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Never Mind The 25th Anniversary
jonerik writes "Considering that much of the controversy surrounding the Sex Pistols was centered around Queen Elizabeth II's silver jubilee, it's somewhat ironic that the band is now celebrating their own: The group's seminal album, "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols" was released 25 years ago today, according to this article from Reuters. Interestingly, although the album was hugely influential (and remains so), like most punk albums of the time, it wasn't a huge success in the U.S. at the time, taking until 1987 to be certified gold and another five years to be certified platinum. God save the Sex Pistols - we mean it maaaaaaaaan." Yeah, so it's not precisely topical - but still, whata band.
I'm not an animal!.
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: She don't want a baby that looks like that.
yep, you heard me. Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Circle Jerks, Suicidal Tendencies, Corrosion of Conformity. if you don't know them, shut your mouth about the Pistols!
I helped run a trash (pop-culture) quiz bowl tourament about 9 days ago, and damned if this wasn't one of the things they asked about (but not in any way relating it to the band's 25th anniversary). Sweet...
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Sex Pistols are great, but goddamn do I love Phil Collins. In the air tonight is a powerful, emotional song, buried in urban legend...
Whoa, sorry, didn't mean to get all American Psycho there.
evil adrian
has slashdot just discovered Reuters? Seems a oft quoted source recently (and by and large a good source)
have you ever taken the time to stop and actually realize what you are doing versus what you could be doing. i.e. staring at a computer display versus say going to the bar.
I like music, and I like /. I don't, however like /.'s music.
Why not post some real stories like missles being shot at airplanes and being caught on tape by a news cameraman? Or perhaps the coming cyberwar.
-Sean
I'm not trying to troll here, but I never did quite understand punk. What is the purpose? The punks I know talk about punk meaning not caring about anything and not conforming, but they spend all their money on punk clothes and releasing their music on vinyl. I mean, what is the appeal? Just what does punk mean and why is it so popular?
and they say "Windows is free man, Vince gave me a copy of his iso!"
YES, there is a McDonald's in Hanoi Square.
The Pistols were a marketed, packaged commodity -- the punk equivalent of the Spice Girls. Many other bands maintained a semblance of integrity, and deserve more credit: the Damned, the Ramones, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, hell, even the Clash.
What exactly is there to celebrate about a band that was all hype and zero substance?
Oh yeah, it is quite ironic that their album was released 25 years ago. Who'd thought that time would pass? I really didn't see that coming.
This page was generated by a Barrel of Circus Midgets, and that is the way I like it!!!
Visit http://music.slashdot.org
i must have fallen victim to a phantom post phenom.
If anyone wants to access over 600
gigs of modern day punk (not pop trash), check out http://www.unixpunx.org.
No, I am not affiliated with them. I
personally like Four Hundred Years
and Harum Scarum as well as Molotov
Cocktail and the Krays. Do as you will...
Hey. Goto the /. of punk sites, Punknews.org and check out their story about it. Be prepared for more dumb comments than you can shake an AC at though.
The Sex Pistols and all the bands that spawned from it seriously degraded music. As much as you may have liked their attitudes, punk requires no real talent -- they could barely even play a few power chords on their instruments.
Fast forward to the the punk-inspired grunge revolution, where hair metal bands -- many including excellent guitarists such as Steve Vai, Slash, or Ritchie Sambora -- were declared obsolete, and Nirvana's minor-key power chording ruled the day. No solos, no exotic scales, nothing.
Go forward from grunge and you have the mallcore bands -- my favorite genre -- such as KoRn, Limp Bizkit, Taproot, Adema, POD, Disturbed, and so forth, of which none know anything when it comes to scales, arpeggios, solos, etc; in many song, one string is played or bent. It's all about detuning and creating the proper timbre, not showing off knowledge of Lydian modes or doing sweep picking and so forth.
There are no amazing guitarists to look up to today, unless you listen to power metal (Stratovarius, Rhapsody, Blind Guardian, etc) or evil power metal like Children of Bodom, and that's a good thing.
Mallcore for life.
I get all giggly whenever I imagine the queen saying "Sex Pistols"...
heeheehee
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
that we're singing the same tune, but inserting into those lyrics...
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
Pretty Vacant for damn sure. But still I like Bullocks, it had a beat and you could puke to it.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I'ma punk, yet I run Linux on all but my gaming machine. What were you saying, again?
Banaaaana!
News for NERDS!???
... ..
The Pistols were never for nerds...
Many more like this and Slashdot's whole weltanschauung's gonna crack open and suddenly we'll find ourselves no longer nerdy...
Fingers crossed,
waiting...
waiting...
waiting...
.
Damn.
-dameron
Never liked them They suck.
:)
They were just a new boy-band for the era...
Now Ramones on the other hand... or the UK Subs
--iie1195
is nothing but a no talent punk...oh wait, nevermind
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
WTF are "punkers"? Did you mean to say "punks"?
I was listening to punk music while futzing around on FIDOnet when you were still begging your mommy to let you get a CompuServe account.
Why do you think we were called cyberPUNKs, dork? Go to DefCon and count mohawks some time.
I code, I hack, and I listen to punk, been that way since before you got here, will be that way long after you climb up to middle management and forget what little you ever knew.
I consider myself as a punk too, I guess. And I run Debian on my iron. And that was not trying to be a flamebait. :p
Most (other) punks I know seem like intelligent people to me. They have ideas and they don't drool too much. Yet they're not very computer-oriented, which leads to them not knowing anything about this Lunix thing. This is what bothers me.
It took Nirvana before the US mainstream finally started understanding punk. 1991 seems like a more significant date.
I once saw an interview with John Lydon. He said they had the option of touring the northern states. To him (or so he claims now) that was preaching to the converted. So instead they went south and got a lot of grief for their efforts. Who knows, if they had toured the north, their album might have done better.
Real punk ethics are for lazy white kids too pampered and drug addled to get a job, the kind of people who go from the suburbs to the homeless shelters. People who can't play instruments don't entertain me, either -- it's very boring.
Politics and music should be kept entirely separate -- idolizing someone like Jello Biafra or, on the other end, Ian Stuart can lead to some blind political choices.
The DIY ethic, distrust of corporations, and the "scene" are just anarchistic (which doesn't mean punk) ideals. Punk itself is long dead and still lingers in forms of trendies, poseurs, emofags, Blink 182, and Straight Edge Earth Crisis idiots.
Mallcore is where all the music is at -- real underground, pure enlightenment.
We nerds ain't so good at appreciating the most significant artistic achievements of our respective generations. Maybe more art-related stories on here would broaden a few horizons? :)
You are a total poseur.
the EMI song has a whole new meaning in the music business today it seems.
it should be the default song for someone's mp3 player like beck's is for media player.
or at least the 'emi goodbye!!!!' part
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
The sex pistols were just another pop band, plain
and simple.. They weren't the first punk band,
and they weren't the best.. They just got the most
attention.. They were just in it for the money..
Don't believe me?
Walk down Market Street in San Francisco. Absolut Vodka has bought advertising rights with their name to have pointless posters on every bathroom kiosk saying "Absolut Sex Pistols"
Just more commercial bullshit.
"And how can this be? For he is the
Heheh. I still remeber a few years back when they tried to do a reunion concert or something. They ended up walking off the stage because someone tossed a bottle at them. Just seems kind of ironic.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
REAL anarchists run free software.
Did I type www.rollingstone.com by mistake? WTF has this got to do with Slashdot? Seriously...
-psyco
Especially, since the same story is also on CNN: click here
Unless you they were speaking out against 25 year anniversaries or something?! (It's debatable whether they were really speaking out about anything, but it was a pretty effective way to sell records.)
Amusing anecdote about the Pistols -- they were originally signed to EMI, but were dropped after they said some naughty words on British TV. A&M gave them a deal but cancelled it a week later, after a couple of little incindents (one of which left a TV engineer needing stiches). A&M paid them £7000 to leave the label, which I think is about twice what my parents paid for our house, around that time.
Nice work if you can get it.
Recently in my painfully slow but yet required English 102 class we were forced to read an Essay by Graffin from Bad Religion.
Does anyone have a good quick timeline of punk in the USA vs Brit Punk ??
For some reason everyone had it in their heads that Bad Religion started punk in the USA
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Once upon a time a "novice" said "I like boybands". He was hit on the head by the guru with floyd Pulse. the novice was enlightened.
Now:
Hemos said "I posted Sex Pistols Story on slashdot." He was hit on the head with 30 moderator points from brak. Hemos was *temporarily* enlightened.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
I'd like to add that the Nirvana "greatest hits" collection was released today. Maybe there's some correlation there. Nirvana really helped the US population understand punk.
Yup, G.G. Allin has to be the worst punk idiot, ever. Even worse than the original punk idiot prototype, Sid Vicious. What we would need would be more Jello Biafra -type loudmouth anarchists. Millions of them, walking around streets, surfing the internet, disturbing WTO meetings.
:(
:)
I gotta say that Sex Pistols still rocks, sometimes. Too bad, it seems like my days of drinking beer with punks in the park are over.
And don't you forget Oi Polloi.
Wha? Are we talking about the same Sex Pistols here? The shallow exercise in media manipulation masquerading as YOOF KULCHA? The shamelessly-pimped whores invented by publicist Malcolm McLaren who staggered from one carefully-planned media event to another?
Sorry to sound so pissed, but... they were a band only in the sense that the Spice Girls and N'Sync are bands.
-----
PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
And Jello Biafra is a lisping pinko faggot.
RIP Ian, 14 Words, 88
In any case, anyone claiming to be punk today is only demonstrating all to clearly that they haven't got a fscking clue what punk was all about.
It was about broken glass, gloom and hope. Yeah, I know that doesn't make sense, but then again we're talking about punk here, OK? You had to be there, the early Thatcher years, the early Reagan years, the mainstream world hurling ass-backwards back to the values of 50s while unemployment was skyrocketing and mainstream rock and pop was more toothless than ever before in recorded history. On top of that both sides of the cold war had their fingers on the button 24/7.
The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones and the rest set us free, free from all the BS going on around us.
And remember kids: Never trust a computer you can actually lift.
i think some people miss the point when they talk about nirvana, grunge, ratt, etc.
the pistols weren't the first to shock-look at elvis, iggy pop, the ny dolls.
yes, mclauren did package them.
and yes bollocks is 25 years old.
but they were the last great shock that meant anything. mclauren packaged rage, not cutesy boys in matching suits.
case in point: somewhere in the midwest at a truck stop, some tough guy glares at sid vicious and puts his cigarette out on his hand, attempting to intimidate him. vicious pulls out a knife, cuts a hole in his hand. tough guy runs out of restaurant.
the british queen was considered untouchable until "god save the queen."
i feel like after '77, rebellion is pretty much rehashed junk in music, outside of those few great years of public enemy.
and ask the grunge bands themselves, what influenced them to just pick up instruments and play? mozart? get a grip. . .
Interestingly, although the album was hugely influential (and remains so) ... it wasn't a huge success in the U.S. at the time
:)
Nothing's changed... the US really seems to miss out on interesting music and picks up the trends years after they've become normal in the rest of the world. Electronic music is the current example. And it was even invented in the USA!
Most people in those very cities don't even know it. (Except for the savvy slashdotter, I'm sure
So perhaps this anniversary should be used to mourn how some things haven't improved (yet)?
I've always felt the Sex Pistols to be an incredibly overrated band. I'm not a fan of punk to begin with, but I can't really give the Pistols even basic credit for "inventing" the genre... The Monks were doing their sound 10 years before they did, with a slightly different timbre (same minimalistic riffs, same lyrics, but they used a banjo and an organ), and of course there's Iggy & the Stooges. I'm not sure what the hype over the Sex Pistols is all about.
The first time I heard this album I knew I was listening to the future of pop music for the pissed off. My friends hated that album but I told them that some day it would sound like middle of the road FM music. Just listen to any of the so called 'alternative' radio playlists today and see if that hasn't happened. Examples: Disturbed, Godsmack, Saliva, System of a Down. Commercial concept from the beginning? What a surprise! Some people just see the trends eariler. Capitalism does the rest. I liked it then and still enjoy the angry alienated co-opted sound today. Let off steam as you drive to work. Irony rules and you can mosh to it too! ;) Keep on Rockin' in the 'Free' World! Far from equilibrium stability rules! ;)
relax - go watch some anime, buy something from think geek, read some 'cyberpunk' ;)
It used to be a part of my geek/rock experience to listen to punk/ska/reggae/pop/electronic/dance....
There is more than one flavor of geek out there you know.
BTW:
I liked the sex pistols when they came on the scene. Of course I also listend to the damned, the clash, and many, many more.
Christ I sound like the jimmy carter of 70s/80s punk!
I say current, since we're pretty far away from 1976. And I'm not saying all punks (or free-software types!) live up to those values, but they those are commonly expressed values.
There's also a more intellectual connection via those who consider the Pistols to be the all-time Situationist art piece linked to anarchism linked to certain anarcho-trends on Slashdot.
Anyway, even if you dismiss the Sex Pistols as hype (true enough), you've got to hand it to them:
Punk Rock i have found in the years that I have been a punk rocker is more than Fast Cars, Loud Guitars and Easy women it is a way of life, it is a mind set, but according to people on MTV it is about Skateboarding and Drinking Beer with your friends, Punk Rock isnt a Fashon or a TV Show, it is not a concept on MTV it is somthing I have inside of me, it is not going to hot topic (or your favorite "Non Conformist" Store) and buying a Dead Kennedys Shirt, and saying "Anarchy in the UK Man" It is about trying new things and changing. It is not about Your Cool Tattoos (Even though I am sleeved) It is about being your own person and not letting people tell you what to do. If you wanna see a movie about punk rock go see "Another State of Mind" it is a good movie about the early west coast punk movement, or SLC Punk, is a killer show, but Its up to you.
-Shon
---
The Sex Pistols didn't begin as a packaged commodity. With their original bass player, Glen Matlock, they were an authentic band. It was only at the very end of their short career, when the musically competent Matlock was sacked and replaced with Sid Vicious, that they were successfully commoditised and sold as "punk" to naive teenagers.
Most Americans are only familiar with this stage of the Pistols, because it was during this stage that the Pistols toured America.
Do you REALLY wish for anarchy?
In today's world, with today's technology,.... You wouldn't last very long.
punk requires no real talent -- they could barely even play a few power chords on their instruments
Oh god, spare us the guitar-weenie pomposity already. Punk rock came in and washed away a pile of doodly-doodly-doodly "solos and exotic scales" and frankly, a bunch of tuneless *wankery*. And if grunge finished off the job, that's a good thing.
Playing music that resonates requires talent. Knowing theory and memorizing scales doesn't, and the former is not dependent on the latter. But you can't teach "memorability" in the latest issue of "GuitarYanker" magazine, so....here's how to play doodly-doodly-doodly in Mixolydian, dooooodes......
Steve Vai, Slash, or Ritchie Sambora
[sarcasm]Yeah, and the state of guitar art is so much poorer for losing the talents of Slash and Richie Sambora, innovators who have been unjustly passed over.[/sarcasm]
I mean, where's the mention of quarter-tone guitarists like you'll hear in ambient music? By the criteria you seem to be going by, exotic tone systems are a step beyond knowing which pentatonic scale D Phrygian maps out to, right? Christ, if you'd at least mentioned Fripp, I might have thought you even knew what you were talking about...
No solos, no exotic scales, nothing.
See above. This is a Good Thing.
Go forward from grunge and you have the mallcore bands -- my favorite genre -- such as KoRn, Limp Bizkit, Taproot, Adema, POD, Disturbed, and so forth, of which none know anything when it comes to scales, arpeggios, solos, etc; in many song, one string is played or bent. It's all about detuning and creating the proper timbre, not showing off knowledge of Lydian modes or doing sweep picking and so forth.
But by the same overgeneralization: Go backward from grunge and you have the heavy metal crowd, almost none of whom know anything about riffs, melodies, or songwriting; in many songs, 10 to 15 different riff changes are yoked together for no apparent reason except to present a facade of "complexity." It's all about showing off chops, like knowledge of Lydian modes or doing sweep picking, or copping riffs from classical composers instead of actual songwriting or experimenting with textures, timbres, dynamics.
I'm sorry, but the guitarists worth looking up to today (or yesterday, or 30 years ago) don't put such a cartoonish overemphasis on "exotic" scales or hyperfast arpeggios -- and the power metal bands you've named are weak throwbacks to a style that died out somewhere in the mid-80s. Ditto "progressive" metal; it's just hilarious, IMO, that so much "progressive" rock & metal, by placing so much emphasis on chops and theory, ends up trying to pretend that Yes and ELP and __(fill in your fave Shrapnel Records act here)__ is on the same level as 400-year-old Baroque music, even if none of these guys could write a memorable three-part fugue to save their lives. We've seen where that kind of "progression" leads: The Great Kat.
Now let's discuss real talent...
The Carpenters, Badfinger, Duke Ellington, Roy Clark, Yes, Tracy Ullman, The Moody Blues, Hanson, John Denver, Tony Douglas & The Shrimpers, The Oneders, Wierd Al Yankovic, The Cowsills, Don Williams, Stillwater, Ray Charles, Johnny Horton...
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
I am a coder, and a hacker, and I use Open Source, So Are you calling me not a real punk? If So, thats your choice. But just a question, how many engineers do you think listen to Punk at Micro$haft?
---
I feel kind of bad saying this, and i'm sure that it will get modded to shit, but while the sex pistols were a huge influence, they were put together just as much so as your cookie cutter boyband. Now the ramones, theres a punk band.
--Dextr0us
What people forget is that this is not punk. The whole idea of a punk 'uniform' is in itself against everything that punk ever was - or is. Punk is about rebelling about what one does not like, and doing it how one wants - sticking your middle finger up at the world, in a sense. It's not about mohawks and leather jackets - or about self-destruction, a la Sid Vicious. In that sense, as other /.ers have pointed out, the Sex Pistols were a Spice Girls band in nature, having been created by Malcolm McLaren, who failed in his previous attempt with the New York Dolls; however, having said that, the original motivation for bands such as the Ramones, the Clash and so forth is more about what punk is.
Punk music is just that - a variety of music, nothing more. Like it or love it, whilst it has come to represent, along with the Sex Pistols at the forefront the ideals of a generation of disaffected British youths, it is not punk. Hell, punk rock (to give the music a name) is not even English in origin - it's American...
25 years on, yes, there are still punk bands out there - by this I do not mean punk rock bands such as the Sex Pistols, I mean bands who have the punk attitude. And they don't even have to play punk rock to be punk. Bands such as Die Toten Hosen, to name one, is a good example. Whilst they may have a punk rock background, they are not punk rockers now - but they are still punk in attitude. Blink 182, the Offspring - ha, don't make me laugh. They are not 'punk'.
Therefore, in a sense, Linux users can even be considered punk - sticking their middle fingers up at Microsoft :)
I heard that your library burnt down and destroyed your only two books - and one was not even coloured in yet.
What a lot of you people don't realise is what a cultural revolution the Sex Pistols were part of, and how the authorities tried to stamp it out.
The pop charts were rigged especially to keep God Save The Queen off the number one spot, and the record was banned from airplay.
Retailers were actually threatened with arrest and imprisonment should they have the "Never Mind The Bollocks" album on display in their stores.
So while they may not have been the best punk band, they had a major impact on our culture, as what was banned 25 years ago is now perfectly acceptable.
Of course, a lot of the stuff that passes for punk on MTV these days is just bollocks.
"Information wants to be paid"
at least it's a change from "emacs vs. vi"...
HaHahaha,
Very ironic considering that Unix was ( and is) a creation of capitalistic society.
...but it ain't really ironic, now, is it.
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
had anything to do with what you were wearing. Like any scene it gets full of people telling you how its real one way or another but you could usually tell a brother/sister from a poser. The posers travelled in groups.
illegitimii non ingravare
It's been 30 years; give it a rest you jerkoffs!!!!
And take the fake hippies with you!!!!!!!!!
I'm glad there is at least one person on /. who can see through all the hype and bullshit that gets pawned as "punk" and is even remotely interested in talking about it intelligently.
You (referring to most of the posters, here, not pezpunk) say punk fans are stupid emofags, or sneering, mohawk-and-leather-jacket wearing bums who don't work? Plenty of them are, and I think most people would be happier if they packed up and left. Not everyone is in this for the fashion or because Carson Daly said it was a good idea on TRL. For every Blink-182 knockoff whining about losing their girl, there are hundreds of bands busting their asses every day after work to put on a show or write a record, to help other people through their day or try and come to grips with what's wrong in the world today. After discovering my local punk scene (Boston) I can't even listen to the radio anymore, the meaningless, emotionless drivel most bands come up with just doesn't interest me.
You don't have to like punk anymore than I have to enjoy electronica or hip-hop. I guess the stuck up zealotry so rampant on this site spills over into music too. But it just gets under my skin to see people bashing an entire genre and subculture based on a few bad apples.
As a personal note to pezpunk...your band is pretty sweet. I also noticed you're playing a show with Toxic Narcotic; I love Toxic! DIY in its truest form.
Rock over London, Rock on Chicago. Wheaties: Breakfast of Champions.
True in 1986, even more true in 2002.
I say to you now: Piss off you mal-informed, recidivist bitch.
Reagan was a domestic phenomenon and had jack to do with the collapse of your authoritarian, pseudo-socialist nightmare.
illegitimii non ingravare
Stiff Little Fingers
U.K. Subs
The Clash
English Beat
Madness
The Specials
The Damned
Sex Pistols
Selector
I have. A LOT. In fact, I've been to so many Damned shows, Cpt. Sensible uses me as his smoke machine (as in, "hey Jim, can I bum a smoke?")
The list could go on and on. Growing up in L.A. in the late 70's was pretty fun. Hollywood was crazy, and we would go on jaunts to S.F. for some shows.
OK, I'm dating myself. Midlife crisis. I just turned 40, and so did all these guys, and most are older than me, BUT.... These bands (with the exception of some of the cheesier ones) are the ones than spawned the same music most people listen to today.
-jim
A lot of people listen to tripe, nerds, or otherwise. I can confirm this by the fact, that I can only tolerate one station on the radio (NPR). You might think that it's rather arrogant to pronounce all of radio tripe just because I don't like it. The thing is that the world revolves around me, so it turns out I'm right :)
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
http://www.rense.com/general31/nyalb.htm
o ne .investigation.ap/index.html
o ne .investigation/index.html
o ne .investigation/index.html
o ts .senate/index.html
Hmm, wellstone crashed and the fire was so bad there was no forensic evidence?
They say here there WAS a cockpit voice recorder:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/Midwest/10/26/wellst
Oops, I guess there wasn't a cockpit voice recorder:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/Midwest/10/26/wellst
And uh-oh there was an intense fire in the moments after it went down:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/Midwest/10/26/wellst
How important is 1 seat in the senate to the Bush NWO agenda?:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/29/otsc.
"...Bam bam bam bam, buh bam bam bam bam...
I WANNA BE SEDATED..."
.
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
As far as I'm concerned, the day punk died was the day that Sporty Spice did a live performance of Anarchy In The UK.
"I am the antichrist, I am Sporty Spice..."
Oh, the pain.
Let's face it... Music just boils down to personal taste. If I want to crank the bass boost on my amp so high the subwoofers drown out the vocals and I don't even hear what the song is about, that is my (insert deity(s) of choice) given right. If I like the way it sounds, I'll listen to it. I could care less what skin color the artist currently is (or what color he/she used to be), what gender or sexuality or who he/she is sleeping with, whether or not they're RIAA-owned or indie. All I care about is if the song(s) they've created are something I find enjoyable.
I know this post is kind of geared more towards music in general than to the Sex Pistols, but the attitude on Slashdot seems to lean towards "My x music is more closely represents the genre than yours" or "Band X is cool until they sell out, then they're just commercialized pop." I can understand having a beef with a video card cause it gets texture flickering in the latest Quake-engined game... That's something you can back up with actual facts. Music is meant to be entertainment.
I can respect that your music tastes are different than mine. Arguing that your artists or genres are better is like arguing chocolate is better than vanilla. Do I enjoy any music The Sex Pistols have released? No. Am I going to point out artists that I think are better than the Sex Pistols? No - the Sex Pistols created their own catalog of unique songs and comparing them to other artists' different songs would be comparing apples to oranges.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
of the Great Rock and Roll Swindle. q.v.--
illegitimii non ingravare
Shut your fucking yap, eh? College-boy.
illegitimii non ingravare
I highly recommend Greil Marcus' outstanding book Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century to anybody trying to understand the Pistols or punk rock. And I forget the author but The Wicked World of Malcolm McLaren is a great book illuminating McLaren's background and experiences.
'god save the queen, we mean it Ma'am '
are the lyrics, ma'am being the informal name for her majesty the queen.
Kingdom of Loathing (www.kingdomofloathing.com) Addicted is me
First of all, touring the Southern states was not a mistake. The Southern states are where punk came from to begin with. Remember rockabilly? Yeah, that's punk. No it doesn't have sophisticated lyrics, and had no political pretensions, but the punk formula started with rockabilly: Working class youth playing loud obnoxious unsophisticated music with lyrics that reflected what affected their lives. Punk simply revived rockabilly, in some cases using the same chord progressions (just take a look at how many times the Sex Pistols ripped off Chuck Berry) with new lyrics to reflect the new concerns of the working class.
Hehe but that's the point, maaaan! You're there worrying about postmodernist intrepretations of popular cultural music, and _Sid_couldn't_play_ and _we_didn't_give_a_fuck!
What a breath of fresh air punk was. We all knew it was a laugh and it was taking the piss and if were in their boots we'd take the money and run! Skool kids wearing safety pins and singing "Frigging in the Rigging" in the school playground, punks on telly swearing at boring old middle aged presenters, bands that couldn't play a note and didn't care any more than their fans, the Metropolitan Police trying to ban the Never Mind the Bollocks album cover for obscenity and losing. Total breath of fresh air after the analytic self -infatuated prog rock triple album scene we'd had in the UK. Kicked against an incredibly conservative society and culture.
Wot a laugh! I think that's something a lot of these (mainly US) punk bands nowadays forget, they all take themselves terribly seriously..IT WAS A LAUGH! :-))
By the way, on your list of 'important artists' I think you missed the seminal band The Snivelling Shits.
victimization. Are you even paying fucking attention? Rush tribute bands?!? Are you insane? Rush tribute bands sound like Rush, you dildo. The Pistols are fucking incoherent!
Sid Vicious was a drug-addled sod who gave his last vestiges of self-respect and coherence to a meaningless pursuit of oblivion. He is an aesthetic saint and barely qualified to pick his own nose.
illegitimii non ingravare
Now I understand why my (US) gf surprised my (EU) sensibilities. She said she was really in to punk music when she was younger. I thought 7 was a bit too young!
You have characterized the entire bowel movement of their achievement in the guise of a critique.
In the immortal words of Flipper:
Mike, are you on drugs?
illegitimii non ingravare
"Considering that much of the controversy surrounding the Sex Pistols was centered around Queen Elizabeth II's silver jubilee, it's somewhat ironic that the band is now celebrating their own"
It is only as ironic as having 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife.
I'm unfortunate enough to live down the street from John Liden's son in Venice California. Jon stay's with him sometimes. On the few occasions I've met him he's been an obnoxious drunk that won't stop bitching about how no one is capable of understanding how talented he is.
JustBen
Take your aesthete wheeze back to the Village Voice. You wouldn't know punk if it kicked you in the nuts.
illegitimii non ingravare
1. They hated each other
2. They hated you
3. They made one stellar, brilliant album
4. They broke up
Now THAT is a rock band! Too many bands continue after the "plane crash album", sad really.
The hottest thing on the charts when the Pistols came was Hotel California. The trend would later continue when Nirvana decimated (and I don't mean grouping into ten) glam metal.
Sigh. It's time for someone to come along and decimate today's cock rock in the same manner.
In the sense that people tend to refer to it as a monolithic event when there were distinct phases with geographically and temporally secific characteristics. And the anaology is particularly telling in regards to what was going on in Europe and New York in the late seventies -vs- what happned in California in the early and mid-eighties --the RayGun dayz.
As a California kid from that period, the second period is real punk and it was only remotely related to the sex pistols or anything from
The point is, it's very subjective to say what is an important event in the history of punk. For me personally, it was when Geraldo Rivera did his ultra hyped 80's special on punk runaways living in squats in Hollywood. The night it aired, about seven of the runaways from the special were in my studio apartment smoking speed and watching themselves on my little black and white TV getting ready for a weekend of shows in San Diego.
So Johnny Rotten may be an important symbol to Hemos and Neil Young, but it's a bit of a stretch to imagine an international readership will easily share this point of view.
Oh, and I like McLaren's later work. It's all so subjective.
yeah, but they burn a lot of cash on groupie whores like you tevis. but the sad thing is they are really fucking pissed when they find out you have a dick.
I have seen lots of posts here concerning the commercialization of punk rock and about how the Sex Pistols were a commercial band, yet they suffered lots of controversy. Am I the only one here that sees the controversy as part and parcel of their marketing? Bear in mind that there was no such thing as an independent record label in the mid seventies, so any band that wanted to get their music out to the masses had to play ball with the corporate record labels. I bet that one day a record exec sat down and said "How can we really cash in on this punk rock thing that all of these suburban kiddies seem to be spending their parent's hard-earned money on?" And now, twenty-five or so years later, we are talking about the results.
I personally don't appreciate the Pistols music, but there was lots going on in the scene at the time and what the Pistols did was rocket themselves AND punk rock into the limelight. Essentially, everyone made out; the Pistols and their label made some cash and the rest of the punk rock and hardcore punk rock bands gained some notoriety.
Now, just because punk rock is another commodity that is marketed by the recording industry, is somewhat ignorant to comment that punk is just another fashion. This is somewhat akin to saying that open source is just another fashion. Just because there are charlatans in the movement doesn't make the movement worthless. Conversely, to those that whine about punk rock bands selling out - if you had the choice between a career doing what you love or working a sting of minimum wage jobs so you have time to spend on your passion, what would you do?
Just my view,
rdg
PS - it is widely accepted that the first punk band was the MC5. They formed in 1964 and came from Detroit, same as the Stooges, and were associated with the hippie White Panther Party who espoused "total assault on the culture by any means necessary, including rock & roll, dope, and fucking in the streets."
I still think of the old song "Submission"
whenever I see a button that says "Submit".
I'll never submit!
Like the article said "God Save the Queen" was a reaction of the "monarchist fervor which had swept the nation months earlier during the queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations". But now 25 years later its the Queen's 50th anniversary. She just did a trip across Canada and that fervor is still there but the Pistols aren't... sad.
you sir, are a stupid pompous old fart sir. elitist cunt, get a haircut
It's her golden jubilee this year... (ie: she's been around a hell of a lot longer than the Sex Pistols)
Slahsdot news for nerds and there is a story about the Sex Pistols!
Who says Nerds are geeks!
Or wait is it who says geeks are nerds?
Ah! Never mind the Slashdot!
Its a holiday in cambodia, don't forget to pack a life!
(I know I know chill mod monsters!)
DJMD - The fourth man - Planetary
Quite a few, I should think. It's not all a "neat-haircut-suit-and-tie" environment. You may not like Microsoft, but Bill Gates is wise enough to allow his employees working environments suitable for them.
Warhol didn't create the Velvet Underground. They existed before he hired them to do some soundtrack stuff for his movies. They had their own attitude and their own look - he just asked them to write some songs for him.
This was their first album, the one with Nico. They had 3 other ones, with the last one being the best of them all. If you listen to their complete recordings, you will see that their influence was mainly blues - a style that Warhol didn't invent.
And while he did help them get noticed, their earned their own laurels.
Fuck You.
;)
That's the purpose of punk
The 'You' being either conservative british government, or Fleetwood Mac, depending on who you ask....
Advanced users are users too!
"What? A band?"
Here is an example for you....
Welcome to 1984
Are you ready for the third world war?!?
You too will meet the secret police
They'll draft you and they'll jail your niece
You'll go quitely to boot camp
They'll shoot you dead, make you a man
Don't you worry, it's for a cause
Feeding global corporations' claws
Die on our brand new poison gas
El Salvador or Afghanistan
Making money for President Reagan
And all the friends of President Reagan
I hope that one day the Slashdot crowd doesn't ask how America became a fascist state. Well, the first step was the court-appointment of King George that started it all. I would like to ask that all hackers please find out the truth behind 911. It is too important to ignore.
www.whatreallyhappened.com
this shows that manufactured bands didn't just start with the spice girls!
i find it funny that the sex pistols were a corporate creation. much like the boy bands y ou see these days. yet, all of the punk kids who adore the sex pistols, are the first ones to cry sell out if a 'punk' band becomes popular.
Punk this, punk that... There seem to be lots of "experts" here posting what punk was all about.
:)
Me, I prefer the viewpoints presented in the movie "SLC Punk". As much as I like Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys, etc., I do believe that the majority of the punk movement was over hyped and most of the folks who lived the "punk life" were actually living a romantic dream of what they wanted punk to be.
Jello Biafra may be the one true exception.
Flame away.
..from my own point of view, and the points of view of many others here on Slashdot. The Sex Pistols were mediocre at best.
You know what's ironic though? Not the fact that their album that's 25 years old is now 25 years old (HOLY SHIT! No way!)..
It's the fact that even mediocre music out of the UK trashes the shit out of almost all the 'top quality' stuff from the US.
Man..
Yeah, you can hear the Monks in Powerade commercials now :) Still an awesome band, though.
"I keep looking in the want-ads under 'revolutionary' but there don't seem to be any listings.. "
Does anyone remember that 90's zeitgeist of "punk" bands like Green Day? I couldn't believe kids were arguing "Green Day" was "punk". Nothing against them... but how? Most punk thing that came out of them was when the singer said he "didn't give a sh--" about the whole thing. Just think... Dookie is 8 years old...
The sex pistols are not the most influential punk band. It was the austalian band The Saints with the single stranded that really started to whole thing. The SP's have to be the most over rated bunch of wankers to have ever existed. They only ever released one album, and bollocks has to be the most over rated piles of crap of the whole punk era. What the sex pistols were/are the masters of was the media stunt. That's a legacy to be remembered by, what a joke. There are loads of good punk bands that have come out and still continue to be around (despite the commerisation of the whole thing in the early ninties *cough* nivaria *cough*)It just sickens me people recon the SP's as something they are not. /.
Must be a slow news day on
... when it comes to music. Still it's sort of cute.
It was the 1976 UK tour that taught you brits what punk music was!
Sometimes that is what the Pistols sound like to me. It was no wonder they went on to cover Somethin' Else in a later incarnation.
But they certainly lit the blue touchpaper.
I disagree with the article though. Certainly Anarchy in the UK was important for the fuss it caused - it was almost written to wind up the Daily Mail - but Pretty Vacant was a better song.
I never quite understood the hype about the Pistols. Yes, they ahd some good songs, but at the time they were the punk equivalent of a boy band, which is the antithesis of what punk is all about.
Personally, I think the Ramones and Black Flag are musically far more important than the Sex Pistols.
English music is like a funhouse mirror of American music. While occasionally there are interesting results (The Beatles, Black Sabbath), it's mostly only a pale imitation with little "soul". The Sex Pistols don't hold a candle to American punk bands that came before them like The Ramones or The Stooges. No bands from England have ever quite had the visceral punch of, say, The Doors, Janis Joplin, MC5, Black Flag, The Pixies, Jane's Addiction, Nirvana...
Anytime English bands get popular in the States it's only because they're superficially exciting in an over-the-top kind of way.
Of course, American music is itself only a reflection of African-American music. I know that there are lots of black people in England, but they tend to be very... well... British. The black American has a very special creole culture that constantly innovates musically. You might think that punk rock is purely a white-boy phenomenon, but consider that the Ramones' sound is a simplified and aggressive form of 50's rock'n'roll ala Elvis and Buddy Holly... and Elvis' sound was merely a countrified R&B (country music itself was already heavily influenced by blues and swing at this time).
African-American music is always evolving in it's own direction while the white boys jump on a tangent and run with it or take ideas from their current sound (note the influence that hip-hop currently has in rock music). Occasionally someone will step into the white man's game (Hendrix, Bad Brains) and prove that they can still do it better.
Remember, rock'n'roll is just African-American slang for sex.
HA....Yeah...I actually got to see the Ramones at this beat-up old theatre in downtown Columbus back in 89 (I think...DAMN that's getting to be a long time ago...) The Dickies opened up for em...
ANyway, The Dickies were a blast, but as much as I loved the Ramones, they were just too damn strung out and wasted for the concert...It was damn near impossible to tell one song from any of the others....
Fun time to be underage drinking, though...
Sig currently under construction. Mind the gap....
You saw lots of punk shows. You're old. L.A. used to be fun.
A list does not a post make.
And, yes, I saw lots of the bands on your list, too.
Americans cannot and never will understand UK Punk
Part of the Sex Pistol's lore here in the sunbelt is derived from their legendary antics during their 1978 tour of the south, especially in San Antonio and Dallas.
Far better than their 'Bollocks' album was their
film "The Great Rock and Roll Swindle" - an interesting satire of themselves, and including a lot of footage about how they swapped between record companies after their exploits with each. Classic parts being the song with Ronald Biggs (the train robber) and the version of 'My Way' by Sid Vicious.
You are absolutely right. However, there was a gem hidden in that trash and his name was Johnny Rotten - McLaren even owned that name!
Listen to Public Image Ltd. This band had really musical talent and showed that Johnny was more than just a prop. With a good backing band, he put out some really good albums and great performances.
A few songs even hit the MTV crowd (FFF, Rise), but were just pop pieces to hook people on the album. BTW, I loved how he named it Compact Disc, Tape. or Album, depending on which format you bought. That must have drove the distributors nuts. At the concert, I bought the T-Shirt.
Great stuff. Give PIL a listen!
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
They were what many Rap artists are today: talentless yet managing to be passed off as art. >
Yeah, so it's not precisely topical
/.? What do the Sex Pistols have to do with anything else on the site? I sure hope /. doesn't become the new Tiger Beat.
I hate to be a troll, but how does a story like this end up on
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
I got off my plane from NZ in 1976 and fell into the craziest summer of my life.
I saw them on TV when Souxie (groupie) called the dirty old bastard a dirty old bastard.
I saw lots of groups in concert but I really can't tell you which ones because we were always stoned out of our heads, or drunk, usually both...
The 25th jubilee evening was a lot of fun probably because I watched it on TV and it was raining and cold as hell.
Wasn't there a song called 21?....
realkiwi
Who, in any field, in any time, has become "worth looking up to" by overemphasizing anything? By the very definition of overemphasizing, they are not presenting a well balanced form of their art. Who has truly cashed in on this strategy? Pee Wee Herman? Vanilla Ice? MC Hammer? RATT? All of these overemphasized some aspect of their art.
Taking this one step further, which you have avoided, what musical group is revered for its musical contributions yet overemphasized a lack of talent? The Sex Pistols? That's a joke. Nobody ever says, "This piece has a real 'Anarchy in the UK' influence." The SNL skit where a Martin Backpack guitar and a Casio keyboard are used to perform a minimalist song is funny because it embraces the same idea as the Pistols. They can't play, they can't write, but they can perform (for laughs or cheers). How is this any better than people who can play, can't write, but can perform? It's just as annoying and tedious. The crucial factor is whether or not a person can write. Those are the legends.
Dylan can play pretty well, but you'd never know it from most of his recordings or performances. He emphasizes his writing. Where has that gotten him? Oh yeah, everywhere. The same with Page/Jones of Zeppelin. Jones wrote the arrangements and Page had the skill to make the music immortal. And like it or not (here's my two cent predition) in 30 years people will still listen to Marilyn Manson, not because of the controversy, not because of the media circus, not because he had fake boobs, but because he's one of the very few people who made interesting albums in the 90s. The writing was good, that music will last. In the same vein as David Bowie making Ziggy Stardust, Antichrist Superstar will be a niche classic for quite awhile.
What else? The Velvet Underground had some very capable musicians. Did they overemphasize their skills? No, because they had phenomenal compositions that incorporated their skills into beautiful arrangements. In the absence of that writing, I'm sure they would have sounded like a book of musical exercises, just like Steve Vai does.
The crucial factor is not whether or not a musician has incredible skill. It is the writing which makes the difference. Some have it, some don't. To avoid an overemphasis of technical skills is just as damning as embracing an overemphasis of its absence. Either is equally superfluous to legendary music. Music lovers will be listening to Page's guitar sing on "Since I've Been Loving You" as well as Muddy Water's guitar growl and snarl through "Rolling Stone" for years to come, in neither case because of the technical skill but rather because of the song writing. Technique is cheap; inspiration is golden.
you're from columbus? I was just down there at the Queers show on monday passing out flyers for our show there next week(we're called The Conceited) It is so odd seeing people discuss punk rock on this website.
once you go slack, you never go back
SOrry, I disagree. I thinbk McLaren's greatest achievement was being in the right place at the right time and being a relentless and shameless self-promoter. The idea that he was some sort of puppetmaster is a complete joke.
The brain behind the Sex Pistols belonged to Johnny Rotten, period. It was his vision, his lyrics, hir personality that drove the band. McLaren merely hung on the back and tried to take credit for everything. As proof, I submit that once Rotten left the band after San Francisco, the Pistols essentially ceased to exist. McLaren's desperate attempts to breathe life into the corpse of the band by publicity stunts like recording with Ronnie Biggs were a colossal failure, and demonstrate clearly how out of touch McLaren was with what the Pistols were actually about.
I do agree that the album rocks. Great band.
I can't believe you referenced the Great Kat. Thats just amazing. I can honestly say that it never occured to me that someday i would see the Great Kat linked on slashdot!
once you go slack, you never go back
Very ironic considering that Unix was ( and is) a creation of capitalistic society.
Not capitalistic at all (by capitalistic, meaning Free Market economics).
Unix was created by a huge, US government protected monopoly. Namely, Ma Bell.
That makes the irony even greater.
Ok so now the stereotype for geeks is that they have to listen to antisocial music? I mean, I had a hard enough time trying to like Anime, SciFi, Star Wars, and Monty Python - but now this?
Soon as I saw the story on the front page I knew what awaited inside. Hundreds of posts from zitty geeks trying to be punker-than-thou by coming up with ever-more-obscure namedropping to make up for their lack of real style (or to pretend that they are actually old enough to have been involved). Drop the pretension kiddos. We all know that your Blink 182 CD is older than your copy of Bollocks.
I love how a whole new level of conformity has been created by the average bozo's efforts at individuality. It might almost work if your personal definition of individuality didn't depend so heavily on how you present yourself to others. I mean, what's the sense of being into bullshit like [insert pseudo-non-mainstream hobby here] if you can't talk about it to make yourself superior to your peers?
Kinda sounds like the Linux crowd, huh? "I'm so ALTERNATIVE by patching my kernel every day while you brainwashed Windows sheep meander in unenlightened tedium." Funny to think that if you had back all the time you spent tweaking and patching (for no good reason other than to say you have the latest version), you wouldn't know what to do with the workstation on your desk.
*sigh*
excuse the rant. caffiene has yet to be digested.
To understand punk you must understand that punk was born out of a rebellion against, the easy sounds of the Eagles, Disco, and Glam-rock. The "working class" needed to express their anger through a musical style.
Punk has always been rebelious. If you look at its history, it has sided against a lot of rather heavy political topics.
The great think about punk is that it's something different in every scene, and it's ability to transform to something new to rebel against popular culture.
Unlike the "Alternative" music of the 90s that was quickly adopted, and ruined, by corporate media, true punk (not this blink 182 shite) after 25 years still remains elusive enough to be considered the true alternative.
Punk rock is like abstract painting. Either you laugh at how talentless the artists are, or you admire them for their defiant pioneering moxy. Both are misunderstood for the most part, and
in the end, it's all your POV, there is no correct opinion.
free online diet tracking.
The Replacements did everything Nirvana did 10 years before, except a staged spectacle on MTV.
Their early years were as nihilistic ("I Hate Music", "Careless"), intoxicated ("Johnny's Gonna Die"), and rebellious ("Fuck School"). Along with this or in spite of this, they could also write compelling songs like "Go", "Don't Ask Why", "I'm In Trouble", "Color Me Impressed", as well as a big stylistic range "If Only You Were Lonely", "Within Your Reach", "Treatment Bound".
Paul Westerberg also didn't succomb to his own image like Cobain did and continues to make great music. "Mono" is one of the best records this year, and his solo tour was one of the best shows I've seen in a long time.
The sex pistols were a shameless industry ripoff of the Ramones repackaged with a psuedoshocking name. Let's hear it for corporate music. woot.
yesterday about you guys being big dorks. I humbly submit that stories like this are the omelette
I desperately want to get rid of the burden of a car, although this city makes that infeasible, so I may have to move (although, as a voting Libertarian, I'm also considering running for office to make changes).
What kinds of changes, exactly, would a voting libertarian like yourself suggest? Government programs like buses and light rail being inherently evil and all, I mean.
Nice things are nicer than nasty ones.
Hey this feels just like the old days.Cynical,arguing,wisecracking and reminiscing.
All the contradictions that make us a chaotic centerless brotherhood.We are the outsiders and dammit we like it that way.'course nowadays if i were to get a mohawk,id look like a fish with a top and back fin!lol,Punks not dead, it just smells like it.It never mattered who was first or who was most punk.we were just glad to be in it together.(so we could slag the straight edgers,lol)from the proto punks to the blanks to hardcore to mall crap,it infected,spread and mutated. all is as planned.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
The Ramones started the punk movement way back then and never really looked back from there. Everything else about the punk movement owes its life to those 4 young men from Queens.
I love the sex pistols and DK and Black Flag and all the rest, but The Ramones are the ones that are special...
Peace to Joey and Dee Dee
*** I had a
No. Rent The Decline of Western Civilization . A much better film, an attempt at a documentary of the Los Angeles punk scene. SLC Punk is a rather poor movie, more fantasy than anything (though the best scene is at the end when the 2 long haired '70s teenagers discover The Germs and their life is forever changed).
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
CRASS.
   
Winterland, SF.
I think you missed the point here. Saying that punk "degraded" music and that it takes no talent, is a very shallow way to look at music and at art in general.
It not about the medium, its about the MESSAGE.
That's art. Self expression. You don't have to like it, just don't go around saying crap like "It's not good cuz they don't have Lydian modes or sweep picking." WTF? Who the hell cares about Lydian modes.
The Sex Pistols message was very much boosted by their use of their instruments; it worked. So you can have you Steve Vai 12-minute epic jackoff solos. I'm not buying.
FUNK!
hell,for that matter find "smithereens" with richard hell."suburbia" by the same lady who made "decline".Most Richard Kern films.(some even have rollins and lydia lunch)"the punk rock movie" has kinda english outlook but hey.while we're at it lets make it a movie marathon and get "rock n roll swindle","repo man","urghh,a music war","straight to hell" and "dudes" ,all have been in some form or another punk entertainment or repellant.$24 and a six pack to my name,we're gonna have a tv party tonite!
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q =gg+allini n.html
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~ac139/ggall
"ladies and gentlemen,introducing the fabulous stains" has members of the clash and pistols in it too along with diane lanes lil titties!
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
From www.badreligion.com
PUNK IS: the personal expression of uniqueness that comes from the experiences of growing up in touch with our human ability to reason and ask questions.
PUNK IS: a movement that serves to refute social attitudes that have been perpetuated through willful ignorance of human nature.
PUNK IS: a process of questioning and commitment to understanding that results in self-progress, and through repetition, flowers into social evolution.
PUNK IS: a belief that this world is what we make of it, truth comes from our understanding of the way things are, not from the blind adherence to prescriptions about the way things should be.
PUNK IS: the constant struggle against fear of social repercussions.
Punks not dead just exploited.
Real punks don't call themselves punks anymore, just like the real hackers don't call themselves hackers because the word developed so much crap associated with it and there are stereotypes. Go figure.
...completely alienating their core audience. These guys are the ultimate corporate pawns/bozos.
I mean really, going from Metal Up Your Ass to covering frikkin' Bob Segar tunes? And then having the audacity to blame their flagging sales on Napster??
Fuck Metallica. Fuck 'em with the rough end of a pineapple.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
..... and STUFF THAT MATTERS.....
Sounds topical enough to me. 25 years since the Pistols sure makes me feel old:-)
Seems like.... bla..bla..bla
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
That, and shouting "Oi!" a lot... and getting beat up by boneheads.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
How true. Malcolm McClaren, a rich gay socialite, recruited a bunch of young boys off the street, dressed them up in gay fetish clothes, and millions of young boys around Europe and America adopted the gay leather look.
McClaren did the same thing with heavy metal, with the NY Dolls.
It's not a coincidence that the word "punk" is prison slang for "guy who takes it in the ass."
So, everyone sound off, who's a punk?
how about some real technology news.
Just read the band names: Sex Pistols, Butthole Surfers, Circle Ferks, Buzzcocks, the Dicks.
The funniest thing in the world in seeing straight suburban boys dressed in gay fetish clothing talking about rebelling from society and calling themselves punks.
I imagine all the rich gays who invented punk rock laughing over their martinis at their little joke.
as much as I loved the Ramones, they were just too damn strung out and wasted for the concert...It was damn near impossible to tell one song from any of the others....
So what part of the Ramones don't you understand?
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
Sad to see that so many have bought into McLaren's grand vision of himself. Do yourself a favor, read "No Black, No Irish, No Dogs", Johnny Lydon's autobiography, or see "The Filth And The Fury" and find out that Malcolm was just a self-centered wannabe artist riding on Lydon's coattails while simultaneously stealing every penny the band made. Don't revere this useless bastard!
Oh, and he totally screwed up the New York Dolls as well.
You wouln't have had your precious little shotgun-in-the-mouth moment to wank to.
Then again, if I had a wife like Courtney Love, I'd have done the same.
...Joe Jackson is marking the 25th anniversay of his angry-nerd pop classic "Look Sharp" by reuniting the original Joe Jackson Band for an album and tour. http://www.joejackson.com/newsfaqs.htm That's great news for anyone who thinks Joe's forays into "serious" music have become more obscure and inaccessible with each passing album.
Showing my age, but I remember when the album came out. Everyone knew they were a joke. That first BBC interview made headlines around the world. Yes they were pre-packaged. Yes, their schtik was to be as offensive as possible at all times. But it was funny. Nobody had ever called Paul McCartney an old fart before.
Nobody thought they would ever get their shit together to actually put together an album. And when they did, it looked like it would never be released. And when it was, it looked like it would never be distributed.
But the big suprise was that the album was incredible. Pure distilled venom with a beat. People would recoil when they heard it. It was shocking to a degree hard to imagine today.
The amazing thing was that this "punk version of NSync" went off like an atomic bomb. And the music business looked like Hiroshima afterwards. Don't kid yourself, they changed everything.
is something I heard on National Public Radio's _Morning_Edition_. One of Bob Edwards' humourous little zingers: that a batch of Sex Pistols' CD-ROMS were mistakenly labelled and sold as Lawrence Welk.
Mr. Edwards cleverly mused whether there was another batch of Welk mis-labelled as Sex Pistols, and whether the Sex Pistols fans were just as shocked...
It takes no talent to scream lyrics.
It takes no talent to play power chords.
STILL -- Punk is raw expression of pure emotion. You don't get that with any other much as far as I am concerned. When I play punk guitar or sing punk lyrics, man, I can't tell you how it speaks to my soul. Punk rock is my what sets my mind and heart at ease. All that Yngwie Malmsteen guitar masturbation stuff can't hold a candle to the raw emotional rush that punk possesses.
why on earth does NOBODY ever mention the Misfits?
they formed about the same time as black flag and have had a huge influence on just about every musician i know in the scene out here (nj/nyc scene)
-dk
Dream with the feathers of angels stuffed beneath your head.
For a paper like Reuters you think they would get their research right. Sid V was on trial for the death of his GF Nancy when he OD'd. Apart from that, the Pistols were the 70's version of California Punk, just a comodity with no substance. Give me the Clash (before combat rock the sell outs), or Iggy and the Stooges any day, however I did admire the Pistols for getting in the fast of the establishment in the ol dart.
What a twit.
Emerson Lake & Palmer had talent enough to write and play music you could enjoy if you actually liked music. Keith Emerson did go so far as to write his own full-length piano piece (on Works vol. I). That it wasn't his best piece doesn't mean he was untalented it just means his better work lay elsewhere in more improvisational work.
However the Sex Pistols never had any musical talent of any kind at all and _that_was_the_whole_ point_. To ignore that would be ridiculous (and frankly difficult to achieve for anyone not entirely lost up their own ass). The only remotely viable music or lyrics associated with that band was all ghosted by other people. But this is missing the point: The Pistols weren't ever about *music* at all. People who expostulate this latter-day dogma about how refreshing and revolutionary they were, are clearly far better at talking than comprehending either music or simple historical facts which not even the participants attempt to deny.
Check this out then:
unixpunx.org
http://www.unixpunx.org" - Site made up of exactly the people you just said didnt exist.
-kaitos
Cop this picture of Wattie (out of The Exploited) being dead serious in the 80s.
Yeah there were some hard edges as well, I got my copy of Dead Cities by The Exploited etc. (one of the best ever episodes of Top of the Pops on BBC, that was, when they appeared). Yeah the police moved in on shows and there was a fair bit of street fighting, but that first wave of punk really shook up the culture of the UK (sorry, can't speak for other countries), really changed things for ever.
Who cares if it all fragmented and moved in different directions quickly, I think that was part of its success. It was always a lot of people with a lot of ideas, and we had some damn fine silly fun in the 80s as well as the angry stuff as well. "Where's Captain Kirk?" by Spizzenergi, anybody?
* This is complicated. Has to do with interrupts. Thus, I am :-P
* scared witless. Therefore I refuse to write this function.
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