government brought cultural influences like the popular British music magazine NME. NME was sold in South Africa six weeks after publication. South African punk developed separately in Johannesburg, Durban, and Cape Town and relied on live performances in townships and streets as the multi-racial composition of bands and fan bases challenged the legal and social conventions of the apartheid regime.
Political participation is foundational to punk subculture in South Africa. During the apartheid regime, punk was second only to rock in its importance to multi-racial interactions in South Africa. Because of this involvement in the punk scene was in itself a political statement. Police harassment was common and the government often forced censorship of explicitly political lyrics. Johannesburg based band National Wake was routinely censored and even banned for songs like "International News," which challenged the South African government's refusal to acknowledge the racial and political conflict in the country. National Wake guitarist Ivan Kadey attributes the punk scene's ability to persevere despite the legal challenges of multi-racial mixing to the punk subculture DIY ethic and anti-establishment attitude.

In post-apartheid South Africa, punk has attracted a greater number of white middle-class males. Thabo Mbeki's African Renaissance movement has complicated the position of white South Africans in contemporary society. Punk provides young white men the opportunity to explore and express their minority identity.

 Cape Town band Hog Hoggidy Hog sings of the strange status of white Africans:

It's my home it's where I'll stay and where I belong,

I didn't choose to be here I was born I might seem out of place

but everything I hold dear is under the African sun.

Post-apartheid punk subculture continues to be active in South African politics, organizing a 2000 festival called Punks Against Racism at Thrashers Statepark in Pretoria. Rather than the sense of despondency and fatalism that characterized 1970s British punk subculture, the politically engaged South African scene is more positive about the future of South Africa.

Peru

In Peru punk traces its roots to the band Los Saicos, a Lima group that played the unique blend of garage and break dance music that would later be labeled punk as early as the 1960s. The early activity of Los Saicos has led many to claim that punk originated in Lima instead of the UK, as it typically assumed. Though their claim to be the first punk band in the world can be disputed, Los Saicos were undoubtedly the first in Latin America and released their first single in 1965. The group played to full houses and made frequent television appearances throughout the 1960s. Throughout the 1970s, the band was completely forgotten. Years later, a plaque that declares "here the global punk-rock movement was born" was placed at the corner of Miguel Iglesias and Julio C. Tello Streets in Lima.

By the 1980s the punk scene in Peru was highly active. Peruvian punks call themselves subtes and appropriate the subversive implications of the English term "underground" through the Spanish term subterraneo (literally, subterranean). In the 1980s and 1990s subtes made almost exclusive use of cassette recording as a means of circulating music without participating in formal intellectual property and musical production industries. The current scene relies on digital distribution and assumes similar anti-establishment practices. Like many punk subcultures, subtes explicitly oppose the Peruvian state and advocate instead an anarchic resistance that challenges the political and mainstream cultural establishment.

Brazil

 

The origins of punk rock in Brazil go back to the late 1970s, as in most other countries mainly under the influence of the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Ramones. However, particularly in São Paulo, more obscure names like Dutch band Speed Twins, as well as earlier protopunk artists such as The MC5, Iggy & The Stooges and The New York Dolls also had a big initial impact. The Punk emerged from the ideals of the musician Douglas Viscaino, who imbued with the pioneering ideas and unity of young people that fought against the Brazilian military regime, formed a band of protest called:

Restos de Nada. The first band appeared around 1978, notably Restos de Nada (meaning remnants of nothing). Their musicians already had their punk ideals before 1978. Getting bigger with the passage of the 1970s. Then came AI-5 and N.A.I. (later known as Condutores de Cadáver, "corpse riders") in São Paulo (biggest city of the country), as well as Carne Podre ("rotten flesh") in Curitiba (capital of Paraná State) and Aborto Elétrico ("electric miscarriage") in Brasília (Brazilian capital). Before proper punk groups came along, two relatively famous Glam/Hard Rock bands, Joelho de Porco (literally "pig knee") and Made in Brazil, used elements of the punk aesthetic around 1977/78 and were called punk bands by the media without really playing punk rock music or defining themselves as such. Both bands, however, were important to the pre-punk context of the 1970s that offered few alternatives to the Música popular brasileira (mainly known as MPB) and Progressive Rock artists that dominated the Brazilian music scene at the time. Joelho de Porco's lyrics dealing with São Paulo's urban reality was also influential.

Indonesia

In the late 2000s, punk rock faced harsh criticism in Indonesia's province of Aceh. Punk rock is seen as a threat to Islamic values and, according to authorities, conflicts with Shariah law.

Musical and lyrical elements

Johnny Rotten and Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols

Punk rock bands often emulate the bare musical structures and arrangements of 1960s garage rock. Typical punk rock instrumentation includes one or two electric guitars, an electric bass, and a drum kit, along with vocals. Songs tend to be shorter than those of other popular genres. Most early punk rock songs retained a traditional rock 'n' roll verse-chorus form and 4/4 time signature. However, later bands have often broken from this format. In critic Steven Blush's description, "The Sex Pistols were still rock'n'roll ... like the craziest version of Chuck Berry. Hardcore was a radical departure from that. It wasn't verse-chorus rock. It dispelled any notion of what songwriting is supposed to be. It's its own form."
Punk rock vocals sometimes sound nasal, and lyrics are often shouted instead of sung in a conventional sense, particularly in hardcore styles. Shifts in pitch, volume, or intonational style are relatively infrequent. Complicated guitar solos are considered self-indulgent and unnecessary, although basic guitar breaks are common. Guitar parts tend to include highly distorted power chords or barre chords, creating a characteristic sound described by Christgau as a "buzzsaw drone". Some punk rock bands take a surf rock approach with a lighter, twangier guitar tone. Others, such as Robert Quine, lead guitarist of the Voidoids, have employed a wild, "gonzo" attack, a style that stretches back through the Velvet Underground to the 1950s' recordings of Ike Turner.Bass guitar lines are often uncomplicated; the quintessential approach is a relentless, repetitive "forced rhythm", although some punk rock bass players—such as Mike Watt of the Minutemen and Firehose—emphasize more technical bass lines. Bassists often use a pick due to the rapid succession of notes, which makes fingerpicking impractical. Drums typically sound heavy and dry, and often have a minimal set-up. Compared to other forms of rock, syncopation is much less the rule. Hardcore drumming tends to be especially fast. Production tends to be minimalistic, with tracks sometimes laid down on home tape recorders or simple four-track portastudios. The typical objective is to have the recording sound unmanipulated and real, reflecting the commitment and authenticity of a live performance.

The Clash, performing in 1980

Punk rock lyrics are typically frank and confrontational; compared to the lyrics of other popular music genres, they frequently comment on social and political issues. Trend-setting songs such as the Clash's "Career Opportunities" and Chelsea's "Right to Work" deal with unemployment and the grim realities of urban life. Especially in early British punk, a central goal was to outrage and shock the mainstream. The Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K." and "God Save the Queen" openly disparaged the British political system and social mores. Anti-sentimental depictions of relationships and sex are common, as in "Love Comes in Spurts", written by Richard Hell and recorded by him with the Voidoids. Anomie, variously expressed in the poetic terms of Hell's "Blank Generation" and the bluntness of the Ramones' "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue", is a common theme. Identifying punk with such topics aligns with the view expressed by V. Vale, founder of San Francisco fanzine Search and Destroy: "Punk was a total cultural revolt. It was a hardcore confrontation with the black side of history and culture, right-wing imagery, sexual taboos, a delving into it that had never been done before by any generation in such a thorough way".

Visual and other elements

The classic punk rock look among male American musicians harkens back to the T-shirt, motorcycle jacket, and jeans ensemble favored by American greasers of the 1950s associated with the rockabilly scene and by British rockers of the 1960s. The cover of the Ramones' 1976 debut album, featuring a shot of the band by Punk photographer Roberta Bayley, set forth the basic elements of a style that was soon widely emulated by rock musicians both punk and nonpunk. Richard Hell's more androgynous, ragamuffin look—and reputed invention of the safety-pin aesthetic—was a major influence on Sex Pistols impresario Malcolm McLaren and, in turn, British punk style. (John D Morton of Cleveland's Electric Eels may have been the first rock musician to wear a safety-pin-covered jacket). McLaren's partner, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, credits Johnny Rotten as the first British punk to rip his shirt, and Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious as the first to use safety pins, although few of those following Punk could afford to buy McLaren and Westwood's designs so famously worn by the Pistols, so they made their own, diversifying the 'look' with various different styles based on these designs. Young women in punk demolished the typical female types in rock of either "coy sex kittens or wronged blues belters" in their fashion. Early female punk musicians displayed styles ranging from Siouxsie Sioux's bondage gear to Patti Smith's "straight-from-the-gutter androgyny". The former proved much more influential on female fan styles.Over time, tattoos, piercings, and metal-studded and -spiked accessories became increasingly common elements of punk fashion among both musicians and fans, a "style of adornment calculated to disturb and outrage". Among the other facets of the Punk Rock scene, a punks hair is an important way of showing their freedom of expression. The typical male punk haircut was originally short and choppy; the Mohawk later emerged as a characteristic style. Along with the mohawk, long spikes have been associated with the punk rock genre.

British punks, circa 1986

The characteristic stage performance style of male punk musicians does not deviate significantly from the macho postures classically associated with rock music. Female punk musicians broke more clearly from earlier styles. Scholar John Strohm suggests that they did so by creating personas of a type conventionally seen as masculine: "They adopted a tough, unladylike pose that borrowed more from the macho swagger of sixties garage bands than from the calculated bad-girl image of bands like the Runaways." Scholar Dave Laing describes how bassist Gaye Advert adopted fashion elements associated with male musicians only to generate a stage persona readily consumed as "sexy". Laing focuses on more innovative and challenging performance styles, seen in the various erotically destabilizing approaches of Siouxsie Sioux, the Slits' Ari Up, and X-Ray Spex' Poly Styrene.
The lack of emphatic syncopation led punk dance to "deviant" forms. The characteristic style was originally the pogo. Sid Vicious, before he became the Sex Pistols' bassist, is credited with initiating the pogo in Britain as an attendee at one of their concerts. Moshing (Slam Dancing) is typical at hardcore shows. The lack of conventional dance rhythms was a central factor in limiting punk's mainstream commercial impact.
Breaking down the distance between performer and audience is central to the punk ethic. Fan participation at concerts is thus important; during the movement's first heyday, it was often provoked in an adversarial manner—apparently perverse, but appropriately "punk". First-wave British punk bands such as the Sex Pistols and the Damned insulted and otherwise goaded the audience into intense reactions. Laing has identified three primary forms of audience physical response to goading: can throwing, stage invasion, and spitting or "gobbing". In the hardcore realm, stage invasion is often a prelude to stage diving. In addition to the numerous fans who have started or joined punk bands, audience members also become important participants via the scene's many amateur periodicals—in England, according to Laing, punk "was the first musical genre to spawn fanzines in any significant numbers".

Psychobilly

Psychobilly is a fusion genre of rock music that mixes elements of punk rock, rock and roll, rockabilly, and rhythm and blues. It is one of several subgenres of rockabilly which also include thrashabilly, punkabilly, surfabilly and gothabilly. Merriam-Webster defines it as "music that blends punk rock and rockabilly"; another dictionary defines it as "loud frantic rockabilly music." About.com defines psychobilly as "tak[ing] the traditional countrified rock style known as rockabilly, ramp[ing] up its speed to a sweaty pace, and combin[ing] it with punk rock and imagery lifted from horror films and late-night sci-fi schlock,...[creating a] gritty honky tonk punk rock." Psychobilly, "while rooted in the twang of rockabilly, owes just as much to the sound of straight up three-chord punk, often with a dose of thrash metal."
Psychobilly is often characterized by lyrical references to science fiction, horror and exploitation films, violence, lurid sexuality, and other topics generally considered taboo, though often presented in a comedic or tongue-in-cheek fashion. Psychobilly bands and lyrics usually take an apolitical stance, a reaction to the right- and left-wing political attitudes which divided other British youth cultures. It is often played with an upright double bass, instead of the electric bass which is more common in modern rock music, and the hollowbody electric guitar, rather than the solid-bodied electric guitars that predominate in rock. Many psychobilly bands are trios of electric guitar, upright bass and drums, with one of the instrumentalists doubling as vocalist.

Demented Are Go's upright bassist.

Psychobilly gained underground popularity in Europe beginning in the early 1980s, with the UK band The Meteors, but remained largely unknown in the United States until the late 1990s.

 The second wave of psychobilly began with the 1986 release of British band Demented Are Go's debut album In Sickness & In Health. The genre soon spread throughout Europe, inspiring a number of new acts such as Mad Sin (formed in Germany in 1987) and the Nekromantix (formed in Denmark in 1989), who released the album Curse of the Coffin in 1991.

 Since then the advent of several notable psychobilly bands, such as the US band Tiger Army and the Australian band The Living End, has led to its mainstream popularity and attracted international attention to the genre.

History

The evolution of psychobilly as a genre is often described as having occurred in waves. The first wave occurred in Britain in the early 1980s, the second wave took place at the end of that decade and spread through the rest of Europe, and the third crested in the late 1990s with the genre finding international popularity.

Origins

The Cramps are considered progenitors of psychobilly.

The Cramps weren't thinking of this weird subgenre when we coined the term "psychobilly" in 1976 to describe what we were doing. To us all the '50s rockabillies were psycho to begin with; it just came with the turf as a given, like a crazed, sped-up hillbilly boogie version of country.
We hadn't meant playing everything superloud at superheavy hardcore punk tempos with a whole style and look, which is what "psychobilly" came to mean later in the '80s. We also used the term "rockabilly voodoo" on our early flyers.

—Poison Ivy Rorschach

In the mid- to late 1970s, as punk rock became popular, several rockabilly and garage rock bands appeared who would influence the development of psychobilly. The term "psychobilly" was first used in the lyrics to the country song "One Piece at a Time", written by Wayne Kemp for Johnny Cash, which was a Top 10 hit in the United States in 1976. The lyrics describe the construction of a "psychobilly Cadillac using stolen auto parts."
The rock band The Cramps, who formed in Sacramento, California in 1972 and relocated to New York in 1975 where they became part of the city's thriving punk movement, appropriated the term from the Cash song and described their music as "psychobilly" and "rockabilly voodoo" on flyers advertising their concerts. The Cramps have since rejected the idea of being a part of a psychobilly subculture, noting that "We weren't even describing the music when we put 'psychobilly' on our old fliers; we were just using carny terms to drum up business. It wasn't meant as a style of music." Nevertheless, The Cramps, along with artists such as Screamin' Jay Hawkins, are considered important precursors to psychobilly. The Cramps' music was heavily informed by the sound and attitude of 1950s American rockabilly, including Hasil Adkins, whose song "She Said" they covered on 1984's compilation album Bad Music for Bad People, along with other songs from the Sun Records catalog. Their 1979 album Songs the Lord Taught Us is considered influential to the formation of the psychobilly genre.

First wave in Britain

The Meteors are considered the first definitive psychobilly band.

About.com calls The Meteors "the first true psychobilly band" and notes their blend of the "themes of horror, punk and rockabilly". They were the first band to use the term 'Psychobilly' as a description of their music. Formed in South London in 1980, they are considered the first verifiable psychobilly band. Their albums In Heaven (1981) and Wreckin' Crew (1983) are recognized as landmarks of the early years of the genre. "Starting in the neo-rockabilly scene, the Meteors were quickly shunned for being too different. Excuses for exclusion from rockabilly concerts varied from the band having too extreme of a sound to their drummer having green hair." The Meteors blended elements of punk rock, rockabilly, and horror film themes in their music. Another commentator argues that The Misfits' "American Nightmare" may have been the first psychobilly song.

The Meteors also articulated psychobilly's apolitical stance, a reaction to the right- and left-wing political attitudes which divided other British youth cultures. Fans of The Meteors, known as "the Crazies", are often attributed with inventing the style of slam dancing known as "wrecking", which became synonymous with the psychobilly movement. The short-lived Sharks, formed in Bristol in 1980, followed closely behind The Meteors with their influential album Phantom Rockers.Demented Are Go are a Welsh psychobilly band that was formed around 1982 in Cardiff. They were one of the earliest in the initial wave of bands to mix punk rock with rockabilly, and as a result, are considered to be highly influential to the psychobilly scene. Another significant British band were the Guana Batz, formed in Feltham, Middlesex in 1983. Their first album, 1985's Held Down to Vinyl at Last, has been described by Tiger Army frontman Nick 13 as "the most important release since the Meteors' first two albums."

The Klub Foot nightclub, opened in 1982 at the Clarendon Hotel in Hammersmith, served as a center for Britain's emerging psychobilly movement and hosted many bands associated with the style. Johnny Bowler of the Guana Batz describes the club as "the focal point for the whole psychobilly scene. You'd get people from all over at those gigs. It built the scene." Representatives from record labels such as Nervous used the Klub Foot as a recruiting ground to sign up new bands.

 A live compilation album entitled Stomping at the Klub Foot was released in 1984, documenting the club's scene and the bands who played there. At the same time psychobilly bands were forming elsewhere in Europe, such as Batmobile who emerged in the Netherlands in 1983, released their debut album in 1985, and soon began headlining at psychobilly festivals and at the Klub Foot.

Second wave in Europe

The second wave of psychobilly is noted as having begun with the 1986 release of British band Demented Are Go's debut album In Sickness & In Health. The genre soon spread throughout Europe, inspiring a number of new acts such as Mad Sin (formed in Germany in 1987) and the Nekromantix (formed in Denmark in 1989), who released the album Curse of the Coffin in 1991.

 The Quakes formed in Buffalo, New York in 1986, but had such difficulty building a following in their hometown that they moved to London the following year, where they released the album Voice of America in 1990. Another significant release of this era was the compilation album Rockabilly Psychosis and the Garage Disease, which acknowledged the genre's roots in rockabilly and garage rock.

Demented Are Go's singer's stage blood make-up is an example of the horror-film schtick some psychobilly bands adopted.

The influential German band Mad Sin in 2008. From a psychobilly fashion perspective, note the bassist's red-dyed pompadour and the guitarist on the right's crop cut sides.

The second-wave bands broadened the music's scope, with the introduction of new and diverse musical influences into the sound. Record labels such as Nervous and Crazy Love helped the genre to expand, although it still remained largely unnoticed in the United States, where the albums were poorly distributed and most psychobilly bands preferred to play weekenders than to tour. Nick 13 states that while other British youth trends such as scooter riding, the skinhead subculture, and 2 Tone ska crossed over to the United States during the 1980s, psychobilly did not.

However, one American act that emulated the style was The Reverend Horton Heat, formed in Dallas, Texas in 1985. Their 1990 single "Psychobilly Freakout" helped introduce American audiences to the genre. The band was heavily inspired by The Cramps, and original Cramps members Lux Interior and Poison Ivy have both identified The Reverend Horton Heat as the latter-day rockabilly/psychobilly band most closely resembling the style and tone of The Cramps.Horton Heat noted that the lack of audience awareness of the band was in some ways a benefit: "Somehow, as a band, we continue[d] to fly just below the radar of the whole music business. Which means we g[o]t to concentrate on being [touring] musicians, not recording artists."

Third wave internationally

Tiger Army, shown here performing on the 2007 Warped Tour, are one of the most significant American psychobilly acts.

The third wave of psychobilly began in the mid-1990s, with many acts incorporating influences from genres such as: hardcore punk, indie rock, heavy metal, new wave, goth rock, surf rock, country, and ska. Psychobilly became popular in the United States, particularly in southern California, where punk rock had thrived and remained popular since the 1970s. The area's large Latino community, which revered early rock and roll icons, also played a part, as did the popularity of bands like the horror-influenced Misfits and country/rockabilly-inspired Social Distortion, as well as a celebration of hot rod and motorcycle culture.

Reverend Horton Heat playing in 2010

Tiger Army, formed in Berkeley in 1996, became the dominant American psychobilly act following the release of their 1999 self-titled debut. Their touring in support of the album helped to establish a foothold for psychobilly across the United States. Los Angeles-based Hellcat Records, run by Rancid's Tim Armstrong, became home to many psychobilly acts, including Tiger Army, Devil's Brigade and the Danish groups Nekromantix and HorrorPops, both of whom relocated to southern California in the early 2000s.

Guana Batz members Pip Hancox and Johnny Bowler relocated there as well, moving to San Diego where they sometimes perform with Slim Jim Phantom of the Stray Cats under the name Guana Cats. Another notable California psychobilly band formed in the 1990s was The Chop Tops. They have toured with bands like German psychobillies Mad Sin and the Nekromantix, and have opened for the Dead Kennedys, Suicidal Tendencies, Dick Dale, John Lee Hooker, and Chuck Berry.

The genre remained vital in Europe, where new acts continued to appear. Asmodeus formed in Amsterdam in 1992, the same year the Kryptonix emerged in France, and the Godless Wicked Creeps formed in Denmark the following year.The Sharks re-formed in Britain, releasing the album Recreational Killer. Psychobilly also expended to new continents Battle of Ninjamanz formed in Japan in 1994 and Os Catalepticos formed in Brazil in 1996.

Canada

Psychobilly also spread to Canada. The Gutter Demons were a band formed in 2002 in Montreal, Quebec, who became one of the most recognizable Canadian psychobilly bands. The Brains is a band from Montreal. The Creepshow is a band from Burlington, Ontario, Canada. which formed in 2005; they write the majority of their songs about horror films. The Switchblade Valentines are a Canadian psychobilly band from Victoria. Big John Bates is known as "one of Vancouver's most notorious musicians" (Globe & Mail - Toronto). The band re-branded in 2011 as "Americana Noir" (a rustic offshoot of the dark cabaret genre) when the Gretsch-endorsed Bates was joined by Montana's Brandy Bones on Hofner upright bass and cello. Lauren Spike  is a band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, who has played many large shows such as Amnesia Rockfest.

Canadian psychobilly band The Creepshow playing in Manchester in 2012

Musical style

STYLES

Musically, psychobilly is rooted primarily in two genres: late 1970s punk rock and 1950s American rockabilly. Tiger Army frontman Nick 13 explains: "The number-one misconception people have is that psychobilly is the same thing as rockabilly. Rockabilly is on the family tree, but it's a totally different sound and attitude." Psychobilly progenitors The Cramps acknowledge their music's deep roots in American blues, rhythm and blues, and traditional rock and roll. Alternative Press writer Ryan Downey notes that contemporary psychobilly also draws from other rock genres and subgenres: "Driven by the rhythmic pounding of a stand-up bass, the music swings with the snarl of punk rock while sometimes thrashing alongside speed metal or crashing headlong into country icon Hank Williams."

The Bloodsucking Zombies from Outer Space show the use of horror-film stage costumes and the decoration of the upright bass.

Craig Brackenridge lists other sources of inspiration: 1960s garage punk, glam rock, revival rock 'n' roll, and heavy metal. Nate Katz states that "[w]hile traces of glam, metal, and punk can be found in psychobilly, at its core, psychobilly emerged from rockabilly, particularly the neo-rockabilly movement in London during the late 1970's". Katz states that "The Sharks brought in elements of new wave music to their sound." Moreover, "[i]n the song "Take a Razor to Your Head," they clearly seek out those breaking away from neo-rockabilly into psychobilly".
Downey acknowledges that contemporary psychobilly's roots extend into 2 Tone ska, garage rock, hardcore punk, street punk and Oi!. Hilary Okun, publicist for Epitaph and Hellcat Records, notes: "The music appeals to fans of punk, indie, metal, new wave, goth, rockabilly, surf, [and] country." The influence of heavy metal on the psychobilly style resulted in the Nekromantix's 1994 album Brought Back to Life being nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of "Best Heavy Metal Album."

Psychobilly is commonly played with a simple guitar/bass/drum/vocal arrangement, with many bands consisting of only three members. Often the guitarist or bassist will be the lead vocalist, with few acts having a dedicated singer (Mad Sin being one of the examples with a dedicated singer).
Psychobilly guitarists often play rockabilly-style hollowbody archtop guitars with f-holes and a tremolo bar. Guitarists may play punk-style power chords one moment, and then shift into rockabilly-style fingerpicking and rockabilly guitar-style seventh chords. Notes are often bent, either by pulling the string down or by using the tremolo bar. Gretsch hollowbody guitars are a popular choice. Guitarists often use 1950s-style tube amplifiers such as by makers such as Fender and it is common to see stacks of two speaker cabinets. As with rockabilly guitarists, the overdrive tone usually comes from what is produced naturally by overdriving the tube amp, rather than by plugging into a distortion pedal.
An upright double bass is often used instead of the electric bass found in most rock bands. The use of the upright bass is influenced by 1950s rockabilly and rock and roll musicians, particularly in the use of walking bass lines and the use of slapping. The bass is often played in the slap style, in which the player snaps the string by pulling it until it hits the fingerboard, or hits the strings against the fingerboard, which adds a high-pitched percussive "clack" or "slap" sound to the low-pitched notes. Kim Nekroman and Geoff Kresge are two examples of psychobilly bassists who have developed a rapid, percussive slap bass technique. This live Nekromantix song showcases Kim's rapid percussive slapping. This live Tiger Army song shows Kresge's rapid slap bass technique.
Psychobilly bassists often use gut strings, to get the deep, low 1950s tone. Like rockabilly bassists, psychobilly bassists often use both a bridge pickup and a fingerboard pickup, with the latter being used to pick up slapping and percussive sounds. Psychobilly bassists often decorate their basses by painting them with retro pin-up style images or designs or by putting stickers on them.

HorrorPops frontwoman Patricia Day plays an elaborately decorated double bass, a common instrument in psychobilly.

Some acts have made their upright bass the centerpiece of their stage shows; some psychobilly musicians elaborately decorate their upright bass, such as Nekromantix frontman Kim Nekroman, whose "coffinbass" is in the shape of a coffin, with a headstock in the shape of a cross. Nekroman created his original "coffinbass" from an actual child-sized coffin, and has since designed new models to achieve better acoustics, as well as collapsibility for easier transportation. Another notable act to use a coffin-shaped bass is the Brazilian psychobilly band Os Catalepticos. HorrorPops frontwoman Patricia Day also uses an elaborately painted and decorated double bass.
The Cramps performed without a bass player in their early career, using two guitars instead. They did not add a bass guitar to their arrangement until 1986, and have used an electric bass since that time. Cramps guitarist/bassist Poison Ivy sees this as one of the distinctions that separate the band from the psychobilly movement: "I think psychobilly has evolved into a gamut of things... It seems to involve upright bass and playing songs extremely fast. That's certainly not what we do."
Samantha Von Trash's history of psychobilly lists 13 essential albums for people new to psychobilly: The Cramps: Songs the Lord Taught Us; Reverend Horton Heat: Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em; The Misfits: Static Age; Social Distortion: Mommy's Little Monster; The Essential Johnny Cash ;Cult of the Psychic Fetus: Funeral Home Sessions; Cult of the Psychic Fetus: She Devil;Demented Are Go: Satan's Rejects; 7 Shot Screamers: Keep the Flame Alive ;Nekromantix: Curse of the Coffin;"Rockabilly Riot!" compilation; Thee Merry Widows' self-titled EP; Stray Cats: either Built For Speed or Rock This Town.

Stage shows

The Living End demonstrate psychobilly stage antics; in this photo, the guitarist is standing on top of the upright bass.

The performance style in psychobilly concerts emphasizes high energy and a lot of interactions between the band members and with the audience. The HorrorPops sometimes switch instruments for fun, and Kim Nekroman does stunts such as playing the fingerboard of his Coffinbass with his tongue. Demented are Go are known for their wild stage show, which included simulated on-stage sex with a vacuum cleaner. The Australian band Zombie Ghost Train were known for appearing on stage in "zombified" clothes, featuring rips and bloodstains, and zombie make up, complete with fake stitches across the face.

Psychobilly guitarists often play 1950s-style hollowbody guitars.

The Phenomenauts are known for their inventive and fun-filled live shows, which often include smoke machines, the Streamerator 2000, and various on-stage theatrics. Big John Bates was banned in one venue due to concerns about their overly risque stage antics. Deadbolt is known for its use of power tools during their live sets, and it is customary for the audience to be showered with sparks of red-hot metal during their live shows. King Kurt, a 1980s band, was known for its infamous "food fight" gigs, in which eggs and bags of flour were thrown around on and off stage and audience members were given free haircuts. "King Kurt had a bad reputation for doing things that would make people question the band's stability. These included going on stage in dresses, dressed as Zulus, and playing drinking games on stage. Tabloids often accused them of mixing drugs ...into whatever they made people drink on stage, tossing dead animals into the crowds, and rampant sex occurring as they played."
"At any psychobilly show, you might see some dancing… only, it's not your average dancing. That would be what's called "wrecking". According to wreckingpit.com, wrecking is more like a demented hybrid of "slam-dancing and freestyle wrestling". It's basically the semi-official psycho happy-dance, hence the Nekromantix song, "Struck By a Wrecking Ball"." "Originally, the dancing was known as 'going mental'- this type of dancing eventually became known as 'stomping,' and then finally took on its official name: 'wrecking'". One definition of "wrecking" is "a strange form of dance that can best be described as a combination of slam dancing, swing dancing, and fistfights."

Lyrical style

Lyrically, psychobilly bands tend to favor topics and imagery drawn from horror, science fiction and exploitation films, violence, lurid sexuality, and other taboo topics, usually presented in a comedic or tongue-in-cheek fashion reminiscent of the camp aesthetic. Shawn McIntosh and Marc Leverette note that while rockabilly and punk scenes took their retro "nostalgia very seriously, striving for authenticity", in the psychobilly scene, the "aesthetics of kitsch, camp and cheese" are openly embraced.
Psychobilly bands drew on "all eras of horror, from Gothic novels and classic films to schlocky cold war flicks to psychological thrillers and splatter films." Psychobilly songs make reference to slashers (The Meteor's Michael Myers) and serial killers (e.g.,The Frantic Flintstone's Jack the Ripper). Most acts avoid "serious" subjects such as politics. Original psychobilly act The Meteors articulated a very apolitical stance to the scene, a reaction to the right- and left-wing political attitudes dividing British youth cultures of the late 1970s and early 1980s. This attitude has carried through later generations of psychobilly. Nekromantix frontman Kim Nekroman describes: "We are all different people and have different political views. Psychobilly is all about having fun. Politics is not fun and therefore has nothing to do with psychobilly!" Nate Katz explains the rationale for psychobilly's apolitical stance as follows:

1980 was an important year for Britain. Recently elected Margaret Thatcher's policies led to a drastic decline in employment, especially among the blue collared and youth (Kim, 2005). A year later, there were five race riots within the London area... On a political level, London was incredibly tense. Fans of psychobilly (known as psychos) wanted none of this, or at the very least a break from the stress created by the political world. By establishing an unwritten rule that the music was to be apolitical, psychobilly music became a method of escape from the real world.

Katz notes that at the "same time [in the 1980s], the revival of the B-movie, particularly the return of horror movies, occurred..., such as The Howling, The Shining, a remake of The Thing, Friday the 13th, and An American Werewolf in London (All 80s Movies). Psychos gravitated towards these movies due to their lack of seriousness, mindless gore, and enjoyed the throwback to the original B-movies of the 1950's."

Fashion and subculture

The Nekromantix, shown here in a 2011 show, illustrate several aspects of psychobilly fashion, including shaved heads, pompadour hairstyles, and prominent tattoos.

In "its early days, Psychobilly relied almost entirely on word of mouth to be spread throughout London (p. 53). If your friends did not know of it [a band or gig], the odds were that you did not either...The then manager of The Meteors, Nick Garrard, produced a magazine called 'Cat Talk' which was heavy on Meteors content & their new style of Psychobilly music. One of the bands original fans (Proff) produced gig flyers with a heavy horror/Frankenstein theme. Roy Williams of Nervous Records created a newsletter that would be passed around known as "Zorch News" allowing fans to keep up with psychobilly news that specifically related to bands involved with Nervous Records.""Despite being starved of the oxygen of mainstream music press attention for more than 25 years, psychobilly has thrived in the underground[,] building a network of fiercely loyal followers and producing a huge number of bands who each peddle their own brand of the genre." Fanzines are one of the ways the psychobilly scene created a social network, with Deathrow being the "...only long running psychobilly fanzine."
Psychobilly musicians and fans, who are sometimes called "psychos" or just "Psychobillies," often dress in styles that borrow from 1950s rockabilly and rock and roll, as well as 1970s punk fashions. Long 'Old Mans' overcoats, army trousers, bleached jeans & Dr Martin Boots were all part of the early 'Psycho' uniform along with band logo T-shirts. Heavily painted & studded leather jackets were also worn. This was topped off by a 1950s style quiff or flat-top, often bleached with shaved back & sides. Psychobilly band members of both sexes often have prominent tattoos, often with a vintage theme. Psychobilly "tattoos followed the same general notions as band designs, being highly influenced by the same movies. Common tattoos were images of the macabre nature such as bats, skulls, gravestones, as well as the occasional pin-up doll and band logo." The goal of the psychobilly scene member is to "live fast, die young, and leave a (not so) beautiful corpse."
Other aesthetic later influences include the scooterboy and skinhead subcultures, although not all performers or fans choose to dress in these styles. Scooterboy fashion includes flight jackets, mechanic's jackets, and motorcycle jackets. "Skinheads brought in things such as Doc Martens and pilot jackets ... [and] Punks brought in clothes such as the leather jacket and tighter clothing; Beneath the jacket was often a band T-shirt or a tartan shirt taken from rockabillies" Psychos often cut the arms off of their leather jackets, converting them into vests, and decorate the jackets with horror imagery or band logos.
Men often wear brothel creepers or Dr. Martens boots and shave their heads into high wedge-shaped pompadours or quiffs, military-style crops, or mohawks. The Sharks song "Take a Razor to Your Head" articulated the early psychobilly scene's code of dress, which was a reaction to the earlier British Teddy Boy movement: Teddy boys had long, strongly-moulded greased-up hair with a quiff at the front and the side combed back to form a duck's arse at the rear. The Shark's song said: "When your Mom says you look really nice / When you're dressed up like a Ted / It's time to follow this cat's advice / Take a razor to your head". "Like most hairstyles of the 1980s, things were taken to the extreme. People [in the psychobilly scene] tried to get their hair as tall as possible and brought in streaks of strange colors."

A pair of "triple sole" Creepers shoes often worn as the fashion of psychobilly musicians.

In a psychobilly scene "Betties" is the slang term for "Ladies, most often of the rockabilly and psychobilly persuasion, who emulate '50s pinup queen Bettie Page, particularly with the long, wavy, jet-black hair and supershort 'fetish' bangs." "Women also wore tight leggings, miniskirts, and even tighter clothes." Women of the psychobilly subculture frequently model their fashions after B-grade horror films and hot rod culture.
Lucky-13 "is an American hot rod clothing company proudly servicing pinup, rockabilly, psychobilly, rock n' roll, and punk rock guys and gals for over 15 years" Inked Fashion calls itself "the rockabilly shop for petticoat, psychobilly and rockabilly clothing." Paper Doll Productions sells what it calls the "...boldest psychobilly designs on the market today, fantastic for anyone who has a love of vintage style and classic horror. Inspired by rockabilly fashion, psychobilly has the same influences of 40's and 50's clothing but features a far greater modern flair, incorporating bold colours and horror themed designs to create an entirely unique genre of clothing."

Proto Punk
 

Origins

Garage and beat phenomenom

According to one theory, punk rock all goes back to Ritchie Valens's "La Bamba." Just consider Valen's three-chord mariachi squawkup in the light of "Louie Louie" by the Kingsmen, then consider "Louie Louie" in the light of "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks, then "You Really Got Me" in the light of "No Fun" by the Stooges, then "No Fun" in the light of "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones, and finally note that "Blikskrieg Bop" sounds a lot like "La Bamba."

—Lester Bangs, 1981

In the early- to mid-1960s, garage rock bands, often recognized as punk rock's progenitors, began springing up around North America. The Kingsmen had a hit with their 1963 cover of "Louie, Louie", which has been mentioned as punk rock's defining "ur-text".After the Beatles' first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, and then with the subsequent string of other successful British acts, the garage band phenomenon gathered increased momentum.

The Kinks onstage during a Dutch TV appearance in April 1967

From England in 1964, largely under the grip of the mod youth movement and beat group explosion, came the Kinks' hit singles, "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night," both influenced by "Louie, Louie". They have been described as "predecessors of the whole three-chord genre.". In 1965, the Who progressed from their first single, "I Can't Explain," a virtual Kinks clone, to "My Generation". The Who's mod anthem anticipated the kind of "cerebral mix of musical ferocity and rebellious posture" that would characterize much of the later British punk rock of the 1970s.
Beyond North America and Britain, "Wild About You" (1965) by Australia's The Missing Links, provided material for the Saints a decade later.Peru's Los Saicos recorded "Demolicion" (1965), a prominent example of early punk. AllMusic, writing about Los Saicos, noted that "The guitars sound like nothing so much as fountains of sparks, the drums have a tribal post-surf throb, and the vocals are positively unhinged" and "These guys were a punk rock band, even if nobody outside Lima knew it at the time".

After 1967, US garage rock began to fall out of favor, but the raw sound and outsider attitude of groups, such as the Sonics, the Seeds, the Remains, the Standells, and the Shadows of Knight predicted the style of later bands such as MC5 and the Stooges.

Post-psychedelia proto-punk

Iggy Pop, the "godfather of punk"

In August 1969, the Stooges, from Ann Arbor, premiered with a self-titled album. According to critic Greil Marcus, the band, led by singer Iggy Pop, created "the sound of Chuck Berry's Airmobile—after thieves stripped it for parts". The album was produced by John Cale, a former member of New York's experimental rock group the Velvet Underground. Having earned a "reputation as the first underground rock band," the Velvet Underground inspired, directly or indirectly, many of those involved in the creation of punk rock. In the early 1970s, the New York Dolls updated the original wildness of 1950s' rock 'n' roll in a fashion that later became known as glam punk. The New York duo Suicide played spare, experimental music with a confrontational stage act inspired by that of the Stooges.

 At the Coventry club in the New York City borough of Queens, the Dictators used rock as a vehicle for wise-ass attitude and humor. In Boston, the Modern Lovers, led by Velvet Underground devotee Jonathan Richman, gained attention with a minimalistic style. In 1974, an updated garage rock scene began to coalesce around the newly opened Rathskeller club in Kenmore Square. Among the leading acts were the Real Kids, founded by former Modern Lover John Felice; Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band, whose frontman had been a member of the Velvet Underground for a few months in 1971; and Mickey Clean and the Mezz. In 1974, as well, the Detroit band Death—made up of three African-American brothers—recorded "scorching blasts of feral ur-punk," but couldn't arrange a release deal. In Ohio, a small but influential underground rock scene emerged, led by Devo in Akron and Kent and by Cleveland's Electric Eels, Mirrors and Rocket from the Tombs. In 1975, Rocket from the Tombs split into Pere Ubu and Frankenstein. The Electric Eels and Mirrors both broke up, and the Styrenes emerged from the fallout.

Britain's Deviants, in the late 1960s, played in a range of psychedelic styles with a satiric, anarchic edge and a penchant for situationist-style spectacle presaging the Sex Pistols by almost a decade.In 1970, the act evolved into the Pink Fairies, which carried on in a similar vein. With his Ziggy Stardust persona, David Bowie made artifice and exaggeration central—elements, again, that were picked up by the Sex Pistols and certain other punk acts. The Doctors of Madness built on Bowie's presentation concepts, while moving musically in the direction that would become identified with punk. Bands in London's pub rock scene stripped the music back to its basics, playing hard, R&B-influenced rock 'n' roll. By 1974, the scene's top act, Dr. Feelgood, was paving the way for others such as the Stranglers and Cock Sparrer that would play a role in the punk explosion. Among the pub rock bands that formed that year was the 101ers, whose lead singer would soon adopt the name Joe Strummer.

Germany

 German punk is punk rock music and punk subculture in Germany since punk music became popular in the 1970s.

Origins

When bands like the Sex Pistols and The Clash became popular in West Germany, a number of Punk bands were formed, which led to the creation a German punk scene. Among the first wave of bands were Male, from Düsseldorf, founded in 1976, PVC, from West Berlin, and Big Balls and the Great White Idiot, from Hamburg. Early German punk groups were heavily influenced by UK bands, often writing their lyrics in English. The main difference is that German punk bands hadn't yet become political.

Beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s there were new movements within the German punk scene, led by labels like ZickZack Records, from Hamburg. It was during this period that the term Neue Deutsche Welle (New German Wave) was first coined by Alfred Hilsberg, owner of ZickZack Records.

Many of these bands played experimental post-punk, often using synthesizers and computers. Among them were The Nina Hagen Band, as well as Fehlfarben and Abwärts, from Hamburg. Both are still active, though they've changed their style several times. In response to these developments, some bands played a more aggressive style of punk rock, because they didn't consider the experimental bands Punk.

1970s

 

Kreuzberg has historically been home to the Berlin punk movement as well as other alternative subcultures in Germany. The legendary SO36 club remains a fixture of the Berlin music scene, championing new artists while staying true to its punk past. It originally featured mainly punk music and was often frequented by Iggy Pop and David Bowie.

1980s

 

In the 1980s, lots of new punk bands became popular in the scene and developed the so-called "Deutschpunk" style, which is not a generic term for German punk rock, but an own style of punk music that included quite primitive songwriting, very fast rhythms and politically radical left-wing lyrics, mostly influenced by the Cold War. Probably the most important Deutschpunk band was Slime from Hamburg, who were the first band whose LP was banned because of political topics. Their songs "Deutschland", "Bullenschweine", and "Polizei SA/SS" were banned, some of them are still banned today, because they propagated the use of violence against the police or compared the police to the SA and SS of Nazi Germany. While they still had some English lyrics on their first, self-titled LP, they have concentrated on German lyrics since their second LP "Yankees raus" ("Yankees out", named after the anti-imperialist title track). Other popular bands of this phase include Razzia from Hamburg, Toxoplasma from Neuwied, Canalterror from Bonn, and Normahl from Stuttgart. All of these bands released their records on one of the leading punk labels in West Germany: Weird System Recordings from Hamburg, Aggressive Rockproduktionen (AGR) from West Berlin, and Mülleimer Records ("Garbage Can Records") from Stuttgart. During this period also the band Die Toten Hosen from Düsseldorf was founded which is still active. Along with Die Ärzte they became the most successful German punk band to date and also gained international success.

During this period, many bands were influenced by U.S. hardcore punk with bands such as Black Flag and The Adolescents. Those bands were also known for their extremely left-wing attitude and aggression in their songs. Some of the most important German hardcore punk bands, who are also often labeled "Deutschpunk", included Vorkriegsjugend from West Berlin, Chaos Z from Stuttgart, Inferno from Augsburg and Blut + Eisen from Hannover. Some bands tried a slower, more elaborate style, inspired by bands like The Wipers, the most popular ones being Torpedo Moskau from Hamburg and a number of singer Jens Rachut's bands, like Angeschissen (1986), Blumen am Arsch der Hölle (1992), Dackelblut (1994) and Oma Hans (2000), also from Hamburg.
Popular compilations of this period were "Keine Experimente!" (Vol. 1-2) (Weird System Recordings) and "Soundtracks zum Untergang" Vol. (1-2) (AGR).

In the mid-1980s, many of the former popular Deutschpunk bands disbanded, which resulted in a new phase, when so-called "Fun punk" got popular in Germany. Bands like Abstürzende Brieftauben from Hannover, Die Mimmi's from Bremen, Die Ärzte from West Berlin or Schließmuskel ("sphincter") from Hamminkeln had a left-wing attitude, but had no (directly) political lyrics. Some of them got popular outside the punk scene, but were often criticized by the punk scene for being too trivial. Around the same time, more German hardcore bands started singing in English and got popular outside of Germany, like the Spermbirds from Kaiserslautern or Jingo de Lunch from West Berlin.

East Germany

 

Because of repressions by the state of East Germany, there was only a secret punk scene that could develop there. One of the most popular bands were probably Schleim-Keim, who also got popular in West Germany. Only in the last years of the German Democratic Republic, the government allowed some bands like Feeling B or Die Skeptiker from East Berlin, but those bands were criticized in the scene for cooperating with the government.

1990s

After the German reunification in 1990, the political situation in the east of Germany changed dramatically, and several groups of neo-nazis were founded. There were attacks against immigrants, like in Rostock-Lichtenhagen, Mölln or Solingen in the west of Germany. This new wave of neo-Nazism in Germany led many punk bands from the 1980s to reunite and release new albums, for example Slime, who released their final LP "Schweineherbst" in 1994, of which the title track is a furious rant against politicians and citizens who ignore the new dangers of neo-Nazis in Germany. Other popular bands like Toxoplasma also got active again, and newer political bands like WIZO or ...But Alive got popular, along with other "fun punk" influenced bands like Die Lokalmatadore from Mülheim an der Ruhr and Die Kassierer from Bochum. Also, many bands of eastern Germany got popular in the west.

In the following years, the punk scene stayed active in Germany and spawned many popular new bands like Terrorgruppe from Berlin or Knochenfabrik from Cologne. Some bands were influenced by heavy metal music, like Dritte Wahl from Rostock or Fahnenflucht. The most popular compilation of this period is probably "Schlachtrufe BRD" (Vol. 1-8).
Labels like Weird System are still active and release reissues of classic German punk records. Weird System have made an attempt of documenting the history of German punk with their compilation series "Punk Rock BRD" (Vol. 1-3). Today, there are many punk rock concerts and big festivals in Germany, like the "Force Attack" festival in Rostock, the "Punk im Pott" festival in Essen / Oberhausen or the "Punk and Disorderley" festival in Berlin. There are also a number of fanzines, for example "Plastic Bomb", "Trust" and "Ox".

Chaostage

A phenomenon of the punk scene in West Germany were the Chaostage (chaos days), which took place in the mid-1980s in Hannover and Wuppertal and were meetings of punks from all over Germany. Along with those chaos days, the Anarchist Pogo Party of Germany (APPD) was founded as a party for punks and "social parasites", but got more popular in the 1990s, when the most legendary chaos days took place in Hannover in 1994 and 1995 and resulted in huge riots and the destruction of cars and buildings.

 A whole supermarket was depredated and alcoholic beverages were stolen by punks. These chaos days were the main topic of TV debates and newspapers for several weeks then. Popular bands like WIZO spontaneously played a show there, and Terrorgruppe wrote a classic song about it ("Wochenendticket", named after a train ticket that most punks used in order to get to Hannover from all across the country). The APPD participated in the Bundestag elections of 1998 and 2005, but although they had only regional successes, like in Hamburg-St. Pauli, they got famous for their advertising on TV, starring Wolfgang Wendland, singer of Die Kassierer.

Boskops classic old school german punk

Krautrock 

(sometimes called "kosmische Musik", German: "cosmic music") is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in Germany in the late 1960s. The term "krautrock" was originated by English-speaking music journalists as a humorous name for a diverse range of German bands whose music drew from sources such as psychedelic rock, the avant-garde, electronic music, funk, minimalism, jazz improvisation, and world music styles. Largely divorced from the traditional blues and rock and roll influences of British and American rock music up to that time, the period contributed to the evolution of electronic music and ambient music as well as the birth of post-punk, alternative rock and New Age music. Important acts of the scene include Can, Kraftwerk, Neu!, Ash Ra Tempel, Tangerine Dream, Popol Vuh, and Faust. 

Etymology

Until around 1973, the word "Deutsch-Rock" ("German Rock") was used to refer to the new groups from West Germany. "Krautrock" was originally a humorous term coined in the early 1970s by British disc jockey John Peel or by the UK music newspaper Melody Maker, in which experimental German bands found an early and enthusiastic following, and ironically retained by its practitioners. The term derives from the ethnic slur "kraut", and its use by the music press was inspired by a track from Amon Düül's Psychedelic Underground titled "Mama Düül und Ihre Sauerkrautband Spielt Auf" ('Mama Düül and her Sauerkrautband Strike Up'). According to author Ulrich Adelt, it should be noted that "kraut" in German can refer to herbs, weeds, and drugs. Other names thrown around by the British music press were "Teutonic rock" and "Götterdämmer rock".

Its musicians tended to reject the name "krautrock".This was also the case for "kosmische Musik" ("cosmic music"), a marketing name invented by record producer Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser for krautrock bands like Ash Ra Tempel, Tangerine Dream, and Klaus Schulze. Musicologist Julian Cope, in his book Krautrocksampler, says "Krautrock is a subjective British phenomenon," based on the way the music was received in the UK rather than on the actual West German music scene out of which it grew. For instance, while one of the main groups originally tagged as krautrock, Faust, recorded a seminal 12-minute track they titled "Krautrock", they would later distance themselves from the term, saying: "When the English people started talking about Krautrock, we thought they were just taking the piss... and when you hear the so-called 'Krautrock renaissance,' it makes me think everything we did was for nothing." West German's music press initially used "krautrock" as a pejorative, but the term lost its stigma after the music gained success in Britain.

Characteristics

STYLES

Krautrock merges elements of psychedelic rock, the avant-garde, electronic music, funk, improvisational jazz and world music styles, and expands on the type of musical explorations associated with art rock and progressive rock. Critic Simon Reynolds described the style as "where the over-reaching ambition and untethered freakitude of late '60s acid rock is checked and galvanised by a proto-punk minimalism ... music of immense scale that miraculously avoided prog-rock's bombastics."
The key component characterizing such groups is the synthesis of rock and roll rhythm and energy with a decided will to distance themselves from specifically American blues origins, drawing on German or other sources instead. Jean-Hervé Peron of Faust says: "We were trying to put aside everything we had heard in rock 'n' roll, the three-chord pattern, the lyrics. We had the urge of saying something completely different." According to Peel, the only American or British band to "clearly influence" the genre was England's Pink Floyd, particularly for their "spacey music".

Some artists drew on ideas from contemporary experimental classical music (especially minimalism and composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, with whom, for example, Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay of Can had previously studied) and from the new experimental directions that emerged in jazz during the 1960s and 1970s (mainly the free jazz pieces by Ornette Coleman or Albert Ayler). Moving away from the patterns of song structure and melody of much rock music in America and Britain, some in the movement also drove the music to a more mechanical and electronic sound.

Motorik beat

 

A common rhythm featured in the music was a steady 4/4 beat, often called "motorik". The beat is characterised by a bass drum-heavy, pulsating groove, that created a forward-flowing feel. The motorik beat was first used by Neu! on their debut album and were later adopted by other krautrock bands. The motorik beat has been widely used in many different styles of music beyond krautrock.

Background and origins

A German student protest from 1968

By the end of the 1960s, the American and British counterculture and hippie movement had moved rock towards psychedelia, heavy metal, progressive rock and other styles that incorporated socially and politically incisive lyrics. The 1968 German student movement, French protests and Italian student movement had created a class of young, intellectual continental listeners, while nuclear weapons, pollution, and war inspired protests and activism. Avant-garde music had taken a turn towards the electronic in the mid-1950s. The avant-garde minimalist music current emerged in the early 1960s with the works of Americans La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Steve Reich. They used drones and loops (often with synthesizers and tapes) in a kind of psychedelic and space-oriented music.

These developments influenced what came to be termed krautrock, which appeared at the first major German rock festival in 1968 in Essen. Like their American, British and international counterparts, German rock musicians played a kind of psychedelic music. In contrast, however, there was no attempt to reproduce the effects of drugs. Their sound was an innovative fusion of jazz and the electronic avant-garde.
1968 also saw the foundation of the Zodiak Free Arts Lab in Berlin by Hans-Joachim Roedelius, and Conrad Schnitzler, which further popularized the psychedelic-rock sound in the German mainstream. Originally krautrock was a form of Free art, which meant that krautrock bands gave their records away at Free Art Fairs.
The next few years saw a wave of pioneering groups. In 1968 two former students of Karlheinz Stockhausen formed Can, adding jazz to the mix. (In that way the krautrock scene can be seen to parallel the Canterbury scene emerging in England at the same time.) The following year saw Kluster (later Cluster) begin recording keyboard-based electronic instrumental music with an emphasis on static drones.

Legacy and influence

Krautrock has proved to be highly influential on a succession of other musical styles and developments. Early contemporary enthusiasts outside Germany included Hawkwind and in particular Dave Brock who supposedly penned the sleeve notes for the British edition of Neu!'s first album  Faust's budget release The Faust Tapes has been cited as a formative teenage influence by several musicians growing up in the early 1970s such as Julian Cope (who has always cited krautrock as an influence, and wrote the book Krautrocksampler on the subject). The genre was also a strong influence to David Bowie's Station to Station (1976) and this kind of experimentation led to his 'Berlin Trilogy'.

Krautrock was also highly influential on the late-'70s development of post-punk, notably artists such as The Fall, Joy Division, Public Image Ltd, This Heat and Simple Minds, and on Galloping Coroners' shaman punk. During the 1980s, several bands involved in psychedelic rock cited Krautrock as a significant influences: these included The Legendary Pink Dots who claimed heavy inspiration from Can, Faust and Neu! in particular (one of their few cover songs was Neu!'s "Super" on the Cleopatra Records album A Homage to NEU!, which featured covers and remixes by bands including Autechre, Dead Voices On Air, Khan, System 7, James Plotkin, as well as an original track from Michael Rother).

 
Bands anticipating the forthcoming movement were appearing as far afield as Düsseldorf, West Germany, where "punk before punk" band NEU! formed in 1971, building on the Krautrock tradition of groups such as Can. In Japan, the anti-establishment Zunō Keisatsu (Brain Police) mixed garage-psych and folk. The combo regularly faced censorship challenges, their live act at least once including onstage masturbation. A new generation of Australian garage rock bands, inspired mainly by the Stooges and MC5, was coming even closer to the sound that would soon be called "punk": In Brisbane, the Saints also recalled the raw live sound of the British Pretty Things, who had made a notorious tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1975.

Etymology and classification

Between the late 16th and the 18th centuries, punk was a common, coarse synonym for prostitute; William Shakespeare used it with that meaning in The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602) and Measure for Measure (1603-4, published 1623 in First Folio).The term eventually came to describe "a young male hustler, a gangster, a hoodlum, or a ruffian".As Legs McNeil explains, "On TV, if you watched cop shows, Kojak, Baretta, when the cops finally catch the mass murderer, they'd say, 'you dirty Punk.' It was what your teachers would call you. It meant that you were the lowest." The first known use of the phrase punk rock appeared in the Chicago Tribune on March 22, 1970, attributed to Ed Sanders, cofounder of New York's anarcho-prankster band the Fugs. Sanders was quoted describing a solo album of his as "punk rock—redneck sentimentality". In the December 1970 issue of Creem, Lester Bangs, mocking more mainstream rock musicians, ironically referred to Iggy Pop as "that Stooge punk". Suicide's Alan Vega credits this usage with inspiring his duo to bill its gigs as a "punk mass" for the next couple of years.

Patti Smith, performing in 1976

Dave Marsh was the first music critic to employ the term punk rock: In the May 1971 issue of Creem, he described ? and the Mysterians, one of the most popular 1960s garage rock acts, as giving a "landmark exposition of punk rock". Later in 1971, in his fanzine Who Put the Bomp, Greg Shaw wrote about "what I have chosen to call "punkrock" bands—white teenage hard rock of '64–66 (Standells, Kingsmen, Shadows of Knight, etc.)". Lester Bangs used the term "punk rock" in several articles written in the early 1970s to refer to mid-1960s garage acts.In his June 1971 piece in Creem, "Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung," he wrote, "then punk bands started cropping up who were writing their own songs but taking the Yardbirds' sound and reducing it to this kind of goony fuzztone clatter. ... oh, it was beautiful, it was pure folklore, Old America, and sometimes I think those were the best days ever."By that December, the term was in circulation to the extent that The New Yorker's Ellen Willis, contrasting her own tastes with those of Flash and fellow critic Nick Tosches, wrote, "Punk-rock has become the favored term of endearment." In the liner notes of the 1972 anthology LP, Nuggets, musician and rock journalist Lenny Kaye, later a member of the Patti Smith Group, used variations of the term in two places: first "punk rock," in the essay liner notes, to describe the genre of 1960s garage bands, and then, later, "classic garage-punk," in the track-by-track notes, to describe a song recorded in 1966 by the Shadows of Knight.In May 1973, Billy Altman launched the short-lived punk magazine, which pre-dated the better-known 1975 publication of the same name, but, unlike the later magazine, was largely devoted to discussion of 1960s garage and psychedelic acts.
In May 1974, Los Angeles Times critic Robert Hilburn reviewed the second New York Dolls album, Too Much Too Soon. "I told ya the New York Dolls were the real thing," he wrote, describing the album as "perhaps the best example of raw, thumb-your-nose-at-the-world, punk rock since the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street." Bassist Jeff Jensen of Boston's Real Kids reports of a show that year, "A reviewer for one of the free entertainment magazines of the time caught the act and gave us a great review, calling us a 'punk band.' ... [W]e all sort of looked at each other and said, 'What's punk?'"
By 1975, punk was being used to describe acts as diverse as the Patti Smith Group, the Bay City Rollers, and Bruce Springsteen. As the scene at New York's CBGB club attracted notice, a name was sought for the developing sound. Club owner Hilly Kristal called the movement "street rock"; John Holmstrom credits Aquarian magazine with using punk "to describe what was going on at CBGBs". Holmstrom, McNeil, and Ged Dunn's magazine Punk, which debuted at the end of 1975, was crucial in codifying the term. "It was pretty obvious that the word was getting very popular", Holmstrom later remarked. "We figured we'd take the name before anyone else claimed it. We wanted to get rid of the bullshit, strip it down to rock 'n' roll. We wanted the fun and liveliness back."

1974–1976: Early history

North America

New York City

NY

The origins of New York's punk rock scene can be traced back to such sources as late 1960s trash culture and an early 1970s underground rock movement centered on the Mercer Arts Center in Greenwich Village, where the New York Dolls performed. In early 1974, a new scene began to develop around the CBGB club, also in lower Manhattan. At its core was Television, described by critic John Walker as "the ultimate garage band with pretensions". Their influences ranged from the Velvet Underground to the staccato guitar work of Dr. Feelgood's Wilko Johnson. The band's bassist/singer, Richard Hell, created a look with cropped, ragged hair, ripped T-shirts, and black leather jackets credited as the basis for punk rock visual style. In April 1974, Patti Smith, a member of the Mercer Arts Center crowd and a friend of Hell's, came to CBGB for the first time to see the band perform. A veteran of independent theater and performance poetry, Smith was developing an intellectual, feminist take on rock 'n' roll. On June 5, she recorded the single "Hey Joe"/"Piss Factory", featuring Television guitarist Tom Verlaine; released on her own Mer Records label, it heralded the scene's do it yourself (DIY) ethic and has often been cited as the first punk rock record. By August, Smith and Television were gigging together at another downtown New York club, Max's Kansas City.

Facade of legendary music club CBGB, New York

Out in Forest Hills, Queens, several miles from lower Manhattan, the members of a newly formed band adopted a common surname. Drawing on sources ranging from the Stooges to the Beatles and the Beach Boys to Herman's Hermits and 1960s girl groups, the Ramones condensed rock 'n' roll to its primal level: "'1-2-3-4!' bass-player Dee Dee Ramone shouted at the start of every song, as if the group could barely master the rudiments of rhythm." The band played its first gig at CBGB on August 16, 1974, on the same bill as another new act, Angel and the Snake, soon to be renamed Blondie. By the end of the year, the Ramones had performed seventy-four shows, each about seventeen minutes long. "When I first saw the Ramones", critic Mary Harron later remembered, "I couldn't believe people were doing this. The dumb brattiness." The Dictators, with a similar "playing dumb" concept, were recording their debut album. The Dictators' Go Girl Crazy! came out in March 1975, mixing absurdist originals such as "Master Race Rock" and loud, straight-faced covers of cheese pop like Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe".
That spring, Smith and Television shared a two-month-long weekend residency at CBGB that significantly raised the club's profile. The Television sets included Richard Hell's "Blank Generation", which became the scene's emblematic anthem. Soon after, Hell left Television and founded a band featuring a more stripped-down sound, the Heartbreakers, with former New York Dolls Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan. The pairing of Hell and Thunders, in one critical assessment, "injected a poetic intelligence into mindless self-destruction". A July festival at CBGB featuring over thirty new groups brought the scene its first substantial media coverage. In August, Television—with Fred Smith, former Blondie bassist, replacing Hell—recorded a single, "Little Johnny Jewel", for the tiny Ork label. In the words of John Walker, the record was "a turning point for the whole New York scene" if not quite for the punk rock sound itself—Hell's departure had left the band "significantly reduced in fringe aggression".

CITIES SCENE

Other bands were becoming regulars at CBGB, such as Mink DeVille and Talking Heads, which moved down from Rhode Island. More closely associated with Max's Kansas City were Suicide and the band led by Jayne County, another Mercer Arts Center alumna. The first album to come out of this downtown scene was released in November 1975: Smith's debut, Horses, produced by John Cale for the major Arista label. The inaugural issue of Punk appeared in December. The new magazine tied together earlier artists such as Velvet Underground lead singer Lou Reed, the Stooges, and the New York Dolls with the editors' favorite band, the Dictators, and the array of new acts centered on CBGB and Max's. That winter, Pere Ubu came in from Cleveland and played at both spots.
Early in 1976, Hell left the Heartbreakers; he soon formed a new group that would become known as the Voidoids, "one of the most harshly uncompromising bands" on the scene. That April, the Ramones' debut album was released by Sire Records; the first single was "Blitzkrieg Bop", opening with the rally cry "Hey! Ho! Let's go!" According to a later description, "Like all cultural watersheds, Ramones was embraced by a discerning few and slagged off as a bad joke by the uncomprehending majority." At the instigation of Ramones lead singer Joey Ramone, the members of Cleveland's Frankenstein moved east to join the New York scene. Reconstituted as the Dead Boys, they played their first CBGB gig in late July. In August, Ork put out an EP recorded by Hell with his new band that included the first released version of "Blank Generation".
Other New York venues apart from CBGB included the Lismar Lounge (41 First Avenue) and Aztec Lounge (9th Street).

At this early stage, the term punk applied to the scene in general, not necessarily a particular stylistic approach as it would later—the early New York punk bands represented a broad variety of influences. Among them, the Ramones, the Heartbreakers, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and the Dead Boys were establishing a distinct musical style. Even where they diverged most clearly, in lyrical approach—the Ramones' apparent guilelessness at one extreme, Hell's conscious craft at the other—there was an abrasive attitude in common. Their shared attributes of minimalism and speed, however, had not yet come to define punk rock.

Other U.S. cities

AMERICA

Chickasha, Oklahoma gave birth to avant garde, glam-punk bands Victoria Vein and the Thunderpunks in 1974 and Debris' in 1975 whose self-released underground classic Static Disposal was released in 1976. The album has been touted as an inspiration by numerous bands including Scream, Nurse With Wound, the Melvins and Sonic Youth.

 In 1975, the Suicide Commandos formed in Minneapolis. They were one of the first U.S. bands outside of New York to play in the Ramones-style harder-louder-faster mode that would define punk rock. Detroit's Death self-released one of their 1974 recordings, "Politicians in My Eyes", in 1976. As the punk movement expanded rapidly in the United Kingdom that year, a few bands with similar tastes and attitude appeared around the United States. The first West Coast punk scenes emerged in San Francisco, with the bands Crime and the Nuns, and Seattle, where the Telepaths, Meyce, and the Tupperwares played a groundbreaking show on May 1.

 Rock critic Richard Meltzer cofounded VOM (short for "vomit") in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, performer Alice Bag formed the punk music group the Bags in 1977. Alice influenced the Hollywood punk scene by incorporating Mexican and Chicano musical culture into her music through canción ranchera—which translates to "country song" and is associated with mariachi ensembles—as well as estilo bravío, a wild style of performance often seen in punk. In Washington, D.C., raucous roots-rockers the Razz helped along a nascent punk scene featuring Overkill, the Slickee Boys, and the Look. Around the turn of the year, White Boy began giving notoriously crazed performances. In Boston, the scene at the Rathskeller—affectionately known as the Rat—was also turning toward punk, though the defining sound retained a distinct garage rock orientation. Among the city's first new acts to be identified with punk rock was DMZ. In Bloomington, Indiana, the Gizmos played in a jokey, raunchy, Dictators-inspired style later referred to as "frat punk".
Like their garage rock predecessors, these local scenes were facilitated by enthusiastic impresarios who operated nightclubs or organized concerts in venues such as schools, garages, or warehouses, advertised via inexpensively printed flyers and fanzines. In some cases, punk's do it yourself ethic reflected an aversion to commercial success, as well as a desire to maintain creative and financial autonomy. As Joe Harvard, a participant in the Boston scene, describes, it was often a simple necessity—the absence of a local recording industry and well-distributed music magazines left little recourse but DIY.

Australia

AUS

At the same time, a similar music-based subculture was beginning to take shape in various parts of Australia. A scene was developing around Radio Birdman and its main performance venue, the Oxford Tavern (later the Oxford Funhouse), located in Sydney's Darlinghurst suburb. In December 1975, the group won the RAM (Rock Australia Magazine)/Levi's Punk Band Thriller competition. By 1976, the Saints were hiring Brisbane local halls to use as venues, or playing in "Club 76", their shared house in the inner suburb of Petrie Terrace. The band soon discovered that musicians were exploring similar paths in other parts of the world. Ed Kuepper, co-founder of the Saints, later recalled:

One thing I remember having had a really depressing effect on me was the first Ramones album. When I heard it [in 1976], I mean it was a great record ... but I hated it because I knew we'd been doing this sort of stuff for years. There was even a chord progression on that album that we used ... and I thought, "Fuck. We're going to be labeled as influenced by the Ramones", when nothing could have been further from the truth.

On the other side of Australia, in Perth, germinal punk rock act the Cheap Nasties, featuring singer-guitarist Kim Salmon, formed in August. In September 1976, the Saints became the first punk rock band outside the U.S. to release a recording, the single "(I'm) Stranded". As with Patti Smith's debut, the band self-financed, packaged, and distributed the single. "(I'm) Stranded" had limited impact at home, but the British music press recognized it as a groundbreaking record. At the insistence of their superiors in the UK, EMI Australia signed the Saints. Meanwhile, Radio Birdman came out with a self-financed EP, Burn My Eye, in October. Trouser Press critic Ian McCaleb later described the record as the "archetype for the musical explosion that was about to occur".

United Kingdom

GREAT BRITAIN

By 1975 the movement was already well established in London and had been growing for a number of years, with non-gigging and recording bands like the Flowers of Romance who went on to gain near mythical status. Inspired by music from the Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop and early David Bowie at one point the band featured Sid Vicious, Marco Pirroni and Viv Albertine, who later joined the Slits. Following a brief period unofficially managing the New York Dolls, Briton Malcolm McLaren returned to London in May 1975, inspired by the new scene he had witnessed at CBGB. The Kings Road clothing store he co-owned, recently renamed Sex, was building a reputation with its outrageous "anti-fashion". Among those who frequented the shop were members of a band called the Strand, which McLaren had also been managing. In August, the group was seeking a new lead singer. Another Sex habitué, Johnny Rotten, auditioned for and won the job. Adopting a new name, the group played its first gig as the Sex Pistols on November 6, 1975, at Saint Martin's School of Art and soon attracted a small but ardent following. In February 1976, the band received its first significant press coverage; guitarist Steve Jones declared that the Sex Pistols were not so much into music as they were "chaos". The band often provoked its crowds into near-riots. Rotten announced to one audience, "Bet you don't hate us as much as we hate you!" McLaren envisioned the Sex Pistols as central players in a new youth movement, "hard and tough". As described by critic Jon Savage, the band members "embodied an attitude into which McLaren fed a new set of references: late-sixties radical politics, sexual fetish material, pop history,...youth sociology".
Bernard Rhodes, a sometime associate of McLaren and friend of the Sex Pistols, was similarly aiming to make stars of the band London SS. Early in 1976, London SS broke up before ever performing publicly, spinning off two new bands: the Damned and the Clash, which was joined by Joe Strummer, former lead singer of the 101'ers. On June 4, 1976, the Sex Pistols played Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall in what came to be regarded as one of the most influential rock shows ever. Among the approximately forty audience members were the two locals who organised the gig—they had formed Buzzcocks after seeing the Sex Pistols in February. Others in the small crowd went on to form Joy Division, the Fall, and—in the 1980s—the Smiths.

In July, the Ramones crossed the Atlantic for two London shows that helped spark the nascent UK punk scene and affected its musical style—"instantly nearly every band speeded up". On July 4, they played with the Flamin' Groovies and the Stranglers before a crowd of 2,000 at the Roundhouse. That same night, the Clash debuted, opening for the Sex Pistols in Sheffield. On July 5, members of both bands attended a Ramones gig at Dingwalls club. The following night, the Damned performed their first show, as the Sex Pistols opening act in London. In critic Kurt Loder's description, the Sex Pistols purveyed a "calculated, arty nihilism, [while] the Clash were unabashed idealists, proponents of a radical left-wing social critique of a sort that reached back at least to ... Woody Guthrie in the 1940s". The Damned built a reputation as "punk's party boys". This London scene's first fanzine appeared a week later. Its title, Sniffin' Glue, derived from a Ramones song. Its subtitle affirmed the connection with what was happening in New York: "+ Other Rock 'n' Roll Habits for Punks!"
Another Sex Pistols gig in Manchester on July 20, with a reorganized version of Buzzcocks debuting in support, gave further impetus to the scene there. In August, the self-described "First European Punk Rock Festival" was held in Mont de Marsan in the southwest of France. Eddie and the Hot Rods, a London pub rock group, headlined. The Sex Pistols, originally scheduled to play, were dropped by the organizers who said the band had gone "too far" in demanding top billing and certain amenities; the Clash backed out in solidarity. The only band from the new punk movement to appear was the Damned.

Over the next several months, many new punk rock bands formed, often directly inspired by the Sex Pistols. In London, women were near the center of the scene—among the initial wave of bands were the female-fronted Siouxsie and the Banshees and X-Ray Spex and the all-female the Slits. There were female bassists Gaye Advert in the Adverts and Shanne Bradley in the Nipple Erectors. Other groups included Subway Sect, Eater, Wire, The Stranglers, the Subversives, the aptly named London, and Chelsea, which soon spun off Generation X.

 Farther afield, Sham 69 began practicing in the southeastern town of Hersham. In Durham, there was Penetration, with lead singer Pauline Murray. On September 20–21, the 100 Club Punk Festival in London featured the four primary British groups (London's big three and Buzzcocks), as well as Paris's female-fronted Stinky Toys, arguably the first punk rock band from a non-Anglophone country. Siouxsie and the Banshees and Subway Sect debuted on the festival's first night; that same evening, Eater debuted in Manchester. On the festival's second night, audience member Sid Vicious was arrested, charged with throwing a glass at the Damned that shattered and destroyed a girl's eye. Press coverage of the incident fueled punk's reputation as a social menace.

The Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K." poster—a ripped and safety-pinned Union Flag. Jamie Reid's work had a major influence on punk style and contemporary graphic design in general.

Some new bands, such as London's Alternative TV, Edinburgh's Rezillos, and Leamington's the Shapes, identified with the scene even as they pursued more experimental music. Others of a comparatively traditional rock 'n' roll bent were also swept up by the movement: the Vibrators, formed as a pub rock–style act in February 1976, soon adopted a punk look and sound. A few even longer-active bands including Surrey neo-mods the Jam and pub rockers the Stranglers and Cock Sparrer also became associated with the punk rock scene. Alongside the musical roots shared with their American counterparts and the calculated confrontationalism of the early Who, the British punks also reflected the influence of glam rock and related bands such as Slade, T.Rex, and Roxy Music. One of the groups openly acknowledging that influence were the Undertones, from Derry in Northern Ireland.

In October, the Damned became the first UK punk rock band to release a single, the romance-themed "New Rose". The Vibrators followed the next month with "We Vibrate" and, backing long-time rocker Chris Spedding, "Pogo Dancing". The latter was hardly a punk song by any stretch, but it was perhaps the first song about punk rock. On November 26, the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K." came out—with its debut single the band succeeded in its goal of becoming a "national scandal". Jamie Reid's "anarchy flag" poster and his other design work for the Sex Pistols helped establish a distinctive punk visual aesthetic. On December 1, an incident took place that sealed punk rock's notorious reputation: On Thames Today, an early evening London TV show, Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones was goaded into a verbal altercation by the host, Bill Grundy. Jones called Grundy a "dirty fucker" on live television, triggering a media controversy. Two days later, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned, and the Heartbreakers set out on the Anarchy Tour, a series of gigs throughout the UK. Many of the shows were cancelled by venue owners in response to the media outrage following the Grundy confrontation.

1977–1978: Second wave

By 1977, a second wave of the punk rock movement was breaking in the three countries where it had emerged, as well as in many other places. Bands from the same scenes often sounded very different from each other, reflecting the eclectic state of punk music during the era. While punk rock remained largely an underground phenomenon in North America, Australia, and the new spots where it was emerging, in the UK it briefly became a major sensation.

North America

U.S.A.	AND CANADA

The California punk scene was in full swing by early 1977. In Los Angeles, there were the Weirdos, the Zeros, Black Randy and the Metrosquad, the Germs, X, the Dickies, Bags, and the relocated Tupperwares, now dubbed the Screamers.San Francisco's second wave included the Avengers, Negative Trend, the Mutants, and the Sleepers. the Dils, from Carlsbad, moved between the two major cities. The Wipers formed in Portland, Oregon. In Seattle, there was the Lewd. Often sharing gigs with the Seattle punks were bands from across the Canada–US border. A major scene developed in Vancouver, spearheaded by the Furies and Victoria's all-female Dee Dee and the Dishrags. the Skulls spun off into D.O.A. and the Subhumans. The K-Tels (later known as the Young Canadians) and Pointed Sticks were among the area's other leading punk acts.

In eastern Canada, the Toronto protopunk band Dishes had laid the groundwork for another sizable scene, and a September 1976 concert by the touring Ramones had catalyzed the movement. Early Ontario punk bands included the Diodes, the Viletones, Battered Wives, the Demics, Forgotten Rebels, Teenage Head, the Poles, and the Ugly. Along with the Dishrags, Toronto's the Curse and B Girls were North America's first all-female punk acts. In July 1977, the Viletones, Diodes, Curse, and Teenage Head headed down to New York City to play "Canada night" at CBGB.
By mid-1977 in downtown New York, punk rock was already ceding its cutting-edge status to the anarchic sound of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and Mars, spearheads of what became known as no wave, although several original punk bands continued to perform and new ones emerged on the scene. The Cramps, whose core members were from Sacramento, California by way of Akron, had debuted at CBGB in November 1976, opening for the Dead Boys. They were soon playing regularly at Max's Kansas City. The Misfits formed in nearby New Jersey. Still developing what would become their signature B movie–inspired style, later dubbed horror punk, they made their first appearance at CBGB in April 1977.

The Misfits developed a "horror punk" style in New Jersey.

Leave Home, the Ramones' second album, had come out in January. The Dead Boys' debut LP, Young, Loud and Snotty, was released at the end of August. October saw two more debut albums from the scene: Richard Hell and the Voidoids' first full-length, Blank Generation, and the Heartbreakers' L.A.M.F. One track on the latter exemplified both the scene's close-knit character and the popularity of heroin within it: "Chinese Rocks"—the title refers to a strong form of the drug—was written by Dee Dee Ramone and Hell, both users, as were the Heartbreakers' Thunders and Nolan. (During the Heartbreakers' 1976 and 1977 tours of Britain, Thunders played a central role in popularizing heroin among the punk crowd there, as well.) The Ramones' third album, Rocket to Russia, appeared in November 1977.
The Ohio protopunk bands were joined by Cleveland's the Pagans, Akron's Bizarros and Rubber City Rebels, and Kent's Human Switchboard. Bloomington, Indiana, had MX-80 Sound and Detroit had the Sillies. The Suburbs came together in the Twin Cities scene sparked by the Suicide Commandos. The Feederz formed in Arizona. Atlanta had the Fans. In North Carolina, there was Chapel Hill's H-Bombs and Raleigh's Th' Cigaretz. The Chicago scene began not with a band but with a group of DJs transforming a gay bar, La Mere Vipere, into what became known as America's first punk dance club. The Crucified, Tutu and the Pirates and Silver Abuse were among the city's first punk bands. In Boston, the scene at the Rat was joined by the Nervous Eaters, Thrills, and Human Sexual Response. In Washington, D.C., the Controls played their first gig in spring 1977, but the city's second wave really broke the following year with acts such as the Urban Verbs, Half Japanese, D'Chumps, Rudements and Shirkers. By early 1978, the D.C. jazz-fusion group Mind Power had transformed into Bad Brains, one of the first bands to be identified with hardcore punk.

United Kingdom

UK

The Sex Pistols' live TV skirmish with Bill Grundy was the signal moment in British punk's transformation into a major media phenomenon, even as some stores refused to stock the records and radio airplay was hard to come by. Press coverage of punk misbehavior grew intense: On January 4, 1977, The Evening News of London ran a front-page story on how the Sex Pistols "vomited and spat their way to an Amsterdam flight". In February 1977, the first album by a British punk band appeared: Damned Damned Damned (by the Damned) reached number thirty-six on the UK chart. The EP Spiral Scratch, self-released by Manchester's Buzzcocks, was a benchmark for both the DIY ethic and regionalism in the country's punk movement. The Clash's self-titled debut album came out two months later and rose to number twelve; the single "White Riot" entered the top forty. In May, the Sex Pistols achieved new heights of controversy (and number two on the singles chart) with "God Save the Queen". The band had recently acquired a new bassist, Sid Vicious, who was seen as exemplifying the punk persona.

Scores of new punk groups formed around the United Kingdom, as far from London as Belfast's Stiff Little Fingers and Dunfermline, Scotland's the Skids. Though most survived only briefly, perhaps recording a small-label single or two, others set off new trends. Crass, from Essex, merged a vehement, straight-ahead punk rock style with a committed anarchist mission, and played a major role in the emerging anarcho-punk movement. Sham 69, London's Menace, and the Angelic Upstarts from South Shields in the Northeast combined a similarly stripped-down sound with populist lyrics, a style that became known as street punk.

 These expressly working-class bands contrasted with others in the second wave that presaged the post-punk phenomenon. Liverpool's first punk group, Big in Japan, moved in a glam, theatrical direction. The band didn't survive long, but it spun off several well-known post-punk acts. The songs of London's Wire were characterized by sophisticated lyrics, minimalist arrangements, and extreme brevity. By the end of 1977, according to music historian Clinton Heylin, they were "England's arch-exponents of New Musick, and the true heralds of what came next."

The stark cover design of Wire's debut LP, Pink Flag, symbolized the evolution of punk style.

Alongside thirteen original songs that would define classic punk rock, the Clash's debut had included a cover of the recent Jamaican reggae hit "Police and Thieves". Other first wave bands such as the Slits and new entrants to the scene like the Ruts and the Police interacted with the reggae and ska subcultures, incorporating their rhythms and production styles. The punk rock phenomenon helped spark a full-fledged ska revival movement known as 2 Tone, centered on bands such as the Specials, the Beat, Madness, and the Selecter.
June 1977 saw the release of another charting punk album: the Vibrators' Pure Mania. In July, the Sex Pistols' third single, "Pretty Vacant", reached number six and the Saints had a top-forty hit with "This Perfect Day". Recently arrived from Australia, the band was now considered insufficiently "cool" to qualify as punk by much of the British media, though they had been playing a similar brand of music for years. In August, the Adverts entered the top twenty with "Gary Gilmore's Eyes". As punk became a broad-based national phenomenon in the summer of 1977, punk musicians and fans were increasingly subject to violent assaults by Teddy boys, football yobbos, and others. A Ted-aligned band recorded "The Punk Bashing Boogie".
In September, Generation X and the Clash reached the top forty with, respectively, "Your Generation" and "Complete Control". X-Ray Spex' "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" didn't chart, but it became a requisite item for punk fans. In October, the Sex Pistols hit number eight with "Holidays in the Sun", followed by the release of their first and only "official" album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols. Inspiring yet another round of controversy, it topped the British charts. In December, one of the first books about punk rock was published: The Boy Looked at Johnny, by Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons.

Australia

In February 1977, EMI released the Saints debut album, (I'm) Stranded, which the band recorded in two days. The Saints had relocated to Sydney; in April, they and Radio Birdman united for a major gig at Paddington Town Hall. Last Words had also formed in the city. The following month, the Saints relocated again, to Great Britain. In June, Radio Birdman released the album Radios Appear on its own Trafalgar label.
The Victims became a short-lived leader of the Perth scene, self-releasing "Television Addict". They were joined by the Scientists, Kim Salmon's successor band to the Cheap Nasties. Among the other bands constituting Australia's second wave were Johnny Dole & the Scabs, the Hellcats, and Psychosurgeons (later known as the Lipstick Killers) in Sydney; the Leftovers, the Survivors, and Razar in Brisbane; and La Femme, the Negatives, and the Babeez (later known as the News) in Melbourne. Melbourne's art rock–influenced Boys Next Door featured singer Nick Cave, who would become one of the world's best-known post-punk artists.

Rest of the world

AROUND THE WORLD

Meanwhile, punk rock scenes were emerging around the globe. In France, les punks, a Parisian subculture of Lou Reed fans, had already been around for years. Following the lead of Stinky Toys, Métal Urbain played its first concert in December 1976. In August 1977, Asphalt Jungle played at the second Mont de Marsan punk festival. Stinky Toys' debut single, "Boozy Creed", came out in September. It was perhaps the first non-English-language punk rock record, though as music historian George Gimarc notes, the punk enunciation made that distinction somewhat moot. The following month, Métal Urbain's first 45, "Panik", appeared.After the release of their minimalist punk debut, "Rien à dire", Marie et les Garçons became involved in New York's mutant disco scene. Asphalt Jungle's "Deconnection" and Gasoline's "Killer Man" also came out before the end of the year, and other French punk acts such as Oberkampf and Starshooter soon formed.

1977 also saw the debut album from Hamburg's Big Balls and the Great White Idiot, arguably West Germany's first punk band. Other early German punk acts included the Fred Banana Combo and Pack. Bands primarily inspired by British punk sparked what became known as the Neue Deutsche Welle (NDW) movement. Vanguard NDW acts such as the Nina Hagen Band and S.Y.P.H. featured strident vocals and an emphasis on provocation. Before turning in a mainstream direction in the 1980s, NDW attracted a politically conscious and diverse audience, including both participants of the left-wing alternative scene and neo-Nazi skinheads. These opposing factions were mutually attracted by a view of punk rock as "politically as well as musically...'against the system'."
Scandinavian punk was propelled early on by tour dates by bands such as the Clash and the Ramones (both in Stockholm in May 1977), and the Sex Pistols' tour through Denmark, Sweden and Norway in July the same year.

 The band Briard jump-started Finnish punk with its November 1977 single "I Really Hate Ya"/"I Want Ya Back"; other early Finnish punk acts included Eppu Normaali and singer Pelle Miljoona. The first Swedish punk single was "Vårdad klädsel"/"Förbjudna ljud" released by Kriminella Gitarrer in February 1978, which started an extensive Swedish punk scene featuring act such as Ebba Grön, KSMB, Rude Kids, Besökarna, Liket Lever, Garbochock, Attentat, and many others. Within a couple of years, hundreds of punk singles were released in Sweden.

In Japan, a punk movement developed around bands playing in an art/noise style such as Friction, and "psych punk" acts like Gaseneta and Kadotani Michio. In New Zealand, Auckland's Scavengers and Suburban Reptiles were followed by the Enemy of Dunedin. I. Punk rock scenes also grew in other countries such as Belgium (the Kids, Chainsaw), the Netherlands (the Suzannes, the Ex), Spain (La Banda Trapera Del Río, Kaka De Luxe), and Switzerland (Nasal Boys, Kleenex).
Indonesia was a part of the largest punk movement in Southeast Asia, heavily influenced by Green Day, Rancid, and the Offspring. Young people created their own underground sub-culture of punk, which over time developed into a style that was completely different to the original movement.
Punk emerged in South Africa as direct opposition to the conservative apartheid government and racial segregation enforcement of the time. Bands like Wild Youth and National Wake led the way in the late 1970s and early 1980s, followed by Powerage and Screaming Foetus from Durban and Toxik Sox in Johannesburg in the mid 1980s.
Mexico's punk/ska music has innovated the political standard has how the world is view in both countries. Production and reception of particular texts in a global context of inequality in which Mexican are racialized and objectified generate transnational archives of feelings in relation to migration from Mexico. The cultural memories reflects upon the power relations that affect social categories and social identities. (Zavella, 2012) Punks embrace the ethic of do-it-yourself (DIY), which disavows materialism and consumerism and the individualist fame of rock stars. (Zavella, 2012) Being a punk was a form of expressing freedom and not caring of judgement.

1979–1984: Schism and diversification

Flipper, performing in 1984

By 1979, the hardcore punk movement was emerging in Southern California. A rivalry developed between adherents of the new sound and the older punk rock crowd. Hardcore, appealing to a younger, more suburban audience, was perceived by some as anti-intellectual, overly violent, and musically limited. In Los Angeles, the opposing factions were often described as "Hollywood punks" and "beach punks", referring to Hollywood's central position in the original L.A. punk rock scene and to hardcore's popularity in the shoreline communities of South Bay and Orange County.
As hardcore became the dominant punk rock style, many bands of the older California punk rock movement split up. Across North America, many other first and second wave punk bands also dissolved, while younger musicians inspired by the movement explored new variations on punk. Some early punk bands transformed into hardcore acts. A few, most notably the Ramones, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, continued to pursue the style they had helped create. Crossing the lines between "classic" punk, post-punk, and hardcore, San Francisco's Flipper was founded in 1979 by former members of Negative Trend and the Sleepers.They became "the reigning kings of American underground rock, for a few years".
Radio Birdman broke up in June 1978 while touring the UK, where the early unity between bohemian, middle-class punks (many with art school backgrounds) and working-class punks had disintegrated. In contrast to North America, more of the bands from the original British punk movement remained active, sustaining extended careers even as their styles evolved and diverged. Meanwhile, the Oi! and anarcho-punk movements were emerging. Musically in the same aggressive vein as American hardcore, they addressed different constituencies with overlapping but distinct anti-establishment messages. As described by Dave Laing, "The model for self-proclaimed punk after 1978 derived from the Ramones via the eight-to-the-bar rhythms most characteristic of the Vibrators and Clash. ... It became essential to sound one particular way to be recognized as a 'punk band' now." In February 1979, former Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious died of a heroin overdose in New York. If the Sex Pistols' breakup the previous year had marked the end of the original UK punk scene and its promise of cultural transformation, for many the death of Vicious signified that it had been doomed from the start.

Styles

By the turn of the decade, the punk rock movement had split deeply along cultural and musical lines, leaving a variety of derivative scenes and forms. On one side were new wave and post-punk artists; some adopted more accessible musical styles and gained broad popularity, while some turned in more experimental, less commercial directions. On the other side, hardcore punk, Oi!, and anarcho-punk bands became closely linked with underground cultures and spun off an array of subgenres. Somewhere in between, pop punk groups created blends like that of the ideal record, as defined by Mekons cofounder Kevin Lycett: "a cross between Abba and the Sex Pistols". A range of other styles emerged, many of them fusions with long-established genres. The Clash album London Calling, released in December 1979, exemplified the breadth of classic punk's legacy. Combining punk rock with reggae, ska, R&B, and rockabilly, it went on to be acclaimed as one of the best rock records ever. At the same time, as observed by Flipper singer Bruce Loose, the relatively restrictive hardcore scenes diminished the variety of music that could once be heard at many punk gigs. If early punk, like most rock scenes, was ultimately male-oriented, the hardcore and Oi! scenes were significantly more so, marked in part by the slam dancing and moshing with which they became identified.

New wave

Debbie Harry performing in Toronto in 1977

In 1976—first in London, then in the United States—"New Wave" was introduced as a complementary label for the formative scenes and groups also known as "punk"; the two terms were essentially interchangeable. NME journalist Roy Carr is credited with proposing the term's use (adopted from the cinematic French New Wave of the 1960s) in this context. Over time, "new wave" acquired a distinct meaning: Bands such as Blondie and Talking Heads from the CBGB scene; the Cars, who emerged from the Rat in Boston; the Go-Go's in Los Angeles; and the Police in London that were broadening their instrumental palette, incorporating dance-oriented rhythms, and working with more polished production were specifically designated "new wave" and no longer called "punk". Dave Laing suggests that some punk-identified British acts pursued the new wave label in order to avoid radio censorship and make themselves more palatable to concert bookers.

Bringing elements of punk rock music and fashion into more pop-oriented, less "dangerous" styles, new wave artists became very popular on both sides of the Atlantic.

 New wave became a catch-all term, encompassing disparate styles such as 2 Tone ska, the mod revival inspired by the Jam, the sophisticated pop-rock of Elvis Costello and XTC, the New Romantic phenomenon typified by Ultravox, synthpop groups like Tubeway Army (which had started out as a straight-ahead punk band) and Human League, and the sui generis subversions of Devo, who had gone "beyond punk before punk even properly existed".

 New wave became a pop culture sensation with the debut of the cable television network MTV in 1981, which put many new wave videos into regular rotation. However, the music was often derided at the time as being silly and disposable.

Post-punk

COLD WAVE,GOTHIC,INDUSTRIAL AND ETC....

During 1976–77, in the midst of the original UK punk movement, bands emerged such as Manchester's Joy Division, the Fall, and Magazine, Leeds' Gang of Four, and London's the Raincoats that became central post-punk figures.

 Some bands classified as post-punk, such as Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, had been active well before the punk scene coalesced; others, such as the Slits and Siouxsie and the Banshees, transitioned from punk rock into post-punk. A few months after the Sex Pistols' breakup, John Lydon (no longer "Rotten") cofounded Public Image Ltd. Lora Logic, formerly of X-Ray Spex, founded Essential Logic.

 Killing Joke formed in 1979. These bands were often musically experimental, like certain new wave acts; defining them as "post-punk" was a sound that tended to be less pop and more dark and abrasive—sometimes verging on the atonal, as with Subway Sect and Wire—and an anti-establishment posture directly related to punk's. Post-punk reflected a range of art rock influences from Captain Beefheart to David Bowie and Roxy Music to Krautrock and, once again, the Velvet Underground.
Post-punk brought together a new fraternity of musicians, journalists, managers, and entrepreneurs; the latter, notably Geoff Travis of Rough Trade and Tony Wilson of Factory, helped to develop the production and distribution infrastructure of the indie music scene that blossomed in the mid-1980s. Smoothing the edges of their style in the direction of new wave, several post-punk bands such as New Order (descended from Joy Division) and the Cure. crossed over to a mainstream U.S. audience. Bauhaus was one of the formative gothic rock bands. Others, like Gang of Four, the Raincoats and Throbbing Gristle, who had little more than cult followings at the time, are seen in retrospect as significant influences on modern popular culture.

A number of U.S. artists were reclassified as post-punk; Television's debut album Marquee Moon, released in 1977, is frequently cited as a seminal album in the field. The no wave movement that developed in New York in the late 1970s, with artists such as Lydia Lunch and James Chance, is often treated as the phenomenon's U.S. parallel. The later work of Ohio protopunk pioneers Pere Ubu is also commonly described as post-punk. One of the most influential American post-punk bands was Boston's Mission of Burma, who brought abrupt rhythmic shifts derived from hardcore into a highly experimental musical context. In 1980, Australia's Boys Next Door moved to London and changed their name to the Birthday Party, which evolved into Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

 Led by the Primitive Calculators, Melbourne's Little Band scene would further explore the possibilities of post-punk. Later alternative rock musicians found diverse inspiration among these post-punk predecessors, as they did among their new wave contemporaries.

Hardcore

Bad Brains at 9:30 Club, Washington, D.C., 1983

A distinctive style of punk, characterized by superfast, aggressive beats, screaming vocals, and often politically aware lyrics, began to emerge in 1978 among bands scattered around the United States and Canada. The first major scene of what came to be known as hardcore punk developed in Southern California in 1978–79, initially around such punk bands as the Germs and Fear. The movement soon spread around North America and internationally. According to author Steven Blush, "Hardcore comes from the bleak suburbs of America. Parents moved their kids out of the cities to these horrible suburbs to save them from the 'reality' of the cities and what they ended up with was this new breed of monster".

HARDCORE AND CROSSOVER.

 

Hardcore punk
Subgenres
Bands
Regional scenes
Styles
Ideas

Hardcore punk (often abbreviated to hardcore) is a punk rock music genre and subculture that originated in the late 1970s. It is generally faster, harder, and more aggressive than other forms of punk rock. Its roots can be traced to earlier punk scenes in San Francisco and Southern California which arose as a reaction against the still predominant hippie cultural climate of the time and was also inspired by New York punk rock and early proto-punk. New York punk had a harder-edged sound than its San Francisco counterpart, featuring anti-art expressions of masculine anger, energy and subversive humor. Hardcore punk generally disavows commercialism, the established music industry and "anything similar to the characteristics of mainstream rock" and often addresses social and political topics.
Hardcore sprouted underground scenes across the United States in the early 1980s, particularly in Washington, D.C., New York, New Jersey, and Boston—as well as in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. Hardcore has spawned the straight edge movement and its associated submovements, hardline and youth crew. Hardcore was heavily involved with the rise of the independent record labels in the 1980s, and with the DIY ethics in underground music scenes. It has also influenced various music genres that have experienced widespread commercial success, including alternative rock, thrash metal, emo and metalcore.

While traditional hardcore has never experienced mainstream commercial success, some of its early pioneers have garnered appreciation over time. Black Flag's Damaged, Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime and Hüsker Dü's New Day Rising were included in Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003 and Dead Kennedys have seen one of their albums reach gold status over a period of 25 years. In 2011, Rolling Stone writer David Fricke placed Greg Ginn of Black Flag 99th place in his 100 Greatest Guitarists list. Although the music genre started in English-speaking western countries, notable hardcore scenes have existed in Italy, Brazil, Japan, Europe and the Middle East.

Origin of term

 

The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A. may have helped to popularize the term with the title of their 1981 album, Hardcore '81. A September 1981 article by Tim Sommer shows the author applying the term to the "15 or so" punk bands gigging around the city at that time, which he considered a belated development relative to Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. Hardcore historian Steven Blush said that the term "hardcore" is also a reference to the sense of being "fed up" with the existing punk and new wave music. Blush also states that the term refers to "an extreme: the absolute most Punk."

Characteristics

An article in Drowned in Sound argues that 1980s-era "hardcore is the true spirit of punk", because "after all the poseurs and fashionistas fucked off to the next trend of skinny pink ties with New Romantic haircuts, singing wimpy lyrics", the punk scene consisted only of people "completely dedicated to the DIY ethics". One definition of the genre is "a form of exceptionally harsh punk rock." Like the Oi! subgenre of the UK, hardcore punk can be considered an internal music reaction. According to one writer, "distressed by the 'art'ificiality [sic] of much post-punk and the emasculated sellouts of new wave, hardcore sought to strengthen its core punk principles." Lacking the art-school grace of post-punk, hardcore punk "favor[ed] low key visual aesthetic over extravagance and breaking with original punk rock song patterns."
One of the important philosophies in the hardcore scene is authenticity. The pejorative term "poseur" is applied to those who associate with punk and adopt its stylistic attributes but are deemed not to share or understand the underlying values and philosophy. Joe Keithley, the vocalist of D.O.A. said in an interview: "For every person sporting an anarchy symbol without understanding it there’s an older punk who thinks they’re a poseur."

Musical characteristics

In the vein of earlier punk rock, most hardcore punk bands have followed the traditional singer/guitar/bass/drum format. The songwriting has more emphasis on rhythm rather than melody. Critic Steven Blush writes "The Sex Pistols were still rock'n'roll...like the craziest version of Chuck Berry. Hardcore was a radical departure from that. It wasn't verse-chorus rock. It dispelled any notion of what songwriting is supposed to be. It's its own form." According to AllMusic, the overall blueprint for hardcore was playing louder, harder and faster. Hardcore vocalists often shout, scream or chant along with the music. Hardcore vocal lines are often based on minor scales. Hardcore songs may include shouted background vocals from the other band members.
Guitar parts in hardcore can be complex, technically versatile and rhythmically challenging. Guitar melody lines usually use the same minor scales used by vocalists (although some solos use pentatonic scales). Some hardcore punk guitarists play solos, octave leads and grooves, as well as tapping into the various feedback and harmonic noises available to them. The guitar sound is almost always distorted and amplified, creating what has been called a "buzzsaw" sound. Hardcore bassists use varied rhythms in their basslines, ranging from longer held notes (whole notes and half notes) to quarter notes, to rapid eighth note or sixteenth note runs. To play rapid bass lines that would be hard to play with the fingers, some bassists use a pick. Some bassists emphasize a very technical style of bass playing. According to Tobias Hurwitz, '[h]ardcore drumming falls somewhere between the straight-ahead rock styles of old-school punk and the frantic, warp-speed bashing of thrash." Some hardcore punk drummers play fast D beat one moment and then drop tempo into elaborate musical breakdowns the next. Drummers typically play eighth notes on the cymbals, because at the tempos used in hardcore it would be difficult to play a smaller subdivision of the beat.

Politics

Punk fans burning a United States flag in the 1980s.

Hardcore punk lyrics often express anti-establishment, anti-militarist, anti-authoritarian, anti-violence, and pro-environmentalist sentiments, in addition to other typically left-wing, anarchist, or egalitarian political views. During the 1980s, the subculture often rejected what was perceived to be "yuppie" materialism and interventionist American foreign policy. Numerous hardcore punk bands have taken far left political stances such as anarchism or other varieties of socialism and in the 1980s expressed opposition to political leaders such as then US president Ronald Reagan and British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Reagan's economic policies, sometimes dubbed "Reaganomics", and social conservatism were common subjects for criticism by hardcore bands of the time. Jimmy Gestapo of Murphy's Law, however, endorsed Reagan and even went as far to call then former-president Jimmy Carter a "pussy" in a 1986 New York Magazine cover story. Shortly after Reagan's death in 2004, the Maximumrocknroll radio show aired an episode composed of anti-Reagan songs by early hardcore punk bands.

Certain hardcore punk bands have conveyed messages sometimes deemed "politically incorrect" by placing offensive content in their lyrics and relying on stage antics to shock listeners and people in their audience. Boston band the F.U.'s generated controversy with their 1983 album, "My America", whose lyrics contained what appeared to be conservative and patriotic views. Its messages were sometimes taken literally, when they were actually intended as a parody of conservative bands. Another act from Massachusetts, Vile, were known to insult women, minorities and homosexuals in their lyrics and would even go as far as putting their albums on the windshields of people's cars. On the other hand, Tim Yohannan and Punk Rock Fanzine Maximumrocknroll were criticized by some Punk Rockers for acting as the "politically correct scene police" and having what was perceived to be "a very narrow definition of what fits into Punk" and apparently being "authoritarian and trying to dominate the scene" with their views. During the 2001–2009 United States presidency of George W. Bush, it was not uncommon for hardcore bands to express anti-Bush messages. During the 2004 United States presidential election, several hardcore punk artists and bands were involved with the anti-Bush political activist group PunkVoter. A minority of hardcore musicians have expressed right wing views, such as the band Antiseen, whose guitarist Joe Young ran for public office as a North Carolina Libertarian. Former Misfits singer Michale Graves appeared on an episode of The Daily Show, voicing support for George W. Bush. Conservative Punk was an American website that attempted to merge right-wing politics with the punk subculture.

Moshing

The early 1980s hardcore punk scene developed slam dancing (also called moshing), a style of dance in which participants push or slam into each other, and stage diving. Moshing works as a vehicle for expressing anger by "represent[ing] a way of playing at violence or roughness that allowed participants to mark their difference from the banal niceties of middle-class culture." Moshing is in another way a "parody of violence," that nevertheless leaves participants bruised and sometimes bleeding. The term mosh came into use in the early 1980s American hardcore scene in Washington, D.C. A performance by Fear on the 1981 Halloween episode of Saturday Night Live was cut short when slam dancers, including John Belushi and members of a few hardcore punk bands, invaded the stage, damaged studio equipment and used profanity.Those band members included John Joseph and Harley Flanagan of Cro-Mags and John Brannon of Negative Approach and Ian Mackaye of Minor Threat. Other early examples of American hardcore dancing can be seen in the documentaries Another State of Mind, Urban Struggle, The Decline of Western Civilization, American Hardcore, and 30 Years of Northwest Punk.

Clothing style

Mike Watt, formerly the bassist for the Minutemen in a 2013 show.

Many North American hardcore punk fans adopted a dressed-down style of T-shirts, jeans, combat boots or sneakers and crewcut-style haircuts. Women in the hardcore scene typically wore army pants, band T-shirts and hooded sweatshirts. The clothing style was a reflection of hardcore ideology, which included dissatisfaction with suburban America and the hypocrisy of American culture. It was essentially deconstruction of American fashion staples—ripped jeans, holey T-shirts, torn stockings for women, and work boots. The style of the 1980s hardcore scene contrasted with the more provocative fashion styles of late 1970s punk rockers (elaborate hairdos, torn clothes, patches, safety pins, studs, spikes, etc.).
Siri C. Brockmeier writes that "hardcore kids do not look like punks", since hardcore scene members wore basic clothing and short haircuts, in contrast to the "embellished leather jackets and pants" worn in the punk scene. Lauraine Leblanc, however, claims that the standard hardcore punk clothing and styles included torn jeans, leather jackets, spiked armbands and dog collars and mohawk hairstyles and DIY ornamentation of clothes with studs, painted band names, political statements, and patches. Tiffini A. Travis and Perry Hardy describe the look that was common in the San Francisco hardcore scene as consisting of biker-style leather jackets, chains, studded wristbands, multiple piercings, painted or tattooed statements (e.g., an anarchy symbol) and hairstyles ranging from military-style haircuts dyed black or blonde to mohawks and shaved heads.


Circle Jerks frontman Keith Morris wrote: "the ... punk scene was basically based on English fashion. But we had nothing to do with that. Black Flag and the Circle Jerks were so far from that. We looked like the kid who worked at the gas station or sub. shop." Henry Rollins stated that for him, getting dressed up meant putting on a black shirt and some dark pants; Rollins viewed an interest in fashion as being a distraction. Jimmy Gestapo from Murphy's Law describes his own transition from dressing in a punk style (spiked hair and a bondage belt) to adopting a hardcore style (shaved head and boots) as being based on needing more functional clothing.

Fanzines

UK and US zines

In the pre-Internet era, fanzines, commonly called zines, enabled hardcore scene members to learn about bands, clubs, and record labels. Zines typically included reviews of shows and records, interviews with bands, letters, and ads for records and labels. Zines were DIY products, "proudly amateur, usually handmade, and always independent" and in the "’90s, zines were the primary way to stay up on punk and hardcore." They acted as the "blogs, comment sections, and social networks of their day."
In the American Midwest, the zine Touch and Go described the Midwest hardcore scene from 1979 to 1983. We Got Power described the LA scene from 1981 to 1984, and it included show reviews and band interviews with groups including D.O.A., the Misfits, Black Flag, Suicidal Tendencies and the Circle Jerks. My Rules was a photo zine that included photos of hardcore shows from across the US. In Effect, which began in 1988, described the New York City scene. By 1990, Maximum Rocknroll "had become the de facto bible of the scene." Maximum Rocknroll is a thick, monthly, newsprint magazine with subscriptions in many countries all over the world. MRR had a "passionate yet dogmatic view" of what hardcore was supposed to be, while HeartattaCk and Profane Existence were "even more religious about their DIY ethos." HeartattaCk was mainly about emo and post-hardcore. Profane Existence was mostly about crust punk. The Bay Area zine Cometbus "captured an entire dimension of ’90s punk culture that provided necessary roughage compared to the empty calories of mainstream punk’s MTV/Warped Tour narrative."
Other 1990 zines included Gearhead, Slug and Lettuce and Riot Grrrl.  In Canada, the zine Standard Issue chronicles the Ottawa hardcore scene. With the arrival of the Internet, some hardcore punk zines became available online. One example is the e-zine chronicling the Australian hardcore scene, RestAssured.

History

Late 1970s-early 1980s

United States

Los Angeles

 

Michael Azerrad states that "by 1979 the original punk scene [in Southern California] had almost completely died out." "They were replaced by a bunch of toughs coming in from outlying suburbs who were only beginning to discover punk's speed, power and aggression";"[d]ispensing with all pretension, these kids boiled the music down to its essence, then revved up the tempos...and called the result "hardcore", creating a music that was "younger, faster and angrier, [and] full of...pent-up rage..." Hardcore historian Steven Blush states that for West coasters, the first hardcore record was Out of Vogue by the Santa Ana band Middle Class. The band pioneered a shouted, fast version of punk rock which would shape the hardcore sound that would soon emerge. In terms of impact upon the hardcore scene, Black Flag has been deemed the most influential group. Michael Azerrad, author of Our Band Could Be Your Life, calls Black Flag the "godfathers" of hardcore punk and states that even "...more than the flagship band of American hardcore", they were "...required listening for anyone who was interested in underground music." Blush states that Black Flag defined American hardcore in the same way that the Sex Pistols defined punk. Formed in Hermosa Beach, California by guitarist and lyricist Greg Ginn, they played their first show in December 1977. Originally called Panic, they changed their name to Black Flag in 1978. Black Flag's sound mixed the raw simplicity of the Ramones with atonal guitar solos and frequent tempo shifts.

Black Flag performing live in 1984

L.A.

By 1979, Black Flag were joined by other Los Angeles-area bands playing hardcore punk, including Fear, the Germs, and the Circle Jerks (featuring Black Flag's original singer, Keith Morris). This group of bands was featured in Penelope Spheeris' 1981 documentary The Decline of Western Civilization. By the time the film was released, other hardcore bands were making a name for themselves in Los Angeles and neighboring Orange County, including The Adolescents, Angry Samoans, Bad Religion, Dr. Know, Ill Repute, Minutemen, New Regime, Suicidal Tendencies, T.S.O.L., Wasted Youth, and Youth Brigade.

Whilst popular traditional punk bands such as the Ramones, The Clash, and Sex Pistols were signed to major record labels, the hardcore punk bands were generally not. Black Flag, however, was briefly signed to MCA subsidiary Unicorn Records, but were dropped because an executive considered their music to be "anti-parent". Instead of trying to be courted by the major labels, hardcore bands started their own independent record labels and distributed their records themselves. Ginn started SST Records, which released Black Flag's debut EP Nervous Breakdown in 1979. SST went on to release a number of albums by other hardcore artists, and was described by Azerrad as "easily the most influential and popular underground indie of the Eighties." SST was followed by a number of other successful artist-run labels—including BYO Records (started by Shawn and Mark Stern of Youth Brigade), Epitaph Records (started by Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion), New Alliance Records (started by the Minutemen's D. Boon)—as well as fan-run labels like Frontier Records and Slash Records.
Bands also funded and organized their own tours. Black Flag's tours in 1980 and 1981 brought them in contact with developing hardcore scenes in many parts of North America, and blazed trails that were followed by other touring bands. Youth Brigade and Social Distortion were two of the first hardcore punk bands to create a documentary of their tour, releasing Another State of Mind in 1984. The Another State of Mind tour was funded by "Youth Movement '82", a concert organized by BYO at the Hollywood Palladium that—in addition to Youth Brigade—featured T.S.O.L., The Adolescents, Wasted Youth, Social Distortion and Blades. The concert was one of the largest punk shows ever held around that time, attended by more than 3,500 people. Concerts in the early Los Angeles hardcore scene increasingly became sites of violent battles between police and concertgoers. Another source of violence in LA was tension created by what one writer calls the invasion of "antagonistic suburban poseurs" into hardcore venues. Violence at hardcore concerts was portrayed in episodes of the popular television shows CHiPs and Quincy, M.E.

San Francisco

Jello Biafra performing with the Dead Kennedys

Shortly after Black Flag debuted in Los Angeles, Dead Kennedys were formed in San Francisco. While the band's early releases were played in a style closer to traditional punk rock, In God We Trust, Inc. (1981) marked a shift into hardcore. Similar to Black Flag and Youth Brigade, Dead Kennedys released their albums on their own label Alternative Tentacles. While not as large as the scene in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area hardcore scene of the 1980s included a number of noteworthy bands, including Crucifix, Flipper, and Whipping Boy.

Additionally, during this time, seminal Texas-based bands The Dicks, MDC, Verbal Abuse, and Dirty Rotten Imbeciles (D.R.I.) relocated to San Francisco. This scene was helped in particular by the San Francisco club Mabuhay Gardens, whose promoter, Dirk Dirksen, became known as "The Pope of Punk". Another important local institution was Tim Yohannan's fanzine, Maximumrocknroll, as well as his show on Berkeley, California public radio station KPFA Maximum RocknRoll Radio Show, which played the younger Northern California bands. One of those bands was Tales of Terror from Sacramento. Many, including Mark Arm, cite Tales of Terror as a key inspiration for the then-burgeoning grunge scene.

Washington, D.C.

Bad Brains at 9:30 Club, Washington, D.C., 1983

The first hardcore punk band to form on the east coast of the United States was Washington, D.C.'s Bad Brains. Initially formed in 1977 as a jazz fusion ensemble called Mind Power, and consisting of all African-American members, their early foray into hardcore featured some of the fastest tempos in rock music. The band released its debut single, "Pay to Cum", in 1980, and were influential in establishing the D.C. hardcore scene. Hardcore historian Steven Blush calls the single the first East coast hardcore record.

DC HARCORE

Minor Threat performing in 1981

Ian MacKaye and Jeff Nelson, influenced by Bad Brains, formed the band Teen Idles in 1979. The group broke up in 1980, and MacKaye and Nelson went on to form Minor Threat, who became a big influence on the hardcore punk genre. The band used faster rhythms and more aggressive, less melodic riffs than was common at the time. Minor Threat popularized the straight edge movement with its song "Straight Edge", which spoke out against alcohol, drugs and promiscuity. MacKaye and Nelson ran their own record label, Dischord Records, which released records by D.C. hardcore bands including: The Faith, Iron Cross, Scream, State of Alert, Government Issue, Void, and DC's Youth Brigade. The Flex Your Head compilation was a seminal document of the early 1980s DC hardcore scene. The record label was run out of the Dischord House, a Washington, D.C. punk house.

Boston

Seminal Boston hardcore bands included Jerry's Kids, Gang Green, The F.U.'s, SS Decontrol, Negative FX, The Freeze and Siege. A faction of the scene was influenced by D.C.'s straight edge scene. Members of bands such as DYS, Negative FX, and SS Decontrol formed the Boston Crew, a militant straight edge group that frequently assaulted punks who drank or used drugs. The controversy surrounding this crew and their antics sparked a debate about violence within the hardcore scene. In the late 1980s, Elgin James became involved in the militant faction of the Boston straight edge scene, and he later helped found the organization Friends Stand United, which would eventually be classified as a street gang. In 1982, Modern Method Records released This Is Boston, Not L.A., a seminal compilation album of the Boston hardcore scene. The compilation included songs by The Proletariat, The Freeze, The F.U.'s, Jerry's Kids and Gang Green. Curtis Casella's Taang! Records was also pivotal in releasing material by bands from this era.

New York

Facade of the music club CBGB in New York City

The New York City hardcore scene emerged in 1981 when Bad Brains moved to the city from Washington, D.C. Starting in 1981, there was an influx of new hardcore bands in the city, including Beastie Boys, Murphy's Law, Agnostic Front and Warzone.

 A number of bands associated with New York hardcore scene came from New Jersey, including Misfits, Adrenalin OD and Hogan's Heroes. Steven Blush calls the Misfits "crucial to the rise of hardcore." In the early 1980s, the New York hardcore scene was headquartered in a small after-hours bar, A7, on the lower east side of Manhattan. Later, New York's hardcore scene was centered around the bar CBGB, whose owner, Hilly Kristal, embraced hardcore punk. The Dead Boys, originally from Cleveland but gained popularity in New York played at Hilly's club often and he even managed them. The Dead Boys album released in 1977 titled "Young, Loud and Snotty" is anearly hardcore punk album. For several years, CBGB held weekly hardcore matinees on Sundays. This stopped in 1990 when violence led Kristal to ban hardcore shows at the club.

Agnostic Front performing.

Early radio support in New York's surrounding Tri state area came from Pat Duncan, who had hosted live punk and hardcore bands weekly on WFMU since 1979. Bridgeport, Connecticut's WPKN had a radio show featuring hardcore called Capital Radio, hosted by Brad Morrison, beginning in February 1979 and continuing weekly until late 1983. In New York City, Tim Sommer hosted Noise The Show on WNYU. In 1982, Bob Sallese produced The Big Apple Rotten To The Core compilation on S.I.N. Records, featuring The Mob, Ism and four other bands from the early A7 era. The album gained notoriety on the commercial radio station WLIR, and nationally on college radio. The LP was followed by The Big Apple Rotten To The Core, Vol. 2 in 1987 on Raw Power Records.

Other American cities

Washington state band The Accüsed.

Minneapolis hardcore consisted of bands such as Hüsker Dü and The Replacements, while Chicago had Articles of Faith, Big Black and Naked Raygun. The Detroit area was home to Crucifucks, Degenerates, The Meatmen, Necros, Negative Approach, Spite and Violent Apathy. JFA and Meat Puppets were both from Phoenix, Arizona;, 7 Seconds were from Reno, Nevada; and Butthole Surfers, Big Boys, The Dicks, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles (D.R.I.), Really Red, Verbal Abuse and MDC were from Texas. Portland, Oregon hardcore punk bands included Poison Idea, Final Warning and The Wipers. Hardcore bands in Washington state included The Accüsed, The Fartz, Melvins, The Dehumanizers, Subvert, and 10 Minute Warning. Hardcore punk from Raleigh, North Carolina included Corrosion of Conformity. Hardcore punk from South Carolina included Bored Suburban Youth (Columbia), Scott Free (Myrtle Beach), Bazooka Joe (Myrtle Beach), Sex Mutants (Florence), Civilian Chaos Corps (Charleston), and Uncalled Four (Charleston).Dayton, Ohio had Toxic Reasons.

Canada

D.O.A. formed in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1978 and were one of the first bands to refer to its style as "hardcore", with the release of their album Hardcore '81. Other early hardcore bands from British Columbia included Dayglo Abortions, the Subhumans and The Skulls. In 1988, the Dayglo Abortions became the center of national media attention when a police officer instigated a criminal investigation of the band after his daughter brought home a copy of Here Today, Guano Tomorrow. Obscenity charges were laid against the Dayglo Abortion’s record label, Fringe Product, and the label's record store, Record Peddler, but those charges were cleared in 1990.
Nomeansno is a hardcore band originally from Victoria, British Columbia and now located in Vancouver. SNFU formed in Edmonton in 1981 and also later relocated to Vancouver. Bunchofuckingoofs (BFGs), from the Kensington Market neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, formed in November 1983 as a response to "a local war with glue huffing Nazi skinheads." Fucked Up is a Toronto band which won the 2009 Polaris Music Prize for the album The Chemistry of Common Life. One early Montreal hardcore band is The Asexuals, a mainstay of the Montreal punk scene in the 1980s.

United Kingdom

Young punk with Exploited shirt in 1984.

In the United Kingdom a hardcore scene eventually cropped up. Referred to under a number of names including "U.K. Hardcore", "UK 82", "second wave punk", "real punk", and "No Future punk", it took the previous punk sound and added the incessant, heavy drumbeats and heavily distorted guitar sound of new wave of British heavy metal bands, especially Motörhead.

Formed in 1977 in Stoke-on-Trent, Discharge played a huge role in influencing other European hardcore bands. AllMusic calls the band's sound a "high-speed noise overload" characterized by "ferocious noise blasts." Their style of hardcore punk was coined as D-beat, a term refering to a distinctive drum beat that a number of 1980s imitators of Discharge are associated with.

Another UK band, The Varukers, were one of the original D-beat bands, and Sweden in particular produced a number of D-beat bands during this time period including Anti-Cimex, Disfear, and Totalitär. Scottish band The Exploited were also influential, with the term "UK 82" (used to refer to UK hardcore in the early 1980s) being taken from one of their songs.

 They contrasted with early American hardcore bands by placing an emphasis on appearance. Frontman Walter "Wattie" Buchan had a giant red mohawk and the band continued to wear swastikas, an approach influenced by the wearing of this symbol by 1970s punks such as Sid Vicious.

 Because of this, The Exploited were labeled by others in the scene as "cartoon punks".

Other influential UK hardcore bands from this period included Broken Bones, Chaos UK, Charged GBH, Dogsflesh, Disorder, Anti-Establishment, English Dogs, and grindcore innovators Napalm Death.

Australia

Australian hardcore bands began appearing in the mid-1980s. Massappeal of Sydney began performing in 1985 and released its first album in 1986. Adelaide's Where's the Pope? formed in 1985 and released their first album in 1987. Other Australian hardcore bands include Mindsnare (formed in 1993), Break Even and 50 Lions (formed in 2005), Iron Mind (formed in 2006), and Confession (formed in 2008). Australian hardcore is played on the national Triple J network on the short.fast.loud program. Veganism and straight edge beliefs are becoming more prominent in the hardcore scene, particularly in Adelaide. Labels that release hardcore include Broken Hive Records, El Shaddai Records, Resist Records and UNFD Records.

Other countries

Hardcore scenes also developed in Italy, Spain and other European countries, Brazil, Japan, and the Middle East.

The Kominas at a Chicago show in 2007.

There was a dynamic Italian hardcore punk scene in the 1980s. Inspired by UK bands such as Crass and Discharge, many Italian groups had lyrics that were anti-war and anti-NATO. Groups included Wretched, Raw Power, and Negazione.

 The Last White Christmas festival, held in Pisa on Dec. 4, 1983, was an important concert for Italian groups (CCM, I Refuse It!, Raw Power, Purid Fever, War Dogs). Sweden developed several influential hardcore bands, including Mob 47 and Anti Cimex, whose music has also inspired many foreign bands. Since the early 1990s, many Swedish groups were D-beat "tribute bands" to groups such as UK's Discharge. A hardcore scene that emerged in Umeå and other northern cities in the 1990s, with bands such as Refused (Umeå) and Raised Fist (Luleå). Finland produced some influential hardcore bands, including Terveet Kädet, one of the first hardcore groups to emerge in the country. In Eastern Europe notable hardcore bands included Hungaria's Galloping Coroners from 1975, Yugoslavia's 1980s-era Niet from Ljubljana, KUD Idijoti from Pula, and KBO!.

A member of Japanese band Anti Feminism (left) and wrestler Jun Kasai (right).

In Brazil, the hardcore scene was jump started with the opening of a punk record shop called Punk Rock Discos in São Paulo in 1979. By the early 1980s, the store was bringing records from British bands like Discharge and Disorder as well as Swedish and Finnish hardcore. Around 1981, punk gigs were happening often around São Paulo, where there were already dozens of active bands, mostly playing hardcore punk and similar styles, most importantly Cólera and Inocentes.

A Japanese hardcore scene arose to protest the social and economic changes sweeping the country in the late 1970s and during the 1980s. The band SS is regarded as the first, forming in 1977. Bands such as The Stalin and GISM soon followed, both forming in 1980. Other notable Japanese hardcore bands include: Anti Feminism, Balzac, Bomb Factory, Disclose (a D-beat band), Garlic Boys, Gauze, The Piass, SOB, and The Star Club.

In recent years, Muslim hardcore bands have emerged in the US, Canada, Pakistan, and Indonesia. The development of Muslim hardcore has been traced to the impact of a 2010 film Taqwacore, a documentary about the Muslim hardcore scene. Bands include "The Kominas from Boston, the all-girl Secret Trial Five from Toronto, Al Thawra (The Power) from Chicago and even a few bands out in Pakistan and Indonesia."

Mid-1980s

Corrosion of Conformity playing in Denver in 1986

The mid-1980s were a time of transition for the hardcore scene. Bands such as Hüsker Dü, Articles of Faith, and new bands formed by members of bands like Deep Wound and Minutemen experimented with other genres and were embraced by college radio, coining the term "College Rock". Many Boston bands such as SS Decontrol, Gang Green, DYS, and The F.U.'s, as well as Midwestern hardcore bands Necros, Negative Approach and The Meatmen moved in a slower, heavier hard rock direction.

 Crossover thrash was another influential movement in mid-1980s hardcore, with bands like D.R.I., Corrosion of Conformity, Suicidal Tendencies, Los Cycos, Cro-Mags, Fang, Agnostic Front, Rich Kids on LSD, The Accüsed and Cryptic Slaughter embracing the thrash metal of bands like Slayer. Most of the Washington, D.C. hardcore scene eschewed hardcore in favor of a college rock-influenced style of punk.

Late 1980s

By the mid to late 1980s, many of the most prominent early hardcore punk bands had broken up. Bad Religion made a progressive rock album with Into the Unknown, the Beastie Boys gained fame by playing hip hop, and Bad Brains incorporated more reggae into their music, such as in their 1989 album Quickness. Social Distortion went on hiatus after its first album was released, due to Mike Ness's drug problems, and returned with a sound based more on country music, which was referred to as cowpunk.

Youth crew

During the late eighties in New York City, Influenced by original straight edge bands 7 Seconds, Minor Threat, Bl'ast, and Uniform Choice, bands spearheaded a youth crew movement. An extension to the original pioneers groundwork of lyrically expressing views against drugs, alcohol and promiscuous sex, this rebirth also focused on topics such as vegetarianism or veganism.

 In the late 1980s, most bands associated with youth crew included Bold, Gorilla Biscuits, Side by Side, Youth of Today, and beyond the New York area to Southern California bands such as Chain of Strength and Inside Out.

1990s

In the beginning of the 1990s, bands such as Born Against, Rorschach, Burn and Drive Like Jehu took the 1980s styles of hardcore and pushed them into more contemporary sounds. Many of the bands from this era were strongly influenced by other genres, such as heavy metal, alternative, pop, and even rap. Hardcore subsequently became a broad term, as a variety of different genres arose, such as melodic hardcore (Avail, Lifetime, Kid Dynamite), emo (Endpoint, Saves the Day), D-beat (Avskum, Aus Rotten, Skitsystem), powerviolence (Spazz, Dropdead, Charles Bronson), thrashcore (What Happens Next?, Voorhees, Vivisick), mathcore (The Dillinger Escape Plan, Botch, Converge), screamo (Heroin, Antioch Arrow, Portraits of Past, Swing Kids) and rapcore (Biohazard).

Mathcore band Dillinger Escape Plan

While the 1990s had many different sounds and styles emerging, the genre primarily branched into two directions; new school metallic hardcore (also referred as metalcore), which incorporated aspects of thrash metal and death metal for a heavier and more technical sound, and old school, reminiscent of the classic beginnings of hardcore punk.

 "New school" bands such as Strung Out, Earth Crisis, Snapcase, Strife, Hatebreed, 108, Integrity and Damnation A.D. dominated the scene in the early 1990s, but towards the end of the decade, a new-found interest in "old school" had developed, represented by bands like Battery, Ten Yard Fight, In My Eyes, Good Clean Fun, H₂O and Better Than a Thousand.

 As usage of the Internet became a mainstream tool, music festivals such as Hellfest were born. Many of the bands during this time wrote lyrics about abstinence from drugs, politics, civil rights, animal rights and spirituality.

2000s

With the increased popularity of punk rock in the mid-1990s and the 2000s, some hardcore bands signed with major record labels. The first was New York's H₂O, who released its album Go (2001) for MCA. Despite an extensive tour and an appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, the album was not commercially successful, and when the label folded, the band and the label parted ways. In 2002, California's AFI signed to DreamWorks Records and changed its sound considerably for its successful major label debut Sing the Sorrow. Chicago's Rise Against were signed by Geffen Records, and three of its releases on the label were certified platinum by the RIAA. Rise Against gradually diminished hardcore elements from their music, culminating with 2008's Appeal to Reason, which lacked the intensity found in their earlier albums. Notable independent label Bridge 9 Records have seen several of their artists rise to prominence, including Defeater, Verse and Have Heart, who had a Billboard chart entry with their second album, 'Songs To Scream At The Sun'.
United Kingdom band Gallows were signed to Warner Bros. Records for £1 million. Their major label debut Grey Britain was described as being even more aggressive than their previous material, and the band was subsequently dropped from the label. The UK has also seen a flurry of Melodic Hardcore bands in the 2010s, including Landscapes (who have signed to notable Californian label Pure Noise Records, Bridge 9 Records' Dead Swans, and Heart In Hand (band))
Los Angeles band The Bronx briefly appeared on Island Def Jam Music Group for the release of their 2006 self-titled album, which was named one of the top 40 albums of the year by Spin magazine. They appeared in the Darby Crash biopic What We Do Is Secret, playing members of Black Flag. In 2007, Toronto's Fucked Up appeared on MTV Live Canada, where they were introduced as "Effed Up". During the performance of its song "Baiting the Public", the majority of the audience was moshing, which caused $2000 in damages to the set.

Subgenres and fusion genres

Hardcore punk has spawned a number of subgenres, fusion genres and derivative forms. Its subgenres include D-beat, emo, melodic hardcore and thrashcore. Important fusion genres include crossover thrash, crust punk, grindcore, and metalcore, all of which fuse hardcore punk with extreme metal styles. Key derivatives include post-hardcore and skate punk, and hardcore punk has also influenced a number of heavy metal sub genres.

Subgenres

D-beat

D-beat (also known as discore or kängpunk) is a hardcore punk subgenre, developed in the early 1980s by imitators of the band Discharge, after whom the genre is named, as well as a drum beat characteristic of this subgenre. The bands Discharge and The Varukers are pioneers of the D-beat genre. Robbie Mackey of Pitchfork Media described D-beat as "hardcore drumming set against breakneck riffage and unintelligible howls about anarchy, working-stiffs-as-rats, and banding together to, you know, fight."

  Post-hardcore

Guy Picciotto of Rites of Spring and Fugazi

The 1980s saw the development of post-hardcore, which took the hardcore style in a more complex and dynamic direction, with a focus on singing rather than screaming. The post-hardcore style first took shape in Chicago, with bands such as Big Black, The Effigies and Naked Raygun, while later developed in Washington, DC within the community of bands on Ian MacKaye's Dischord Records with bands such as Fugazi, The Nation of Ulysses, and Jawbox. The style has extended until the late 2000s. The mid-80s Washington, D.C. post-hardcore scene would also see the birth of emo. Guy Picciotto formed Rites of Spring in 1984, breaking free of hardcore's self-imposed boundaries in favor of melodic guitars, varied rhythms, and deeply personal, impassioned lyrics dealing with nostalgia, romantic bitterness, and poetic desperation. Other D.C. bands such as Gray Matter, Beefeater, Fire Party, Dag Nasty, also became connected to this movement. The style was dubbed "emo", "emo-core", or "post-harDCore" (in reference to one of the names given to the Washington, D.C. hardcore scene).

Heavy hardcore

According to author Nicolae Sfetcu, New York City heavy hardcore band Madball is known for its "brutal and unforgiving depictions of urban life".

Heavy hardcore (also known as tough guy hardcore) is a style of hardcore punk which has deep, hoarse vocals, down-tuned electric guitars, blast beats, and slow breakdowns. American Me, Madball, Biohazard, Hatebreed, Sheer Terror, 25 ta Life, and Killing Time all are heavy hardcore bands.

Thrashcore

Often confused with crossover thrash and sometimes thrash metal, is thrashcore. Thrashcore (also known as fastcore) is a subgenre of hardcore punk that emerged in the early 1980s. It is essentially sped-up hardcore punk, with bands often using blast beats. Just as hardcore punk groups distinguished themselves from their punk rock predecessors by their greater intensity and aggression, thrashcore groups (often identified simply as "thrash") sought to play at breakneck tempos that would radicalize the innovations of hardcore. Early American thrashcore groups included Cryptic Slaughter (Santa Monica), D.R.I. (Houston), Septic Death (Boise) and Siege (Weymouth, Massachusetts). Thrashcore spun off into powerviolence, another raw and dissonant subgenre of hardcore punk. Notable powerviolence bands include Man is the Bastard and Spazz.

Fusion genres

Grindcore

Grindcore is an extreme genre of music that began the early–mid 1980s. Grindcore music relies on heavy metal instrumentation and eventually changed into a genre similar to death metal. Grindcore vocals, according to AllMusic, range "from high-pitched shrieks to low, throat-shredding growls and barks". Grindcore also features blast beats, According to Adam MacGregor of Dusted, "the blast-beat generally comprises a repeated, sixteenth-note figure played at a very fast tempo, and divided uniformly among the kick drum, snare and ride, crash, or hi-hat cymbal." The band Napalm Death invented the grindcore genre; their debut album Scum was described by AllMusic as "perhaps the most representative example of" grindcore.

Metalcore

 

Metalcore is a fusion genre that merges heavy hardcore punk with extreme metal. Metalcore has screaming, growling, heavy guitar riffs, breakdowns, and double bass drumming. Heavy metal-hardcore punk hybrids arose in the mid-1980s and would also radicalize the innovations of hardcore as the two genres and their ideologies intertwined noticeably, resulting in two main genres one being metalcore. The term has been used to refer to bands that were not purely hardcore nor purely metal such as pioneering bands Earth Crisis, Integrity and Hogan's Heroes. Metallica and Slayer, pioneers of the heavy metal subgenre thrash metal, were influenced by a number of hardcore bands. Metallica's cover album Garage Inc. included covers of two Discharge and three Misfits songs, while Slayer's cover album Undisputed Attitude consisted of covers of predominately hardcore punk bands. During the 2000s, many more metalcore bands became known. Bullet for My Valentine, Killswitch Engage, Atreyu, Shadows Fall, and As I Lay Dying all had some popularity during the 2000s.

Influence on other genres

Alternative rock

The Replacements

Some hardcore bands began experimenting with other styles as their careers progressed in the 1980s, becoming known as alternative rock. Bands such as Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Hüsker Dü, and The Replacements drew from hardcore they had played earlier in their careers, but broke away from its "loud and fast" formula.

Grunge

In the mid-1980s, northern West Coast state bands such as Melvins, Flipper and Green River developed a sludgy, "aggressive sound that melded the slower tempos of heavy metal with the intensity of hardcore," creating an alternative rock subgenre known as grunge. Grunge evolved from the local Seattle punk rock scene, and it was inspired by bands such as The Fartz, 10 Minute Warning and The Accüsed. Grunge fuses elements of hardcore and heavy metal, although some bands performed with more emphasis on one or the other. Grunge's key guitar influences included Black Flag and The Melvins. Black Flag's 1984 record My War, on which the band combined heavy metal with their traditional sound, made a strong impact in Seattle.

Electronic music

 

 

Digital hardcore is a music genre fusing elements of hardcore punk and various forms of electronic music and techno.It developed in Germany during the early 1990s, and often features sociological or left-extremist lyrical themes. Nintendocore, another musical style, fuses hardcore with video game music, chiptunes, and 8-bit music.

Sludge metal

Melvins, aside from their influence on grunge, helped create what would be known as sludge metal, which is also a combination between Black Sabbath-style music and hardcore punk. This genre developed during the early 1990s, in the Southern United States (particularly in the New Orleans metal scene). Some of the pioneering bands of sludge metal were: Eyehategod Crowbar, Down, Buzzov*en, Acid Bath and Corrosion of Conformity Later, bands such as Isis and Neurosis, with similar influences, created a style that relies mostly on ambience and atmosphere that would eventually be named atmospheric sludge metal or post-metal.

Among the earliest hardcore bands, regarded as having made the first recordings in the style, were Southern California's Middle Class and Black Flag. Bad Brains—all of whom were black, a rarity in punk of any era—launched the D.C. scene. Austin, Texas's Big Boys, San Francisco's Dead Kennedys, and Vancouver's D.O.A. were among the other initial hardcore groups. They were soon joined by bands such as the Minutemen, Descendents, Circle Jerks, Adolescents, and T.S.O.L. in Southern California; D.C.'s Teen Idles, Minor Threat, and State of Alert; and Austin's MDC and the Dicks. By 1981, hardcore was the dominant punk rock style not only in California, but much of the rest of North America as well. A New York hardcore scene grew, including the relocated Bad Brains, New Jersey's Misfits and Adrenalin O.D., and local acts such as the Nihilistics, the Mob, Reagan Youth, and Agnostic Front. Beastie Boys, who would become famous as a hip-hop group, debuted that year as a hardcore band. They were followed by the Cro-Mags, Murphy's Law, and Leeway. By 1983, St. Paul's Hüsker Dü, Willful Neglect, Chicago's Naked Raygun, Indianapolis's Zero Boys, and D.C.'s the Faith were taking the hardcore sound in experimental and ultimately more melodic directions. Hardcore would constitute the American punk rock standard throughout the decade. The lyrical content of hardcore songs is often critical of commercial culture and middle-class values, as in Dead Kennedys' celebrated "Holiday in Cambodia" (1980).
Straight edge bands like Minor Threat, Boston's SS Decontrol, and Reno, Nevada's 7 Seconds rejected the self-destructive lifestyles of many of their peers, and built a movement based on positivity and abstinence from cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, and casual sex.
Skate punk innovators also pointed in other directions: Big Boys helped establish funkcore, while Venice, California's Suicidal Tendencies had a formative effect on the heavy metal–influenced crossover thrash style. Toward the middle of the decade, D.R.I. spawned the superfast thrashcore genre. Both developed in multiple locations. Sacramento's Tales of Terror, which mixed psychedelic rock into their hardcore sound, were an early influence on the grunge genre. D.C.'s Void was one of the first punk-metal crossover acts and influenced thrash metal.

Oi!

SKINHEADS

Following the lead of first-wave British punk bands Cock Sparrer and Sham 69, in the late 1970s second-wave units like Cockney Rejects, Angelic Upstarts, the Exploited, Anti-Establishment and the 4-Skins sought to realign punk rock with a working class, street-level following. For that purpose, they believed, the music needed to stay "accessible and unpretentious", in the words of music historian Simon Reynolds. Their style was originally called "real punk" or street punk; Sounds journalist Garry Bushell is credited with labelling the genre Oi! in 1980. The name is partly derived from the Cockney Rejects' habit of shouting "Oi! Oi! Oi!" before each song, instead of the time-honored "1,2,3,4!"

Strength Thru Oi!, with its notorious image of British Movement activist and felon Nicky Crane

The Oi! movement was fueled by a sense that many participants in the early punk rock scene were, in the words of the Business guitarist Steve Kent, "trendy university people using long words, trying to be artistic ... and losing touch". According to Bushell, "Punk was meant to be of the voice of the dole queue, and in reality most of them were not. But Oi was the reality of the punk mythology. In the places where [these bands] came from, it was harder and more aggressive and it produced just as much quality music." Lester Bangs described Oi! as "politicized football chants for unemployed louts". One song in particular, the Exploited's "Punks Not Dead", spoke to an international constituency. It was adopted as an anthem by the groups of disaffected Mexican urban youth known in the 1980s as bandas; one banda named itself PND, after the song's initials.
Although most Oi! bands in the initial wave were apolitical or left wing, many of them began to attract a white power skinhead following. Racist skinheads sometimes disrupted Oi! concerts by shouting fascist slogans and starting fights, but some Oi! bands were reluctant to endorse criticism of their fans from what they perceived as the "middle-class establishment". In the popular imagination, the movement thus became linked to the far right. Strength Thru Oi!, an album compiled by Bushell and released in May 1981, stirred controversy, especially when it was revealed that the belligerent figure on the cover was a neo-Nazi jailed for racist violence (Bushell claimed ignorance). On July 3, a concert at Hamborough Tavern in Southall featuring the Business, the 4-Skins, and the Last Resort was firebombed by local Asian youths who believed that the event was a neo-Nazi gathering. Following the Southall riot, press coverage increasingly associated Oi! with the extreme right, and the movement soon began to lose momentum.

Anarcho-punk

Crass were the originators of anarcho-punk. Spurning the "cult of rock star personality", their plain, all-black dress became a staple of the genre.

Anarcho-punk developed alongside the Oi! and American hardcore movements. Inspired by Crass, its Dial House commune, and its independent Crass Records label, a scene developed around British bands such as Subhumans, Flux of Pink Indians, Conflict, Poison Girls, and the Apostles that was concerned as much with anarchist and DIY principles as it was with music. The acts featured ranting vocals, discordant instrumental sounds, primitive production values, and lyrics filled with political and social content, often addressing issues such as class inequalities and military violence. Anarcho-punk musicians and fans disdained the older punk scene from which theirs had evolved. In historian Tim Gosling's description, they saw "safety pins and Mohicans as little more than ineffectual fashion posturing stimulated by the mainstream media and industry.... Whereas the Sex Pistols would proudly display bad manners and opportunism in their dealings with 'the establishment,' the anarcho-punks kept clear of 'the establishment' altogether".

The movement spun off several subgenres of a similar political bent. Discharge, founded back in 1977, established D-beat in the early 1980s.

 Other groups in the movement, led by Amebix and Antisect, developed the extreme style known as crust punk. Several of these bands rooted in anarcho-punk such as the Varukers, Discharge, and Amebix, along with former Oi! groups such as the Exploited and bands from father afield like Birmingham's Charged GBH, became the leading figures in the UK 82 hardcore movement. The anarcho-punk scene also spawned bands such as Napalm Death, Carcass, and Extreme Noise Terror that in the mid-1980s defined grindcore, incorporating extremely fast tempos and death metal–style guitarwork. Led by Dead Kennedys, a U.S. anarcho-punk scene developed around such bands as Austin's MDC and Southern California's Another Destructive System.

Pop punk

With their love of the Beach Boys and late 1960s bubblegum pop, the Ramones paved the way to what became known as pop punk. In the late 1970s, UK bands such as Buzzcocks and the Undertones combined pop-style tunes and lyrical themes with punk's speed and chaotic edge. In the early 1980s, some of the leading bands in Southern California's hardcore punk rock scene emphasized a more melodic approach than was typical of their peers. According to music journalist Ben Myers, Bad Religion "layered their pissed off, politicized sound with the smoothest of harmonies"; Descendents

"wrote almost surfy, Beach Boys–inspired songs about girls and food and being young(ish)". Epitaph Records, founded by Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion, was the base for many future pop punk bands. Bands that fused punk with light-hearted pop melodies, such as the Queers and Screeching Weasel, began appearing around the country, in turn influencing bands like Green Day and the Offspring, who brought pop punk wide popularity and major record sales. Bands such as the Vandals and Guttermouth developed a style blending pop melodies with humorous and offensive lyrics. Eventually, the geographically large midwest U.S. punk scene, anchored largely in places like Chicago and Minneapolis, would spawn bands like Dillinger Four who would talk a catchy, hooky pop-punk approach and reinfuse it with some of punk's earlier grit and fury, creating a distinctive punk rock sound with a regional tag. This particular substrate still maintains an identity today. The mainstream pop punk of latter-day bands such as Blink-182 is criticized by many punk rock devotees; in critic Christine Di Bella's words, "It's punk taken to its most accessible point, a point where it barely reflects its lineage at all, except in the three-chord song structures."

Other fusions and directions

"Electropunk" and "Synth-punk" redirect here. For the genre of similar roots, see Electroclash.

From 1977 on, punk rock crossed lines with many other popular music genres. Los Angeles punk rock bands laid the groundwork for a wide variety of styles: the Flesh Eaters with deathrock; the Plugz with Chicano punk; and Gun Club with punk blues. The Meteors, from South London, and the Cramps, who moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1980, were innovators in the psychobilly fusion style. Milwaukee's Violent Femmes jumpstarted the American folk punk scene, while the Pogues did the same on the other side of the Atlantic, influencing many Celtic punk bands.Hardcore punk was combined with hip hop, creating rapcore.

Other bands pointed punk rock toward future rock styles or its own foundations. Electropunk (also synth-punk) is a fusion genre that combines elements from electronic rock with punk. It originates from punk musicians between 1977 and 1984 that swapped their guitars with synthesizers. The term "synth-punk" is a retroactive label coined in 1999 by Damien Ramsey.

 Chicago's Big Black was a major influence on noise rock, math rock, and industrial rock. Garage punk bands from all over—such as Medway's Thee Mighty Caesars, Chicago's Dwarves, and Adelaide's Exploding White Mice—pursued a version of punk rock that was close to its roots in 1960s garage rock. Seattle's Mudhoney, one of the central bands in the development of grunge, has been described as "garage punk".

Legacy and later developments

Alternative rock

The underground punk rock movement inspired countless bands that either evolved from a punk rock sound or brought its outsider spirit to very different kinds of music. The original punk explosion also had a long-term effect on the music industry, spurring the growth of the independent sector.During the early 1980s, British bands like New Order and the Cure that straddled the lines of post-punk and new wave developed both new musical styles and a distinctive industrial niche. Though commercially successful over an extended period, they maintained an underground-style, subcultural identity. In the United States, bands such as Hüsker Dü and their Minneapolis protégés the Replacements bridged the gap between punk rock genres like hardcore and the more melodic, explorative realm of what was then called "college rock".
A 1985 Rolling Stone feature on the Minneapolis scene and innovative California hardcore acts such as Black Flag and Minutemen declared, "Primal punk is passé. The best of the American punk rockers have moved on. They have learned how to play their instruments. They have discovered melody, guitar solos and lyrics that are more than shouted political slogans. Some of them have even discovered the Grateful Dead." By the end of the 1980s, these bands, who had largely eclipsed their punk rock forebears in popularity, were classified broadly as alternative rock. Alternative rock encompasses a diverse set of styles—including gothic rock and grunge, among others—unified by their debt to punk rock and their origins outside of the musical mainstream.

As American alternative bands like Sonic Youth, which had grown out of the no wave scene, and Boston's Pixies started to gain larger audiences, major labels sought to capitalize on the underground market that had been sustained by hardcore punk for years. In 1991, Nirvana emerged from Washington State's grunge scene, achieving huge commercial success with its second album, Nevermind. The band's members cited punk rock as a key influence on their style. "Punk is musical freedom", wrote singer Kurt Cobain. "It's saying, doing, and playing what you want."Nirvana's success opened the door to mainstream popularity for a wide range of other "left-of-the-dial" acts, such as Pearl Jam and Red Hot Chili Peppers, and fueled the alternative rock boom of the early and mid-1990s.

Emo

In its original, mid-1980s incarnation, emo was a less musically restrictive style of punk developed by participants in the Washington, D.C. area hardcore scene. It was originally referred to as "emocore", an abbreviation of "emotive hardcore". Jimmy Eat World took emo in a radio-ready pop punk direction, and had top ten albums in 2004 and 2007.

Heavy metal

 

In the beginning, the heavy metal created by Judas Priest was music of slow tempos and little aggression. When punk rock exploded in '77 in the music scene mainstream, many bands like Motörhead (pioneer NWOBHM) combine the dense sound of heavy metal with dirt and speed of punk rock creating a new movement called New wave of British heavy metal where many bands were influenced by many punk bands like Sex Pistols, the Damned and Ramones, among other bands. From this new style of heavy metal, they grew others even more aggressive styles but always influenced by punk rock, like Speed metal (much influenced by punk rock and NWOBHM), Thrash metal (influenced by hardcore punk and speed metal), Death metal (which combined the thrash metal and D-beat) and Black metal (influenced by death metal and Horror punk).

Queercore

Carrie Brownstein, performing with Sleater-Kinney in 2005

In the 1990s, the queercore movement developed around a number of punk bands with gay, lesbian, bisexual, or genderqueer members such as God Is My Co-Pilot, Pansy Division, Team Dresch, and Sister George. Inspired by openly gay punk musicians of an earlier generation such as Jayne County, Phranc, and Randy Turner, and bands like Nervous Gender, the Screamers, and Coil, queercore embraces a variety of punk and other alternative music styles. Queercore lyrics often treat the themes of prejudice, sexual identity, gender identity, and individual rights. The movement has continued into the 21st century, supported by festivals such as Queeruption.

Riot grrrl

The Riot Grrrl movement, a significant aspect in the formation of the Third Wave feminist movement, was organized by taking the values and rhetoric of punk and using it to convey feminist messages.In 1991, a concert of female-led bands at the International Pop Underground Convention in Olympia, Washington, heralded the emerging riot grrrl phenomenon. Billed as "Love Rock Revolution Girl Style Now", the concert's lineup included Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, L7, and Mecca Normal. The riot grrrl movement foregrounded feminist concerns and progressive politics in general; the DIY ethic and fanzines were also central elements of the scene. This movement relied on media and technology to spread their ideas and messages, creating a cultural-technological space for feminism to voice their concerns. They embodied the punk perspective, taking the anger and emotions and creating a separate culture from it. With riot grrrl, they were grounded in girl punk past, but also rooted in modern feminism. Singer-guitarists Corin Tucker of Heavens to Betsy and Carrie Brownstein of Excuse 17, bands active in both the queercore and riot grrrl scenes, cofounded the indie/punk band Sleater-Kinney in 1994. Bikini Kill's lead singer, Kathleen Hanna, the iconic figure of riot grrrl, moved on to form the art punk group Le Tigre in 1998.

Revival

Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, performing in 1994

By the 1990s, punk rock was sufficiently ingrained in Western culture that punk trappings were often used to market highly commercial bands as "rebels". Marketers capitalized on the style and hipness of punk rock to such an extent that a 1993 ad campaign for an automobile, the Subaru Impreza, claimed that the car was "like punk rock".^[ Along with Nirvana, many of the leading grunge artists of the early 1990s acknowledged the influence of earlier punk rock acts. With Nirvana's success, the major record companies once again saw punk bands as potentially profitable.
In 1993, California's Green Day and Bad Religion were both signed to major labels. The next year, Green Day put out Dookie, which became a huge hit, selling nine million albums in the United States in just over two years. Bad Religion's Stranger Than Fiction was certified gold.Other California punk bands on the independent label Epitaph, run by Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz, also began achieving mainstream popularity. In 1994, Epitaph released Let's Go by Rancid, Punk in Drublic by NOFX, and Smash by the Offspring, each eventually certified gold or better. That June, Green Day's "Longview" reached number one on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart and became a top forty airplay hit, arguably the first ever American punk song to do so; just one month later, the Offspring's "Come Out and Play" followed suit. MTV and radio stations such as Los Angeles' KROQ-FM played a major role in these bands' crossover success, though NOFX refused to let MTV air its videos.
Following the lead of Boston's Mighty Mighty Bosstones and two California bands, Anaheim's No Doubt and Long Beach's Sublime, ska punk and ska-core became widely popular in the mid-1990s. By 1996, genre acts such as Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake were being signed to major labels. The original 2 Tone bands had emerged amid punk rock's second wave, but their music was much closer to its Jamaican roots—"ska at 78 rpm".Ska punk bands in the third wave of ska created a true musical fusion between the genres. ...And Out Come the Wolves, the 1995 album by Rancid—which had evolved out of Operation Ivy—became the first record in this ska revival to be certified gold; Sublime's self-titled 1996 album was certified platinum early in 1997. In Australia, two popular groups, skatecore band Frenzal Rhomb and pop punk act Bodyjar, also established followings in Japan.
Green Day and Dookie's enormous sales paved the way for a host of bankable North American pop punk bands in the following decade. With punk rock's renewed visibility came concerns among some in the punk community that the music was being co-opted by the mainstream. They argued that by signing to major labels and appearing on MTV, punk bands like Green Day were buying into a system that punk was created to challenge. Such controversies have been part of the punk culture since 1977, when the Clash was widely accused of "selling out" for signing with CBS Records.The Vans Warped Tour and the mall chain store Hot Topic brought punk even further into the U.S. mainstream.

In the mainstream

COMMERCIAL

By early 1998, the punk revival had commercially stalled, but not for long. That November, the Offspring's Americana on the major Columbia label debuted at number two on the album chart. A bootleg MP3 of its first single, "Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)", made it onto the Internet and was downloaded a record 22 million times—illegally. The following year, Enema of the State, the first major-label release by pop punk band Blink-182, reached the top ten and sold four million copies in under twelve months. In January 2000, the album's second single, "All the Small Things", hit the sixth spot on the Billboard Hot 100. While they were viewed as Green Day "acolytes", critics also found teen pop acts such as Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, and 'N Sync suitable points of comparison for Blink-182's sound and market niche. The band's Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (2001) and Blink-182 (2003) respectively rose to numbers one and three on the album chart. In November 2003, The New Yorker described how the "giddily puerile" act had "become massively popular with the mainstream audience, a demographic formerly considered untouchable by punk-rock purists."
Other new North American pop punk bands, though often critically dismissed, also achieved major sales in the first decade of the 2000s. Ontario's Sum 41 reached the Canadian top ten with its 2001 debut album, All Killer No Filler, which eventually went platinum in the United States. The record included the number one U.S. Alternative hit "Fat Lip", which incorporated verses of what one critic called "brat rap."

Justin Sane and Chris#2 of Anti-Flag, performing in 2006

The effect of commercialization on the music became an increasingly contentious issue. As observed by scholar Ross Haenfler, many punk fans "'despise corporate punk rock', typified by bands such as Sum 41 and Blink 182". At the same time, politicized and independent-label punk continued to thrive in the United States. Since 1993, Anti-Flag had been putting progressive politics at the center of its music. The administration of George W. Bush provided them and similarly minded acts eight years of conservative government to excoriate. Rise Against was the most successful of these groups, registering top ten records in 2006 with The Sufferer & the Witness and two years later with Appeal to Reason. Leftist punk band Against Me!'s New Wave was named best album of 2007 by Spin.
Elsewhere around the world, "punkabilly" band the Living End became major stars in Australia with their self-titled 1998 debut.^[380]
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs's album Mosquito has been classified as art-punk