Punk rock: let's talk about it!

I've seen him play. Good drummer.

 

Nice to hear, thanks. I always had a soft spot for him and wished him the best.

 

L.A. Guns. The line-up that had Stoddard in it.

 

Not only do I love the Ramones, but I have a super soaker here ready to turn on anyone who says The Clash weren't punk. If you're excluding the founding fathers of a genre because they don't match the screaming California sound that the genre later solidified into, you're missing the spirit of punk itself.

 

Closest you'll get from BITD is Television. Marquee Moon.

 

It's no joke.

Watch Bobby Cannavale from when he walks in the room to the end of the video. Leave it to Scorsese to nail the "transformation".

 

Magnificent album, but can it be categorised as punk? Although I suppose punk is a fairly broad church.

 

Back to The Ramones. Absolutely love them.

They did start off something with the nascent punk scene in England when they played the Roundhouse in '76 but it also delivered them to a much wider audience.

According to what I have read they were mainly only famous around CBGB's and their records had been pretty much ignored in the US previously.

Appearing in England started them off on the road to fame, rather like Jimi Hendrix of the previous generation.

 

Outstanding!

 

You always seem to have a deeper take on all this.

 

That proves it...I liked Kansas! more than any of the "punks" bands listed so far.

Like I said, I may not be the target audience for a punk revival.

 

Now that's an open mind musically. More than I can say for me.

 

ummm... two wrongs don’t make a right?

But seriously...

We all started out as children singing songs like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” (whose melody was once utilized by Mozart btw), but some of us never got beyond that.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with sticking to simplicity, just keep in mind that many composers of very complex symphonies get the same closed minded response.

Also worth noting is the fact that most mainstream music is fairly simplistic by design, since many people automatically tune out anything suggesting sophistication beyond what their peers would accept.

If we analyze the Ramones “Blitzkrieg Bop” we can see that it is basically a three chord song, compared to, say, “Can’t You See” by The Marshall Tucker Band which is also mainly based on three chords - yet arguably enjoys far more reverence than its Punk brethren. You could also argue that the Ramones song is technically more difficult to actually perform due to the faster tempo and rapid fire succession of chords being played, but that the Marshall Tucker song has added depth due to the variety of instruments being used and a more varied melody line.

But back to the “closed minded” thing...

We all obviously have our own personal preferences and, even if I am in fact “open” to everything, doesn’t necessarily mean I love everything - just that I’m open to seeing if there’s anything I’m missing that can be later plagiarized for my own personal gain!

...er... I mean “subconsciously absorbed for artistic enlightenment” of course...




‘

 

What a great discussion. Obviously, I have been kind of poking around in punk due to the esteemed @Stark and fezz. Even Simoncroft gave me some interesting ear food. Edit to include @montemerrick as someone who fed me some interesting suggestions regarding punk.

So my kid and I have been working up some of the punkish stuff I have worked on. He even brought around one of his buddies. They have been in jazz band together, they had a very prog metal trio a while back, when messing around they usually play metal, when they are not playing metal the work on CHON. The boy and his friend have recently seen CHON again and have tickets for Snarky Puppy with Andy Timmons. Obviously, my kid and his friends like complex music. My son says of punk: Well, I don't go out of my way to listen to it but it's super fun to play. I heard him ask his buddy whether he felt that way after hamming some original Dado and his friend agreed wholeheartedly.

It's fun and more recent punk, while remaining harmonically simple, has become a genre with a lot of drummers with chops.

It's fun. Fun to listen to, fun to go to a show, fun to write, fun to play. It's as simple as that.

 

Ramones good.
Brussel sprouts bad.


Music, is art, and should be measured by the emotions it evokes, the atmosphere it creates, the humanity it reflects.

All these things can be deeply personal and variable by individual.

Style, genre, simplicity, complexity, these words having nothing to do with it. Except maybe in an academic context.

How does it make you feel? What does it make you think? What does it help you remember? What does it help you forget?

What do I know. Maybe somebody put something, somebody put something in my drink.

 

This guy gets it.

 

I like sprouts.
I don't like the Ramones.

 

They played CBGB and Max's. So to me...yeah.

 

That's like the punchline to the old joke about billing the client $2,000 for labor. It costs $10 to whack the thing with a hammer and $1,990 for the experience required to know where to whack the thing.

BTW at a Matisse exhibit I saw an ancient B&W film about him painting in that fashion. He was bedridden and used a brush attached to a 5 foot stick to paint canvases on the wall by the bed. An artist can't be stopped.