New York City
At the same time, a less celebrated, but nonetheless highly influential, scene had appeared in Ohio, including The Electric Eels, Devo and Rocket from the Tombs, who in 1975 split into Pere Ubu and The Dead Boys.
Malcolm McLaren, then manager of the New York Dolls, spotted Richard
Hell and decided to bring Hell's look back to Britain Rocks.The first ongoing music scene that was assigned the "punk" label
appeared in New York in 1974–1976 centered around bands that played
regularly at the clubs Max's Kansas City and CBGB. This had been preceded by a mini underground rock scene at the Mercer Arts Center, picking up from the demise of the Velvet Underground, starting in 1971 and featuring the New York Dolls and Suicide, which helped to pave the way, but came to an abrupt end in 1973 when the building collapsed.
[4] The CBGB and Max's scene included The Ramones, Television, Blondie, Patti Smith, Johnny Thunders (a former New York Doll) and the Heartbreakers, Richard Hell and The Voidoids and the Talking Heads. The "punk" title was applied to these groups by early 1976, when
Punk Magazine first appeared, featuring these bands alongside articles on some of the immediate role models for the new groups, such as Lou Reed, who was on the cover of the first issue of
Punk, and Patti Smith, cover subject on the second issue.
London
While the London bands may have played a relatively minor role in
determining the early punk sound, the London punk scene would come to
define and epitomize the rebellious punk culture. After a brief stint
managing the New York Dolls at the end of their career in the US, Englishman Malcolm McLaren returned to London in May 1975. With Vivienne Westwood, he started a clothing store called
SEX
that was instrumental in creating the radical punk clothing style. He
also began managing The Swankers, who would soon become the Sex Pistols. The Sex Pistols soon created a strong cult following in London, centered on a clique known as the Bromley Contingent (named after the suburb where many of them had grown up), who followed them around the country.
An oft-cited moment in punk rock's history is a 4 July 1976 concert by the Ramones at the Roundhouse
in London (The Stranglers were also on the bill). Many of the future
leaders of the UK punk rock scene were inspired by this show, and almost
immediately after it, the UK punk scene got into full swing. By the end
of 1976, many fans of the Sex Pistols had formed their own bands,
including The Clash, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Adverts, Generation X, The Slits and X-Ray Spex. Other UK bands to emerge in this milieu included The Damned (the first to release a single, the classic "New Rose"), The Jam, The Vibrators, Buzzcocks and the appropriately named London.
In December 1976, the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned and Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers united for the
Anarchy Tour,
a series of gigs throughout the UK Many of the gigs were canceled by
venue owners, after tabloid newspapers and other media seized on
sensational stories regarding the antics of both the bands and their
fans. The notoriety of punk rock in the UK was furthered by a televised
incident that was widely publicized in the tabloid press; appearing on a
London TV show called
Thames Today, guitarist Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols was goaded into a verbal altercation by the host, Bill Grundy,
swearing at him on live television in violation of at the time accepted
standards of propriety. One of the first books about punk rock —
The Boy Looked at Johnny by Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons (December 1977) — declared the punk movement to be already over: the subtitle was
The Obituary of Rock and Roll. The title echoed a lyric from the title track of Patti Smith's 1975 album
Horses.
Elsewhere
See also: Punk rock in California
During this same period, bands that would later be recognized as "punk" were formed independently in other locations, such as The Saints in Brisbane, Australia, The Modern Lovers in Boston, and The Stranglers and the Sex Pistols
in London. These early bands also operated within small "scenes", often
facilitated by enthusiastic impresarios who either operated venues,
such as clubs,
or organized temporary venues. In other cases, the bands or their
managers improvised their own venues, such as a house inhabited by The
Saints in an inner suburb of Brisbane. The venues provided a showcase
and meeting place for the emerging musicians (the 100 Club in London, CBGB in New York, and The Masque in Hollywood are among the best known early punk clubs).
SFR Yugoslavia
Main article: Punk in Yugoslavia
The former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was not a member of the Eastern Bloc, but a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement. Maintaining a more liberal communist system, sometimes referred to as
Titoism, Yugoslavia was more opened to Western influences comparing to the other communist states. Hence, starting from the 1950s onwards, a well-developed Yugoslav rock scene was able to emerge with all its music genres and subgenres including punk rock, heavy metal and so on. The Yugoslav punk bands were the first punk rock acts ever to emerge in a communist country. Notable artists included: the pioneers Pankrti, Paraf and Pekinška patka (the first two formed in 1977, the latter in 1978), the 1980s hardcore punk acts: KUD Idijoti, Niet, KBO! and many others. Many bands from the first generation signed record contracts with major labels such as Jugoton, Suzy Records and ZKP RTL and often appeared on TV and in the magazines, however some preferred independent labels and the DIY ethos. From punk rock emerged the New Wave and some bands, such as Prljavo kazalište and Električni orgazam decided to affiliate with it, becoming top acts of the Yugoslav New Wave scene. The Yugoslav punk music also included social commentary,
which was generally tolerated, however there were certain cases of
censorship and some punks faced occasional problems with the
authorities. The scene ceased to exist with the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s, and its former artists continued their work in the independent countries that emerged after the breakup of Yugoslavia, where many of them were involved in anti-war activities and often clashed with the domestic chauvinists.
Since the end of the wars and the departure of the nationalist leaders,
the music scenes in the ex-Yugoslav countries re-established their
former cooperation. The Yugoslav punk is considered an important part of
the former Yugoslav culture, not only that it influenced the formation
of the once vibrant Yugoslav New Wave scene but also it gave inspiration
to some authentic domestic movements such as New Primitives and others.
[5][6][7]
Spain
In Spain, the punk rock scene emerged in 1978, when the country had
just emerged from forty years of fascist dictatorship under General
Franco, a state that “melded state repression with fundamentalist
Catholic moralism”. Even after Franco died in 1975, the country went
through a “volatile political period”, in which the country had to try
to relearn democratic values, and install a constitution. When punk
emerged, it “did not appropriate socialism as its goal”; instead, it
embraced “nihilism”, and focused on keeping the memories of past abuses
alive, and accusing all of Spanish society of collaborating with the
fascist regime.
[8]
The early punk scene included a range of marginalized and outcast
people, including workers, unemployed, leftists, anarchists, queens,
dykes, poseurs, scroungers, and petty criminals. The scenes varied by
city. In Madrid, which had been the power center of Franco’s Falangist
party, the punk scene was like “a release valve” for the formerly
repressed youth. In Barcelona, a city which had a particularly
“marginalized status under Franco”, because he suppressed the area’s
“Catalan language and culture”, the youth felt an “exclusion from
mainstream society” that enabled them to come together and form a punk
subculture.
[9]
The first independently-released Spanish punk disc was a 45 RPM
record by Almen TNT in 1979. The song, which sounded like the US band
The Stooges stated that no one believed in revolution anymore, and it
criticized the emerging consumer culture in Spain, as people flocked to
the new department stores. The early Spanish punk records, most of which
emerged in the explosion of punk in 1978, often reached back to
“old-fashioned 50s rocknroll to glam to early metal to Detroit’s hard
proto-punk”, creating an aggressive mix of fuzz guitar, jagged sounds,
and crude Spanish slang lyrics.
[10]
