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[Sondra]

I recently read a post on another forum that states that punk was started in the UK and that it was the Sex Pistols who started it. No one seems to be arguing about it, but it got me wondering. Didn't the Sex Pistols come out in the late 70's? And wasn't the whole Detroit and New York CBGB's scene going on in the early/mid 70's?? Weren't bands like the Velvet Underground, MC5, the Stooges, and the Ramones performing a few years before the Sex Pistols were even formed?? So, did they not begin what was to become known as punk? I don't know, I'm not an expert in music history, but this is how I see it. Am I way off? I know there are people here who know way more than me, so I'd like your opinions on the whole Sex Pistols started punk. I mean, they may have crossed over and gotten the most attention, but started it? I just don't know.

[Crazy Diamond]

Punk started in the late 60's.

really?

what bands started it then then

[Joost]

The Sex Pistols started the hype, but they weren't the first.

[Crazy Diamond]

really?

what bands started it then then

The Stooges, MC5, etc.

[GreenApple]

Punk started in the late 60's.

I've always got the impression that what Syd Barrett did with Pink Floyd and his solo stuff was kind of similar to Punk sound. Would you regard Barrett as an innovator of that kind of sound? Songs like Arnold Layne, Bike, Octopus, etc.

[Joost]

The Stooges, MC5, etc.

I think they were still rock & roll bands actually. Heavier than everything that came before, but still mostly rock & roll bands. I would say that the first real punk band was the Ramones.

[Bruno]

I think they were still rock & roll bands actually. Heavier than everything that came before, but still mostly rock & roll bands. I would say that the first real punk band was the Ramones.

You're right Biscuit. I got this from the AMG guide:

"The Ramones are the first punk rock band. Other bands, such as the Stooges and the New York Dolls, came before them and set the stage and aesthetic for punk, and bands that immediately followed, such as the Sex Pistols, made the latent violence of the music more explicit, but the Ramones crystallized the musical ideals of the genre. By cutting rock & roll down to its bare essentials -- four chords; a simple, catchy melody; and irresistibly inane lyrics -- and speeding up the tempo considerably, the Ramones created something that was rooted in early '60s, pre-Beatles rock & roll and pop but sounded revolutionary."

[adamzero]

With all respects to AMG, I think the Stooges may qualify as the first punk band if punk means "cutting rock & roll down to its bare essentials -- four chords; a simple, catchy melody; and irresistibly inane lyrics -- and speeding up the tempo considerably."  

For me the Ramones are punk patische compared to the Stooges.  Iggy is my Father of Punk--and the Ramones are the children of Punk.   Like Elvis/Chuck Berry/Little Richard/Buddy Holly are fathers of rock to their children the Beatles.

So that means the Ramones are the Beatles of Punk?

[Joost]

Well, you have to draw a line between rock & roll and punk somewhere, otherwise you could even call Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent punk. I think Iggy was still mostly rock & roll while the Ramones were definately punk.

[Sondra]

From an article called The History of Punk:

Punk rock is generally considered to have surfaced in 1975, but exactly who the first punk act was is undetermined. If anybody were to tell you that they can pinpoint the first punk band, they are either lying or confused. Many early bands such as Iggy and the Stooges, the MC5, Richard Hell and the Voidoids displayed some aspects of punk, but no band combined all of the elements until the Ramones gathered in 1975.

The Ramones self-titled debut album, released in 1976, was the first example of punk rock, and they are generally accepted as the creators of the genre. Being tired of music that they considered boring, the Ramones gathered and began to piece their own sound together.

The lack of originality in music was a key factor in the creation of the Ramones' sounds. "No one tried to do anything original, and if they did, it came out sounding like Stevie Ray Vaughan or ZZ Top." (Cuellar 4) Another factor was their lack of technical skill as compared to the bands of 1975.

Their music would usually only utilize a few chords per song, and lyrics were often repetitions of short phrases. Many popular punk bands were often referred to as "Three chord wonders." Because of this, Ramones' songs are characterized by their amateur and aggressive sound. Examples of some of their more famous songs include "The Blizkrieg Bop," "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker," "Cretin Hop," "Pinhead, "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue," "Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?," and "I Wanna Be Sedated."

The Ramones brought back the two-minute song, creating a sound that many found reminiscent of early rock 'n' roll. Others, blown away by the buzzsaw guitars and unconventional lyrics, condemned them. Legend has it that a touring representative from the A&M label saw the Ramones and got up and left in disgust after only hearing half of a song. Even later, record companies were not thrilled with punk, because it was very unstable. Danny Fields once said "American radio, then as now, doesn't like to participate in anything that is dangerous, or revolutionary, or radical. So [eventually] the whole thing [punk] became a great pile of sh*t that no one wanted to go near."

The Ramones directly influenced British punk acts, helping to spawn the British punk scene. They played a fourth of July concert in London, which was attended by many members of future punk bands, such as the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned, Generation X, and Souxsie and the Banshees. This was the seed for what was to become the huge London punk scene of 1977.

[In Blue Hawaii]

"Hang On To Yourself" by David Bowie (1972) is pretty much proto-Ramones.

[Mairi]

Yay, Ramones. I actually always saw them as a bit of a Beach Boys throwback- who else thinks so?

[Herecomesyoursun]

Sheena is a Punk does kinda sound like Beach Boys on steroids

[adamzero]

From an article called The History of Punk:

Punk rock is generally considered to have surfaced in 1975, but exactly who the first punk act was is undetermined. If anybody were to tell you that they can pinpoint the first punk band, they are either lying or confused. Many early bands such as Iggy and the Stooges, the MC5, Richard Hell and the Voidoids displayed some aspects of punk, but no band combined all of the elements until the Ramones gathered in 1975.

Interesting stuff, Sandra.  For an alternative view take a look at the author below who take finds "punk" in the Who, Buddy Holly and the New York Dolls.    

http://www.listology.com/content_show.cfm/content_id.5848

Richard Hell, Television and Patti Smith all put out "punk" records before the Ramones (although the Ramones came to typify American punk the way the Beatles did the British Invasion).

I guess there's two ways of looking at Punk: Patti Smith punk could call the Ramones morons, and the Ramones could call Patti Smith/Richard Hell posers.  I like the Ramones, but I guess I'd go more for the Patti Smith/Richard Hell/Television definition of punk.  The punk "ethos" stretching back to Iggy and beyond rather than a strict (and perhaps artificial) musicological definition.

I'd also look to weird regional bands like the Kingsmen or the 13th Floor Elevators as punk or proto-punk.  Maybe "Louie Louie" was the first punk hit?

I guess that's the real upshot of this: where do you divide punk from proto-punk?  

[Joost]

Yay, Ramones. I actually always saw them as a bit of a Beach Boys throwback- who else thinks so?

If you like that you should really check out The Queers. They sound a lot like the Ramones but with a LOT more Beach Boys influences. They even cover a Beach Boys song on almost every album they make. Great band, I'm listening to them a lot lately.

[Mr. Mustard]

Just perusing some old threads and came across this one, thought I might give it a bump.

Punk, like rock and roll, only 'began' when the term punk rock came into the vernacular.  Which would be circa 1975/76, with the Ramones being that first true punk band -- because they were identified as such.

However -- bands that were heavily influential on the Ramones, like Velvet Underground, Stooges, New York Dolls, etc., can rightfully be called the originators/forefathers of punk rock.  In the same way, rock and roll didn't exist as a form of music until the early '50s.  But there were plenty of examples in the '30s and '40s of what would become RnR, but they hadn't been given that name yet.  Maybe they were still somewhere in the genres of  R&B and rockabilly.

Just last week I listened to the NY Dolls' first album, which I've owned on tape for close to 20 years but have listened to maybe less than 5 times (so it's still good as new!).  A lot of their songs sounded like the Ramones, except with more lyrics, chord changes, guitar breaks, etc.

So the Ramones were the first 'official' punk band.  And their tour of England was a major influence on the Sex Pistols, the Clash and numerous other U.K. bands.  

The Pistols created the British punk rock movement of '76/77 -- or at least they were at the center of it all.  They got the brunt of the blame.  And the Clash stayed together long enough to transcend the label of punk and prove that they were a truly great rock band.

The documentary "The Filth and the Fury" is a great chronicle of the Pistols and British punk.

[Joost]

Punk is probably more an attitude than a type of music. So I think you should just draw the line at the point where they actually started referring to it as 'punk'. Cause musically, the transformation from rock & roll to punk was pretty gradual, I think.

[DaveRam]

I always think the first British punk band was "John's Children " formed in 1967 , they caused a riot in Germany when they toured with the Who .

[BlueMeanie]

I always think of Punk as a movement rather than any one particular type of movement. The Sex Pistols sound as removed from the Ramones as The New York Dolls do from The Stranglers. And where do you place the likes of John Cooper Clarke in all of that? 'Punks' hanging around Carnaby Street and Kings Road with brightly coloured mohicans, wearing bondage trousers and ripped t-shirts were pretty much a tourist invention. I was 18 in 1976 and I went to a lot of punk/new wave gigs in London, and the only difference between the so called 'punks' and the hippies of a few years earlier was the width of their jeans and the length of their hair. The attitude was meant to be different, though most of them were bandwagon jumpers that didn't know what they were meant to be standing up against. I just liked the sheer excitement of it, and the fact that most of the gigs were very cheap helped!