Punk Rock History

0000

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Sorry about the previous post I read it back & noticed I wrote "I may think I'm an expert..." which is not what I meant because I'm far from being an expert so I changed it to " I think I May Know my Shit..."


I didn't even read it correctly.. wow.. I read it wrong after you typed it wrong... it must be an off day for everyone:heheh::bonk:
 

Aktivator

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I think that the bands you mentioned were very influential, in punk rock... Dolls, Lou Reed, Bowie, but I consider those groups to be the direct influence.. I don't consider VU as "direct" because they influenced the groups that influenced the punk groups(if that makes any sense:bonk:)
My opinion on the topic anyways:D

But yeah.. you guys lived through it, all I can do is listen/read the stories and songs, then try to figure it out now.. even if you weren't into it, you most likely had an idea of what was going on.. so I am definitely glad to receive any compliment.. or anything above "This is awful":heheh: and for a highschool paper especially, the compliments are a bonus, this isn't something I'd choose to do in my free time:heheh:
I on't know how to explain it because I lived thru it. I personally wasn't a punk but my older brother was and lived the lower east side life for awhile. The early punk scene in my eyes was the NY Dolls who were idols of VU and Lou Reed. Lou Reed was a staple on the Lower East Side(hell he was at CBGB's the day Punk Mag discovered the Ramones). The influence wasn't so much the music of the VU as much as the attitude, style and fashion.You state Bowie but the glam movement and Bowie you are talking about got its influence from VU. Are you also aware theat the first true punks in NYC were mostly heroin attics who's theme song was "Heroin" by the VU let alone the Andy Warhol connection.
 

0000

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I on't know how to explain it because I lived thru it. I personally wasn't a punk but my older brother was and lived the lower east side life for awhile. The early punk scene in my eyes was the NY Dolls who were idols of VU and Lou Reed. Lou Reed was a staple on the Lower East Side(hell he was at CBGB's the day Punk Mag discovered the Ramones). The influence wasn't so much the music of the VU as much as the attitude, style and fashion.You state Bowie but the glam movement and Bowie you are talking about got its influence from VU. Are you also aware theat the first true punks in NYC were mostly heroin attics who's theme song was "Heroin" by the VU let alone the Andy Warhol connection.

I completely left fashion and attitude(as much as possible) out of my paper, the assignment was supposed to be more on the music rather than culture, I guess.. Outside of the paper, I can see what you're talking about VU having a lot of influence, I never really knew anything more than a few of their songs and that they exist though.. :D
 

Astrid Kirchherr65

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I on't know how to explain it because I lived thru it. I personally wasn't a punk but my older brother was and lived the lower east side life for awhile. The early punk scene in my eyes was the NY Dolls who were idols of VU and Lou Reed. Lou Reed was a staple on the Lower East Side(hell he was at CBGB's the day Punk Mag discovered the Ramones). The influence wasn't so much the music of the VU as much as the attitude, style and fashion.You state Bowie but the glam movement and Bowie you are talking about got its influence from VU. Are you also aware theat the first true punks in NYC were mostly heroin attics who's theme song was "Heroin" by the VU let alone the Andy Warhol connection.

I dunno, I like V/U and Lou Reed..but ultimately they were not punk.

They were Americanized version of Glam and Glitter rock which really didn't go well here musically..yes they were in the early scenes of punk but I never considered them punk.

When Bowie was here in Nyc/Lower East side he did hang out with them /theres rumor that Lou and David...erm were GOOD friends..but I think it's still the glam music more than punk at this point..

A good book on the subject 'GLAM, Bowie,Boland, Rock Revolution' by Barney Hoskyns

is a great start into this early period..
 

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Velvet Underground: The New York City Punk-Rock Poets

-underground-velvet-underground-and-nico-1024x1024.jpg

Even though the Velvet Underground made only four albums and broke up several years before punk-rock rumbled through New York City, their politically charged, crude, and noisy songs influenced a generation of musicians and writers.

John Cale, a classically trained violinist and pianist, together with singer-songwriter Lou Reed, created the band in 1964. They sought a break from the breezy, west-coast flower-power sound of the 1960s, a sound they thought was afraid to dirty its hands. With Sterling Morrison on bass and Maureen Tucker on drums, the Velvet Underground mixed nihilism with drug use, sadomasochism, and unstudied cool--a mix that proved irresistible to pop artist Andy Warhol, who was convinced he needed to manage a band and that they were the band he needed to manage. Warhol added German-born actress Nico (best known for her role in Fellini's La Dolce Vita) and produced the group's seminal first album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, in 1966.

One of the songs from that album, "European Son," was dedicated to poet Delmore Schwartz, Reed’s mentor as a student at Syracuse University. The year before the album's release, Schwartz had died from heart failure, likely caused by years of alcohol and barbiturate abuse. A poet of brutal emotional landscapes anchored in the commonplaces of daily life, Schwartz's attention to a simple vernacular language made a lasting impression on Reed. The influence is apparent in songs such as "Waiting for My Man" and "Heroin," with their focus on the quotidian life of a heroin addict. Take these lines from "Waiting for My Man," which simultaneously reads like an instruction manual and warning:

Up to a brownstone, up three flights of stairs
Everybody's pinned you, but nobody cares
He's got the works, gives you sweet taste
Ah then you gotta split because you got no time to waste
I'm waiting for my man


The Velvet Underground’s songs were as politically potent as Bob Dylan’s, but, as one critic has noted, "whereas Dylan refused to acknowledge the origin of a song’s subject matter directly, Reed flaunted his." Picking up, perhaps, on the tenor of the poems of the New York School Poets such as Frank O’Hara and Kenneth Koch, Reed penned lyrics naming the people, the places, and the seemingly incidental details that composed the New York underbelly. In "Run Run Run," for instance, a stroll through Union Square promises that "You never know who you’re gonna find there," and finds "Marguerita Passion" who "went to sell her soul" and "Seasick Sarah" with the "golden nose."

Reed drew from a range of literary sources beyond the New York School, including the Beats and the French Symbolist poets Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Arthur Rimbaud, poets who placed primacy on the expression of the immediate sensations of human experience. Just as Reed’s lyrics informed a succession of musicians during the 1970s and the decades that followed, his literary influences seemed contagious as well: David Johansen of the New York Dolls compared his own songwriting to the poetry of Rimbaud; Patti Smith, whose debut album Horses remains the defining "art-punk" record, channeled Baudelaire and Rimbaud; Richard Hell and the Voidoid’s punk anthem, "Blank Generation," was modeled on Rod McKuen’s poem "Beat Generation"; and founding Television member Tom Verlaine changed his name in tribute to the French poet Paul Verlaine. Beyond poetic influence, many of the musicians that emerged from the early New York punk scene also published their own collections of verse, including books by Patti Smith, David Byrne, and Sonic Youth members Lee Renaldo and Thurston Moore.

The Velvet Underground’s legacy is defined by many things: their noisy sound, their intelligent cynicism, and a long list of criminally great songs. The famous saying about the band is that only 100 people heard them, but all 100 started their own bands. However, the Velvet Underground's most enduring contribution to music, arguably, is the world made possible by their lyrics. As David Bowie has said, "The nature of [Reed’s] lyric writing had been hitherto unknown in rock...he supplied us with the street and the landscape, and we peopled it."


Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More
 

rtbuck

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I on't know how to explain it because I lived thru it. I personally wasn't a punk but my older brother was and lived the lower east side life for awhile. The early punk scene in my eyes was the NY Dolls who were idols of VU and Lou Reed. Lou Reed was a staple on the Lower East Side(hell he was at CBGB's the day Punk Mag discovered the Ramones). The influence wasn't so much the music of the VU as much as the attitude, style and fashion.You state Bowie but the glam movement and Bowie you are talking about got its influence from VU. Are you also aware theat the first true punks in NYC were mostly heroin attics who's theme song was "Heroin" by the VU let alone the Andy Warhol connection.

:grinthumb That's kind of why I suggested the book "Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell The Dangerous Glitter of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Lou Reed" because it explains a lot about the VU & what went on with their scene
 

Astrid Kirchherr65

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:grinthumb That's kind of why I suggested the book "Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell The Dangerous Glitter of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Lou Reed" because it explains a lot about the VU & what went on with their scene

Yes theres no doubt that Velvet Underground/Lou Reed was at the very basics of the birth of Punk.

all the music critics will suss it out left and right,

I just feel in my own ideas of what punk is/was/it's not Velvet Underground.

They were very important to the scene/lower west period/prehaps respect for that is important,

but the music as I define punk doesn't fit Velvet Goldmines core...

the piece Flower posted above defines it more as I always considered Lou Reed and Co as 'Art Rock' thats more what I guess I looked at them as...but I'm not a music critic..I'm just a fan :D

so I am just saying in my idea of punk ..no
 

rtbuck

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Yes theres no doubt that Velvet Underground/Lou Reed was at the very basics of the birth of Punk.

all the music critics will suss it out left and right,

I just feel in my own ideas of what punk is/was/it's not Velvet Underground.

They were very important to the scene/lower west period/prehaps respect for that is important,

but the music as I define punk doesn't fit Velvet Goldmines core...

the piece Flower posted above defines it more as I always considered Lou Reed and Co as 'Art Rock' thats more what I guess I looked at them as...but I'm not a music critic..I'm just a fan :D

so I am just saying in my idea of punk ..no

Nothing wrong with that that's why I said on an earlier post that everyone can write there own story on Punk & how it got started & it would be different from everybody elses yet have similarities. I know my Punk story would be a little different so I try not to find fault with anyone elses writings. The only reason I opened up about the VU was because Eberg said "I personally don't see the direct influence VU had on punk.." & I just wanted to point out that what I had read about them in various media I've read over the years including that recent book I've mentioned, helped me understand that scene & how they fit. You summed it up perfect though by saying "I'm not a music critic..I'm just a fan". That's all I am... I've just always been obsessive when it comes to music where I love to dig up info on the stuff I love.

Maybe we should start another thread titled "Your history of Punk!" I'd love to read everyone's version.
:cheers2:cheers2:cheers2
 

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I dunno, I like V/U and Lou Reed..but ultimately they were not punk.

They were Americanized version of Glam and Glitter rock which really didn't go well here musically..yes they were in the early scenes of punk but I never considered them punk.

When Bowie was here in Nyc/Lower East side he did hang out with them /theres rumor that Lou and David...erm were GOOD friends..but I think it's still the glam music more than punk at this point..

A good book on the subject 'GLAM, Bowie,Boland, Rock Revolution' by Barney Hoskyns

is a great start into this early period..
I agree VU were not Punk just they were an important part and influence on the formation of Punk in NYC. Flower piece, which I've never read before, makes a great point I wasn't even aware of.
 

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