The Man Who Invented Punk | Patreon Chat
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- Опубліковано 19 тра 2024
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This video documents a chat between myslf and my Patreons around the idea of PUNK, PROG and it's definitions and creation.
In this respect, it is an example of the sorts of conversations we have in that relaxed and informal space. It was not created with the idea it would appear on UA-cam.
This is a REAL conversation and the opinions and situations described may not be accurate.
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No- punk origin: Lou Reed/ Velvet Underground in 1965, Iggy and the Stooges 1967, The Ramonas 1974, Sex Pistols 1975. T-Rex (great) are more glam rock not punk.
Patti Smith was not a 'posh girl'. Her dad was a machinist and her mum was a waitress. She was very well-read though - her lyrics made me go and check out Rimbaud. She certainly wasn't some middle class kid who could sponge off her parents: she worked, initially in a factory then as a waitress and busking.
Loved her two autobiographies.👍
She was already a fixture in the NY Underground way back in the early 70's as evidenced in Jonathan Millers 1972 documentary West Side Stories. Plus Lydon is a Brexiteer and switches to contrary opinions solely to keep up his image of shrieking dickhead.
It makes a lot of sense for a bright and gifted working class kid in the US to get into artsy French stuff (and beat poets) as a reaction to the society she grows up in, just as it makes sense for a bright and gifted working class kid in the UK to get into kraut rock and prog rock (and glam). They are both very much their own people, so I'm not saying this would be a typical path, but as a hindsight kitchen psychology take, I've seen worse.
@@finneogan Absolutely, that makes a lot of sense. Thank goodness for public libraries. I know that was my route out of the mundanity of where I grew up. This had to be balanced against a strong anti-intellectualism in the British working class (you had to keep your books hidden if you didn't want to get beaten up and hope that one day you would meet like-minded people!).
@@DarkSideOfTheMoule 'Libraries gave us power'
Music doesn't evolve in a vacuum. There is no one person who invented punk and Lydon isn’t (in my opinion) a particularly reliable narrator. He mentioned his love of Bowie, which, I think is generally accepted, but Bowie was influenced by Iggy and the Stooges, which shows, particularly in his 70’s catalogue: he even produced the Stooges, and Lou Reed for that matter. The Velvet Underground may not have been punk, but they, and Reed had something of that chaotic attitude. Even the early Kinks, and Link Ray, and many others are precursors of that aggressive anti-establishment vibe, also My Generation, by the Who.
Absolutely
You just reminded me man I love Link Wray. Rumble is seminal. I also know Lydon was a big Alice Cooper fan as well. He even wrote the liner notes to an Alice Cooper boxset The Life And Crimes Of Alice Cooper.
@@SuperStrik9 Alice Cooper, nice! You also reminded me that I spelled Link Wray wrong!🤦♂
I’ve got to go with Iggy Pop and the Stooges. You don’t get more working class than Detroit.
To me, The Ramones have the archetypal sound of punk. Down stroked bar chords played at top speed. It's like they got the sound just right. No leads, short songs, minimal bending of notes, 60s garage and girl group melodies, etc...
Yes… Indeed. It took me a long time going over the Ramones in my mind until I realize that they were basically like a girl group. Of course, Ramones could be fun and silly and surreal. I don’t think that they had the anger that list to be found in British punk. But that’s about all I know.
I always thought of the Ramones as retro Garage rock. 🤷🏻♂️
They had the sound for sure, but that's not enough for me.
Punk became a cultural subgroup when it acquired a 'look' - and that look was 100% from London - and an ethos - that being anarchy and political protest.
The Ramones were still rocking long hair and leather jackets. They were a great low tech garage rock band, which is an essential ingredient, but without the fashion, they were not what we call punk in the UK.
If Joey Ramone passed me on a London street in 1977, I would not have known he was a punk. The clothes didn't shock. The hair style had been around for 10 years.
When you saw a punk in 1970s UK, you KNEW you'd seen a punk. You didn't have to wait for them to get a guitar out and display their down stoke chops.
@@emdiar6588 I completely agree. It’s the whole package. Rock and roll itself started out as kind of a gimmick too. When considering pop artists you have to look at more than the music.
Well, it wouldn't be the first time similar scenes and music developed in parallel, they all had the same influences, and all hated the establishment, so who cares who was first. If you ask the average person who created Rock 'n Roll, they will say Elvis Presley, with the song "You Ain't Nothing But A Hound Dog". Now anybody that knows the tiniest bit of music history or just about music in general, know this is a load of BS. But that is the narrative, as wrong and stupid as it is.
US Punk was first. It was poor kids who couldn't break into the entertainment world so they created their own.
British Punk came after. Poor people saw what you could do with a minimum amount of support, talent, and props after The Ramones came to England. Joey even "punked" Johnny Lydon.
Poor US kids couldn’t afford to ‘tune in and drop out’ (be hippies like middle/upper class kids), and things were shitty so they were angry in the late 60s (The Stooges)
1972: Steve Jones and Paul Cook form band with Wally Nightingale. They play pub rock, The Faces, The Who. They don’t play or even know “proto-punk” American bands.
1973: Cook, Jones and Nightingale start calling themselves The Strand or The Swankers. Steve Jones starts pestering Malcolm McLaren for money for a rehearsal space.
1974: Glen Matlock joins Paul and Steve on a recommendation from McLaren. He will write the music to almost of all the Sex Pistols songs. He likes the Beatles and pop, and will later admit he ripped off a riff from ABBA. He has never heard of the Ramones. No one in the band has heard of The Ramones. The Ramones just formed.
1974, Mar 30: Ramones first performance
1974, May: Joe Strummer of The Clash forms the 101ers, a rockabilly band.
1974, Aug.: The Ramones play first gig at GBGB’s.
1975, March: Mick Jones of the Clash forms The London SS. Often viewed as “proto-punk,” they played straightforward rock 'n' roll and covered 1960s R&B.
1975, Aug.: Wally Nightingale quits. Johnny Rotten joins the Pistols. The Pistols are complete. Malcolm McLaren finally agrees to become the band’s manager.
1975, Nov.: First Sex Pistols gig.
There is still no presence of any kind of The Ramones in London, no gigs, no vinyl, so airplay,
1976, Jan: Pistols curse on Bill Grundy’s Today Show and punk takes off in the UK 1976, Jan: First issue of Punk published in New York and nowhere else.
1976, Feb. Mick Jones begins forming The Clash after seeing the Sex Pistols: You knew straight away…this was what it was going to be like from now on. It was a new scene, new values-so different from what had happened before….”
1976: April 3 or 4, Joe Strummer of The Clash quits the 101ers sees the Pistols. Strummer said: “I saw the future…right in front of me. It was immediately clear…. The Pistols…attitude was, ‘Here's our tunes, and we couldn't give a flying f-k whether you like them or not…’”
There is still no presence of any kind of The Ramones in London, no gigs, no vinyl, so airplay,
1976, Apr. 23: Ramones first album released in US. It sells poorly.
1976: May 30: Joe Strummer invited to Join The Clash, a band to “rival the Pistols.”
1976, Jun: Ramones play their first gig outside of the New York area, in Ohio.
1976: Jul.: Ramones play first gig in London. Attending are the entire punk scene of Britain fully formed, The Clash, The Damned, and members of the Pistols. The Pistols played 36 gigs and changed British music forever. It was only afterward that The Ramones appeared.
The British Punk movement came out of pub rock, Johnny Rotten’s lyrics and Vivienne Westwoods clothes. Not American bands.
@@thepagecollective They didn't have to see the Ramones. Iggy and The Stooges were already there. McLaren had already worked with and destroyed the NY Dolls, which was his con with every band he ever worked with. Even getting the Pistols to imitate the NY Dolls real vomiting around town to make them more "notorious". Saddest of all is that they were a great band but McLaren used abused and ripped them off. If nothing else the sound of 'Bollocks' was totally from the 2nd Ramones LP
@@carrerlluna66
"They didn't have to see the Ramones."
For them to be "influenced" by the Ramones, they would have had to hear or see them at some point before the musical line up was formed. We know who wrote the music, Glen Matlock. Glen Matlock was into the Beatles, and he confessed he stole a riff from ABBA. He joined the year the Ramones had their first gig, They would not be any Ramones presence in London for three more years. They play nothing like the Ramones. Their songs are normal tempo, or down tempo, have solos, use power chords, and johnny screams. The Ramones are super fast, have no solos, use six string up down chords and Joey sings. They don't look alike or sound alike or write anything in common.
"Iggy and The Stooges were already there."
In 1972, when Steve and Paul formed the core of the band, Iggy and The Stooges were hardly there. We know the Sex Pitols influences, The Faces, The Who, fifties rock in Britain, pub rock, Bowie, Bolan and Roxy Music. Americans keep trying to force American bands on them and it's so tiresome.
"McLaren had already worked with and destroyed the NY Dolls, which was his con with every band he ever worked with. Even getting the Pistols to imitate the NY Dolls real vomiting around town to make them more "notorious". "
No. McLaren did not start the Sex Pistols or "train" them. He wasn't interested in them. The Pistols was not started by McClaren, they were started by Steve and Paul and Wally Nightingale in 1972. They were playing pub rock, The Who and the Faces and Dave Berry, all of which they recorded. Steve begged McLaren for months to give him and Paul and Wally Nightingale money for a studio. He sent Matlock over to them in 1973, when The Ramones had not even had their first gig. He helped them audition Lydon but he did not agree to become their manager until 1975. Stop repeating the lies of The Great Rock n Roll Swindle as if it was fact based. It was completely made up by Malcolm.
I don’t think the Ramones were significantly influential on Sex Pistols.
The British try incredibly hard to gate keep punk. There were a thousand garage punk bands, all across America, in the mid to late 1960s. The MC5, the Stooges, the Ramones were working class kids.
The king is gone but he's not forgotten
Lydon now: "get off my beach, you punks!"
The Stranglers song Golden Brown is pure genius. Other than it's cheep romanticism, Andy loses credibility saying poor little Lydon earned the throne of legitimacy because of his childhood poverty and suffering. The Idea that the Sex Pistols created this genre is classic British egocentrism. Punk as the UK knows it? The name "Punk Rock" as a distinct style of music was American, describing garage band back in the 60s. Proto-punk and it's F the establishment ethos stretches back to the 50s with artists like Eddie Cochran, Jerry Lott, Screaming Jay Hawkins, and Bunker Hill. Followed by The Velvet Underground, The Stooges, MC5, Frank Zappa, The Sonics, and The Munks. The only thing the Pistols did was showing up late to the party across the pond, and claimed credit for throwing it. I've heard enough of this revisionist history to know BS when I smell it.
Really interesting show. There were some minor points to clarify though:
1. I think it is incorrect to characterise the Pistols as somehow more working class than the Clash. Mick Jones was equally important to the Clash's songwriting as Joe Strummer and he grew up predominantly in his grandmother's high rise council flat in West London and also in Brixton. Class is all relative anyway because I grew up on a council caravan site, so where John Lydon grew up would have been a step up for me!
2. As well as the influences you mentioned, Hawkwind was a big influence on John Lydon (he used to sell speed at their gigs!).
3. Mott the Hoople were also a big influence on the UK punk scene (though not on John Lydon in particular).
4. Arguably, Johnny Thunders was the missing link between US and UK punk. He toured with the Pistols on the 1976 package tour (on a coach) and the later Heartbreakers album LAMF sounded more raw and similar to UK punk.
5. Whilst Patti Smith didn't necessarily influence UK punk bands, I suspect she was a big influence on John Cooper Clark, who shares her background as a performance poet and certain visual look!
Saw Johnny in Hammersmith, he was totally out of it. The support band had Hell's Angels roadies and Johnny had borrowed their equipment which he was abusing. They were not happy with him, but he was so far gone he was oblivious to the potential danger he was in.
Looking forward to this one.
The Who: My Generation
And its precursor, 'Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere'. It and 'My Generation' are both, particularly for their day, serious statement makers for rejection of mid 60s British values.
British punk is way more political, and the stereotypical punk look, although Malcolm McLaren got that look from Richard Hell, who wore holes in his shirts and safety pins in his pants because he was Poor. American “ punk” , especially from New York, was a DIY movement. Talking heads looked nothing like Blondie who looked nothing like the Ramones. I think the look was a lot more uniform in the UK. I remember seeing a photo of Joey Ramones record collection, and the album on the very top was Close to the Edge! David Byrne used to go to a lot of Grateful Dead shows. MC5 played Rocket No 9- by Sun Ra! A lot of cross pollination of music. Steve Jones said he listened to Steely Dan back in the day-not punk
This is absolutely right. Punk was a matter of necessity in New York, in Britain it was a fad, which found ready adherents among working class kids, for obvious reasons.
I'm not sure when "back in the day" would have been, but in the early days of the Sex Pistols there wouldn't have been much punk to listen to, even if he'd wanted to. Punk being a major cultural event was a fad, but it's not like punk stopped in 1978 in the UK. The only difference is that US punk didn't have any cultural relevance nationally until the 90s.
I think the Saints from suburban Brisbane, Australia, were the first punk rock band. Well, at the same time as the Ramones. They went to England for a brief time, but their sound evolved well away from punk over their second and third albums before they split. The guitarist, Ed Kuepper, was very surprised when he heard the first Ramones album. He didn't know that there was another band with the sound of The Saints' first album.
radio birdman
@@chrisgreen3100 Yes, they get put together and I admire both bands, but I always think the punk of 1977 as being about a guitar played like a buzz saw. I saw Ed Kuepper and his latest band play a few weeks ago and he still has the fire.
The Saints were early and more Punk than Birdman. I'm Stranded sounds savage, they sound more savage than the Ramones on that album.
, Both Ramones and the Saints were playing in a punk style in 1974. But Ramones album came first.
@@willieluncheonette5843 Ok. I just pulled out my copy of (I'm) Stranded to look at the cover and the theme is the same. I have read an interview by Ed Kuepper saying, which I recall as him saying something like he felt bit deflated when he heard The Ramones first album because another band had a similar approach. Still, the first three albums by each of those bands are a great listen.
The Neon Boys recording from 72, basically Richard Hell and Television without Richard Loyd, is definitely Garagey Proto Punk give 'That's all i know right now' a listen...
Dave Davies
Good call but it wasn't one guy who invented Punk! he was one little Participant a cog in the wheel
Dickie Davies
@@StratsRUs Dickie Davies eyes
Is he really , if so its a pity about where he has ended up .. absolutely full of ..
John Lydon did not invent punk. The Remones were out in 1974 before the Sex Pistols. Richard Hell was doing punk before Lydon. The safety pins.. Ripped shirts.. Before Lydon Richard Hell sported the punk look. I'm a Lydon fan. I'm just pointing out that Lydon did not start punk. The proto punk bands MC5 The Stooges.. The New York Dolls influenced The Ramones and The Sex Pistols.. The Damned.. And many other bands. Punk is an attitude. You don't need a mohalk or loads of tattoos to be a punk. You need a f you attitude. An "I'm gonna do it my way." attitude.. That's punk.
Personally, I feel that Nina Simone was more "punk" than John Lydon could ever have hoped to pretend to be.
I know you aren't keen on them Andy but I'm amazed Hawkwind weren't mentioned as an influence on the Pistols in this chat. Lydon has said in the past that there wouldn't have been a Sex Pistols without Brainstorm and Jonesy mentions in his autobiog how important they were to him. They even played Silver Machine live a few times in their more recent reunion gigs. I also hear an influence from Bob Calvert on Johnny's vocals.
Lydon was seen at their gigs even during the summer of 77 when he was public enemy number one and supposedly the anti-christ of rock
I can't see the Hawkwind thing. I just watched an interview with Matlock, who wrote the music for ten of twelve songs. He said Malcolm came back from NY in 1973 and told him what was going on in NY, but there were no albums out, so he didn't hear the music. He said he thought it was cool that the same sort of rebellion was happening in NY. The Detroit stuff didn't even come into it. He said he went to a Faces concert and saw The Dolls open for them. He thought they were okay. He said he was more into: "all the bands from the 60s in England, the early Kinks and The Who and the Small Faces and The Yardbirds and the Stones--there's an element of that in the Pistol stuff." He did say Steve played like Thunders but it has to be said that the Pistols were not about the band, really. The band would probably have never been known without John. John had a distinctly English take that really was an attitude. He said he wanted to do Lawrence Olivier's Richard III as a rock star. And credit where credit is due, the Anarchy symbol is universally associated with punk, and it was John who first brought Anarchy into the conversation.
I'm piping up for Alice Cooper providing a ton of the Punk aesthetic and softening up the Press for new levels of outrage.
I was an Los Angeles punk rocker starting late 1976. The first bands I heard were American (Dead Boyz & Richard Hell and the Voidiods), but we were aware of the English punk bands. We knew who the Pistols, Clash, Adverts and others (sorry I’ve forgotten more than i remember). I think they influenced each other but American and English punks were of different worlds.
I’m not really sure of the origins of American punk but it seems to come out of Detroit (iggy,mc5, dead boyz) and. New York (R Hell, Ramones, Dolls). But small punk scenes sprouted in many cities across America.
Also as a side note Tom Verlaine was in the Voidiods with Richard Hell. Also I was very much a Progger/fusion guy before I got into punk.
Andy...if you managed to get him for an interview that's amazing. Even if not, I look forward to this one!
I have tried but not succeeded. This is a chat with my Patreons based upon what he said on his spoken word tour that I saw on Thursday
When there's no future how can there be sin? We're the flowers in the dustbin. We're the poison in your human machine. We're the future, your future....
What a fantastic video have a wonderful day Andy ❤
Maclaren and Westwood definitely influenced the fashion and the Situationist philosophy and attitude
Great discussion Andy. We should talk about this sometime, I have a very different view of punk. I also knew some of the folks from the 70s NYC scene. And I did pass through London in 78 and 79. But my view of Punk and New Wave is much more philosophical than musical. And the difference then between them the bands coming directly before them is much starker.
Working at the record shop in Chicago '77-'78, Warner Brothers were hyping the Pistols. By the time it showed, we were ready. My prog roots were in limbo. Prog was in transition. Ears open, we saw punk and the Pistols as the 'poster child' of the genre and it was British, a second British invasion of sorts, back to the roots with a hyped attitude. The energy, abandon and lyrical content are rock and roll.
Being an old US punk myself, the Pistols were certainly known, but they weren't really an influence on the first generation of US punk bands. Aside from the Ramones and further back The Stooges, the first important US punk bands were Minor Threat, Dead Kennedys, The Misfits, Black Flag, Circle Jerks. These were the bands that every punk here knew.
There's certainly a very different view of the genre in the USA. I recall some documentary about the history of punk, about 10 years ago. It was made in the USA, and it sorted treated punk in Britain as some kind of minor thing to be glossed over in half an episode, as if the American bands of the late 70s and early 80s were the ones that spread it worldwide.
Rock n Roll is an American cultural phenomenon and it has deep and partly troubling roots. It represents Americans and they play it like it means something to them, that’s why they are often more serious and better musicians (Jazz and Hiphop too). British musicians often just like to play dress up. There’s been a whole machine in London that creates/promotes superficial fads aimed at teenagers since the sixties. This is why Malcolm McLaren saw Punk as an opportunity. He standardised/packaged the look, the sound became boring, and it died.
@@carlton1390 That last part doesn't really make any sense. McLaren didn't design the look - that was Westwood, although it's not as if they exclusively wore her stuff, and that look had been a growing trend before punk came along. He had nothing to do with their sound. He hand no hand at all in writing either lyrics nor music. The attitude wasn't his idea. He was horrified when they gained instant national notriety by swearing live on early evening TV. Americans seem sold on the idea that McLaren was some music industry insider pulling the strings, orchestrating everything. He wasn't, and he didn't. He was good at getting money out of record companies, but not much else. Punk was just an incredibly small scene that blew up before it had a chance to mature, but the bands that followed very shortly after, the post-punk and Two-Tone/Ska bands, took over. There were still still punk bands in the UK after that, but they were just as equally unsuccessful as American punk bands of the era.
@@RevStickleback I'm completely aware that Malcolm McLaren was nothing but an opportunist and that Westwood was the designer. McLaren had managed/destroyed The New York Dolls and obviously witnessed what else was happening in the early to mid seventies in New York and Detroit. PUNK magazine reported on underground music in NYC and Richard Hell had the look that McLaren brought back to London. You can connect the dots from there.
@@carlton1390 You probably can. The problem, especially from the usual US viewpoint, is that McLaren added quite a few dots of his own to tell a rather different story, making him the central figure in it all. He wasted nearly all of the money the band earned to make his film to present this story.
I love the Tom Snyder interview. "We're not a band, we're a COMPANY."
what about the Dead Boys?
Responsible for Punk was the Zeitgeist. The air people are breathing at a particular time in history....and phenomena are created
Great One Andy!!
I had the same chat last night with folks across the globe.
but prog as nemesis remains the opiate of punkish intellectuals
Punk is the Helter Skelter super fast guitar freak out vocals yelling screaming part, but all the time…the whole way through.
Here in NYC in 1977 no one I knew was aware of the Sex Pistols. I was watching the news one night and caught this hilarious news clip of a Pistols concert and a guy in the audience hoisted a girl up on his shoulders. Vicious hurled a football at her and hit her in the face. The news commentary was like "can you believe this shit?" I went out and bought NMTB a few days later. All my friends hated it. I loved it. Still do.
There were definitely different scenes in the US and England. The US scene did come first, starting with Stooges, MC5 and whoever you want to name. The style was solidified by the CBGBs scene, which included the Ramones, but a number of other bands who got classified as punk, but weren't really, IE: Television, Blondie, Talking Heads, and so on. In 1976 the Ramone's toured Europe, and inspired the British bands, so it does go back to that. But the British scene solidified the concept of punk. Sex Pistols didn't invent punk, but the created the style, which was then adopted by the second wave of US punk -- Black Flag, Cramps, Darby Crash, etc.
I love John Lydon but his stories are forever changing.
To go back to the beginning of transgressive American pop culture, I think it begins with Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs. And then Hunter S. Thompson took it to an aesthetic limit. It's understandable that this kind of literary culture should expand into the sixties music in the USA: Iggy, MC5, Lou Reed.
Later the Ramones further this tradition in American music. The bands who defined Punk as a concept were The Sex Pistols and later Black Flag.
Garage rock like the Standells Dirty Water also an aspect of trangressive pop.
....and don't forget Alex Harvey....SAHB could also be classified as Prog....
"well, the name is Crass, not Clash"
Thanks... really enjoyed this. Brilliant stuff! Been checking out The Sonics....😎...thanks for the tip👍
Glad you enjoyed it!
John Lydon invented punk rock? No he didn't. It's a false premise.
You didn't support your statement.
I'm assuming that you think every single band in the world that was loud and fast before the pistols invented punk.
@@thepagecollective Music styles evolve collectively. People want there to be a messiah, but prominent/successful figures are the tip of the iceberg and are generally just the ones that had the timing, promotion, ambition and show biz skills.
@@carlton1390 I totally support your point of view.
@@carlton1390 "Music styles evolve collectively" is very, very vague statement and sounds a bit woo. "but prominent/successful figures are the tip of the iceberg and are generally just the ones that had the timing, promotion, ambition and show biz skills." This is the current paradigm where there are no brilliant people, only those who won a lottery. This is only to a certain degree true, but the people that do emerge remain significant. BTW: John didn't know he was inventing punk. He thought it would be funny to play Richard III as a rock star. That happened to define something labelled "punk" after the fact in a way no one else did.
So many people were involved in the formation of the Punk movement and just like Psych and Garage they had their own approach. It was a general feeling by young pissed off ignored kids from the US / UK and elsewhere sick of the bloated rock establishment to play music that was their own. Once again the press/media has to contain and control youth rebellion and package it like spam.
Andy .so glad you mentioned Budgie. SOUXSIE's drummer .I always thought "OMG.this guy's polyrythmic......brilliant drummer/I saw Adam &the Ants when he was here in NY.
I also LOVE Budgie!
When Andy Partidge (XTC) first heard the Pistols, he was disappointed at how musically conservative it was, essentially it wasn't anything new to the ear, firmly in a tradition, etc. More interested in those first hand accounts. When Chuck Berry heard the Pistols, he said 'I know he's angry about something, but I can't tell what!'
The Ramones posh? Bite your tongue. The Ramones were a bunch of poor kids from Queens.
At least one military brat in there
Queens was so posh that even the aircraft noise was split between two airports.
New York, LA and London seem to get the most attention, but the scene in Boston was really early too. The term "punk" was being used to describe bands like The Real Kids as early as '74. There was also the Modern Lovers, Nervous Eaters, DMZ, Willie Alexander.... etc.
all the Garage groups from the Mid 60's
Punk is a derogatory term coined by journalists. Both The MC5 and their little brother band The Stooges hated the term applying to music. That aside "punk rock" is as American as apple pie. The American leather clad outlaw motorcycle groups formed by vets after WWII start the early punk look and rocknroll/rockabilly of the mid to late 50's starts the early punk sound By the late 50's early 1960's America had teenage hoodlums known as greasers who looked punk but lacked a unifying music. Surf and northwest bands like The Sonics, Wailers are early influences They get replaced by the greaseless hippies and acid rockers whose garage/psych sounds of 66/67 produced by thousands of grassroots, mostly teenage bands, is ground zero for both punk rock and metal. Love, V.U.,Standells MC5, Music Machine, Stooges, Seeds, Blue Cheer, even early Grateful Dead (Cream Puff War) among the more famous of that time. In 1970 MC5 came to England to play the Phun City festival and Lemmy was witness to their high energy music and had the 5 in mind when forming Motorhead five years later. You have to remember that The MC5 and The Stooges were not very famous and would draw flies to a lot of their shows outside the Midwest U.S. and southern Ontario. In my opinion Cleveland Ohio is the birthplace of "modern" punk rock (influenced by the slightly earlier Detroit MC5/Stooges scene)with important groups like Rocket From The Tombs (Dead Boys, Pere Ubu) and as early as 1973 a band called The Electric Eels who were arguably the first fully formed punkers. They had the sound(simple, loud, abrasive and annoying) as early as 1973 with unreleased at the time demos as proof. They had the look(unkept, dirty, torn clothes held together with pins and mousetraps) and the attitude(violent punch ups at their few shows before being banned from most venues).So America gives us the sound ,the look and the attitude. By the mid 70's the Brits are adding the tasteless S+M look and attitude, thanks for nothing. John Lydon often uses the vocal styling of Sky Saxon of The Seeds. In other punk news, Sid Vicious was beat up and thrown down a flight of stairs by 1960's Shadows of Knight front man Jim Sohns. Check out American Vince Taylor fronting his U.K. band The Playboys on you tube doing "Twenty Flight Rock" in 1962 for a cool early punk clip. Punk rock is evolutionary not revolutionary. Cheers.
Have you heard of a Detroit band (all black guys- two were brothers) called Death. They were around very early and sounded similar at times to The Stooges- made me think it was maybe a Detroit sound. There’s a good documentary about them.
@@carlton1390 I heard of them years before purchasing their reissue a few years ago, they are Detroit hard rock legends. Check out one of our snottiest garage bands {you may have heard of them) from Toronto 1966 time period The Ugly Ducklings and their punky tune " Nothing". Its a rabbit hole of great bands and music when you go looking for the origins of punk and metal. Cheers
The phantom, love me 1958 could be a contender.
Honestly, to me, hardcore punk became the purest form of punk. For various reasons.
Like him a lot, but he didn't invent punk. In my opinion.
music critics did. The sex pistols were just a band and never claimed to be anything else
Stooges and MC5 were the earliest examples of the genre I heard
Good work again, Andy. Your class analysis is spot on.
He was just prog rocker with spikey hair and bad manners..... his favourite band was Van Der graff Generator..... ;) his total vocal style is a rip off of Peter Hamill
"Nadir's Big Chance contains anticipations of punk rock. In a 1977 radio interview, John Lydon of the Sex Pistols played two tracks from the album and expressed his admiration for Hammill in glowing terms: "Peter Hammill's great. A true original. I've just liked him for years. If you listen to him, his solo albums,"
MC5 "KIck out the Jams" 1969 is where it really started
He was a huge fan of Magma and Can too.
@@jdmresearch And Hawkwind
I got a bit of flak on on your overrated bands video when I mentioned the Ramones. There's no denyijng their influences on the early bands, but as somebody who was a teenager at the time no one we knew were listening to them. British Punk was a different animal to it's American counterpart, more political, a genuine working class movement. The only American band I listened to at the time was the Dead Kennedys. The Clàsh also, yes Joe Strummers dad was a diplomat, but Paul and Mick were also working class. I loved prog, rock and soul prior to punk but to us kids it seemed like the first working class movement since the mods and rockers. The country was in a state with the so called winter of discontent just around the corner and the music chimed with how we felt. Not so keen on some of Johnny's politics nowadays but he's definitely an innovator and his work with PIL showed his musical intelligence moving beyond punks boundaries. Big Kate Bush fan as well.
Americans cannot do punk really
And English people can speak English really 🤣
Alienated kids who felt disenchranised: The socio-economic situation was similar on both sides of the pond. The fast drumming, short songs, and snotty singing quickly spread and stuck. Is there more than that? (The platform for the Pistols had been built by the Clash, Damned, Stranglers' prior releases. Pistols came, capitalized, marketed, and trend-set before imploding. Lydon may be a dubious spokesman given his current far-conservative affiliations -- he's not the working class lad that championed those alienated kids any more. Why trust him? Isn't he just myth-building?).
The Damned put out the first punk single just one month before Anarchy in the UK was released. The Clash and The Stranglers' first singles came the following year. The idea that the Sex Pistols were just copying and capitalising on some 'punk boom' is a complete myth. They may not have created the punk sound quite as much as they claim, but they were entirely responsible for punk blowing up, as well as establishing the image and attitude.
@@RevStickleback Album release dates: Damned FEB, Clash APRIL (1st single MARCH), Stranglers APRIL, (1st single JAN), and LASTLY Bollocks OCT, all 77. What are you on about? Just plain lying. Sounds like you're the one trying to build a "complete myth"
@@carlomatthews6676 Try looking up the release dates of the first singles, not albums.
Got to be Rocket From The Tombs.
Andy I'm a huge fan and you really almost always provide accurate information. But you missed the mark on this one. The Ramones first played CBGB's August 16, 1974. I hope you are not saying the Ramones aren't a punk band😮
I guess they don't look like British punks but we are talking about music not style right? I'm not even bringing up Iggy and the Stooges. His the Godfather of punk. And I can appreciate as a English man your pride in the Pistols, but Punk was started in NYC. And we can agree to disagree. Remember where John Ritche Simon moved to in January of '78. The Chelsea Hotel.
The ramones sang too soft, more pop. They had no anger. Not punk at all.
@@paulcollins5586
So Sheena was not a punk rocker after all ;)
John Lydon, like most old pop celebrities, have had years and years to polish up their stories about their influences. He's a provocateur who is always looking for a reaction. He would say ELP are his favourite band if he thought it would get him some attention. I take everything he says about music with a very large pinch of salt.
I agree, "prog" was a label attached later on, at the time we called Yes and Genesis Art Rock, and Floyd, Hawkwind and Gong were known as Acid Rock.
I just liked certain bands. I didn't call them anything. The tendency to categorize was starting in the 1970s but I don't think it became commonplace until the mid 70s. And it set rock into camps. Camps inevitably war.
Regarding John Lydon and the Sex Pistols impact in Texas. Those fhat saw their shows in San Antonio and Dallas in 1978 say they never witnessed any musical expression like it before or since…..right to the brink the very edge of implosion and explosion.
I disagree. Lou Reed invented the spirit of punk along with the Velvet Underground as well as maybe even way back as The Sonics and then definitely with The Stooges and Iggy Pop. You also have to consider The Kinks, The Who but overall Punk Rock’s origins began with Garage Rock of the 60’s. Again: The Sonics!!!
To contribute a bit on dividing this from that, here's a two-part question, which didn't come up in the Chat. (1) How many English 70s "prog" bands had women as important members of the group. I can't think of one. Now, I know Andy could bring nearly anyone into the "prog" fold, but let's just talk about the usual "prog" identifiers (like technical prowess, "art-school" deserters, and so on). (2) Now, how many English 70s punk bands had a female as an important element of the band? A ton. And all-girl bands, too. I think that sharpens the edge to cut to the singular significance of the punk (DIY) ethos. The punk thing (environment/ scene) -- anyone can play -- was open enough for women to take the stage. And John had token girl J. Lee on the cover of Flowers of Romance, but he'd moved on past punk at that stage to get into his experimental "prog" thing (as later with Laswell, et al.) and that's when we started hearing through the grapevine that he and Levene were into Yes and Magma and all the rest of the prog scene which could never have been avowed in the British press in the 70s. Conclusion: John never was a punk, never invented it, didn't like it that much.
Rennaissance, Curved Air, Mahavishnu Orchestra Mk II, Henry Cow, Gong, Pentangle,. I would also classify Carla Bley and Annette Peacock as prog, Kate Bush, Zappa 73 band, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Variations band....
@@AndyEdwardsDrummer Thanks for the suggestions, Andy. I enjoy your take on music, and I agree on the Stranglers being more prog-psych than punk. First "punk" band? You (or someone in Chat) mentioned the Sonics -- OK, but I saw the whole teen garage thing in America, post-Beatles invasion, as the root of the later punk thing in the CBGB scene in the 70s, a la Lenny Kaye's Nuggets comp. When I was getting into "punk" in the late 70s, most people I knew pointed to "Louie, Louie" by the Kingsmen (others call it frat rock, but not their fault, Rimbaud on violins, right). Most tags naming genres are marketing tools, and the description is more important than the name, in any case.
@@AndyEdwardsDrummer I want to add that the relevant focus of my argument is not on girls/ women. That point was to bring out one feature of "punk" which makes it distinct from "prog," and to getting active in music despite apparent obstacles (which punk proved to be a mirage) and it's the idea that "anyone can play." This was what 12 year-old middle class kids did in 1965 to be heard on every street in suburbia in the USA. You don't have to play well, at first, but you can play and maybe you'll learn better how to play. Prog bands tended to have players who had some early musical training and serious chops by the time they were recorded. And crossing the proscenium onto the stage in the prog milieu seemed a tad more daunting than the access to the stage in the punk scene. A paradigmatic punk act was Keith Moon bellowing "I can play better than him" and immediately jumping onstage and taking over the rhythm of the Who. Apocryphal or not, that story (or myth) and the like inspires punk aspirations. You think "I can do that and better" and next week you're doing it.
hahahaha, everything is always Prog with Andy!! It is all music, all Rock 'n Roll, it all comes from Jazz, the Blues, Rhythm & Blues, Boogie-Woogie, and Gospel. Out of those came Rock n' Roll, Rockabilly, Country, Soul, Funk, etc, which laid the foundation the ever-growing types of Rock 'n Roll. If you told people these days that Hip-Hop/Rap had Rock 'n Roll as one of it's main foundational cores, they wouldn't believe you. Music is music, like Andy said, the narratives by the media is garbage, fabricated commercialism, it has very little to do with the actual music and the people making the music and their influences. If good music made money, Classical and Jazz would be the number one most popular music out there, but it isn't, we get fed slop, with a nugget of something good every once in a while. Same with Hollywood and TV. I am glad all those industries are dying, we have the technology to produce art of any kind at a cost the average man and woman can afford. Hopefully this will be a golden age of creativity, if everyone isn't to busy looking at posts about cats and arguing politics and drama online.
Looking forward to this one also.
I believe Mr Lydon was quite the fan of Peter Hammill’s brilliant 1975 proto punk solo album Nadir’s Big Chance. Mr Hammill is more widely known for his Van der Graaf Generator prog.
Rotten's trademark snarl is lifted directly from the last word ejaculated in said track..."smash the system with the SONGGGGUUGGHHHHH!"
I hated punk as an upper class kid in the suburbs....I am now just now diggin on The Stranglers ..cant get enough
It's funny because most working class people in Australia are from the Suburbs,and the rich live in and around the Inner City areas of Sydney, for example particularly around the Harbour Side Suburbs.
I think I invented the punk look 😂 I’m 62 years old and my mother has photos of me from 1974 wearing her green fluffy jumper big flares monkey boots with guitar strings as laces and orange dyed spiky hair, the thing is I was trying to look like David Bowie ,it didn’t go down well at school
You should do a show about Jean-Jacques Burnel, he was phenomenal... The Stranglers was my favorite band when I was 13 years old in 1976!!
Loved his bass playing and monstrous sound... heavy but crisp! John Entwistle was his mentor I guess ;-)
Hero by NEU! is more Johnny Rotten than Johnny Rotten 🙂
No one is more Johnny Rotten than Johnny Rotten.
Paul Weller said He hated Punk, when he was in The Jam
We get close to talking about it here…music comes from a shared love, empathy, and compassion. Punk embraced those that didn’t connect with other genres. Punk (as with most genres) is more the communal audience and less so the specific artists.
I don't believe there is one, single person who can hold that mantle. Many artists have contributed. The Stooges/Iggy Pop, The Ramones, Velvet Underground, The New York Dolls, Death, Sex Pistols, The Clash, and on and on. I do think Jonny Rotten/John Lydon did it BEST! 100%
The first punk type of stuff I heard was for sure The Stooges.That's it so to me they started it.Sex Pistols to me copied a lot of their style and of course turned it into a fashion,trend whatever !I think Iggy Pop was every bit as PUNK as John !
Well, I think Iggy Pop probably did but I do love TSP.
Invented punk - the panel give pretty much the same bs we always hear about "punk"! The bands mentioned were early practitioners of "punk", but really doesn't get to the "invention" part! Although, Gene Vincent is occasionally mentioned, I don't think Be-Bop-A-Lula can be considered "punk" because it lacks the attitude! There is no doubt the first "punk" tune is an instrumental, Rumble (1958) by Link Wray - it has the punk attitude in spades!! Followed up with Comanche (1959) followed up by Ain't That Lovin' You Baby (1960), followed up by Hidden Charms (1966)! Oh yeah, Link Wray!!
Strychnine by The Sonics is a must-hear. Proto-Stooges, for real.
And The Witch and Psycho
Tacoma Washington's Sonics are the real original punkfathers.
@@ronnelson7828 YES and YES
This panel was in desperate need of someone like Vinyl Richie.
Andy was talking about the working class vs. middle class thing, which is very particularly a British debate of the 70s punk scene.
I don't think the American punk scene wasted much time on those debates, at least until 80s hardcore.
It's definitely true that the NYC "punk bands" came from all sorts of backgrounds and encompassed differing musical styles.
Talking Heads were in fact art college kids, while it'd be tough to find anyone with more "street cred" than Johnny Thunders and the rest of the Dolls. Or Dee Dee or Alan Vega, for that matter.
With respect to the comments about Television, I would concur that they were more of a prog band than "punk" in musical style
It's important to add though - the personal style of Richard Hell was an absolutely crucial model of the protopunk and prefigured a good part of the eventual character image that was Johnny Rotten, whether Lydon acknowledges it or not (McLaren always did).
And Hell played with Television starting in mid-1974, way before the Pistols existed
The Pistols created Punk. There might have been certain stylistic traits that earlier artist shared but the Pistols worked on so many levels of intelligence and genuine anger, filth and fury they were the complete package. And the Pistols come from the English tradition of music hall, 60s angry young men films such as " the loneliness of the long distance runner" and " saturday night sunday morning" etc, tv shows like " The Prisoner" and " Steptoe and son", Glam rock and mod and beat bands from the early to mid 60s. Situationist art theory, dada, Anarchist agit prop etc etc Only Elvis, Beatles, Stones and Dylan equal them for influence on rock and pop culture and the wider society. Stop an average person on any street and ask them to name a punk band and punks... most likely they will say the Sex Pistols with that " Johnny Vicious" or " Sid Rotten"...It's doubtful that they would mention The Ramones or members of the Clash, Stooges, Patti Smith or the MC5 etc 🤔
Just because people are ignorant of the facts is like saying...the Brits invented Punk 😆.All those seminal English bands admit after seeing The Ramones on their first English tour,The Dolls & The Stooges musical change was in the air but of course the English always take credit for American Music they steal,er,copy.The only thing England invented was the monarchy & lousy food.
@@Joaquinonbasstheelectriklovein Not true we invented the Conservative Party, their blighted offspring is the Republican Party.
Looking forward to this one. Johnny was certainly essential in the creation of punk, maybe a genius if that word means anything. But I don’t think anything like punk could have happened without Malcolm either. In many ways it was his project. Both of them were necessary.
Again, punk started in New York and Detroit long before any of this.
Post punk art rock closely related. Great discussion
If Punk is seen as a socio-cultural movement impacting on music, graphics, fashion, cultural and sexual politics, and the means of distribution then I'd say Sex Pistols and Buzzcocks are the source.
The Stooges were proto-punk. As far as "punk" I think the inventor title goes to Peter Hammill. Specifically Nadir's Big Chance. Rotten's trademark snarl is lifted directly from the last word ejaculated in said track..."smash the system with the SONGGGGUUGGHHHHH!"
check out "Forsaken Garden" released in 1974 , when it speeds up Peters singing turns into the trade mark snarl.........
As an Aussie who came of age musically in the mid 70's, punk was the missing part of a puzzle that started with the likes of Zep, Sabs, DP - they whet my apetite for heavy music, but I was looking for something louder - faster - then all of sudden ('sudden' was slower in pre-internet times) I had The Saints here, Sex Pistols in UK and Ramones in U.S. I've tried to connect these streams of 'punk' and their emergence but I think a lot of it was coincidence...most people were happy with the status quo (not the band) but everywhere there were us outsiders who wanted something else...something more - and for different reasons. Eventually the tastemakers, a&r folk, promoters et al started noticing, cherry picking, and creating the narrative in our history books.
American punk lineage is distinct from UK and goes back very far.
Sex Pistols made a definitive statement with 1 LP several years into the trend. Wonderful music.
The fashion stuff was happening in NYC and LA before the Pistols fwiw. Richard Hell, Johnny Thunders.
Lydon was / is quite a bit more of a committed artist imo and if you wanna give one person credit, sure, put it on him. Everyone else before him, it’s just a partial credit situation: Jim Morrison, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed et al. Tho I’m partial to Iggy
Punk was an American word referring to lowlife street hoodlums. Anyone old enough remembers it being used in early 1970s US cop shows and such, or Clint eastwood in Dirty Harry 1971 "do yer feel lucky, PUNK?". The Ramones didn't just come up with the musical template of the first wave of punk but the image that reflected the word as understood in the pre rock associated American vernacular. A pastiche of 1950s latino street gangs, probably the original 'punks' in the true sense of the word. The British bands never reflected what the word meant though once the word was stolen by the NME and MM music journos it became associated more with the British scene. To be honest I think yob rock would have been a more appropriate label for British punk bands as characters like Steve Jones, Paul Cook, Captain Sensible or Rat Scabies had more in common with the working class football boot boy yob culture of the 70s in attitude than anything American.
Yep, I'm definitely old enough to remember that. The name "Punk" was also used for a distinct musical form in the mid 60s, and attributed to all the low skill 3 chord garage bands popping up in America at the time. Linguistically speaking, it predates The Sex Pistols by a decade. So either way, the Brits have have no legitimate claim on it, because the word Punk is yet another American invention they want to take credit for. Just LOL'n in good fun.
@@Datsun510zen John Lydon was responsible for an attitude and antagonistic way of thinking that became associated with punk but to say he invented punk is just embarrassing and as a Brit myself makes me cringe. There's seems to be so little understanding of British youth culture of the early 70s that looks into why people someone like Rotten came into being. That anger and apathy had nothing to do with what was going on in America but when the cultures met through music, the British version being initially more volatile and outrageous took all the headlines and the word punk was highjacked from its American originators.
I thought punk was slang for homosexual
@@keithparker1346 True, I heard that was prison garden for a submissive femboy. Thankfully, I have no idea when that use started.
@@roboi2241 There was mass disillusionment after the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers, MLK, Malcolm X, Harvey Milkand Medgar Evers. It was followed by intense civil violence in America and that was the spark for our Punk rebellion. I think youthful apathy, anger, and violence is pretty universal, and The Pistols gave voice to Britten's youth at the right time. This anger persists ih the US, but in the ugliest violence I've ever seen.
Interesting discussion which can ultimately be distilled to the subjective debate about good and bad music, but there was definitely a huge crossover between those that came out of what became known as the early UK punk scene and progressive, glam, pub and psychedelic rock. Those people grew up on such music, as well as reggae and dub, and infused it with a completely refreshing attitude that took this melting pot to another level. What's interesting for me is how many of the early UK punk groups refuted any claims of a huge US influence on their work before the following couple of years or so (say, '78 to '80) saw a broader set of influences, including a more pronounced US one, on certain groups inspired by punk. Plenty of post-punk groups looked towards The Doors, Television, VU, Captain Beefheart, etc. as a key source of inspiration (besides looking to other places, especially Germany) and had no problem stating this besides pointing out the Pistols or The Clash compelled them to have a go. One group very often written out of punk histories (and one I work with, hence focussing on this) is Alternative TV, who were founded in late '77 by Sniffin' Glue's Mark Perry. He's somebody who also had no problems bridging the gaps between punk, prog (he even collaborated with Here & Now), art rock, reggae, pop and avant-garde improvisation. Interestingly, he'd also contend The Ramones were a source of inspiration back in '76. Anyway, a very nice discussion!
I'm American, I was in high school in the sixties so I remember most of this. How far back do you want to go? Link Ray? It always struck me that there was always a lot of back and forth. Iggy certainly wasn't middle class. The countless garage bands of the mid sixties. I'm not familiar with the Sweet. T-Rex may not have been big in the U.S.but my brother had two of their albums. The Jam were not big but I was fortunate to be gifted with tickets to a show in Royce hall, UCLA 1978. Easily the wildest concert I've ever seen. People were ripping out seat cushions and throwing them on stage. At one point Weller came to the edge of the stage, leaned over to talk to someone and had his guitar pulled off his back. (A roadie retrieved it)
It's about time the midwest got some love, here in Ohio we had the Electric Eels and we had Devo. Not the first Punk bands, you may even say they aren't punk, but they were early and you can hear Punk in them. No one person or band can claim to originate Punk. It's a pretty large umbrella too.
Punk rock was invented by the guitarist who invented the power chord, and whose instrumental song got banned from radio play, LINK WRAY.
Iggy: I'm the worlds forgotten boy
the one who searches and destroys.. ;-)
Dylan going electric ..getting booed tour and mid 60's established a defiant attitude that was followed by the rest .....
The Cockney Rejects loved bands like Zeppelin and AC/DC, and also The Sweet etc., which reaffirms the point about those bands influencing Punk. The Rejects also loved the first three Queen albums.
The way to avoid the Heavy Metal genre was to move to Country. Don't get me wrong each to their own but, I couldn't see the nuances in it. For rock I could always go back the Led Zep or listen to Steve Earle's Jerusalem.
Thanks for the video. Your meandering thoughts are good to follow and you have a good sense of humour. I disagree with this prog thing you want to bring to the fore constantly but that's OK because it's a fun angle - to me it's a plot twist you created yourself ha ha. But it's good to disagree because it's just music and it's not going to harm anyone as medical misinformation does (you are my favourite music conspiracy theorist).
An interesting side note is that in Australia Radio Birdman were/are a very influential band that emerged with punk in the mid 70s. A big influence on them was Blue Oyster Cult's Secret Treaties, including naming their first album Radios Appear - this is from a song on that album by BOC. You mentioned this album recently and said it had something of a foreshadowing of punk about it. Radio Birdman came to mind instantly. They were also influenced by Detroit bands like the Stooges and MC5 and a lot of other stuff. You could find some prog in there if you really wanted to feed your biases 😉
You get it...thank you
@@AndyEdwardsDrummer Thanks for your response Andy. See the link below of Radio Birdman live back in 1977. The venue happens to be at the end of my street and I often think of this footage when I walk passed the hotel. They did not view themselves as a punk band but when punk came along it provided a convenient pigeon hole for people who didn't know about the Detroit and 60s garage tradition that inspired them. Oh and The Stones and Pink Fairies were another influence - UK stuff in there too. Along with The Saints they were playing this type of high energy music in 1975 even though they were geographically separated from what was happening in the UK and US at the time with what later became categorised as punk. Quite fascinating that this parallel evolution occurred in the mid 1970s.
John Lydon is very much the revisionist and I've followed him long enough to know his narrative changes over time and that his quick mind and insightful mind only go so far, and the insights change over time. It's all good because I'm not heavily invested in the argument over US/UK origins of punk. For me it was T-Rex, Slade to the Saints and Birdman, Stooges, Sonics, 60s garage stuff and then Swervedriver and similar bands in the 90s, some shoegaze, ambient music and experimental stuff. Although a musician very interested in music theory, prog is not in my musical makeup. I love Trout Mask Replica - you were very wrong about that album. It was meticulously rehearsed for months. Listen to the instrumental versions - Frownland is almost identical, an incredible feat. To me it's the most disciplined, funny, organic and musical album I've heard - it sent me off for years trying to find a style of my own after witnessing how original music can be.
ua-cam.com/video/uJ-tc29TRAs/v-deo.html
I agree about skiffle the history is pretty well documented where people would make instruments to play on and that line definitely goes through to punk, though punk is manifestly different. There are deeply intellectual books about language how much is instinct, can you break it down to an original language etc what comes out of these discussions is how music is so connected to language and thought. They say a belief in some spirituality is in every society. If there were a contest to find a society that had neither music or spirituality, spirituality would lose everytime.
If you think about it, Elvis was the original punk rocker.
I think the Pistols defined the image of what the commoner would think of as punk.
Ramones perfected the sound.
Three chords all meat no filler drums.
Although most would not thunk their image was “punk”.
Velvet Underground. Iggy Pop - No Fun ethos, experimentation and chaotic stage antics. Richard Hell - spiked hair, ripped clothes, safety pins and writing on his clothes, way before UK punk took off. Ramones - back to basics rock. New York Dolls' slack rock. Malcolm McClaren might be the link (bringing the ideas back from New York), though that's now fully knowable now. But John didn't invent much. He was just a really really effective/intelligent artist that inspired a British musical volcano. British society was a big element in punk's success from 1976.
As they played very few gigs, as a Brit I eventually saw the Sex Pistols in San Jose, San Fransisco in the mid 90s. They were both amusing (John) and a powerful rock band. The gig seems to have disappeared from historical records.
At the same time, there was New Wave, leading very quickly (1977-78) to, or overlapping with, a Post-Punk wave: Wire, Ultravox, Magazine, Warsaw/Joy Division, etc, and the 'Indie' bands of the '80s. Punk itself was very brief, providing a burst of energy, an injection of adrenalin, for young music makers in general. Whatever the hype about 'punk' (which was a very exciting phenomenon for me as a 16-17yr old), the outburst launched loads of genres that were more mature and made more long-lasting music. Good times!