As I stated before The Stooges Raw Power is about as influential to what turned into Punk Rock as it got. One can maybe call the Stooges First album or even Velvet Underground's first two, but when it came to the proximity of the Late 70's Punk Scene, to me it was Raw Power. A bunch of outsider kids going through the Cut-Outs shortly after Columbia decided to let The Stooges go in the Mid 70's can possibly tell you the story more than I. Yeah, there were the Dolls and Lou Reed, but Raw Power just stood out from them all.
Now moving back into Thinking Too Much Mode (as I love to do...)
To me, a person who actually slam danced at hardcore shows back in The 80's, it's not as 1+2 as it seems, especially with the bands I heard at that time (this even goes beyond Dead Kennedys). One can say Punk started somewhere, but there were the prototypes. they may not have been Punk as a Genre, but Punk as in attitude.
I already linked to the Jazz-Punk connection. that says more than what I even can in a small post.
Going back to the remark about Ochs and Guthrie...
Punk as a defiant attitude in Music itself had to have some major influences. I can never say Dylan as he turned more into an occasionally great singer songwriter by the Late 60's/Nashville Skyline era (more the spark for the Folk based Indie by his 70's albums. Not a dismissal.), although Highway '61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde had some effect on the more literate Punks just for breaking away from Folk with an image and attitude that still is copied from time to time (Patti Smith, John Cooper Clarke being examples). Johnny Cash not as much of a Punk originator either when you look through his whole career, although he was closer when you look at the highlights which at least make him a major influence (The Sun recordings, the live albums recorded in prisons in a time when the industry was trying to move Country into softer sounds, his American Recordings albums. That took guts!).
If you want to throw genres around on a simple face value level, Guthrie and Ochs were Folk. Unlike Dylan and Cash, who had soft stages in their careers, Guthrie and Ochs stood out enough to spark many early Punk Rockers through their attitudes and constant political stands.
Now, if you're looking at a more apolitical stand, you could go through a lot of Garage Punk. How about The Sonics?
Let's go even further to some wild 50's R&B singers - Screamin' Jay Hawkins? Bunker Hill? Screaming with the madness that can sometimes match up with the best of Hardcore. Genre-wise, they were on the same page as Little Richard, but when all was said and done, Screamin' was the part of the influences of the Cramps and Bunker Hill was certainly way too way out for a lot of listeners.
Rockabilly? That too! Despite a few who went the Pop Star route (Elvis left that building when he went to RCA...now THERE'S the original Indie Snob comment of all time), there were those who still kept a rocking.
To me, Punk has been around for along time in attitude. The defiance, the willingness to stand out, the pride in taking a stand may it be with politics or outright shock. Yeah, I may be a bit of a Historian in my listening myself, but for every movement, there had to be something that started it in one way or another. It's not just what's known as what's thought of as part of the Genre.
Last edited by Screen13; 04-02-2012 at 05:44 PM.
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