rftt wrote dirty, ugly songs that are hard to appreciate, in hindsight.
somebody working today that takes this to a new height is human eye, especially their 2011 disc (they came from the sky). go check that out.
but, by '75, this would have been considered retro. i agree that death were a pretty generic glam rock act; likewise, this is fairly generic 60s garage rock that wasn't really doing anything novel. but, the posts on this video are exactly what i was talking about in the death thread i closed. history is very delicate to revisionism, and once it gets a foot in it just gets exponential growth. so, it can't be ignored.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZLfG_KDLA
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Colin Coker
Death wasn't a punk band no matter how hard they are trying to claim they were these days. RFTT is clearly the first.
Samuel Chapman
Well I think if RFFT were, you'd probably have to say the Dolls or the MC5 or Stooges were. But agreed, Death is just a sloppy led zeppelin. Its just a marketing thing everyones bought into.
deathtokoalas
it was the who that really did it first.
Samuel Chapman
fuck off. if the who are punk, the kinks are punk (much more punk) and were before. but wherever punk started, it wasn't in england
deathtokoalas
the kinks didn't have a punk rock attitude, but the who definitely did, from the record they released full of parody advertisement jingles to their tendency to destroy their equipment on stage.
i don't want to have an american v english punk argument. garage rock belongs to america (and earlier than the who). but, garage rock was also proto-metal. it was mostly macho bullshit. the politics of punk rock belongs to britain, and comes out of the british explosion. there's no debate here.
what i'll allow is the idea that the kinks, who, beatles and others developed the ideas of punk together around the time of the british invasion.
but it was the who that produced the template that was picked up on.
Samuel Chapman
im sorry but if you think the beatles had anything to do with punk, you're (i hate to talk like this) just wrong. and no they didn't. the template was rock n roll. so if anyone made the template for punk rock, it'd be fucking charlie patton or someone, who invented nothing, and was just part of a development. britain is next to irrelevant in the development of punk rock. in its existence, i guess, but not the development
deathtokoalas
c'mon, they were rough and tumble potty mouths from liverpool when they started. they just very quickly sold out.
punk was a retro movement. i'll give you that the 50s blues stuff (and variations) was influential on both the british invasion and 70s punk, but it was a different thing altogether. punk took in influences from folk and surf, as well.
i think punk is also very connected to the beatniks, as far as 50s influences are concerned.
Samuel Chapman
Kinks didn't have punk attitude? they were banned from america for 6 years. dave davies was a hot headed teenager. the whos early work was very attitude y, but was also very egotistical. surf is rock n roll. PUNK IS ROCK N ROLL. it was essentially people looking at pink floyd and bruce springsteen and looking at eddie cochran and gene vincent, and saying 'where did all go wrong? lets take it back the point it started to go off course, and progress from there'. the english had nothing to do with the progression of rock n roll. bar the kinks first couple singles. but even then it was just a better version of the kingsmen or the troggs.
deathtokoalas
that's right. you're getting it, and that's a little refreshing given how confused so many people seem to be about it. what i'm trying to get across is precisely that punk and rock 'n' roll are exactly the same thing, down to a specific attitude: that punk is the rebellious side of rock 'n' roll. it follows that any early rock band with an anti-establishment attitude is punk - because it's what the punks were trying to revive in the first place.
i know that the kinks were sort of wild, but i'm not aware of any specific anti-establishment tendencies. so, it's sort of like the rolling stones. you can hear a lot of push back against certain cultural norms and the sexual revolution and all that stuff, but it falls short of a call to overthrow the established order. the who didn't get as far as the dead kennedys either, but they're what set the whole thing in motion.
and, that's where garage gets pulled out of punk. the sonics and others wrote dirty three chord rockers, but it came packaged with a lot of the status quo attitudes that punk is all about rejecting.
Colin Coker
I will restate RFTT was the first Punk band. Punk was spawned from the cold war and the thought of the youth that the world was going to end tomorrow. It is really that simple. You are over thinking it. Trust me. I was there.
deathtokoalas
that's an attitude that is usually associated with disco, actually. it's the topic of mid-70s bowie records. dance the night away on drugs 'cause there's no tomorrow. yeah, i know, no future for you. but that doesn't align well with punk in a larger scheme of things, which was more about reversing that nihilism and getting back to 60s idealism and resuscitating the popular movements that had fallen apart in the 70s. it sounds like you were there, but not in the right places.
if you want to get all marxist historian...
in the context of the 70s, in england, it was also largely about unemployment.
Colin Coker
England has nothing to do with it. But that being said, I like you kid.
Samuel Chapman
the Kinks got banned from america for 6 years. You get banned for being a 'threat' to their community. This is anti establishment. You're mistaking punk for a purely political tool. Maybe you're right (you are wrong about the british invasion), but if you are, punk sucks. Because non of the best 'punk' bands are political. And the good punk bands that are, it's 'theyre good, despite them being political.' (i.e dead kennedys. and not rocket form the tombs)
Colin Coker
Agree to disagree. You two seem like nice folks.
deathtokoalas
yeah, i'm not trying to suggest the kinks were family-friendly entertainment, it's just not the package, as far as i can see. you could make an argument that early pink floyd displayed some aspects of punk rock, but i think it's worth a laugh to actually call them punk. hendrix. the doors. there's bits and pieces. what's the difference between janis joplin and patti smith, really? but, then again, i admit i'm only mildly familiar with the kinks. we're talking 20 years before i was born, here. i've taken the time to listen to more music before my time than most people my age, but the kinks kind of struck me as equivalent to something like the libertines, and consequently not really in my direct sphere of interest. and i don't think i'm really wrong, either, but if you can provide me with some examples in their music (rather than their behaviour), i'll correct myself.
i already pointed out that i can take it as a movement and accept that it wasn't just the who but the whole scene they were a part of. it's just that you can convincingly argue that the who had essentially all of the qualities of punk rock, while the rest of them were merely leaning that way.
...and the way i see it is that if you strip the politics out, punk is solely a retro movement rather than being a retro movement with a purpose. you'd might as well just call them mod or garage or whatever else.
like, rftt, for example. it's just retro garage rock to my ears.
i'm going to take the hint, though, and stop responding on colin's request.
Colin Coker
Oh I don't mind. Just not that interested in the discussion right now. Doesn't mean I wont chime in later. Just super busy at work right now.
Samuel Chapman
RFFT are much more ambitious than average 60s garage. which shows its just part of the same progression. but as far as the mainstream is concerned, yeah punk is just revivalism. and just listen to any of the kinks first few singles. its really just the same as what black flag where doing
deathcrustpunk
haha. yeah some people think the Beatles invented music itself. They invented black metal, straight edge DC hardcore, goth. In the words of Tesco: Fuck fuck fuck fuck the Beatles!!!!! Praise Yoko for breaking them up!
johnnyscifi
Heroin broke up the Beatles, but yea i get what your saying..;)
Xiistence
The nascent of Punk in England came from Malcolm McClaren's inspiration from being at and watching the first bands to play at C.B.G.B.'s. Particularly the band Television which he had asked if he could manage and to which they had no interest. They said they didn't trust him. Television had short hair (which was unusual at the time) and wore clothes with safety pins holding them together. Not to be cool but out of necessity. After that Malcolm briefly managed the N.Y. Dolls. And after failing with that is when he went back to England and purposely set out to form a band that would make him money and shock the masses using the bands from C.B.G.B.'s as a model. And the only reason he had any success is cause he was fortunate to meet John Lydon who was brilliant all on his own. Without Johnny Rotten it would of been just another better than typical Rock'n'Roll band. Listen to the band 'The Professionals' - 'Kick Down the Doors' if you don't believe me. It's the Pistols without Johnny. Johnny is the one who made it a Political Anti-Establishment thing. He was the one who made them special, who made them stand out. He gave them their Punk Rock attitude. The Ramones influence on England's Punk music was their short fast songs. Quickly going back to Television they were greatly influenced by the Velvet Underground as well as some of the other bands who played C.B.G.B.'s. But also bands like The Stooges and MC5 which is evident in the songs of the Dead Boys. Anyways... just my opinion and two cents. God I love Punk music !!!
deathtokoalas
see, i hate this history. it's the history of punk as a commodity, not the history of punk as a movement.
the missing link between the who and the sex pistols in britain was through stuff like coum transmissions, not malcolm mcclaren or vivienne westwood. there was an actual underground, with actual principles. it wasn't just some promoter flying back from new york and setting things rolling.
Samuel Chapman
i really don't think that punk was a movement. I agree with David Thomas (from RFTT) when he talks about how punk was just a conservative reaction/backlash to the new wave
deathtokoalas
i don't know where to begin with the idea that punk was a reaction to new wave, given that punk happened before new wave did.
the general consensus is that new wave was the commodification of the punk movement.
but, that kind of anachronistic revisionism is the kind of thing you're likely to read in musicology textbooks because it neutralizes it to a capitalist fashion trend.
i mean, there's a reason we're encouraged to remember safety pins rather than throbbing gristle.
i'll acknowledge that hardcore was a kind of a reaction to new wave. and, in new york they had no wave as a reaction to new wave. i'll even actively argue that the roots of what we call modern punk are in hardcore and no wave - that there's an argument that, relative to modern usage, the first punk band was actually the dead kennedys. but i would hardly use the term conservative to describe jello biafra, greg graffin, henry rollins, crass, swans or sonic youth. and, we're kind of losing the plot.
Samuel Chapman
Well I wouldnt call the DK's the first punk band. But I actually think I would consider using that term to describe DK's, of course, speaking strictly on music terms. And the no wave movement had a lot of abstract innovation in it, where as david thomas is speaking of the musically conservative bands that sold an attitude rather than musical innovation.
deathtokoalas
the dead kennedy's were actually relatively complicated, on a musical level. and, what was happening in new york was always a type of art rock. we can talk about how punk wanted to get closer to the working class by stripping away the upper class pretension of prog, however much of a strawman that actually was, but that's a bit of a different argument than you're making. i think the one and only band that really fits your description is the ramones, and, in hindsight, the truth is that they kind of come off less as this central force and more as a kind of irrelevant outlier.
Samuel Chapman
Well i dont know buddy. I think their are most examples though, the english punk bands, the dead boys, richard hell (though redeemed by his guitarist), i mean even the dolls are surely an example. stylistically, thats true of the ramones, but everybody took note of the ramones, course some focused on different aspects
