I was there & here's my story (which I may have told before):
I was heavy into Kiss & other hard rock bands in 1977 & I was buying all of the music magazines. Rock Scene mostly covered the NYC scene & it was mostly photos. Kiss was always featured so I always bought Rock Scene but it had bands like the Ramones, David Johansen, The Heartbreakers,Lou Reed,Iggy, Patti Smith,Wayne County, Blondie, Television...etc. & I didn't want really any part of those bands(Gimme Kiss,Aerosmith, Nugent, B.O.C., & Sabbath!!!!!!). However,the magazine did make me aware of these bands.
In August of '77 the October issue of Hit Parader magazine came out with the Beatles on the cover. I had to buy the magazine because there was a centerfold poster of Ace Frehley in concert but also in that issue was an article on the Sex Pistols & Punk Rock. I was angry with the article & really grew a hatred towards the whole Punk concept without even hearing a note of it. I hated the look of the bands (No long hair...how could this be Rock & Roll????) & the stuff I read about the Pistols throwing up in Public, swearing on TV,spitting on the fans, & the fans spitting back just pissed me off more. I was then reading how Iggy used to cut himself onstage & Lou Reed would shoot up onstage...no, I wanted no part of this. I was 14 at the time & later that month my parents took me & my friend up to Samoset Lodge on Lake Nippising up in Northern Ontario for a week. We were able to pull in one rock radio station on our small portable radio we had with us & one evening the DJ came on & said that he may get in trouble for playing the next song because it was banned but he was going to play it anyway. That song was "God Save the Queen" by the Sex Pistols. I had no idea what to think. I almost hated to admit it but I liked the energy & sound of the music & then Rotten started to sing & I thought it was awful so I didn't give it much thought.
A few months later my Uncle Ken(my dad's brother who lived with us) came home from work with a few record albums. Someone he worked with had also worked in a record store & would occasionally give my uncle some promo records. This time he gave me a band called Driver, a band called Target, & a band he told my Uncle would blow Kiss away...the Ramones 'Rocket to Russia'. My first thought was "Yuck...not the Ramones!". I figured what the Hell & threw it on. "Harder than Kiss???...No way" I thought. This was Punk, I wasn't supposed to like it but I did find the lyrics & the artwork on the inner sleeve & back cover pretty funny. Still, I looked at the album as if it was a joke & traded it to a friend for Bad Co. 'Straight Shooter'.
Time went by & a couple of years later I was over at my friend's house because he had HBO. We decided to watch the movie 'Rock & Roll High School' & that was it I was hooked. After seeing the movie I was totally into the Ramones & I couldn't believe the fun & energy that I witnessed in the concert scene of the movie. I went out & bought 'Rocket to Russia' soon afterwards. Around the same time I was listening to an interview with Pete Towshend & he was going on about how Punk Rock has brought the fun back into Rock & Roll & considered the Sex Pistols "Pretty Vacant" to be the "My Generation" of this generation. They then played the songs back to back & I loved "Pretty Vacant".
It was now 1981 & I was going to see Pat Benatar in concert. Opening the show was David Johansen & the day of the show a local radio station played the title track from his new album "Here Comes the Night" & I thought the tune was great. That evening I was blown away by Johansen's performance particularly a song called "Stranded in the Jungle". A few days after the show I went looking for that song & had no luck but I did pick up a couple of his albums. Sometime after that I started thinking back to Rock Scene magazine...David Johansen hmmmm...Wait a second!! He was in that band ...the NY Dolls...yuck! How could I buy an album with guys who dressed as girls (or so I thought)?? I noticed "Stranded in the Jungle" was on 'Too Much too Soon' & glancing at the live shot on the cover all I could think of was Aerosmith.Johansen & Thunders on the cover looked like Perry & Tyler while Arthur Kane in the background made me think of Tom Hamilton. I bought the album & from that first listen I was hooked.
I was drinking beer at a friend's apartment one day & was getting pretty buzzed listening to Max Webster & Crack the Sky. I'm looking through his records & I come across Lou Reed 'Rock & Roll Animal'. I yell over to him "Lou Reed????" & tossed it over to him. Wow! I could not believe my ears with the double guitar onslaught by...Dick Wagner & Steve Hunter whose names I was familiar with from Alice Cooper. By now we were really buzzed & I came across a Suzi Quatro album & I threw it over to my friend. We both thought it sucked so we decided to...eat the record & we both took turns taking bites out of the vinyl disc. I came across 'Metallic KO' by Iggy & the Stooges & Iggy's 'Lust for Life' record. I never heard anything like either one of those records & couldn't believe my ears as Iggy assaulted the hell out of the audience on the live Metallic KO album & couldn't stop laughing at his version of "Louie Louie".
It's now around '83 & I'm getting into punk more & more although I still loved the Hard Rock/Metal Scene that was going on. I'm cranking out the Dolls album & looking at the cover & I think to myself man Johnny Thunders looks like one cool mother F'er. We had a local record store called 'Home of the Hits' that specialized in Punk & Metal imports & I kind of remembered seeing a divider for Johnny Thunders records there but never even thought to look. I went into the store & went right to the Johnny Thunders section where they had 4 or 5 albums. There was a double record called 'In Cold Blood' & it was only 8.99. I looked at the song titles & seen he covered "Louie Louie", "Gloria", "Green Onions", & "Do You Love Me". Plus he did a song called "Too Much Junkie Business" which I thought may have been a play on Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business". I bought the record,I put it on, & God this had to be the worst thing I heard!!! The sound was awful,the singing was embarassing & the instuments sounded out of tune. I thought I'd never listen to it again but one day I did & it still sucked yet something told me to give another album a try so I did. I bought the 'Live at Max's' record & I liked it. The opening song "Milk Me" was actually "Chatterbox" by the NY Dolls which was one of my favs. I went back & bought 'L.A.M.F.' & 'So Alone' & I've been a fan since. In my opinion I think 'L.A.M.F.' is the greatest punk record ever made but that's just according to my tastes as it has the power chords of the Ramones mixed with earsplitting lead guitars.
I'm taking a break for now before I get into how the local Punk scene & Canadian punk bands helped influence me
After numerous plays of Patti Smith Horses album I started to like her.
