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Sweet Little Lisa
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With regard to punk, I just observed those spiky Mohawks that Jung alluded to and said to myself, “If the type of mind that thinks that’s a good look also thinks that punk is good music, then I guess there’s not much point in checking it out.
LOL, thanks David for this Thursday rainy morning chuckle! 🙂 I always wondered how they slept with that “spiky Mohawk”. The question I have is, did “Mad Max” the movie come out before or after Punk?
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I posted a reply a week ago, but it’s still in purgatory (“awaiting moderation”) due to my committing the minor sin of trying to include both a photo and a video in the same post. The gist of it was that the first Mad Max movie came out in 1979, close to the advent of punk fashion. Also I offered this reflection on punk culture:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr82dZpCr48
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Good one David. You still get them with all kinds of music. However, this is now rare due to the prevalence of head phones and ear phones fortunately. That doesn’t stop so many dudes having rap, hip hop and other gangster ‘music’ blaring from the speakers of their cars.
As for the minor sin of trying to include both a photo and a video in the same post, I’ve committed several of these sins in the past. I had the understanding that you could have more than one photo and video in the initial post of a new Topic, but this doesn’t seem to be the case, at least for me.
The thing with punk music and it’s angry themes is that it was a product of its times, emerging during recession, high unemployment and very repressive governments. This was more so in the UK with Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives in particular, in power from 1979 to 1990.
In my country, my state in particular had a thriving punk music scene emerging from the mid seventies. The reason was that, unlike our other states, we had an extremely conservative, authoritarian government for thirty years, from 1969 to 1989 (due to a gerrymandered electoral system), and our local music scene was forced underground as the police would often raid music venues. The Saints and The Go Betweens emerged during this time.
In 1969, the lead singer of one of our major bands at the time, Darryl Cotton, was bashed by thugs in the main street of our CBD (his group had long hair and wore pink clothes on stage). They didn’t get much support from the police. Their bass player, Beeb Birtles, eventually joined the Little River Band and their guitarist, Rick Springfield, emigrated to the United States where he commenced a successful solo music career and a successful acting career.
Two of my brothers left Brisbane for Adelaide in the 1970s. They both had long hair and were constantly harassed by the police in Brisbane. I myself was conscripted into National Service in the early seventies where I of course had my long hair shorn.
And yes, of course I’d love to hear a Mona and Lisa cover of this!
“Contemporaneously with American punk rock band the Ramones, the Saints were employing the fast tempos, raucous vocals and “buzz saw” guitar that characterised early punk rock. With their debut single, “(I’m) Stranded”, in September 1976, they became the first “punk” band outside the US to release a record, ahead of better-known acts including the Sex Pistols, the Clash and The Damned. They are one of the first and most influential groups of the genre.
The police would often break up their gigs, and arrests were frequent. Unable to obtain bookings, Bailey and Hay converted the Petrie Terrace house they shared into the 76 Club so they had a venue to play in. According to Australian rock historian, Ian McFarlane, they had developed their “own distinctive sound as defined by Kuepper’s frenetic, whirlwind guitar style and Bailey’s arrogant snarl“
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It’s interesting to note that while the punk rock culture originated from disaffected working class youth tired of the establishment seeking non-conformity and anti-authoritarianism, Wikipedia offers an interesting perspective:
The punk subculture advocates a do-it-yourself (DIY) ethic. During the subculture’s infancy members were almost all from a lower economic class, and had become tired of the affluence that was associated with popular rock music at the time.
….many participants in the early punk rock scene were, in the words of The Business guitarist Steve Kent, “trendy university people using long words, trying to be artistic…and losing touch
So a lot of punk rock groups were actually from affluent families, contrary to the origins of the movement. In response to this affluent perception, a more hard-core sub punk rock genre spun off called “Oi”, and they were considered a more skin-head oriented genre.
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