Noise Noise Noise: Punk Rock's History Since 1965
Author(s): Scott Stalcup
Source: Studies in Popular Culture , APRIL 2001, Vol. 23, No. 3 (APRIL 2001), pp. 51-64
Published by: Popular Culture Association in the South
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23414589
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Scott Stalcup
Noise Noise Noise: Punk Rock's History
Since 1965
A big misconception about Punk is that it first happened in America,
then crossed over to Great Britain when the Ramones played there on
America's bicentennial. While the date provides a romantic readymade,
the truth is Punk on both sides of the Atlantic arose at the same time and
had what one might describe as a symbiotic, yet adversarial relationship.
As Steve Jones told Alan diPerna, "There's a real resentment I feel from
that New York crowd" ("Sexual Healing" 47). Johnny Rotten (nee Lydon)
agreed, writing in his autobiography:
I didn't like their image, what they stood for, or anything about
them.They had absolutely nothing to do with life in Great Brit
ain I only found out about Richard Hell when he came over
to England after the Pistols' failed "Anarchy in the U.K." tour.
(118)
Both, however, were born out of the same circumstances, boredom with
the hippie culture, or what it had become, as the Sixties drew to a close.
While, as diPerna wrote in "Revolution Calling," the "rawness of
British Invasion groups like the Stones, the Who, the Kinks, and the
Yardbirds, were valued" (50), all had become members of the establish
ment toward the end of the 1960s. The music they turned out in their
prime was more important on their home soil, as demonstrated in the
songs attempted by the Sex Pistols. "Apart from liking London bands
such as the Stones and the Kinks, for some reason I always had a work
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52 Stalcup
ing knowledge of the Small Faces," wrote bassist Glen Matlock in 1 Was
a Teenage Sex Pistol {134). "Through My Eyes" and "Painter Man" by
the Creation could also be counted in their repertoire of covers.
One found American Punk's ground zero though by going—to draw a
quote from one of the Clash's songs off their eponymous debut—"back in
the garage." One hit wonders such as the Count Five and the Shadows of
Knight were of greater importance. Journalist/future Patti Smith Group
guitarist Lenny Kaye compiled the aforementioned bands with others on
his Nuggets compilation, which Elektra released in the early 1970s. "[M]ost
of these groups ... were decidedly unprofessional," Kaye wrote on the
album's liner notes. "The name that has been unofficially coined for them—
'punk rock' —seems particularly fitting... for... they exemplified the
berserk pleasure that comes with being onstage outrageous." The British
bands' Achilles heel, at least in the extreme they took it to as song length
increased, was the blues influence. On the other hand, the garage bands'
twice removed nature "whited out," for lack of a better term, the black
influence. As journalist Legs McNeil explained in Jon Savage's England's
Dreaming, "In the sixties, hippies always wanted to be black. We had
nothing in common with black people at that time: we'd had ten years of
being politically correct and we were going to have fun, like kids are
supposed to" (138).
Another difference between the British punks and American punks
was the American bands' disdain for taking any political stance. "I couldn't
give a shit about folk music," said John Cale to McNeil. "I hated Joan
Baez and Dylan— every song was a fucking question!" (4). Cale, along
with Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker became the Vel
vet Underground, the house band for Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic
Inevitable. Where the hippies on the other side of the country were look
ing inside themselves to find meaning, those on the East Coast looked
inside and saw nothing. Their message was not of peace and love, but of
boredom and frustration. They were the first major stirring of the Punk
movement.
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Punk Rock's History Since 1965 53
"By 1965, Lou Reed had written 'Heroin' and 'Waiting for the Man,"'
said Cale (4). Both would surface on the band's first album The Velvet Un
derground and Nico. The songs took listeners on a much more concrete
journey into the drug culture. On "Heroin," Reed declared, "Heroin / It's my
wife and it's my life," while on "Waiting for the Man," he narrated a drug deal.
In 1967, though, no one cared about the means to the end. In the liner notes
to the Velvet's boxed set Peel Slowly and See appears Brian Eno's arguably
truthful phrase that "[H]ardly anyone bought the [Velvet Underground's]
records when they first came out, but those who did all went on to form
their own bands" (4).
In his interview with McNeil, Iggy Pop {nee James Osterberg) veri
fies Eno's claim: "The first time I heard the Velvet Underground... I just
hated the sound. Then about six months later [t]hat record became
very key for me, not just for what it said,... [but] I heard people who
could make good music— without being any good at music" ( 18). Along
side Ron and Scott Asheton and Dave Alexander, Iggy's band the Stooges
generated songs that served as banners for the movement, with titles such
as "No Fun" and "Search and Destroy." While the hippies in Haight
Ashbury, and later at Woodstock, thought they were changing the world,
Iggy reiterated the boredom voiced by Reed—but from a Midwesterner's
perspective—in "1969," the first song off the Stooges' self-titled release,
singing, "Another year for me and you / Another year with nothing to do."
Also evolving in Midwest isolation were groups in Ohio such as
Pere Ubu, the Electric Eels, and the Mirrors. The most famous of these
Ohio groups would form at Kent State, an appropriate site considering
the hippie bloodbath that took place there in the early 1970s. "We just
looked at everything around us and decided... things were falling apart,"
as Mark Mothersbaugh told disc jockey George Gimarc, who later com
piled his interviews onto the Punk Diary CD. With his brothers Jim and
Bob, Mothersbaugh, along with Jerry and Bob Casale, formed the De
Evolution Band, or DEVO. Unlike other punk bands, the band devel
oped its sound by experimenting with synthesizers, reaching into the future
rather than back into the past. On their signature song "Jocko Homo,"
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54 Stalcup
DEVO asked and answered its own question which was the same as the
title of their debut, "Are we not men? We are DEVO." Clad in yellow
uniforms, the band's clone-like image did not sit well with the public. On
Halloween night, 1975, DEVO opened for Sun Ra. Playing "Jocko Homo"
live for the first time, the group incited stoned hippies to invade the stage.
As Jerry Casale wrote in the liner notes to LIVE: The Mongoloid Years,
"They threatened '[We're going to] beat the shit out of you assholes!"'
(6-7). So much for peace and love!
While it was not the thigh from which Punk sprang fully formed,
New York was a hotbed of activity in the early 1970s after the Velvets'
demise. According to George Gimarc, a group known as Actress, cou
pling the influences of 1960s girl groups with the Rolling Stones (2), after
the addition of singer David Johansen and drummer Jerry Nolan, evolved
into the New York Dolls, a group existing in glam's death throes (4). The
Dolls reaffirmed the ethos established by the Nuggets bands. As Johnny
Ramone told the Ramones' biographer Jim Bessman, "We saw them, and
realized that they were a great band and... didn't play well at all" (19).
Others in the New York scene included poet Richard Meyers, who joined
with Tom Miller. The two changed their names to Hell and Verlaine re
spectively, and formed Television. "I felt I was seeing the reality of human
existence," as Hell told Savage. "The best way to reach people, I thought,
was with a Rock 'n' Roll band. When I was a teenager, there was a
feeling of radio as a secret network" (88). Hell anchored his bulletin in "(I
Belong to the) Blank Generation," which also was the title of his first
album with the Voidoids upon leaving Television, by singing, "I was saying
let me out of here before I was even born." Emphasizing the emptiness of
his generation, on the chorus, "I belong to the blank generation and I can
take it or leave it each time," Hell dropped "blank" on the refrain.
Bubbling in Punk's cauldron began elsewhere in the East in Boston,
where a teenage Jonathan Richman, bored with the epic-length material
of progressive rock bands like Emerson, Lake and Palmer, joined with
bassist Ernie Brooks, and future Cars drummer David Robinson and Talk
ing Heads keyboardist Jerry Harrison to form the Modem Lovers. Richman
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Punk Rock's History Since 1965 55
hero-worshipped the Velvets, borrowing Lou Reed's half-spoken/half
sung delivery, along with John Cale producing the demos that comprised
the band's posthumous, self-titled release on Berserkley (1). Richman's
songs dealt with being a "red-blooded but sensitive, teenage American
male" (2). His finest moment came, not in a teenage love song, but in the
car song, "Roadrunner." In the details of his "Drive past the Stop n' Shop
with the radio on," Richman captured the alienation of post- 1960s teens,
singing, "I don't feel so alone 'cause I got the radio on" (3). Like the
Velvet Underground, whom Richman tried so desperately to emulate, the
band would be heard by all the right people, including the Sex Pistols,
who, according to Matlock covered "Roadrunner" before it was even
released (134).
Of all the bands to come out of American Punk in the 1970s, the
most recognizable was composed of four twentysomethings from Queens.
Jeff Hyman, John Cummings, Douglas Colvin, and Tommy Erdelyi, clad
in leather jackets and ripped jeans, would change their names to Joey,
Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy Ramone. Joey Ramone told Daniel B. Le vine
and Andy Aledort, "In the '70s, everything was 20-minute keyboard and
drum solos!" (11). As Johnny explained to Alan diPerna, "When the
Ramones started out, we'd always say 'We can't do that, that's hippie
shit.' I tried to avoid all the things I didn't like,.. [like] tuning up on stage"
("Revolution Calling" 50). Image formatted, the Ramones built upon
Jonathan Richman's anthems of teenhood. "We'd write about teenage
problems," as Johnny told Jim Bessman. "Songs about growing up, being
nobody... boredom. We just brought out the humor" (51). The Ramones'
buzzsaw guitar sound set the standard which bands on both sides of the
Atlantic would copy (16).
The Ramones' British equivalent came in a group started by Steve
Jones and Paul Cook. "I was really into the Faces," Jones told diPerna. "I
would go to a lot of their gigs. I went to one where the New York Dolls
were opening... [a]nd I thought 'Fuckin' 'ell, this is brilliant" ("Sexual
Healing" 56). Bassist Glen Matlock joined the two, but not until John
Lydon entered the fold did the Sex Pistols gel properly. After being spot
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56 Stalcup
ted on the street due to his "I HATE Pink Floyd" t-shirt, John Lydon was
asked to come to Malcolm McLaren's fetish store SEX. As Matlock
wrote, "We put a few records on and got him to mime along. One of them
... was Alice Cooper's 'Eighteen. ' He was John Rotten from that very first
moment" (61).With the line-up complete, the Sex Pistols began writing songs
that would earn their place in Punk. "[T]he important thing was to get across
the idea of the band in the songs," wrote Matlock (80). Another matter was
Jones' lack of proficiency on the guitar, which dictated simplicity (82).Finally,
the songs' content had to be negative (91)."Forme, [ 'Pretty Vacant' ] en
capsulated everything we were about. We're pretty vacant and we don't
care, so fuck you, pal" (90).
Any hope for commercial success of the Sex Pistols had a stake driven
through its heart when they appeared on the British Today show with Bill
Grundy. The interview went badly from the start, but when Grundy hit on
Siouxsie Sioux, a tagalong fan, Steve tore into him. According to Savage's
transcription, Steve called Grundy a "dirty old man," a "dirty bastard," and a
"dirty fucker" (258-59). "[I wondered] why did he keep pushing John and
Steve to swear?" Matlock wrote. "[Maybe] he just didn't think we were
worth giving the time of day to" ( 136). ' '[Afterward,] no one was interested in
hearing us play," as Jones told diPerna. "It wasn't about the music anymore"
(' 'Sexual Healing' ' 49).
Early in 1977, Madock left the band. "I was just fed up with being in the
same place as John," he wrote (155). Lydon's friend Sid Vicious (nee John
Beverley) replaced Glen. The next year, the Sex Pistols invaded America,
touring in the Deep South. Their motive, according to Lydon was, "|T]t would
have been silly to go play New York They had already decided that they
hated us" (237). The tour, and the group, ended on January 14,1978, at
Winterland in San Francisco. After the Stooges' "No Fun," Lydon asked the
audience, "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" "[That] was the truth. I
had felt cheated," Lydon wrote (326). "When Sid joined, it got really dark
and gloomy," Jones told diPerna. "Like the circus is in town" ("Sexual Heal
ing" 49). A little over a year after the Sex Pistols' demise, Vicious would die of
a heroin overdose.
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Punk Rock's History Since 1965 57
During their lifetime and afterward, the Pistols influenced many youths,
including Pete Shelley (nee MacNeish) and Howard Devoto (nee Trafford),
who saw the band play High Wycombe. Shelley told diPerna, "Howard...
and I were writing before the Sex Pistols, but it was more... just fooling
around" ("Revolution" 100). The two joined with drummer John Maher and
bassist Steve Diggle to form the Buzzcocks. According to Gimarc, the group,
with a loan from Pete's father, cut the first independent record of the Punk era,
the four-song Spiral Scratch EP (46).
Another important step in the evolution of Punk comes courtesy of the
London S.S. collective. According to Gimarc, anyone not already in aband at
the time of the Sex Pistols claims to have been in the London S.S. (24). Brian
James and Rat Scabies (nee Chris Millar) had been playing with Mick Jones
and Paul Simonon before hooking up with ex-Johnny Moped bassist Captain
Sensible (nee Ray Burns) and former gravedigger David Vanian (35). The
quartet formed the Damned. "It was boring, and apathetic, and nothing going
on," as Scabies told Gimarc. "I wanted something of my own to listen to."
Visually, the Damned contained a similar cartoonish quality as one found in the
Ramones, delivered mainly by Captain Sensible, as well as Vanian, whom
Savage described as possessing a "Hammer horror" appearance of pale skin
and head-to-toe black (215). In February 1977, the group released the first
full-length British punk album. Clocking in at a little over half an hour, Damned
Damned Damned was England's answer to Ramones.
The remnants of the London S.S. approached pub rocker Joe Stram
mer (nee John Mellor). "One morning I was signing on,' ' Strammer recalled to
Savage. "[A]nd there were these people staring at me on the bench. I thought
there was going to be a rack" ( 172). Two of the party's members were Paul
Simonon and Mick Jones whom Strammer later met and formed a group with
on the spot. After several band names were suggested and rejected, Simonon
came up with the Clash (172). Nicky 'Topper" Headon would assume the
dram throne and the Clash cast themselves the chief rivals of the Sex Pistols
for the British Punk crown (305). Though the Clash's lyrics were, according
to Lydon, "[A] few trendy slogans stolen here and there from Karl Marx"
( 106), the Clash would win by default after the Sex Pistols' demise.
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58 Stalcup
The majority of the press would have it that Punk was trapped in a state
of hibernation after the Sex Pistols broke up until the late 1980s or early
1990s. When Punk records failed to sell to the millions who bought Peter
Frampton and Fleetwood Mac, the doors began to close. "[B]ands were
starting to think they would never get signed on their own terms. There was
heavy pressure for bands to start wearing skinny ties (which the punks had
disavowed by then) and become 'new wave,'" as Jello Biafra told Search
and Destroy writer V. Vale. Biafra (nee Eric Boucher) would form the Bay
Area Punk band Dead Kennedys. "The major labels co-opted this term 'new
wave' and used it to market a new type of pop music, thus successfully selling
Blondie, Talking Heads, the Cars and the Knack" (iv). Early on in the move
ment, the terms "Punk" and "New Wave" were used interchangeably. Now
the two differed as much as Little Richard from Pat Boone. "That term New
Wave was the kiss of death!" wrote John Lydon. "Elvis Costello into Joe
Jackson into Tom Robinson.... These were all just imitators jumping on [the]
bandwagon and trying to mellow it out so they could go for the big bucks and
the easy life" (252-53).
Nonetheless, several veterans continued through the 1980s. According
to Jim Bessman, the Ramones survived drummer changes and Phil Specter's
production on End of the Century ( 108). Next-state neighbors DEVO also
continued, though they were tainted by the "New Wave" tag. At the same
time, many of the bands snatched up in the great feeding frenzy of the 1970s
were dropped after one album. The Clash, the Buzzcocks, and the Damned
all survived to varying points in the 1980s, though British Punk was largely
ignored in favor of the video-friendly New Wave artists. While American
punk managed to keep going, its apolitical stance was hampered by the socio
political climate of 1970s America.
Jon Savage quotes then-California Governor Jerry Brown, who said
' '[E] ven a superficial reading of history indicates there has rarely been a period
of such self-indulgence on such a mass scale as there is in America today"
(433). Sixties hedonism had exploded in smiley-faced shrapnel. The Bee Gees
and disco as a musical genre emphasizing pure pleasure via antiseptic robotic
rhythm ruled the charts (433). For those who did not wish to boogie the night
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Punk Rock's History Since 1965 59
away, they had the other options, to paraphrase the Sex Pistols' American
tour manager Noel Monk, of arena rockers like Queen and the Eagles or
staying home with singer-songwriters like James Taylor on the stereo (29).
The problem with all the subgenres was that they separated the audience from
the performer in an unbridgeable distance, though no one was angry enough
to do anything about it.
John Holmstrom, who worked both for High Times as well as founded
one of the era's magazines, Punk, alleged government tinkering to Savage, as
to why Punk differed in its impact in America as opposed to England:
The country picked up on the conservative end of the hippy thing
... which was typified by the culture of the early 1970s, the Allman
Brothers, who eventually had links with the government. I think
there was some government tinkering. . . . They didn't like what
happened in the 1960s and they wanted to make sure it didn't get
resurrected with Punk. Carter said during a jazz concert or similar
[event] on the White House lawn that he wanted to stop Punk.
(434-35)
Biafra corroborates Holmstrom's suspicions regarding government interven
tion, telling Vale, "I've always wondered whether Robert Fripp was right
when he was quoted as saying that Jimmy Carter had had a pow-wow with
record-company executives Was that true? I don't know, but coinci
dence or not, no more punk bands were signed until Husker Du [in the late
1980s]" (iv).
Whether it was government intervention, poor sales, or both, Punk's
survival depended on those working in the underground. "That's what fueled
my ambition to take any extra money I might earn, start a record company
and [network with others]" (Vale v). As the genre itself existed to subvert the
norms of pop music, the history of Punk is also subverted. The most recent
history is the least documented. The Buzzcocks' song "Boredom," off Spiral
Scratch, perfectly summarizes the punk movement after the Sex Pistols'
onstage implosion at Winterland: "I've taken this extravagant journey or so it
seems to me /1 just came from nowhere and I'm going straight back there."
That Spiral Scratch was independently released reinforces the kairos of
Devoto's lyrics. The story of Punk, from the beginning of the 1980s on up to
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60 Stalcup
the present day, is a story told on record sleeves hand-drawn and folded by
band members, sold out of the backs of vans at shows.
Biafra's Alternative Tentacles led the assault within the hippie capital.
His band, Dead Kennedys, were equal opportunity offenders during the
Reagan/Bush years. No one was safe, either to ox from them. Jello laid down
ideals punks would turn their backs on a decade later, tearing into the infant
medium of MTV in "MTV Get Off the Air!" off the band's album
Frankenchrist, when he sang, "How far will you go? How low will you
stoop? To tranquilize our minds with your sugar-coated swill? / You turned
rock and roll rebellion into Pat Boone sedation. / Making sure that nothing's
left to the imagination."
Were the Sex Pistols influential in their political stance on American Punk?
After their demise, the socio-political climate in America began to approach
that of the England in which they formed. The Carter administration had fallen
due to the rise in unemployment and double-digit inflation. Reagan used this
against Carter to win the presidency. Of course, matters did not improve
when Reagan assumed power. Punk in the 1980s, at least American Punk, as
the lens panned away from New-Wave enamored England, took on a decid
edly political tone. The stench of the 1960s corpse had dissipated to where
even the erstwhile apolitical Ramones released "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg,"
their 1985 criticism of President Reagan's wreath-laying at a German cem
etery where Nazi shock troops were buried. "What Reagan did was fucked
up," as Joey told Jim Bessman. "Howcanyoufuckin' forgive the Holocaust?"
(131).
As for the independent aesthetic, other labels throughout the country
followed Biafra's lead. Also in California, Greg Ginn and Chuck Dukowski of
Black Flag founded SST Records. On the East Coast, Ian MacKaye of the
Washington D.C. band Minor Threat founded Dischord Records. Once again,
the Midwest saw flowerings of the Punk movement in the Twin/lone label out
of Minnesota, where the major labels' next great feeding frenzy would take
place in the 1980s. While fellow statesmen Husker Du were signed to SST,
Twin/Tone was home to bands such as Loud Fast Rules, who became Soul
Asylum, and the Replacements.
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Punk Rock's History Since 1965 61
"I think the Replacements presented this ideal like, 'We don't give a
shit,'" Paul Westerberg told Creem's Chris Nadler after the group's break
up. "I can think back to when the band played its fourth gig, at a roller rink in
Duluth. We smashed our gear after 30 seconds because we were so wound
up and didn't know how to perform" (74). When the group was still together,
Westerberg explained their origins to another Creem writer, Bill Holdship.
"[W]e heard punk rock and said 'Yeah, this is cool. This is easy" (20). Their
material was, according to Nadler, "loaded with sophisticated, but street-wise
insights you didn't expect from a bunch of drunken deadbeats" (75). Like the
Sex Pistols before them, the Replacements came off "like some charismatic
bank-robbing gang" (74). Also like the Sex Pistols, the Replacements, as well
as Husker Du would sign with Warner Brothers in the late 1980s. On January
18,1986, the band performed on NBC's then recently-rejuvenated Satur
day Night Live. According to Michael Corcoran, between songs, the mem
bers traded clothing with each other (33). The spectacle would be docu
mented by Spin magazine as one of the "Thirty-Five Greatest Moments in
Rock and Roll on Television.' ' In addition to Westerbeig was Tommy Stinson,
who joined the band at age twelve. His step-brother, Bob, shared guitar du
ties with Westerberg and was the designated clown of the bunch. Bob's
absurdist nature caused him to be sacked by the band and ironically "re
placed" by Slim Dunlap. Drummer Chris Mars was the Glen Matlock of the
bunch. After the band exercised extreme hypocrisy by ejecting Mars for drink
ing too much, The Replacements folded early in the 1990s.
The next rumblings of Punk came out of the Pacific Northwest on the
independent Sub Pop label in the late 1980s and early 1990s. David Grohl of
Washington D.C. 's Scream joined Krist Novoselic and Kurt Cobain's band
Nirvana. "Smells Like Teen Spirit," the opening track of their second album
Nevermind, exposed the masses to Seattle's "grunge." Rolling Stone writer
Anthony DeCurtis described the song as "[A] defining moment in rock histoiy
... it was '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' for a new time and a new tribe of
disaffected youth" (30). The only intelligible words are "Here we are now.
Entertain us." Minimalism is one of the foundations of Punk but how so much
could be derived from six words is phenomenal! Was it Punk? Despite the
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62 Stalcup
grunge groups' Replacementsesque flannel shirts, those coming before and
after had problems with its classification.
"I don't think it changed the rules as much as everyone would like to
think— all it did was inflate advances for new bands," Husker Du's Bob
Mould told Leslie Gaspar of Reflex (35). "Sounds like Black Sabbath to
me," Steve Jones told diPerna ("Sexual Healing" 58). "Yeah, Sabbath or
something. Deep Purple-type shit,' ' agreed Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt in a
separate diPerna interview ("Young, Loud, and Snotty" 180). Mould pre
dicted to Gaspar in 1992, "I don't think Nirvana's going to go that much
further." In 1994, Cobain shot himself.
After Nirvana's collapse, the "new" sound of alienation emerged yet
again from California. 'The turning point was when Maximumrock 'n 'roll
released Turn it Around, acompilation of slower-tempo, more melodic punk,"
Biafra recounted to Vale. "Now we had a different definition of what punk
should sound like" (v). MTV readily latched onto this new sound of alienation
which certain members of the community might have labelled "bubblepunk."
"The record labels figured out that they could make money from it... making
it into the flavor of the month," Pete Shelley told Chris Gill (54). Ever the ray of
sunshine, John Lydon condemned current punk bands to diPerna, saying,
"They come at it from the nice melodies angle rather than the content. There
are some serious subjects out there... [but] none of the punk bands want to
know about them" ("Sexual Healing" 54). Biafra concurred to an extent, tell
ing Vale:
Of course ! If you want to be on a major label, crank out love songs !
Let's diffuse all this rage that got rid of George Bush .... People
weren't called "Slackers" and "Generation X" until after they got
off their butts and got rid of George Bush— then it was time for
major media to brainwash them, (v)
Doubters of the elders need only look at one of the bands to come from
the Berkeley scene the Maximumrock 'n 'roll compilation documented. They
sound closer to the bloated-before-their-time pop stars their forefathers wanted
to get rid of. In regard to Lydon, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong
said to diPerna, "He really sounds old" ("Young, loud,a nd Snotty" 38).
Armstrong focuses more on cash than chaos, lambasting Black Flag frontman
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Punk Rock's History Since 1965 63
Henry Rollins. "Henry Rollins has a stick up his ass Basically he's com
plaining because we've made more money" (36). Driving the nail in his coffin
as a "serious artist," Armstrong said, "We need to redefine ourselves" (40).
Green Day, along with other California bands like the Offspring and Rancid,
do sound musically like carbon copies of their elders. "Rancid is a hilarious
example of uniform grabbing," Lydon told diPerna. ' The tartan bondage pants
— The 'punk jacket' thrown over the top. It's bullshit" ("Sexual Healing"
54).
After soldiering on for seven years following Dee Dee's departure, the
Ramones decided to call it quits in the summer of 1996. As the decision was
made, the Sex Pistols reunited with Matlock in tow. "Nothing's gotten any
better," said Paul Cook on Canada's MuchMusic Spotlight. "That was the
inspiration, knowing that we can do it better still." Seven years earlier, the
Buzzcocks reunited. "Internally, our songs have changed," Pete Shelley told
Daniel Fidler, "but the idea isn't to compare them with what's gone on in the
past" (38). The Damned reunited three years after Guns 'n' Roses covered
"New Rose," which, according to Mark Blake, prompted Rat Scabies to
declare he was not ready "to be anybody's favorite uncle just yet" ( 15). Iggy,
Lou, Bob Mould and others never went away. "Punk is still around because it
was a gradual revolution," Pete Shelley told Gill. "[The] revolutions that pre
vail are the gradual ones because nobody is controlling them and there are no
leaders— only heroes" ( 54). Punk has had many. Steve Jones remarked to
diPerna that Punk "came and went, but it made a dent" ("Revolution Calling"
47), but the last four decades show otherwise.
Scott Stalcup
Department of English
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
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