I would suggest they were looking to New York and the artier US bands and not London for inspiration.
Or West Germany. I was reading not too long ago that a pre-Wire Colin Newman experienced a car ride with his art school professor and Phillip Glass. So, perhaps, yeah, he was looking westward.
I think listening to the very early stuff like urrrgh "Mary Is a Dyke" they were contenting themselves to a Ramones simplicity due to ability. But I feel they may also have been inspired by other stuff like Throbbing Gristle not as in the sonic sound but in the attitude to forge a different music to the very much 1234 punk straight jacket as was becoming the norm.
Here is my saying about Wire.
Wire were less Chuck Berry and more chuck it away.
Ha! I like that very much, and suspect they would, too. Not least because Colin has said that "Pink Flag" was an effort to re-write/deconstruct "Johnny B. Goode." For all Year Zero talk around Stalinist punk, Wire were closest to actually carrying it out. I remember reading Wilson Neate's Pink Flag book and thinking Wire were either never punk or the maybe the only sincere punk band of the London scene. I ended up siding with the band and their assertions that they never shared any affinity with punk.
"Grab some wood, bub.'" - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft
God Save the Queen - Sex Pistols
Complete Control - The Clash
Smash It Up - The Damned
Harmony in My Head - Buzzcocks
Babylon's Burning - The Ruts
Homicide - 999
Rock 'n' Roll Radio - Ramones
Germfree Adolescents - X-ray Spex
Gotta Gettaway - Stiff Little Fingers
You've Got My Number (Why Don't You Use It?) - The Undertones
Born to Lose - The Heartbreakers
Love Comes in Spurts - Richard Hell & The Voidoids
Into the Valley - The Skids
King Rocker - Generation X
Christine - Siouxsie & The Banshees
Lucky Number - Lene Lovich
Teenage Warning - Angelic Upstarts
Sound of the Suburbs - The Members
Another Girl Another Planet - The Only Ones
This Perfect Day - The Saints
Way too many left of my list could've easily have done a top 50. No Subway Sect/Lurkers/Stranglers/XTC/ Vibrators/U.K. Subs THE list goes on. Took mine from post 1976. Could easily do a great top 20 from pre 1976.
Arrrgggh, I forgot the Only Ones!
To be honest these lists regarding what is and isn't punk never work for me. I dig all the new wave stuff like Squeeze / The Boomtown Rats / The Vapors and so on. I didn't even find a space for Elvis Costello or Ian Dury on my list and I like them more than some I have picked. My fave Clash single WM(iHP) wasn't chosen because wait for it (blasphemy) I'm not so sure I consider it punk.
Yeah, that's why I chose a "punkier" Jam song even though it's not my favourite song by them. It's a tricky one.
I think you have to go a kind of pure punk rock sound or accept the full spectrum of sounds/bands that era gave us. Including new wave/power pop. From Patti Smith via Plastic Bertrand to The Jags.
Forces have been looting
My humanity
Curfews have been curbing
The end of liberty
We're the flowers in the dustbin...
No fuchsias for you.
To be honest these lists regarding what is and isn't punk never work for me. I dig all the new wave stuff like Squeeze / The Boomtown Rats / The Vapors and so on. I didn't even find a space for Elvis Costello or Ian Dury on my list and I like them more than some I have picked. My fave Clash single WM(iHP) wasn't chosen because wait for it (blasphemy) I'm not so sure I consider it punk.
Yeah, that's the bastard of this kind of exercise, I'd love to pick my favourite Clash song, "London Calling," but it's not really punk now, is it? As much as we're pretty omnivorous here and like to think of ourselves as lumpers more than splitters, but these kinds of exercises force us into territory where we say this is punk and that isn't. As a fan, it's frustrating, but as someone with an intellectual interest it's very fascinating.
"Grab some wood, bub.'" - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft
I would suggest they were looking to New York and the artier US bands and not London for inspiration.
Or West Germany. I was reading not too long ago that a pre-Wire Colin Newman experienced a car ride with his art school professor and Phillip Glass. So, perhaps, yeah, he was looking westward.
I think listening to the very early stuff like urrrgh "Mary Is a Dyke" they were contenting themselves to a Ramones simplicity due to ability. But I feel they may also have been inspired by other stuff like Throbbing Gristle not as in the sonic sound but in the attitude to forge a different music to the very much 1234 punk straight jacket as was becoming the norm.
Here is my saying about Wire.
Wire were less Chuck Berry and more chuck it away.
Ha! I like that very much, and suspect they would, too. Not least because Colin has said that "Pink Flag" was an effort to re-write/deconstruct "Johnny B. Goode." For all Year Zero talk around Stalinist punk, Wire were closest to actually carrying it out. I remember reading Wilson Neate's Pink Flag book and thinking Wire were either never punk or the maybe the only sincere punk band of the London scene. I ended up siding with the band and their assertions that they never shared any affinity with punk.
I think playing 12XU at the Roxy Club did them no favours in this regard except as a springboard to enabling their process to become Wire.
Forces have been looting
My humanity
Curfews have been curbing
The end of liberty
We're the flowers in the dustbin...
No fuchsias for you.
To be honest these lists regarding what is and isn't punk never work for me. I dig all the new wave stuff like Squeeze / The Boomtown Rats / The Vapors and so on. I didn't even find a space for Elvis Costello or Ian Dury on my list and I like them more than some I have picked. My fave Clash single WM(iHP) wasn't chosen because wait for it (blasphemy) I'm not so sure I consider it punk.
Yeah, that's the bastard of this kind of exercise, I'd love to pick my favourite Clash song, "London Calling," but it's not really punk now, is it? As much as we're pretty omnivorous here and like to think of ourselves as lumpers more than splitters, but these kinds of exercises force us into territory where we say this is punk and that isn't. As a fan, it's frustrating, but as someone with an intellectual interest it's very fascinating.
It's my only real reasoning for considering punk an attitude towards making music than a label of music.
Forces have been looting
My humanity
Curfews have been curbing
The end of liberty
We're the flowers in the dustbin...
No fuchsias for you.
I would suggest they were looking to New York and the artier US bands and not London for inspiration.
Or West Germany. I was reading not too long ago that a pre-Wire Colin Newman experienced a car ride with his art school professor and Phillip Glass. So, perhaps, yeah, he was looking westward.
I think listening to the very early stuff like urrrgh "Mary Is a Dyke" they were contenting themselves to a Ramones simplicity due to ability. But I feel they may also have been inspired by other stuff like Throbbing Gristle not as in the sonic sound but in the attitude to forge a different music to the very much 1234 punk straight jacket as was becoming the norm.
Here is my saying about Wire.
Wire were less Chuck Berry and more chuck it away.
Ha! I like that very much, and suspect they would, too. Not least because Colin has said that "Pink Flag" was an effort to re-write/deconstruct "Johnny B. Goode." For all Year Zero talk around Stalinist punk, Wire were closest to actually carrying it out. I remember reading Wilson Neate's Pink Flag book and thinking Wire were either never punk or the maybe the only sincere punk band of the London scene. I ended up siding with the band and their assertions that they never shared any affinity with punk.
I think playing 12XU at the Roxy Club did them no favours in this regard except as a springboard to enabling their process to become Wire.
And that was just an exercise in convenience, not unlike No Wave in New York. You gotta perform, right, and work with an audience, and punk, for better or worse, is providing that non-passive audience. But, yeah, "12XU" was enough of a concession to punk that it got them kinda sorta roped in. Minus one point for artistic integrity, plus two points for getting gigs and a record deal.
"Grab some wood, bub.'" - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft
To be honest these lists regarding what is and isn't punk never work for me. I dig all the new wave stuff like Squeeze / The Boomtown Rats / The Vapors and so on. I didn't even find a space for Elvis Costello or Ian Dury on my list and I like them more than some I have picked. My fave Clash single WM(iHP) wasn't chosen because wait for it (blasphemy) I'm not so sure I consider it punk.
Yeah, that's the bastard of this kind of exercise, I'd love to pick my favourite Clash song, "London Calling," but it's not really punk now, is it? As much as we're pretty omnivorous here and like to think of ourselves as lumpers more than splitters, but these kinds of exercises force us into territory where we say this is punk and that isn't. As a fan, it's frustrating, but as someone with an intellectual interest it's very fascinating.
It's my only real reasoning for considering punk an attitude towards making music than a label of music.
Which I agree with, tho we then get to argue about what that attitude is! In many respects, that to me is proof of punk's significance—we can still argue, 45 years later, what the hell it entails, knowing full well that there probably isn't any resolution. That says there's value in it all.
"Grab some wood, bub.'" - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft
God Save the Queen - Sex Pistols
Complete Control - The Clash
Smash It Up - The Damned
Harmony in My Head - Buzzcocks
Babylon's Burning - The Ruts
Homicide - 999
Rock 'n' Roll Radio - Ramones
Germfree Adolescents - X-ray Spex
Gotta Gettaway - Stiff Little Fingers
You've Got My Number (Why Don't You Use It?) - The Undertones
Born to Lose - The Heartbreakers
Love Comes in Spurts - Richard Hell & The Voidoids
Into the Valley - The Skids
King Rocker - Generation X
Christine - Siouxsie & The Banshees
Lucky Number - Lene Lovich
Teenage Warning - Angelic Upstarts
Sound of the Suburbs - The Members
Another Girl Another Planet - The Only Ones
This Perfect Day - The Saints
Way too many left of my list could've easily have done a top 50. No Subway Sect/Lurkers/Stranglers/XTC/ Vibrators/U.K. Subs THE list goes on. Took mine from post 1976. Could easily do a great top 20 from pre 1976.
Arrrgggh, I forgot the Only Ones!
To be honest these lists regarding what is and isn't punk never work for me. I dig all the new wave stuff like Squeeze / The Boomtown Rats / The Vapors and so on. I didn't even find a space for Elvis Costello or Ian Dury on my list and I like them more than some I have picked. My fave Clash single WM(iHP) wasn't chosen because wait for it (blasphemy) I'm not so sure I consider it punk.
Yeah, that's why I chose a "punkier" Jam song even though it's not my favourite song by them. It's a tricky one.
I think you have to go a kind of pure punk rock sound or accept the full spectrum of sounds/bands that era gave us. Including new wave/power pop. From Patti Smith via Plastic Bertrand to The Jags.
Hello,
It was hard for me to exclude Elvis Costello and a whole slew of bands I'd consider New Wave. To be honest, I prefer New Wave (as I define it) over punk. I know many of those new wave bands like.........the back of my hand.
To be honest these lists regarding what is and isn't punk never work for me. I dig all the new wave stuff like Squeeze / The Boomtown Rats / The Vapors and so on. I didn't even find a space for Elvis Costello or Ian Dury on my list and I like them more than some I have picked. My fave Clash single WM(iHP) wasn't chosen because wait for it (blasphemy) I'm not so sure I consider it punk.
Yeah, that's why I chose a "punkier" Jam song even though it's not my favourite song by them. It's a tricky one.
I think you have to go a kind of pure punk rock sound or accept the full spectrum of sounds/bands that era gave us. Including new wave/power pop. From Patti Smith via Plastic Bertrand to The Jags.
Hello,
It was hard for me to exclude Elvis Costello and a whole slew of bands I'd consider New Wave. To be honest, I prefer New Wave (as I define it) over punk. I know many of those new wave bands like.........the back of my hand.
I've got your number gk .
Forces have been looting
My humanity
Curfews have been curbing
The end of liberty
We're the flowers in the dustbin...
No fuchsias for you.
To be honest these lists regarding what is and isn't punk never work for me. I dig all the new wave stuff like Squeeze / The Boomtown Rats / The Vapors and so on. I didn't even find a space for Elvis Costello or Ian Dury on my list and I like them more than some I have picked. My fave Clash single WM(iHP) wasn't chosen because wait for it (blasphemy) I'm not so sure I consider it punk.
Yeah, that's the bastard of this kind of exercise, I'd love to pick my favourite Clash song, "London Calling," but it's not really punk now, is it? As much as we're pretty omnivorous here and like to think of ourselves as lumpers more than splitters, but these kinds of exercises force us into territory where we say this is punk and that isn't. As a fan, it's frustrating, but as someone with an intellectual interest it's very fascinating.
It's my only real reasoning for considering punk an attitude towards making music than a label of music.
Which I agree with, tho we then get to argue about what that attitude is! In many respects, that to me is proof of punk's significance—we can still argue, 45 years later, what the hell it entails, knowing full well that there probably isn't any resolution. That says there's value in it all.
Yes that's it above other music genres. An anything goes approach to deny definition.
Forces have been looting
My humanity
Curfews have been curbing
The end of liberty
We're the flowers in the dustbin...
No fuchsias for you.
God Save the Queen - Sex Pistols
Complete Control - The Clash
Smash It Up - The Damned
Harmony in My Head - Buzzcocks
Babylon's Burning - The Ruts
Homicide - 999
Rock 'n' Roll Radio - Ramones
Germfree Adolescents - X-ray Spex
Gotta Gettaway - Stiff Little Fingers
You've Got My Number (Why Don't You Use It?) - The Undertones
Born to Lose - The Heartbreakers
Love Comes in Spurts - Richard Hell & The Voidoids
Into the Valley - The Skids
King Rocker - Generation X
Christine - Siouxsie & The Banshees
Lucky Number - Lene Lovich
Teenage Warning - Angelic Upstarts
Sound of the Suburbs - The Members
Another Girl Another Planet - The Only Ones
This Perfect Day - The Saints
Way too many left of my list could've easily have done a top 50. No Subway Sect/Lurkers/Stranglers/XTC/ Vibrators/U.K. Subs THE list goes on. Took mine from post 1976. Could easily do a great top 20 from pre 1976.
Arrrgggh, I forgot the Only Ones!
To be honest these lists regarding what is and isn't punk never work for me. I dig all the new wave stuff like Squeeze / The Boomtown Rats / The Vapors and so on. I didn't even find a space for Elvis Costello or Ian Dury on my list and I like them more than some I have picked. My fave Clash single WM(iHP) wasn't chosen because wait for it (blasphemy) I'm not so sure I consider it punk.
Yeah, that's why I chose a "punkier" Jam song even though it's not my favourite song by them. It's a tricky one.
That’s what I am struggling with plus the one song per band.
Kept to one song per band, 76-79 period, and exlcuded dozens of minor and independent classics, much is pretty obvs but for what it's worth... a list... <edited>
Anarchy In The UK - SEX PISTOLS
Boredom - BUZZCOCKS
Complete Control - THE CLASH
New Rose - THE DAMNED
Another Girl Another Planet - THE ONLY ONES
One Chord Wonders - THE ADVERTS
Something Better Change - THE STRANGLERS
Teenage Kicks - THE UNDERTONES
Shot By Both Sides - MAGAZINE
Where Were You? - THE MEKONS
In A Rut - THE RUTS
Love In A Void - SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES
Suspect Device - STIFF LITTLE FINGERS
The Saints Are Coming - THE SKIDS
I Can't Stand My Baby - THE REZILLOS
Identity - X-RAY SPEX
Blank Generation - RICHARD HELL & THE VOIDOIDS
Mongoloid - DEVO
Emergency - 999
(I'm) Stranded - THE SAINTS
Last edited by Toppers Boppers on 25 Mar 2020, 7:25am, edited 2 times in total.
God Save the Queen - Sex Pistols
Complete Control - The Clash
Smash It Up - The Damned
Harmony in My Head - Buzzcocks
Babylon's Burning - The Ruts
Homicide - 999
Rock 'n' Roll Radio - Ramones
Germfree Adolescents - X-ray Spex
Gotta Gettaway - Stiff Little Fingers
You've Got My Number (Why Don't You Use It?) - The Undertones
Born to Lose - The Heartbreakers
Love Comes in Spurts - Richard Hell & The Voidoids
Into the Valley - The Skids
King Rocker - Generation X
Christine - Siouxsie & The Banshees
Lucky Number - Lene Lovich
Teenage Warning - Angelic Upstarts
Sound of the Suburbs - The Members
Another Girl Another Planet - The Only Ones
This Perfect Day - The Saints
Way too many left of my list could've easily have done a top 50. No Subway Sect/Lurkers/Stranglers/XTC/ Vibrators/U.K. Subs THE list goes on. Took mine from post 1976. Could easily do a great top 20 from pre 1976.
Arrrgggh, I forgot the Only Ones!
To be honest these lists regarding what is and isn't punk never work for me. I dig all the new wave stuff like Squeeze / The Boomtown Rats / The Vapors and so on. I didn't even find a space for Elvis Costello or Ian Dury on my list and I like them more than some I have picked. My fave Clash single WM(iHP) wasn't chosen because wait for it (blasphemy) I'm not so sure I consider it punk.
I did pick White Man and Rat Trap but wouldn't argue to the death they fit some precise definition of being pure punk songs. I suppose i could try justify White Man on the basis they recorded it at a time when you couldnt say they weren't first and foremost a punk band. Or to put it another way, if White Man isnt punk, then surely Police and Thieves couldnt be either? Rat Trap, not sure i could defend that. It feels punk to me, but thats purely an emotional argument.
In no particular order. Lots of good bands/songs left off.
1) Sonic Reducer - Dead Boys
2) God Save the Queen Sex Pistols
3) Police Truck - Dead Kennedys
4) White Riot - Clash
5) Law and Order - SLF
6) Hungry Wolf - X
7) Supertouch/Shitfit - Bad Brains
8) Do What You Want - Bad Religion
9) Rise Above - Black Flag
10) Amoeba - Adolescents
11) Bottle of Smoke - Pogues
12 ) Subvert City - Subhumans
13) Blitzkrieg Bop - Ramones
14) Hyena - Rancid
15) Cashing In - Minor Threat
16) Manimal - Germs
17) Rebel Girl - Bikini Kill
18) Another State of Mind - Social Distortion
19) Where Eagles Dare - Misfits
20) Smash It Up - The Damned