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.

Comments

She was a girl from birmingham

[Anonymous Coward]

Bodiiiieeesss!

• • WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWWWW
    
    I'm not an animal!.
    
    Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
    Reason: She don't want a baby that looks like that.
    
    

Re:She was a girl from birmingham

[jacobito]

figures some clueless moderator would rate this as off-topic...

Haha, what timing

[Raul654]

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...

Re:Haha, what timing

[kaas]

Given the incredible number of people who read slashdot, I bet other coincidences like this one are pretty widespread. I wouldn't be suprised if a bunch of people are listening to this album when they first read this story.

Re:Haha, what timing

[Mr_Dyqik]

I was listening to Our Lady Peace's Spiritual Machines when the Rob Kurzweil story appeared a while back. It was just on one of the reading's from the book when I loaded /.

Re:Haha, what timing

[matvei]

I wouldn't even count that as a coincidence. If the headline had appeared on slashdot at the same moment, or at least the same day you had the quiz, then that would be something.

Entertainment and music related stories come up quite often on slashdot so the chance of slashdot having a story which relates to a certain question in your quiz in the next 2 weeks isn't that slim. ;-)

Phil Collins

[Evil Adrian]

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.

Re:Phil Collins

[fraggleyid]

Shouldn't it be renamed "In the Ear Tonight"?

Re:Phil Collins

[JimPooley]

Phil Collins? He's talking nonce sense...

Re:Phil Collins

[bjb]

I'll agree that Phil was a "lame excuse" for Peter Gabriel when talking about when he replaced Peter as the singer for Genesis in 1976. However, two things:

1. It was generally approved by the fans that someone from inside the group replaced Peter rather than having some outsider come in and try to act like Peter. I personally prefer 1970-1975 Genesis myself, but then again, the 1976-1980 music isn't all that bad either.
2. Phil a weak drummer? I disagree. Phil was QUITE a drummer, however, once he started with the lead singer position, he "stopped playing drums", as I like to put it. Once Genesis started going more commercial, their music became the lame 4/4 stuff which doesn't allow for good (interesting) drumming.

Just a rant, and off-topic, but I had to respond to this one..

Re:Phil Collins

[litui]

That's a terrific page on the whole, man. Thanks for linking. That made my day.

Re:Phil Collins

[Evil Adrian]

Well, hold on now. Phil Collins wasn't a lame excuse for Peter Gabriel. Gabriel is a phenomenal, phenomenal talent, I would never argue against that. But don't sell Phil Collins short -- his was the voice on the hits, his voice and songwriting made them superstars.

And Phil Collins, also, is one of the best drummers I have ever heard, period! Even when he took over the vocals, he still played the drums on their albums -- have a listen, he's playing a triggered kit for sure, but it's him. Land of Confusion, enough said.

Reuters. Reuters. Reuters.

[daniel2000]

has slashdot just discovered Reuters? Seems a oft quoted source recently (and by and large a good source)

Re:Reuters. Reuters. Reuters.

[FattMattP]

has slashdot just discovered Reuters? Seems a oft quoted source recently (and by and large a good source)

Well, we have to post something while waiting for a new story from the Register.

Re:Reuters. Reuters. Reuters.

[jdunlevy]

As in song on Wire's Pink Flag? Another 25th anniversary coming up -- in December!

Who cares?

[smoondog]

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

Re:Who cares?

[darkov2]

Yeah, like stories about mindless UFO sightings are more relevent than a bank you can thank if you listened to any pop or rock in the last tweny years. Maybe if you don't like it you should stop reading slashdot and talk to your shrink about your paranoid tendencies.

Re:Who cares?

[smoondog]

I'm usually a solid skeptic, actually. This case seems to be at least at some level, legit. I'm really surprised this wasn't national news a few days ago when the story broke. It seems with the controversy surrounding other incidents and the current political climate would motivate more attention to this.

-Sean

Re:Who cares?

[Jaysyn]

I heard about it on CNN, that's not national where you are?

Jaysyn

Huh.

[global_diffusion]

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?

Re:Huh.

[leviramsey]

Punk and metal are both subcultures which consider themselves to be outsiders but have both developed fairly rigid (and sometimes contradictory) musical and sociological codes, with artists and fans judged to some extent on how much they stay within the codes.

Metallica, for instance, is reviled for being perceived as having broken the metal code (some portions of which they revised and extended in the 80's) with the Loads.

Re:Huh.

[antistuff]

you just dont know the right punks. get out of the suburbs and into the ghettos.

Re:Huh.

[HP LoveJet]

Rent the movie SLC Punk! . All will be explained, and rather divertingly at that.

Re:Huh.

[pezpunk]

actually i didn't really see SLC Punk as a movie about punk rock, per se. in fact, it really only uesd the whole "explaining punk rock" and "chaos theory" ramblings as a metaphor for one person's (stevo's) own personal internal conflict and evolution. i thought it was a lot more about self discovery then it was about punk rock.

damn good flick, tho. fun characters, fun movie.

Re:Huh.

[Kierthos]

Well, I'd also say that part of Metallica's loss of "credibility" among metal fans has to do with:

1) Starting their rise to fame on the power of bootlegs passing between fans, but slamming Napster once they were famous.

2) Jason Newstead leaving the group, for various reasons. (What, you think I listened to Metallica for Lars' drumming?)

Kierthos

Re:Huh.

[forty_two]

I'm not trying to troll here, but I never did quite understand punk. What is the purpose?

Being a (more or less) grown up punk, I feel I can say with authority that the purpose of suburban punk is to give kids a cultural alternative. Great, yay, more power to them, they can buy blink 182 records and spank it to gwen stefani posters. For me at least, the "mainstream punk" of the time (Nirvana, et al) led into a broad appreciation of everything from GG Allin to Frank Zappa. But that's just the music part, of course. I adopted a lot of values from the music that made sense to me. I might have cared whether my green liberty spikes were high enough when I was 16, but I certainly wouldn't now. I don't even bother to comb my hair anymore. I just can't force myself to give a shit what a bunch of dead cells growing out the top of my head looks like. Clothes? Who gives a shit. If it's under $5.00 it's got my name on it, as long as it properly conceals whatever part of my body culture dictates must be concealed from public view. I spend most of my money that doesn't go to rent or food on computer hardware and musical equipment...things that assist me in creative endeavors. 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).

I credit punk with planting the seeds of self-reliance, government/authority distrust, "I don't give a fuck"-ness, and thrift in my head as a kid. A lot of people apparently have none of these, although the /. crowd seems fairly liberal in that regard. Whether you like punk music or not (and I happen to) you probably are more in line with punk philosophy than you realize, even if you're to afraid to actually do it.

You'd be surprised how easy it is to get people to take you seriously, no matter what you look like, when you know how to get shit done.

Re:Huh.

[dachau]

Rather, believing in the do-it-yourself ideal (which can be connected to supporting open source) and not taking things for granted without processing them personally first. Of course, there are people who think it just as a fashion statement, or just as a genre in music - can't be helped. Yet personally I believe the truth is something far more bigger, extending all the way to a philosophy, a way of life, consisting the things I mentioned earlier, for instance. And there are about many definitions of what punk "contains" as there are people who define. Anarchistic freedom?

Re:Huh.

[mabinogi]

> Starting their rise to fame on the power of bootlegs passing between fans, but slamming Napster once they were famous.

Those that believed that Metallica had lost credibility, believed it long before (like 10 years before) napster....

Those that didn't, couldn't give a shit....

Number 2 is pretty much right though...

Re:Huh.

[Warshadow]

2) Jason Newstead leaving the group, for various reasons. (What, you think I listened to Metallica for Lars' drumming?)

I sure hope you didn't listen to it for Newsteads horrid bass playing.

Wanna hear a real bassist? Pickup some Manowar and listen to Joe DeMaio.

Re: Huh.

[Black Parrot]

> I'm not trying to troll here, but I never did quite understand punk. What is the purpose?

Rebellion. It's a common theme in pop music. Sometimes the rebellion is against society at large; at other times it is merely a musical rebellion. And the musical rebellions can be against either styles or institutions. It seems to me that terms like "new wave" and "alternative" are clearly intended to mean "not the BOF stuff your uncle listens to".

Just a couple of historical notes that I find interesting:

By 1976 Pete Townshend was already refering to himself as a BOF in interviews, though his own band had been considered outrageous a mere decade before. He seems to have seen the punk movement as a changing of the guard. For one of the songs on his band's '76 album he penned these words -

So goodbye all you punks, stay young and stay high;
Give me my checkbook and I'll crawl off to die.

He may have seen this situation developing as early as '73, where the song "The Punk vs. the Godfather" on Quadrophenia seems to be an overlay of two conflicting metaphors, one portraying himself as the punk and the music industry as the godfather, but another portrying himself as a musical godfather and the upcoming generation of new bands as the rebellious punks -

GODFATHER:
...
And yet I live your future out
By pounding stages like a clown.
And on the dance floor broken glass,
The bloody faces slowly pass,
The numbered seats in empty rows -
It all belongs to me, you know.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Re:Huh.

[flyneye]

jeez, i remember SLC Punk as being the movie that hit just a lil too close to home for my friends and i, who survived the 80s.it was a documentary for the H/C era.Most of that stuff happened to us as i suspect it did to any outsider yobbo who was stuck in a bullshit lil city with NOOOOOOO FUTUUUURE.All the social situations,the friend who trips out of the game completely,the ones who just died.jeez that was a spooky movie.I really did prefer the days when I was part of "the blank generation" Punk wasnt necessarily politically motivated and didnt have a buncha stupid rules.it was just a reflection of the hopelessness felt during end of the cold war by the rightfully cynical."where were you in '77" pistols were great but we already had Ramones,Suicide,Richard Hell,James Chance,the NY Dolls,Television,etc.My Beef is the kiddies who think the pistols invented it."c'mon granpa iggy,tell us about the ol' days

Re:Huh.

[katarac]

3) Cutting their hair.

Oh c'mon, you know you were thinking it.

Re:Huh.

[mr_gerbik]

2) Jason Newstead leaving the group, for various reasons. (What, you think I listened to Metallica for Lars' drumming?)

... but you listened to them for Jason's bass playing? Kirk, Lars and James are the core talent behind Metallica -- not to mention the only three original members. Don't forget that Jason was just Cliff Burton's replacement after his death.

Re:Huh.

[leviramsey]

... but you listened to them for Jason's bass playing? Kirk, Lars and James are the core talent behind Metallica -- not to mention the only three original members. Don't forget that Jason was just Cliff Burton's replacement after his death.

The following people have been members of Metallica at one time or another (I'm not including people who played with the band for only a few concerts as guests, or James' guitar tech who played his parts after the Montreal incident):

• Lloyd Grant: lead guitarist on the original demo
• Ron McGovney: bassist; friend of James Hetfield from high school; beame a bassist in a string of LA-area punk bands after being kicked out.
• Jef Warner: rhythm/lead guitarist; at this time, Metallica was a 5-piece band and James Hetfield only did vocals (at various points between 1981 and 1985, James Hetfield was not confident of his ability to play rhythm and sing at the same time, so various people were brought in to either sing or play rhythm)
• Dave Mustaine: lead guitarist; kicked out just prior to recording Kill 'Em All; would later found Megadeth; Mustaine has since made up with Lars, Kirk, and Jason and has often talked of wanting to do a reunion show/tour, with Megadeth bassist Dave Ellefson taking over the bass duties.
• Cliff Burton: bassist; some have referred to Cliff as the Jimi Hendrix of bass; due to his unique skills, several songs from the first three albums have yet to be played live and probably never will be, including, alas, the majestic "Orion".

Jason Newsted didn't contribute much to the music; in about half the songs recorded in his tenure, the bass is virtually inaudible, and most of the remaining songs simpl feature Jason doubling James' riff. Jason, however, being a fan of Metallica became the member who was the most into hanging out with the fans. After every concert, you could hang out with Jason. In concert, he was the energy on stage. "Creeping Death" will never be the same without Jason's "DIE DIE DIE DIE FUCKER!" chant during the "Die by my hand..." section.

The only member that Metallica couldn't survive without, imho, is James Hetfield; his lyrics, voice, and riffs are probably the soul of the band. Lars' drumming is nothing to write home about, though he generally gets into a good groove with James (who is basically the creative center of the band). Kirk's solos are written half the time by James and embellished by Kirk.

Re:Huh.

[GreggBert]

Disaffected youth in black leather jackets, torn t-shirts and strange hair, singing songs about Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. What's not to understand.......1,2,3,4

Re:Huh.

[antistuff]

any punk who can afford to live in manhattan is just...wrong...

Re:Huh.

[kubrick]

I'm not trying to troll here, but I never did quite understand punk. What is the purpose?

Three weeks where everyone thought they were the shit, and 25 years of a subculture following those patterns because people are sheep.

That's my guess, anyway. :)

Re:Huh.

[JebusIsLord]

Lou Reed, the archtype, the proto-punk himself, was from Manhattan, as was his band the Velvet Underground.

Re:Punkers don't do opensource

[thilmony]

and they say "Windows is free man, Vince gave me a copy of his iso!"

Sex Pistols were a farce

[An Ominous Cowherd]

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?

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

They were a conceptual, situationist art experiment by Malcolm McLaren. I know it all sounds pompous, when referring to four yobs, only one of whom could even grasp "situationist" ans an idea...

McLaren was self-referentially, critiqueing the packaging and marketing of popular culture - by packaging and marketing something repellent and contrary to that culture. He demonstrated the obvious - blind greed is the paramount value of culture as industry.

God help me! I sound like fscking Julie Burchill!

Cash from Chaos

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[bobdinkel]

It doesn't really matter that they "were a marketed, packaged commodity". Farce or not, the Sex Pistols were|are a huge influence for a number of bands. How many kids started bands because of the Sex Pistols? How many of those bands do you listen to today?

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[ni5mo]

Everone knows they were manufactured, but that doesn't detract from the fact that they were an important band. They were still very influential whether you like it or not. The whole point was to not give a shit and laugh at the establishment. Lets face it, they gave the kids what they wanted.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[An Ominous Cowherd]

Yeah, I seem to recall the Clash's integrity last time I saw that Jaguar commercial with London Calling in it.

I said "semblance" of integrity. Tough to name any bands from the 75-78 period that didn't sell out, unless they broke up.

Maybe Mick's finally getting his teeth fixed.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[Malc]

I think the Sex Pistols did the UK a lot of good. Back at the end of the 70's, society was still *very* conservative. The Sex Pistols were extremely shocking to a lot of people. When they tried to tour the UK, they only managed 4 gigs due to the outcry against them. Like many other forms of art, controversy gets people talking. They helped changed many people's attitudes - rather than taking the English approach of ignoring the sub-culture and pretending it didn't exist and our children weren't involved, people were forced to deal with it. "God Save the Queen" reaching #1 (although it wasn't acknowledged by the BBC at the time) made huge statements about the establishment.

Of course, John Lyndon will say it was all about introducing something interesting in to people's boring lives... and he was probably right. We're sitting here talking about it today, aren't we?

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[An Ominous Cowherd]

Sure, their Johnny Thunders / Iggy / Lou Reed / NY Dolls / Ramones / Damned / take your pick -derivative two chord masterpieces hopefully turned people on to other bands that actually mattered. Yay, Pistols!

Me, I always felt like something was missing with them, even as a kid. Felt strangely empty after listening to NMTB, sort of like after an episode of King of Queens. Felt like I'd been had, somehow. Not so with say, Rocket to Russia, or (in my sXe period) The Crew. For me the Pistols weren't the first punk band I heard, that dubious honor goes to Johnny, Marky, DeeDee, and Joey.

Cos every star that shines in the back of your mind is just waitin' for his cover to be blown

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[RevAaron]

The Pistols weren't the first "punk" I had listened to, but when I finally got around to it, I was sure disappointed. Compared to all the stuff I was listening to before, it was utter shit. I can't say I've ever listened through the entire 'Bullocks album more than once, and that time was immiately after a friend gave it to me (he was sick of having it as baggage).

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[JamesOfTheDesert]

How many kids started bands because of the Sex Pistols?

Well, I started a band because of Richard Hell.

We can thank him for the whole punk look (spiky hair, torn clothes, safety pins) as well.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[caseyc]

The Sex Pistols were years ahead of their time, though, in trying to market punk rock as a fashion trend. That's something that's really only begun to be exploited within the past few years.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[zazas_mmmm]

There's no question that Malcolm McLaren created the Sex Pistols as, as you put it, "an...art experiment", but this is no reason to be dismissive about the Pistols' music and importance, and McLaren's legitimacy.

McLaren was a force in the cutting edge of 1970s music and culture, from managing the New York Dolls, to coining the term "punk rock" (though his forays into rap in the 80s are a disgrace...Buffalo Girls? Puh-lease). Malcolm McLaren sowed the fertile and largely underexplored ground of pop-proletarian art. Note the Da-daist artwork on the cover of "Never Mind the Bollocks" harkening back to the art radicalism and anti-modernism of the early 20th century.

In many ways McLaren's role with the Sex Pistols is no different than Andy Warhol's role with the Velvet Underground. McLaren got together 4 musicians (and I refer to the original line-up since Sid hardly qualifies for the M word), gave them a look, an attitude, and a subject line. Where Warhol gave VU the topic of S&M, McLaren gave the Pistols the topic of nihilism. Mind you, I'm not calling McLaren the greatest innovator in the history of music--since in fact he borrowed his turn of the century proletarian radicalism from Richard Hell and Lydia Lunch (who invented the ripped clothing and safety pin look copying the turn of the century Bohemians and whose writings borrow heavily from the turn of the century radical art and poetry).

But listen to how "Never Mind the Bollocks" brings it all together: the musical minimalism, the snarling proletarian, vaudvillian lyrics, the Dadaist artwork. It's a true classic in the history of Rock.

I could name a handful of other, more important artists and albums from within a 5 year period (Television, The Clash,The Ramones,The Birthday Party, Gang of Four, etc., etc.) but that doesn't mean that Mclaren, the Pistols, and "Never Mind the Bollocks" aren't legit.

Oh yeah, and the album rocks.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[SexyKellyOsbourne]

It's ironic how all the punks who need to get a job always claim to be anti-corporate, DIY idiots, but the bands they worship like The Sex Pistols, The Dead Kennedys, and The Misfits were nothing but manufactured fashion trends, just like people always try to accuse my favorite bands (Limp Bizkit, Crazy Town, Spineshank, Slipknot, etc) of being.

It just shows what pretentious, misguided idiots all these "dirty street punks" from the suburbs really are.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[Anthracks]

Would you kindly point out to me any kind of factual basis for saying the Misfits or Dead Kennedys were manufactured or "put together" by some manager? To my knowledge this is blatantly untrue.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[JimPooley]

Bollocks, not bullocks, you fool!!!

Bullocks don't HAVE bollocks!

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[AtaruMoroboshi]

I hope you are kidding, because the Dead Kennedys and the Misfits were NOT manufactured fashion trends.

You may not know this, but the rest of the DK's have been suing Jello Biafra (the very outspoken singer of DK) because he refused to let them sell one of their songs to be used in a comercial.

The Dead Kennedys were on an independant label run by the band. Major labels told them they'd have complete artistic freedom if they only would change their name. They, of course, refused.

A lot of those late 70's/early 80's bands did manage to have some integrity: Crass, Black Flag, Subhumans, Rudimentary Peni...

The Sex Pistols suck, sure. "Plastic Surgery Disasters" by the Dead Kennedys doesn't.

(btw, have you seen the footage of Fred Durst in the early 90s dressed and acting like Vanilla Ice? Some credibility there.)

.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Oh,

Sorry!
I wasn't being dismissive of the 'Pistols. Just responding to the previous comment. I agree with you. And the record is great. Cook, Matlock and Jones were (and are) very underrated for this stuff.

When I contrast this with the L.A. "hardcore" stuff in the years that followed, it's clear that the Sex Pistols were punk ROCK. Emphasis on the second word here.

I got my grubby teen hands on this in the U.S. about winter of '78. Made my own 8-Track copy off of a friend's vinyl - on a Realistic combo-deck from RadioShack!

This was the beginning of finding out about the New York Dolls and The Stooges for me... And opened my doors for the Buzzcocks, The Undertones, etc.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[The Grassy Knoll]

You're right. Looking back to 1977, the Sex Pistols really were a shock to the system, especially amongst people of my generation (and by extension our parents, who were forced to watch/listen to it too!).

However, the language they use in the infamous interview with Bill Grundy now comes across as quite quaint.

"Fucking rotter", anyone? Sounds almost Dickensian!

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[ross.w]

You are entirely right, and that fact was the whole point of their existence.

They were created to prove that with the right marketing and promotion (and a bit of controversy) you could dish up absolute tripe and turn it into a cultural phenomenon. Hence the movie "The Great Rock & Roll Swindle."

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[purrpurrpussy]

You clearly don't live in the UK!!! It still is an extremely conservative place. Ironically (as this is word du jour) is becoming more so with a "leftist" labour government!

I think the next great break through in society comes not with our concepts of freedom and liberty which, at least in Europe, are becoming better understood and enshrined in the EU Human Rights convention BUT with our attitudes and use of money. Something very few bands have picked up on - presumably because they just want lots of it (even the Sex Pistols were guilty of this!). Money roolz! I'm not sure it should.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[madprof]

I would disagree strongly.
The modern-day equivalent of the Sex Pistols would have to do a whole load than just swear.
Look at Noel Gallagher as an exmaple of someone trying very hard. He gets interviewed by Radio One who bleep out the rude stuff, and he is using about 70 times as many expletives as the Sex Pistols ever did.
He says stuff like "kill all Tories and the Royal Family".
He then goes on to say that taking drugs is like "having a cup of tea" first thing in the morning.
Are we shocked? No, it's just Noel being Noel.
Big deal....NEXT!.

We're desensitized to stuff and we're definitely not as conservative as we were.
Sex Pistols now just look quaint.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[EpsCylonB]

He then goes on to say that taking drugs is like "having a cup of tea" first thing in the morning.

Actually if I remember rightly this did cause a bit of fuss, it may not have shocked you or me, but are we a good representative of the entire british soceity ?.

Point is it was prolly the same people complaining about the sex pistols that complained about noel's drug comments.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[sql*kitten]

I think the Sex Pistols did the UK a lot of good. Back at the end of the 70's, society was still *very* conservative. The Sex Pistols were extremely shocking to a lot of people.

Shocking is too easy. Take South Park for example: once the initial joke of small children swearing wears off, it's just not funny anymore. There's no actual creativity or talent there, so it's just boring once it's no longer novel. Or Guns'n'Roses: once people got used to Axl Rose saying "Motherfucker" in every sentence, the band faded out of existance. Maybe they are still recording today, but who cares?

Really the only people who are interesting in the Sex Pistols these days are sold-out baby-boomers with jobs in PR or media and grey ponytails desperate to pretend that they're still young and "edgy". The Sex Pistols aren't remembered for their music at all. In another 25 years there's probably be a /. story about the Spice Girls...

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[MrFredBloggs]

"God help me! I sound like fscking Julie Burchill!"

Yes, you do - and like her you are talking bollocks. John Lydon wrote good stuff for the Pistols, and went on to write even better stuff in PIL. McLaren is just..nothing. A twat.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[great om]

The Mekons. Although they did break up in 79, they reformed and are still around and are better than ever ..seriously. I mean it

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[madprof]

A good reaction to events is often gained from the tabloids.
When the Sex Pistols swore on Bill Grundy's show the Daily Mirror led with a story of a man so angry with what had happened that he kicked in his television set to stop his child from hearing it.

Last people to get really and truly stitched up by the media were the Beastie Boys in 1987 weren't they?
"Pop Idols Sneer At Dying Kids" was the headline I recall.
Of course these days we have Chris Morris so don't need pop acts. :-)

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[MAXOMENOS]

What exactly is there to celebrate about a band that was all hype and zero substance?

Wow .. that sums up the way I feel about just about every band I hear being promoted on MTV these days.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[EpsCylonB]

Of course these days we have Chris Morris so don't need pop acts. :-)

Good point, the reaction to his spoof special on peodophillia was way over the top. It's sad that we still live in such reactionary times, all the show did was exploit (read "took the piss out of") the hypocrisy in the modern media today. Another good example is Angus Deayton being fired from Have I Got News For You, a massive overreaction if you ask me, gonna be interesting to see who they get to host the show, won't be as good I bet.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[flyneye]

"every gimmick hungry yob diggin gold from rock and roll, grabs the mike to tell us he'll die before he's sold.but i believe in this and its been tested by research.he who f**ks nuns will later join the church" death or glory --the clash

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[clymere]

its pretty widely adknowledged that Mclaren was responsible for destroying the NY Dolls. I couldn're read your comment and not throw that in. I mean he DID manage them, but it was at the tail-end of their career, none of the Dolls really liked him, or wanted him as their manager, and he changed their image so drastically it managed them so badly it caused some of them to slip even deeper into drugs, breaking up the band, and eventually leading to the overdose of Johnny Thunders. I mean christ, he took them from wearing heavy makeup and looking sort of like-street-glam rockers to dressed as communists in matching red outfits. Politisicm certainly didn't fit the dolls. I guess in the Sex Pistols he found 4 guys that were willing to go along with whatever preposterous ideas he had. I wouldn't say he neccesarily managed them all that well either...Mclaren always seemed to me as a sniveling little right-place-at-the-right-time kind of guy.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[Schnapple]

The Pistols were a marketed, packaged commodity -- the punk equivalent of the Spice Girls

So how close were we to having Justin Timberlake stabbing Britney Spears to death and then overdosing in the UK? Quick! Get Christina Aguillera hooked up with a Backstreet Boy!

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[SubtleNuance]

do you have any refernces to the beasties "sneering at dying kids"?

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[SubtleNuance]

btw, have you seen the footage of Fred Durst in the early 90s dressed and acting like Vanilla Ice? Some credibility there

Do you have a link - ive got this young cousin who Doesnt Get It...

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[josefek]

Maintained... to a point. For a little insight on the 'concept' of punk, and specifically the current sad trend of cashing out integrity, take a look at Mark Vallen's commentary on the Clash and Jaguar.

jsfk

"punk is whatever we made it to be" -- D. Boon

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[Some Dumbass...]

Where Warhol gave VU the topic of S&M

The "world" of Warhol certainly was a source of inspiration for the VU, and even moreso for Lou Reed's solo work. Still, remember that they recorded Venus in Furs in an early version before meeting Warhol (see disc 1 of the Peel Slowly and See box set). So S&M specifically probably wasn't one of Warhol's contributions.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[Malc]

I don't live in the UK... but I used to. I'm a Briton who emmigrated to N. American in 1996. I've been to parts of the US that make the most conservative parts of the UK look quite liberal ;) When it comes to conservatism, the only thing that really bothers me when I think of moving back is the work place - I don't want to play any of the stupid traditional workplace games that a lot of places still seem to adhere to, with their antiquated expectations (e.g. explain to me why so many people feel the need to put date of birth on their CV, or when my mum is looking for a job, why she might be concerned if she's had more than X number of sick days in the last three years, or why most bosses my friends have talked about won't consider letting you work from home occasionally if you think you'll be more productive that way.)

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[cthlptlk]

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?

Kids, the comment above is the exact opposite of punk rock.

The great thing about punk was that you got to decide for yourself what was good. Setting up alternative yardsticks--integrity, or noisiness, or whatever--is missing the point. Yes, I am missing the point right now. Fuck you.

And anyway, how were the Ramones, God bless 'em, any different? Didn't you see Rock and Roll High School? How much more packaging and marketing could a band want?

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[Shelled]

Right, the proprietor of an insignificant used clothing store - Malcom McClaren - was the exact '70's equivalent of the Spice Girl's record company. And both bands started off with the same promotional push, corporate backing, public acceptance and target audience.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[SamTheButcher]

I remember being a nascent "punker" (never actually quite commited to the look or the lifestyle, but the ideals were/are still important to me) back in 1984 when I got the album, and after coming from an early-80's diet of MOR on AM radio and country music (I was growning up in Colorado, after all), I thought it sounded like crap. Then, I got a listen of other hardcore bands from that time (Exploited, GBH, etc) and realised that the Pistols were a pop group, a sneering, gobbing pop group. I still love the music and especially the lyrical content. And they weren't just Malcom's puppets - I loved that Malcom told them to write a song about "submission", Johnny wrote the lyrics about a submarine, not S&M.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[Mignon]

Reminds me of the following riddle:

Q: What has eight legs and commits suicide?
A: Squid Vicious.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[Anthracks]

Give this a shot.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[JebusIsLord]

With all due respect, Andy Warhol's impact on the VU consisted of painting a banana for the cover of their first album, insisting that Nico sing on it, and buying them food. He was more of a patron and sponsor than a producer at all, and infact their band was already a very tight unit before he "picked them up".

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[madprof]

I can only quote the headline I read once but there is a comment from a member of the public on:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1160375.stm

They say:
'Lest we also forget The Beastie Boys, circa summer 1987, who were alleged to have told some kids who had recently had chemotherapy treatment that they were "baldies".'

There is some reference to this on:
http://www.essential-eighties.net/blist4.htm

And of course they were more popular for it!

irony==fun

[mojowantshappy]

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.

Re:irony==fun

[yatest5]

it's like 10000 spoons, when all you need is a knife. when you think about it.

Re:irony==fun

[chrisseaton]

It's ironic because they took the piss out of the Queen on her 25th jubilee.

Re:irony==fun

[HorrorIsland]

It's ironic because they took the piss out of the Queen on her 25th jubilee.

Royalty are so lucky. I have to drain myself.

Re:irony==fun

[Mignon]

That's nothing. I've been playing my album at 45 rpm all these years, so my 25th anniversary only took 18 1/3 years.

Re:poseurs....

[Alec Varezz]

Saw Black Flag, Circle Jerks and CoC.
One of the best shows ever was the Kennedys!!
Jello.....

They saved music

[SexyKellyOsbourne]

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.

Re:They saved music

[Fuzzle]

Who cares? It's music man. It's about entertainment, and in the case of "real punk" (such a retarded label), an attitude and a commitment to changing the world. Honestly, PunkRock and the Open Source Movement are kindred spirits. The DIY ethic, the distrust of large corporations and the "scene" support all mirror each other.

Re:They saved music

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry Chuck, but there happens to be a lot more to music than mere technical proficiency.

Granted, I whole heartedly agree with your classification of mallcore, and that they have demonstrate no musical accumen.......but that and that alone shouldn't make them a bad band.

The fact that they are bad bands say that, with or without all the arpeggios, neck tapping, or whammy dives. .......please.

Would you also say that old videogames--or further more, the programmers thereof--weren't any good because of the technical specifications, and intricate detail (which, mind you, didn't exist at the time) isn't up to par with today's games? I doubt it. (slightly fudged that analogy tho) ....sometimes all you need are 3 powerchords, a couple rhyming words, and sense of what makes a song good. ........and if the heart is in it from there, who gives a shit about the lack of intricacy.....

indeed.....

Re:They saved music

[leviramsey]

Nirvana's minor-key power chording ruled the day. No solos, no exotic scales, nothing.

Minor-key power chords are a major part of a lot of metal bands, and not just inside the thrash/speed subgenres.

Also, it's interesting to note that quite a few early 90's bands (notably Soundgarden and AIC) were much more metal than alternative, but the record industry decided that each and every rock band from Seattle was a grunge band like Nirvana.

Of course, METAL WILL MAKE A COMEBACK THIS SPRING!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re:They saved music

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Power metal is hardcore punk with long hair. Except these days they don't all have long hair any more. So it's just hardcore that calls itself metal.

Re:They saved music

[G-funk]

So let me get this straight... None of them have any talent, and their success is based on their "attitude" (read: marketing to teenagers), and this is a good thing?

Re:They saved music

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Uhhhh...

You listen to a very narrow band.

All the technical flourishes you praise are current in my listening vocabulary of "popular" music. From recent retros like Groove Collective, Air, Corduroy, Mother Earth James Taylor Quartet- to chillers like Morcheeba or Groove Armada. Even the waxies I still listen to from the late 70's and early 80's were big on improv solos and apeggia. I'm thinking of Squeeze and Madness, etc. here. Regular products of a post-punk explosion.

Re:They saved music

[Rinikusu]

Why should you have to "show off" knowledge of Lydian modes or doing sweep picking? What's wrong with writing a fucking song? Steve Vai, Yngie Malmsteen may be "guitar idols" in the sense that their technique is light years above the rest, neither one can write a song for fucking shit.

Nothing annoys me more than listening to some self-important "rock icon" play something I can dance or groove to, and that, my friend, is the important part.

Your attitude is reminiscent of most "linux guru's" that I know. while you get off on hearing the most technical boring shit that no one on the earth gives a fuck about, the rest of us want to listen to music and enjoy it. (analogy for you: Most people don't give a fuck about open source. They just want their email to work.)

Re:They saved music

[Rinikusu]

grr.. that should be something I *can't* dance or groove to. Sorry about that.

Re:They saved music

[Malc]

Thank God punk came along and helped save us from those egotistical guitar strokers who anywhere else would be called exhibitionists for wanking in public!

For me, punk was all about having some fun. A bit like some of the LA Cock-Rock that came later in the 80s. Nothing like the people you mentioned who took themselves far too seriously. If you want to take musical seriously, go and find Daniel Barrenboim and enjoy a concert that he conducts with a decent philharmonic orchestra.

I still get a kick (well ok, childish giggle) out of the songs by the Anti-Nowhere League. In particular songs by the name "Woman", "I Hate People" and "So What". The last one is often covered by Metallica. I saw "The League" at a punk antichrist-mas bash a few years ago in London... Animal still rocks, even if his guitarists has turned in to an annoying sad old wanker.

Re:They saved music

[Andy_R]

Your criticisms are very much centred round the American music scene, and probably go a long way towards explaining the slower sales of Pistols product in America compared to Britain.

Rock music is not the same dominating force in music over here, pop, disco, r'n'b, even rap have much more mainstream success. The 'rock' bands that were successful before 1977 over here were in the middle of the excesses of 'prog-rock', where 3 disc concept albums roamed the earth like dinosaurs.

Effectively, we had such lame music scene that it was possible for an insightful person to step totally outside the types of music that were avaialable, pull influences from the punk scene (let's not forget that the Pistols were just the successful packaging of what The Damned and others were already doing), assemble the most objectionable people he could get, and capitalise on the disillusionment of the record buying public so successfully that we are still talking about it to this day.

The closest thing the US had to this was Nirvana - not such a big jump in musical style, but still a band that no-one in the record industry thought would sell.

btw, I'd disagree that the Pistols were talentless, they had a LOT of memorable songs (even if it was Tenpole Tudor that played some of them for them!), and as for guitarists, have a listen to Richard Thompson and tell me there are no amazing ones left!

Re:They saved music

[fatius]

I'd like to point out that a power chord can not be minor.

Re:They saved music

[pezpunk]

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.

that was the point! music doesn't have to be acrobatic to be fun to listen to. listen to the ramones. those are some damn catchy tunes, and none of them could really play. punk was basically about doing the opposite of what everyone else did, and although some punks got insular and turned into elitist jackassas, many (like me) are still around trying to poke holes in convention, expectation, the music industry, "rock stardom", etc etc.

my band plays literally about 100 shows a year, we don't make shit for money, but we have a fucking blast playing the hardest punk you ever heard. i dunno, it's fun. and it's not for money and it's not an egho trip and it's not exploiting stupid people.

Re:They saved music

[leviramsey]

True, I had forgotten that little detail... still, most metal guitar is either power chord or minor key based.

/me smacks head...

Re:They saved music

[xtremex]

Stratovarius is fantastic...so is Jeff Waters from Annihilator. Of course, my favorite is Slayer...saw them for the first time in 1984 and was BLOWN away...I've been a fan since...

Re:They saved music

[fatius]

Indeed. I was just nit picking...

cheers.

Re:They saved music

[MoneyT]

my band plays literally about 100 shows a year, we don't make shit for money, but we have a fucking blast playing the hardest punk you ever heard. i dunno, it's fun. and it's not for money and it's not an egho trip and it's not exploiting stupid people.

Shhh, the RIAA doesn't want people to know that musicians don't actualy have to make multi millions of dollars to play/write/perform music. You'll ruin their defense if you let this out.

Re:They saved music

[Wolfrider]

"...And thank God I'm only watching the game -- controlling it --
I don't see you guys rating
The kind of mate I'm contemplating
I'd let you watch, I would invite you
But the queens we use would not excite you."
.
--Murray Head, "One Night In Bangkok"
.

Re:They saved music

[rabiteman]

OK, the Ramones had some catchy tunes, as did the Sex Pistols. However, listen to the Ramones for more than 20 minutes at a time and they get atrociously boring. Their songs are fun, no argument there, it's just that the fact that every song was the exact same 1-4-5 chord sequence transposed to different keys.

Sure, the Sex Pistols were packaged entertainment, but they had two things going for them over the Ramones. First of all, they had a little more going on musically. More importantly, however, they blew the British class structure all to hell. I've been told that no American could possibly understand exactly how important the Sex Pistols were to Britain in terms of what they enabled. A lot of people thought bad things about the Crown and the status quo, but nobody said a damn thing for fear of being exiled (as Oscar Wilde was) for exposing society to something it didn't want to hear. The press was essentially gagged in that respect, too -- and then here come some stupid kids making fun of the Queen and getting away with it!

As fun to listen to as the Sex Pistols are, listening to them for the sake of the aural sensation they deliver is missing their biggest contribution. The politics (or maybe plain dumb luck) is why Johnny Rotten was voted the 87th Greatest Briton.

Re:They saved music

[JimPooley]

Don't quote fucking Tim Rice at me!!!
Can someone mark this guy down -1 Irrelevant?

By the way, you do know Murray Head is the older brother of Anthony Head of Buffy fame, right?

Mark me down as irrelevant too, I suppose...!

Re:They saved music

[pohl]

It's funny that you make the comparison between virtuosos and open source fanatics here, because those guitarists that you mentioned..and Steve Morse, who does an excellent job of architecting songs (though, sadly, they won't help you in your quest to dance)...are musicians who write music that musicians would appreciate. Similarly, open source software tends to be software that programmers can appreciate.

So ignorant newbies look at both, scratch their heads, and call it crap. Doesn't mean it is...just means it's beyond the reach of their appreciation.

And those Lydian modes that you yawn about have another interesting parallel, which is that they are the fundamentals that, if understood deeply, give you a knowledge of the instrument that few will acheive and a fluency of expression that few could hope to attain without their study. Same with open source, IMO.

Using commercial software will broaden your horizons as much as a very dancable Britney Spears album, meaning "not much".

Re:They saved music

[clymere]

i don't think you've actually heard power metal then. Power metal bands then to be from europe(especially scandinavia!) and for the most part write sogns about "swords and sorcery". Think Manowar, Blind Guardian, Hammerfall, etc. Some people are really into it, for the most part its very cheesy metal, and certainly not a damn thing like hardcore. However, all the newer breed of metal-influenced hardcore(Hatebreed is the best example) seems to just be metal without the solos. Perhaps thats what you meant?

Re:They saved music

[mattsucks]

including excellent guitarists such as Steve Vai, Slash, or Ritchie Sambora ...

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.

Funny, you just described why I _like_ punk music. No wanking guitar players. The song is the message, who needs a million notes per minute or exotic scales? That's kind of the whole point, ya know ....

Re:They saved music

[clymere]

that may be true, but none of it changes the fact that Ywngie Malmsteen is and was a horrible songwriter. When it comes to being a musician, there are really two skills: Being highly skilled on your instrument, and being highly skilled at writing for it. I'll still take good songwriting over musicianship anyday...a good songwriter can always find some guy whos spent years practicing his Lydian modes to play a complicated piece he wrote. Look at classical music: Beethoven, Mozart, etc. They were all musicians in their own right, but we know them as COMPOSERS, because that is where their talent mainly lay. It is much more difficult to compose intricate, moving pieces of music involving a whole orchestra then it is to play reverse arpeggios on one guitar.

Re:They saved music

[pohl]

I guess I'm tired of people trotting out Yngwie every time virtuosity is brought up, as if one example of poorly-applied virtuosity is evidence that virtuosos can't write good music. If you like well-composed music with a hired-gun session player who was brought in because the composer could not execute his/her work, just wait until you hear a great composer interpret their own composition at a virtuoso level. It's far better than doing without skill entirely for the sake of good composition, I can tell you. I should mention Morse again, because he's an example of the rare breed of virtuoso who is adept at the art of composition...able to fugue with the best of them.

It's not an either/or proposition. Music is at its best when you don't have to sacrifice anything.

Re:They saved music

[Triv]

and as for guitarists, have a listen to Richard Thompson and tell me there are no amazing ones left!

YES! I'm not the only geek who loves Richard Thompson!

Funny story: my dad's name is, coinsidentally, Richard Thompson. Every once in awhile when he goes into an HMV in New York, one of the counter clerks sees his credit card (and has been Shelving Richard Thompson Albums for months) and looks at my dad. They say "Are you THE Richard Thompson?" and my father, being the loveable egoist he is, goes "Yeah." because, as far as he's concerned, he's the only Richard Thompson anyone in the continental US might have heard of.

So the last time this happened ('bout a week ago) he looks at the guy at the counter, points to his recept and says 'you should keep this. You never know...' The counter guy blushes and pockets the recept. :)

Triv

Re:They saved music

[Triv]

...not showing off knowledge of Lydian modes...

You really have no idea what you're talking about, do you? Lydian modes are major scales with a raised 4th - a tritone - that, granted, lets you do some pretty funks stuff, (like, in C lydian that gives you a modal D7, the prime secondary dominant (V7/V) which is quite neat to have to use whenever you want it) but 'knowledge of lydian modes'? C'mon dude, that's a pompous statement. Leave the theory to the theorists, k? ;)

Triv

Re:They saved music

[Rinikusu]

you are correct, sir.

Something that brings a smile to my face..

[euxneks]

I get all giggly whenever I imagine the queen saying "Sex Pistols"...
heeheehee

It's only ironic...

[rampant mac]

that we're singing the same tune, but inserting into those lyrics...

Re:It's only ironic...

[rampant mac]

How bout I make some fucking sense?

It's only ironic we're singing the same tune, but inserting {Microsoft} into those lyrics...

God save Slashdot

Sex Pistols == Punk Backstreet Boys

[toupsie]

Sex Pistols were to punk music what RATT was to heavy metal. They were nothing more than a put together Punk band fueled by a money hungry promoter, Malcolm McLaren -- who ran for mayor of London once. Adding Sid Vicious was nothing more than marketing. He couldn't play worth a damn. If you ever get to hear bootlegs of their US tour, you will know what I mean. Rush tribute bands sound better live.

Pretty Vacant for damn sure. But still I like Bullocks, it had a beat and you could puke to it.

Re:Sex Pistols == Punk Backstreet Boys

[jdunlevy]

Punk Backstreet Boys?! Wait; I thought the original Back Street Boys were the punk Back Street Boys, and the new Backstreet Boys were the boyband Backstreet Boys.

Re:Sex Pistols == Punk Backstreet Boys

[clymere]

hahahahaha. I forgot about Wayne/Jayne County and the Backstreet Boys. Do you think those guys know that their name came from a transexual/transvestite punk rocker from the Bowery? It has to be a joke put on by that frightening overweight homosexual Lou Pearlman who spawned the Backstreet Boys, Nsync, LFO, and god knows how many others.

Re:Sex Pistols == Punk Backstreet Boys

[toupsie]

The Sex Pistols were -about- marketing. Pay attention to the whole story and maybe you'll get it. They're art -- social commentary.

Oh I know the story. I was alive back then and old enough to buy their albums. That is why I said they were the "Punk Backstreet Boys". Most "young people" don't know that. They just picked up the albums in the early 90s without the history. All they know about the Sex Pistols is from the movie "Sid and Nancy" which really doesn't give a clear picture of the band and makes them seem like the Kings of Punk. I see the "Young Punks" littering St. Marks street in NYC wearing Sex Pistols patches and buttons and I laugh at them and tell them how 'cute' they are. They have no clue. They might as well have Justin Timberlake T-Shirts on.

Re:Sex Pistols == Punk Backstreet Boys

[maddskillz]

Just remeber, 50 years from now, people will still know who the Sex Pistols were. No one will know, or care, who the Backstreet Boys or Ratt were.

Re:Sex Pistols == Punk Backstreet Boys

[toupsie]

Just remeber, 50 years from now, people will still know who the Sex Pistols were. No one will know, or care, who the Backstreet Boys or Ratt were.

That depends. If any of the members of the Backstreet Boys or RATT kill their wife, they will be remembered.

Re:Sex Pistols == Punk Backstreet Boys

[Creepy]

From what I remember, Sid was a drummer that was moved to bass (because drums were filled) and later was more of just a miscreant, but that is beside the point -

The Sex Pistols had little to do with musicality and more to do with message, and they had a very powerful message in "God Save the Queen". Johnny Rotten (er, Lydon) was physically attacked because of that message, and the song was blacked out of the music charts because it was deemed too offensive. Other punk bands used that same style of message before music (the Dead Kennedys, for instance), while several offshoots just used the groove and power and dumped the political message, usually settling for a more conventional love-drugs-sex-rock and roll message (Surf punks... the only example I can think of at the moment is Agent Orange, and garage rockers such as Husker Du and the Replacements).

Punk really was the end of the corporate rock (stadium hard rock/metal - Boston, Styx, Queen, Pink Floyd etc.) and disco from most of the 70s and the start of a number of splinter movements, many offshoots of punk, and some became legit because of punk - speed metal, Goth, Ska, New Wave, Rap, synth-pop (80s rock), garage, surf punk. It was time for a change. Just as Heavy Metal (Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin) was a slap in the face for 60's folk movement, punk was a slap in the face for the big dance party of the 70s.

Re:Punkers don't do opensource

[Exiler]

I'ma punk, yet I run Linux on all but my gaming machine. What were you saying, again?

Re:poseurs....

[thilmony]

I never saw Suicidal, some of the guys quit the band and started "the brood" which opened with Motorhead for CoC at first Ave in Minneapolis... Speaking of poseurs, we sure were - our moms would drop us off a few blocks away with our skates and we'll roll up like we lived nearby.

WFT is this...!!!! :)

[dameron]

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

Re:WFT is this...!!!! :)

[black88]

Funny, and ironic that Weltanschauung has been used twice in the same story, once in my reply to some stupid Nazi Whore hailing Ian Stuart and Adolph Hitler, and now you.

Re:WFT is this...!!!! :)

[yatest5]

News for NERDS!???

The Pistols were never for nerds...


In my experience, 'punk' or 'goth' is a way for school-age nerds to be 'cool'. What baffles me is it seems to be timeless - there's gimpy goth kids running round my local school now...

Re:WFT is this...!!!! :)

[flyneye]

LOL,kids
well kiddo the outsiders of the"blank generation" were some of the nerds back then.there was no goth,closest to that was prolly Suicide (non wimpy goth?)ya pistols were for nerds."where were you in '77?"

Re:WFT is this...!!!! :)

[blind_melancholy]

The Pistols were never for nerds...

I think the two are closer than you may think:
1)
Punk - The D.I.Y ethic, Independent Record labels, Cheap live shows, Fuck the RIAA
Nerd - Open Source, GPL, Fuck the RIAA

2)
Punk - Outspoken politically, Freedom of speech, Generally Liberal point of view (Nazi punks Fuck off)
Nerd - Outspoken Politically, Freedom of speech, Generally Liberal point of view

3)
Punk - Social Outcasts, Revel in disorderly, unruly, ruthless conduct. Think they're superior because of it.
Nerd - Social Outcasts, Revel in greater knowledge of technology, Think they're superior because of it.

4)
Punk - Outcast newbies and poseurs
Nerd - Outcast newbies and poseurs

Nevermind the Sex Pistols...

[iie1195]

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

Johnny Rotten

[madsenj37]

is nothing but a no talent punk...oh wait, nevermind

Re:Punkers don't do opensource

[An Ominous Cowherd]

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.

1987?

[Malc]

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.

Re:1987?

[rodentia]

Nirvana was a paragon of songwriting craft and I daresay Cobain would slap you calling him punk. He had better things to do than bring punk to the mainstream, like writing beautiful songs.

Punk was not a sound or a mode of costume; it was an attitude singularly unimpressed with quality or anything else for that matter. A perfect and vigorous nihilism; a generation of cutters. Kurt's depression and suicide exceeds punk in that it is full of significance and tragedy.

No one gave a shit about Sid except for the slow motion train wreck of his demise.

Re:1987?

[rodentia]

And they all stole Lemon Jefferson blind.

Follow the bouncing bollocks: punk influenced my haircut, my haircut influenced my girlfriend, my girlfriend left me for a street preacher. So the Lord owes me a blowjob.

And no, I don't see the connection either.

"Real Punk" = lazy white kids

[SexyKellyOsbourne]

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.

Re:"Real Punk" = lazy white kids

[caseyc]

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.

True. I love to hear middle class kids complaining about how horrible their lives are. I'm especially amused when I see "punk rockers" here at college, which is most likely an endeavor financed by their "oppressive" horrible capitalist parents. Yeah. And all this anti-capitalism stuff that the kids buy into? Isn't somebody making a whole lot of money from the propaganda t-shirts the kids are buying? Hardly seems like "anarchy" or whatever they promote, to me!

Re:"Real Punk" = lazy white kids

[Tiro]

Bad Religion. Punk is very much alive today in Bad Religion.

Re:"Real Punk" = lazy white kids

[Fuzzle]

I'll be straight edge till the day I die. I sure as hell don't like earth crisis though. It's not about any music or "rules" for me, just a personal choice. And if you think music and politics should be kept seperate you're wrong. That's all.

Re:"Real Punk" = lazy white kids

[pezpunk]

The DIY ethic, distrust of corporations, and the "scene" are just anarchistic (which doesn't mean punk) ideals.

from the very beginning punk rock has been about these diy and independent ideals. minor threat, dead kennedys, etc. continuing on into today. and there are very good reasons for this. it's not just anarchist ideals put to music. it's bands wanting to focus on the music and the show rather than the business, the package, the marketing, and all the sleaze involved in trying to "make it". most punk bands are just out there doing all the things that matter -- playing shows, writing music, putting out CDs or records -- and none of the things that don't -- paying off DJ's, shmoozing, marketing, advertising, trying to cater to the lowest common denominator, etc.

we distrust corporations because they have earned our distrust. good friends of mine, a band called Violent Society, is currently owed over $40,000 by their record label. i've watched other friends' bands get screwed over in similar ways. plus there's the whole RIAA, who want only to insure the profits of the executives at the major labels. true story: i have a friend, she used to work for a major label. her JOB was to call up DJ's and say "hey, i've got two trips to disneyland i'd like to give you, for you to give to your listeners in a contest. in exchange, i want to hear the new Limp Bizkit single 40 times a week. and, if you keep one of those trips for yourself, i'm sure we won't notice." she quit because she couldn't face herself anymore. if you don't actively oppose this system, then you are only reinforcing it. music shouldn't be this slimy. and it's the money that did it. punk bands operate outside of that greed. we take ourselves out of that game.

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.

there's nothing wrong with music being about something. frankly songs about girls or how cool the singer is or nothing at all bore the fuck out of me. to each his own, man, don't act like your opinion is fact. i enjoy listening to music whose lyrics actually make me think or even educate or enlighten me. propagandhi in particular is a band whose lyrics are at the same time both political and personal, deeply accurate and informed as well as emotional. they also tell you up front that you shouldn't make opinions based on theirs, or take what they say as fact. they want you to read the papers and make your own decisions.

Punk itself is long dead and still lingers in forms of trendies, poseurs, emofags, Blink 182, and Straight Edge Earth Crisis idiots.

you couldn't be more wrong. the underground punk scene is alive and well, has been that way since its birth in, what, the mid 70's, and will still be here once all this nu-metal crap has gone the way of that swing craze a few years ago. my band plays hardcore punk rock, like minor threat or the dead kennedys, and we play literally about 100 shows a year. and there are bands in every major city right now with gobs of integrity and heart, pounding out punk shows, doing it just like we do. i guess you won't know they're there if you don't go out and look for these shows. you won't hear em on the radio and you won't see them on mtv, cuz they don't have that kind of funding, but i guarantee their shows are more fun than 20 metallica concerts. we're not the "latest thing" but we'll still be here when the latest thing is dead and buried.

Re:"Real Punk" = lazy white kids

[Rinikusu]

No, probably not (re: the Tshirt stuff). Most likely the Tshirts are breaking even, if that, but if they "do" make money, it's so they can fix the van and go tour. Unlikes major acts, most bands lose money on tour and tshirts and cd's help offset the costs.

Re:"Real Punk" = lazy white kids

[captn ecks]

"Politics and music should be kept entirely separate..." ::grabs chest, agog:: 'I'm having the big one...' (apologies to Redd Foxx)

Re:"Real Punk" = lazy white kids

[Cyno01]

my hats off to you, this is probably the most insightful thing i've ever read about punk rock dont make too much fun of my sig, punks get dumped, they write whiny songs and yell about it, its funny

Re:"Real Punk" = lazy white kids

[apweiler]

Brilliant post, not much to add (ugh, yes, I plead guilty of writing a 'me too' post...)

Just one quote that comes to mind, from the booklet to Chumbawamba's 'Uneasy Listening' album:
[...] Thatcher's mad dog eyes and campaigns to 'keep music light'. They said pop and politics didn't mix (they still say it now) then sung another chorus of _Greed Is Good_. Aah, the eighties..[...]
Look into Chumbawamba if you like the punk ideals BTW. Although they sold out ever so slightly (as in, signed by a major label) I think they've kept the spirit - doing stuff no one expects, packing a message into their songs. Recently they sold 'Pass it Along' to GM for an ad, then gave the money ($50k I believe) to an anti-GM consumer watchdog organisation...

Good to see a story like this on /.

[Junky191]

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? :)

Re:Good to see a story like this on /.

[dashjosh]

Exactly how is this "news for nerds"?

Re:Good to see a story like this on /.

[RevAaron]

Because "nerds" often listen to shitty music, like the Sex Pistols, Def Leopard, or Brittany Spears. Most of the nerds I've known listened to the same shitty music that makes them feel special, just like everyone else, nerd or non-nerd. Many nerds think if they listen to music born of the same intent, but of a not entirely mainstream genre, with bands like the Pistols, MxPx or Marilyn Manson.

Then again, a lot of nerds listen to tripe because they actually like it, not just because they're fed it by the media. Makes no sense, but nerds often love awful music.

Re:Good to see a story like this on /.

[ozbird]

No no no... Nerds listen to Sex Pistols and Def Leopard; they look at Britney...

Truly classic music is that which stands the test of time. Apart from a few exceptions (e.g. Garbage), the bulk of my music collection is over ten years old. The Sex Pistols aren't everyone's cup of tea, but they are a classic; Britney will be lucky to be remembered 25 months from now.

(To stay on topic, Unix is your classic OS; Windows is Britney - nice to look at, but soon forgotten.)

And if you don't love GG Allin...

[SexyKellyOsbourne]

You are a total poseur.

Re:And if you don't love GG Allin...

[jinglepot]

Plain and simple he was an ANUS.

Re:And if you don't love GG Allin...

[diamondc]

anyone wanna bet that gg allin was the goatse.cx man?

Re:And if you don't love GG Allin...

[grub]

Too bizarre, just as I read this comment, GG's song "Cunt Sucking Cannibal" started playing.
(I mean via wmmp3 shuffle, my machine isn't haunted)

EMI

[hpavc]

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

Re:EMI

[rodentia]

You sorry-ass tosser. Like the bizness is any more or less depraved and power mad than it ever was? They were pumping Elvis full of reds and feeding him pussy years before Maclaren got it in his head to mock the game. I feel for you, in your ignorance.

And the generations of talent, of every hue but mostly up-country blacks, robbed of their creative output, a livelihood by their lights, dying penniless, at the hands of a NY music publishing racket from the days of fscking RAGTIME forward. Snap out of it, man.

Re:EMI

[hpavc]

and your point is?

i dont see how i or the emi song could be interpreted as claiming the media is not simularly depraved or power mad like you said.

snap out of it

Re:EMI

[rodentia]

It simply has no *whole new meaning*. Its the same meaning it always had.

*yawn*

[VWswing]

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.

Re:poseurs....

[Drath]

I dunno, Black Flag, Circle Jerks and Kennedys were more California Hardcore than straight british punk. And I don't know Corrosion of Conformity but according to their allmusic.com writeup they seem more metal than punk. Related but diffrent. Stuff like the Clash, Stiff Little Fingers, Buzzcocks and so on are more dirivated from the british punk vein of the pistols creation.

I think of Hardcore as the most comparative of the American punk offerings to british punk (ie. Politically Relavant subject matter), but sonicaly Pistols-like it is not.

Oh and if you haven't seen "The Filth and the Fury" (the 2001 version) check it out it's a good documentary on the pistols.

Oh yeah. Real Punks.

[TrebleJunkie]

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.

Re:Punkers don't do opensource

[EugeneK]

REAL anarchists run free software.

Huh?

[psyconaut]

Did I type www.rollingstone.com by mistake? WTF has this got to do with Slashdot? Seriously...

-psyco

Ironic?

[John Ineson]

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

Errr... no it's not. There is no irony there.

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.

Re:Ironic?

[fatius]

> A&M paid them £7000 to leave the label

Heh. that is pretty common too. And that doesn't compare with what happened to wilco. Forced off label, picked up by another label owned by the same company. Which means the same company paid for it twice. What company? AOL. (in case you didn't know.). Which doesn't compare with Mariah. 20M to leave her label was it?

Re:Ironic?

[rodentia]

The Pistols were the first to make a regular job of it. They made far more from the payouts the leave their labels than they made selling records. Documented on *the Great Rock and Roll Swindle*, itself a lovely grift.

A history of punk

[rosewood]

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

Re:A history of punk

[jinglepot]

Actually it was The Ramones.

Re:A history of punk

[DrunkClam]

BR is one of the most intelligent bands ever IMO.

Re:A history of punk

[rodentia]

Chronologically:

• MC5
• New York Dolls*
• Ramones
• Patti Smith
• Iggy and the Stooges
• Television

* I know, they're a glam band, but David Johannson is a total punk and there is the Maclaren connection.

Brit punk takes off at this point.

East coast wing (CBGBs) brings us Blondie and Talking Heads and the dawn of a *New Wave*. God I hated the Talking Heads for that, back when I cared.

West coast scene (whiskey a go-go) takes off after the British invasion: Dead Kennedys, Bad Religion, Black Flag, Minor Threat, Minutemen, Suicidal Tendencies, and a cast of thousands.

The MC5 were a funky, quasi-religious, freak show out of Detroit. Their live album *Kick out the Jams* is the missing link between the American garage scene in the sixties and the NY thing going on under the dusty nose of disco. That sixties garage era gives rise to a lot of the local flavors of American punk. The Northwest had some manky thing, Texas had a scene, Minneapolis, etc but mostly it goes NY - London - LA. Of course, it all leads to the cynosure of punk, the pinnacle of achievement in the punk ethos, the ne plus ultra: G G Allin. Let the flames commence.

Re:A history of punk

[iggy99]

Actually, Minor Threat were not part of the west coast scene, but part of the DC scene. The "straight edge" movement espoused by Minor Threat and the like had little to do with the DKs and their SF kin who had less than...shall we say...healthly lifestyles at the time...

Re:A history of punk

[flyneye]

well,i'll bite.this is an age old arguement,chronology of punk.MC5,Iggy & Stooges,Velvet Underground,Suicide,Pattie Smith,Ramones,Richard Hell,James Chance then television woulda been a more concise timeline,but hey thats my opinion.

extra points should be moderated you for mention of GG

Re:A history of punk

[dogfart]

For a really really excellent view of the LA Punk scene, get a copy of We Got The Neutron Bomb

Not mentioned in other posts and very significant to the whole punk thing was the influence of glitter rock/glam rock, with the NY Dolls being a bridge between the two.

Hard to imagine that before Patti Smith/Sex Pistols/X I actually listened to Peter Frampton. Music before punk was terrible, overwrought, unoriginal (my god, Robin Trower!!).

I wouldn't give the whole credit to Sex Pistols. There really was a movement on many levels - in their own way, Lou Reed, Devo, Television, Pere Ubu, etc. were just as influential.

From my own recollection, between 1975 and 1977, the face of rock music changed radically.

Re:A history of punk

[reptilicus]

Er, chronologically one needs to start with the Velvet Underground, followed by Bowie/Iggy, leading into the MC5 and NY Dolls. Then you get the Ramones, Television and Patti. The best information source you're likely to find on all this is "Please Kill Me" an oral history of NY Punk put together by Legs McNeil. It's a spectacular read.

Re:A history of punk

[dogfart]

West coast scene (whiskey a go-go) takes off after the British invasion: Dead Kennedys, Bad Religion, Black Flag, Minor Threat, Minutemen, Suicidal Tendencies, and a cast of thousands.

Minor nit - "Minor Threat" was actually from Wash DC, not west coast. Fugazi formed from Minor Threat.

Also, when speaking of Black Flag, don't forget the essential role SST Records played in the West Coast punk scene and later 1980's indi scene. Bands like Sonic Youth, Husker Du, all initially recorded for SST.

then and now

[tanveer1979]

Then:
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.

Also

[ChrisMG999]

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.

Even worse than Sid Vicious...

[hispula]

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. :)

"Whata band"

[Simon Garlick]

but still, whata band

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.

Re:"Whata band"

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

THAT, my oh too earnest correspondent, was the joke and the genius of the entire thing. They were a prefab outrage in the most blatantly crass and twisted manner. It drips with irony and delicious cynicism. You just don't get it.

Re:"Whata band"

[BiOFH]

I don't agree with the Coward that you don't get it, but I do agree with the spirit of what he's saying.

It's kinda like 'imagine if the Spice Girls had turned out to be really fuckin cool _despite_ being slapped together in a boutique'. The Pistols never should have sold records cuz we liked the songs. They were supposed to sell records cuz they looked cool and thus sell clothes. But.. damn if 'Never Mind...' didn't kick serious ass. It still gets me going to this day.

Maybe we could split the difference with: "Steve Jones, whata band". :)

Yes, the Pistols sucked. But they sucked so fucking well. :)

An old Punk who's showing her age...

--

Re:"Whata band"

[Grackle]

I'm surprised to see so many posts slagging McLaren and the Sex Pistols for "media manipulation" -- as if it's a bad thing.

Media manipulation of any kind is a cool hack.

(Before you flame, note that I am not referring to media coersion or state-sponsored propaganda in this sense as "media manipulation".)

Media manipulation that results in a new scene or cultural change is a truly great hack!

Media manipulation can even be an artform unto itself -- for example check out this old-school media artist.

I was more into The Clash, myself...

[Graabein]

I was more into The Clash, myself. The distinction was very important, or at least it seemed so, back then.

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.

Re:I was more into The Clash, myself...

[Observer]

The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones and the rest set us free, free from all the BS going on around us.

Ah, yes, and who can forget those wonderful satirical Berlin cabarets in the 1930's that played such a big part in stopping Hitler's rise to power?

(With acknowledgements to the late Peter Cook).

--
What colour is the sky in the parallel universe you're inhabiting today?

Mod as flamebait if you must, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

A-head of their time

[captn ecks]

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! ;)

To all those who find this story irrelevant

[porn*!]

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!

yes, some relevance to Slashdot

[EricHsu]

Well, current punk scenes have some overlap with free software movements ethically: the do-it-yourself ethic, the desire to avoid conformity, de-emphasizing monetary reward as THE incentive to be creative.

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:

1. They did start an amazingly creative movement which influenced music (via 70's British punk, then New Wave, then 90's grunge).

2. They left behind a pretty polished set of incredible singles. "Anarchy in the UK" still sounds modern, and "God Save the Queen" may still be the best music ever produced in post-Beatles England. Their producer, Chris Thomas, did an amazing job getting a sound out of them that sounded powerful and raw despite the layers of production. And if you read the histories, hype or no hype, most non-punks in England were really pissed off about the Pistols. As opposed to now, when punk is just another fashion choice.

3. They did allow Johnny Rotten to produce the first two Public Image Limited records, "Public Image" and "Metal Box"/"Second Edition". The best tracks of "Public Image" out-punk the Sex Pistols material. The best tracks of "Metal Box" are still ahead of their time.

What is Punk Rock?

[sickboy_macosX]

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

Re:Sex Pistols as packaged commodity

[driptray]

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.

Re:poseurs....

[xtremex]

I was never into punk too much..I was into NYHC (Agnostic Front, Sick of It All, BioHazard etc).
Even though Minor Threat was from the DC Area, they still fit the bill.

Re:They saved music from The Great Kat

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Sex Pistols eh?

[Spock the Baptist]

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...

Re:Sex Pistols eh?

[reflector]

ok, i like ellington, yes, and the moody blues, but they're no coltrane, tangerine dream, or pink floyd.

Re:Punkers don't do opensource

[sickboy_macosX]

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?

Hate Nsync? Hate Sex Pistols?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Punk's not dead...

[CaptainPotato]

...well, yes, it is, but, no it's not. Yes, the late 1970s punk scene, from which the Pistols, the Clash, The UK Subs, and so forth come, which most people think about - the leather jackets and safety pins, I mean, is long gone. Sure, walk around London, and you can pay a try-hard punk one pound for a photo, but beyond that...

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 :)

Re:Punk's not dead...

[shiva600]

Oh please..
Die Toten Hosen are nothing more than a mediocre stadium rock band these days. I mean, playing the major entertainment shows or being part of annoying comedy shows is *not* was punk rock is about.

Furthermore, they don't have any relevant message or attitude *at all*, except maybe "get drunk".
And they are *so* stuck in their past it`s not even funny. Still wearing the 70's punk rock uniform leaves a lot to be desired.
Just take a look at their audience:
There's everybody: From 15 year old Brittney-Fans to 40 year old accountants who think they are on the edge.

Anyway, I don't want to rant any further, but I think punk like it was 25 years ago is dead indeed - it's the spirit that counts, and you can still find punk rock spirit in a lot of bands, for example on Matador Records.
It's about doing what you want and believe in, about creativity, originality and intellect (note that these 3 criteria do not apply to Die Toten Hosen at all), not about playing the same 3 chords over and over agin.

Re:Punk's not dead...

[Beige]

Whilst walking around Camden market last summer I saw one of the few remaining old fashioned mohawk-and-safety-pin punks that hang around there drinking a can of alcohol-free lager. So much for nihilism. Punk is clearly as dead as a can of spam. :)

Re:Punk's not dead...

[CaptainPotato]

I guess we will have to disagree on this one; however, having toured as a roadie with the Hosen on two continents, I feel that I am in a better position to comment on their attitude than you probably are.

IMO, and strictly IMO (but I doubt I am alone here), they have more of the ethos of punk than most other people ever will. Yes, sure, they have songs about drinking; yes, they sing songs about Bayen Munich; however, knowing the guys personally, I believe that they do possess your three criteria (creativity, originality and intellect), but unlike some with an idea, they don't ram it in your face - you have to pay closer attention than I suspect you probably have (not that this is a flame - if you don't like the music, then why should you?)

In any case, I like their music, but above all else, I like the Hosen as people. :)

Re:Punk's not dead...

[shiva600]

Well, since you've been a roadie of them and me not, I guess you're taking home that beacon ;)
Talking about music & bands always involves personal taste, I guess we are both a little biased considering these guys from Düsseldorf, but even if I try to look at them in an objective manner, I really can't see their point.
They didn't say anything of relevance in YEARS (I'm from and live in Germany and am a kind of music nerd, so i'm watching what's happening in music ;) ), except you consider some lame jokes and playing-the-fool of Campino (the lead singer) in TV-Quizhhows as relevant.

That's my take on them :-)

I hope you don't think I'm trolling or something, but I wanted to make clear why I don't like them even without taking their "music" into account.
Anyway, you like them, I don't, so we can at least agree on that ;)

Re:Punk's not dead...

[Hig]

When the people of the country have forgotten how do disagree
And the national economy is said to be O.K.
And the wages that you get will help you to forget
Will you keep your ideologies or throw them all away?
When the system has you beaten
Even though you haven't eaten
Cos you can't afford to eat and drink to keep your brain alive
You blame the system for the weather but carry on as ever
You got to work at half past 8 and come back home after 5
You can go blue in the face talking about the human race
How they got to outer space but it never stopped the wars
And how the whole of this humanity is based on greed and vanity
The ones who make decisions are the ones who make the laws
You're still in this society so what's your main priority?
Remain in the majority who never really cared?
Or cultivate the hate to annihilate the state
Are you prepared to die for your beliefs or just to dye your hair?
The anarchist the nihilist but can you prove that you exist
To a population who just insist that you're just a bunch of fakes?
You can not change the system until you change your own restrictions
Communication and conviction got to kick until it breaks. - Dick, The SubHumanz.

Punk is a way of life.

Cultural Revolution

[JimPooley]

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.

Re:Cultural Revolution

[toddhisattva]

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.

Well, good for the authorities!

Talent-free "music" is just sucking out loud: rap is crap, punk is junk.

It's interesting...

[DuranDuran]

...but it ain't really ironic, now, is it.

Re:It's interesting...

[DuranDuran]

As the original post puts it, it's somewhat ironic. There's a difference.

Oh yeah - that "somewhat" in there makes ALL the difference.

2 + 2 = 5 is "somewhat" correct.

Re:poseurs....

[Zenjive]

British punk, Cal hardcore, NYHC... whatever, it was all pretty cool.

But don't forget Texas punk: Butthole Surfers, Big Boys, The Dicks, Ed Hall. Ed Hall a bit "post-punk", but still a way cool band.
Crank up the way-back machine!

Never...

[rodentia]

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.

Re:Ian Stuart is awesome

[black88]

Ahh. How enlightening.

The fourteen words.

I find nothing repellent in the statement of those words, but do you have to confuse the issue with that juvenile salute to Degenerate Adolph Hitler?

If you, as a self professed fan of 'mallcore', have any interest in your European Ancestry, perhaps it would do you some good to check out work from Blood Axis, Death in June, The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud, Der Blutharsch, and Laibach.

These bands represent the true renaissance in the formulation of a new vocabulary of the European Weltaanschaung, or World View.

Reject Materialism, MtV, and the Corporation.

Find your soul.

A good place to start looking would be Mozart.

Couldn't have said it better myself

[Anthracks]

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.

As I said then,

[rodentia]

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.

Punk Karma-Whoring

[caferace]

Gimme a mod point (or take one away) if you've ever seen any of the following bands, live.

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

Re:Punk Karma-Whoring

[RabidOverYou]

I asked the Captain to play "Jimi Hendrix's Strat" at a show a few years ago; he declined, saying he "hadn't heard it since [he] recorded it".

Ooh, and they dropped off the Zombie tour just before Seattle. Damn it (ha!), they owe us a show, and we're not on the current minitour.

Re:Ian Stuart is awesome

[AtaruMoroboshi]

Oh I see, after posting total misinformation about the dead kennedys elsewhere in this topic, you come out of the closet as a nazi sympathizer and racist.

Well, then...

"NAZI PUNK FUCK OFF"

Guess what...

[sterno]

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 :)

Re:Guess what...

[flyneye]

I dub thee UBU ROI king of the kingdom of NPR tripe.Go and set thee at the throne and twiddle thy knobs on thy Musak box till All things are Concidered.
(this thread isnt about "safe jazz or cardboard renditions of classical",hug bunnies and trees elswhere)

Re:Guess what...

[Junky191]

Hee hee- I feel sorry for people who think NPR conveys some sort of superior culture. Elitism just never seems to die.

Re:Hate Nsync? Hate Sex Pistols?

[Wolfrider]

"...Bam bam bam bam, buh bam bam bam bam...
I WANNA BE SEDATED..."

.

The day punk died....

[the endless]

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.

My mallcore music beat up your punk music

[Powercntrl]

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.

Re:My mallcore music beat up your punk music

[Triv]

"Band X is cool until they sell out, then they're just commercialized pop."

Sit down, my friend, while I tell you a tale. (with apologies to Peter Sellers) :)

There's this musician. A guitarist. He put out an indie album (on Aware Records, the indie side of Colombia), coffee-house recordings. 10 Tracks or so. real rough cuts. Real heartbreaking. Lyrics were kinda juvenile, but in a waspy, nostalgic sorta way.

Someone higher up hear this guy and said: "Hey. He's good, but not mainstream enough. Throw some money at the problem. Get him a band and some studio time. Have him rerecord his songs. See what happens."

So he does. Goes into the studio with a drummer who knows one beat and only one beat (DUM-dum-CHICK-dum-dum-dum-CHICK), and Dave Matthews' producer (who has the uncanny ability to make everyone he produces sound like Dave Matthews, regardless of what they sounded like before.) They rerecord his heartbreaking coffeehouse songs, and as if with a scalpel, remove the emotion, the edge, the cute mistakes, the personality and the vibrancy. The remove the profanity. They clean up the solos.

And lo and behold this completely transformed pop-star starts getting gigs at Irving Plaza in New York City and airtime on LITE-FM. People walk around singing his pointless renditions of once-beautiful songs.

HE SOLD OUT. That in and of itself isn't too bad, they gotta make a living. The problem is he changed from being honest to being a shill for Colombia.

The only thing I had over people was "Guys, I know he's vapid now, but LISTEN TO THIS: It's his first album. Completely raw. Try it. It's really really good, and it's out of print. You'll see what he used to be like."

And you know what those bastards did to me? They rereleased his first album like it was some kind of 'discovery'. They used ad slogans like "Before his success," and "Work from his younger days." (HE'S NOT EVEN 30 FOR CHRIST'S SAKE). But he's played on LITE-FM. He's on the Barnes & Noble Compilations (they're subsidised for the music they play in the stores.) He's gone.

So yes. To me, selling out is a horrible, horrible thing - once the sheeple like something, any substance that was ever there, any FUCKING ART that there ever was hsd been do diluted for mass consumption, so stripped of emotion that there's no point any more.

Ever. Wow. I'm crying. damn.

Triv

Re:My mallcore music beat up your punk music

[Chris Johnson]

*stares in shock and delight*

Muggins! :D

Rubbish. (But beautifully spoken)

Re:My mallcore music beat up your punk music

[sulli]

What you fail to note in your story is that "coffeehouse music" can only end up on LITE-FM.

Re:My mallcore music beat up your punk music

[Triv]

I appreciate the compliments (all three of them!) but I really don't think it's rubbish at all. He traded a small group of people who respected and adored what he did for a much larger group of...well, less intelligent people. Communication to the lowest common denominator is an easy way to make it big, but I find it to be demeaning as hell.

The Goon Show quote had a purpose (apart from shocking and delighting random people :P) - media like that requires a modicum of intelligence to find it funny. It's the difference between American Sitcoms and Brittish ones. Most Americans can laugh at Friends, but most of them confronted with, say, Blackadder, wouldn't get most of it - you need to know Brittish History (just a tiny bit of it) to find it funny; that's assuming too much of an American audience. I tried showing BA to my roommate - she watched all four series back to back (!) and thought they were the same characters throughout. She had no context with which to view it. She just couldn't understand what their costumes kept changing. (I'm not exaggerating.) It's the difference between comedy and humo(u)r.

"You've certainly got your patter down, haven't you?"
"No, this is different. It's spontaneous and called 'wit'."

The element to all this that didn't come through initially was the feeling of superiority I lost when they rereleased his first album. Be it britcoms or indie bands, I take pride in finding my own media. I don't own a tv good for watching anything other than DVD's and I try to buy my music from the artists.

I wanna live in England. :P

Triv

Re:My mallcore music beat up your punk music

[smugfunt]

Music is meant to be entertainment.

Fuck entertainment, I want art.

Another victim...

[rodentia]

of the Great Rock and Roll Swindle. q.v.--

artistic achievement

[rodentia]

Shut your fucking yap, eh? College-boy.

Never mind the farce, here come the Pistols

[commodoresloat]

Here here! The farce of the Sex Pistols was precisely their greatness, and McLaren's genius lay in packaging this commodity according to principles outlined by cutting edge art movements, including the Situationists -- principles aimed at disrupting commodity society. Of course, in the long run it played into commodity society much more than it disrupted, but that was to be expected. Punk was never going to change the world, but its beauty lay in the fact that, for a moment, it made it seem possible that the world could change. And it certainly opened the doors for an invasion of DIY indie labels, garage bands, fashion designers, and other artists, breaking through the dominance of tired old stadium rock.

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.

not quite

[boogy nightmare]

'god save the queen, we mean it Ma'am '

are the lyrics, ma'am being the informal name for her majesty the queen.

here's a chord now go away and form a band!!

[fantomas]

...since Sid hardly qualifies for the M word)... (muscician)

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.

Re:here's a chord now go away and form a band!!

[MrFredBloggs]

"I never understood why punk didn't die after the initial "fresh breath." Maybe it was needed in some way, but I'll never forgive punk for killing prog-rock."

I wouldn't expect a prog-rock fan to understand! Isn't that sort of the point?

Heres a clue: How relevant is a 35 minute song about hermaphrodites, or pixies or the dawn of the universe whatever the fuck prog-rock bands sung about to most people in 1970`s England? Ok, and how relevant was/is the stuff the Pistols were singing about?
The prog-rockers always took their stuff pretty seriously, but musically its dead. There were practically no talented musicians/songwriters in the prog-rock genre, which is why it inspired no-one - except other prog-rockers. Punk was an attitude - an `I can do that` attitude - which lives on. It manifested itself again in the Rave scene of the late 80`s/early 90`s. You can hear its echos in the modern `protest` songs (punk itself being a continuation of previous protest songs). Don't listen to all that situationist stuff - thats just do-nothing students trying to justify their obsession with analyzing everything. John Lydon et al were just having a laugh, and taking the piss out of everything they thought was shit about life in general - end of story.
Read `no blacks, no dogs, no irish` - his autobiography.

Re:here's a chord now go away and form a band!!

[tubs]

> punks on telly swearing at boring old middle aged presenters

Wasn't there one time when one of the presenters took the piss (or maybe he had a coupel of drinks at lunch time) big time along of the lines

"Go on swear, say a swear word"
"no"
"Go on, I dare you to say Fuck"

Re:here's a chord now go away and form a band!!

[fantomas]

It was Bill Grundy on Thames Today. Transcript is behind the hyperlink, Pistols and their friends mumbled some rude words in the interview and Grundy encouraged the naughty little punks to say something rude out loud.

"GRUNDY: Well keep going, chief. Keep going. Go on, you've got another ten seconds. Say something outrageous.".
Brief exchange ended up with Steve Jones saying "You fucking rotter!".

(Note for non UK folk: the word 'fucking' was most definitely extremely shocking and banned on tv at that time of day in the 70's, and 'rotter' is the kind of word you would imagine a rich aristocratic kid to use with his school chums. Stick them together and you have comic genius ;-) )

Re:here's a chord now go away and form a band!!

[LatJoor]

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! :-))

Ah, but it wasn't a laugh for the fans, see? That's why, as this discussion has entirely ignored, punk was reborn around 1980 with a whole new wave of kids who were inspired by the Ramones and the Sex Pistols. Hardcore in the U.S., Oi! in England, became the new music for and by dead end kids, not put on by art-minded showmen with an eye on their place in history. The kids didn't just have to fight to get records with naughty words into stores, they had to fight for the right to have shows and even walk down the street. The music got more grim and violent as the people that punk rock spoke to took the mic and started talking about real life on the streets, not life on the stage.

The early 80's punk scene is the true predecessor of much of today's punk tradition: Black Flag, Youth Brigade, Minor Threat, the Exploited, the Cockney Rejects, the 4-Skins, Blitz, these bands were a huge turning point in punk rock.

In any case, punk is now fragmented. It's not a single code, it's a whole array of different attitudes, traditions, and styles of dress, from gutterpunk to skate punk to straight-edge to street punk to skinhead. The only thing you'll find running through all of them is a disdain for society's rules and a love for punk rock.

Senseless...

[rodentia]

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.

This explains something

[delphi125]

taking until 1987

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!

zero substance

[rodentia]

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?

25 years

[IainHere]

"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.

Would you listen to yourself?

[rodentia]

Take your aesthete wheeze back to the Village Voice. You wouldn't know punk if it kicked you in the nuts.

Re:Would you listen to yourself?

[zazas_mmmm]

Take your aesthete wheeze back to the Village Voice. You wouldn't know punk if it kicked you in the nuts.

1) I've never read the Village Voice. It's always seemed too prentious.

2) My knowledge about rock and roll music comes from collecting records, and reading books as a FAN of it.

3) I fucking slept on floors, roomed with junkies, and have had five bands practicing in my home at various points in my life.


Don't you find it ironic in a thread about McLaren creating a self-aware artistic statement with obvious knowledge of art and history, you've chosen to filet me for have some semblence of intellectualism. Believe it or not a lot of punks from back then and now are not idiots. Leggs McNeil, Richard Hell, Lydia Lunch, even Nick Cave are all very bright people. Bill Joe from Greenday's not terribly intellectual (I can vouch for this), but Aaron Cometbus is.

I doubt there's any other topic on Slashdot where I could be attacked for sounding too smart or having something to say.

Re:Would you listen to yourself?

[chimpo13]

1. You still have your head up your ass.

2. I'll put your head in a milk bottle.

3. Numbering self-righteous points also sucks.

4. See Number 2.

Pistols were THE band,..we need it again....

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

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.

But punk was like the industrial revolution.

[ahfoo]

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.

Commoditization of punk rock

[shunthemask]

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."

Submission

[hey]

I still think of the old song "Submission"
whenever I see a button that says "Submit".
I'll never submit!

I love it!

[DjMd]

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!)

Re:Punkers don't do opensource

[Gordonjcp]

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.

Two words

[mabinogi]

Fuck You.

That's the purpose of punk ;)

The 'You' being either conservative british government, or Fleetwood Mac, depending on who you ask....

Re:Two words

[JebusIsLord]

Now I personally like Pink Floyd, but I find it ironic that since punk was an attack on "corporate rock" and all its pomposity, and in many cases an attack on PF in particular, that you quote them in your sig :)

Re:Two words

[mabinogi]

personaly, I think that if any punk was an attack on Pink Floyd personaly, then they probably never heard anything before DSOTM, and also totaly missed the point of The Wall (Which was, Roger Waters saying, "OMG, we became mainstream corporate rock, and I hate it").

Between The Wall, and The Final Cut, Roger Waters was pretty much trying to give the same "Fuck You", to themselves (and probably Fleetwood Mac too...), and the Government (all Cold War erra governments) that punk was, but just expressed in a different way (and probably without quite so much of the drinking, puking, or saying 'Oi' mentioned in another post).

But then of course, David Gilmour pretty much went "Fuck You, I like being corporate rock, and rich and famous" and hence we have A Momentary Lapse of Reason, and The Division Bell......but, c'est la vie.....

Re:Two words

[JebusIsLord]

I actually agree with you, and like I said I like Pink Floyd. However I would suspect that many of the early punkers would not. I have certainly read a lot of anti-floyd punk backlash.

Oh, and it may be a bit of a guilty pleasure but I rather enjoyed Division Bell. Certainly wasn't a confontational album but it was hardly mainstream 1993 either. MLoR bit the big one however.

Don't you mean...

[HorrorIsland]

"What? A band?"

sell out

[freeefalln]

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.

Watch "SLC Punk"

[erat]

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.

Re:Watch "SLC Punk"

[flyneye]

Ill second most of your post but leave out the barfra bits( i personally hold him responcible for straight edge and rules in punk and pushing more morality than christianity while championing every cause that comes along so he can continue to live in the bohemian limelight and eat another peanut butter sanwish tomorrow)
ya! you hit it on the head with the rest of it tho.

i hate you with a passion, baby.

[diamondc]

Yeah, you can hear the Monks in Powerade commercials now :) Still an awesome band, though.

Do you have the time / To listen to me whine?

[Big_Monkey_Bird]

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...

Re:Punk - Just a revival of Rockabilly.

[jonerik]

just take a look at how many times the Sex Pistols ripped off Chuck Berry

Not to mention Eddie Cochran - mod this guy up!

RAMONES!!!

[Black-Man]

It was the 1976 UK tour that taught you brits what punk music was!

Warning: Flamebait

[GypC]

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.

Re:Hate Nsync? Hate Sex Pistols?

[Zzootnik]

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...

More Like Punk Karma-Boring

[tomblackwell]

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.

Punk Rock

[doncaster-rovers]

Americans cannot and never will understand UK Punk

Re:Ian Stuart is awesome

[flyneye]

well,how bout this,DK woulda been great if it werent for jellos whining and championing the cause du jour.He is the reason and i hold him personally responcible for all the "rules" and straight edge garbage introduced into what was a perfectly good catastrophe.so frankly who cares if someone trashes that poser clown?if he didnt sympathise with EVERY SINGLE OUTSIDE CAUSE AND VIEW he would cease to be interesting to his"Cali" demographic and could no longer afford peanut butter.

Great Rock and Roll Swindle

[Stuart Park]

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.

Never Mind The Sex Pistols - Public Image Ltd.

[tedgyz]

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!

Sex Pistols

[jav1231]

They were what many Rap artists are today: talentless yet managing to be passed off as art. >

Not precisely topical ?

[n-baxley]

Yeah, so it's not precisely topical

I hate to be a troll, but how does a story like this end up on /.? 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 was there...

[realkiwi]

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?....

Re:They saved music from The Great Kat

[back_pages]

That's like ten pounds of insight in a five pound bag. No, I'm just kidding.

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.

Re:Hate Nsync? Hate Sex Pistols?

[clymere]

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.

McLaren was a farce

[buzzdecafe]

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.

Re:They saved music from The Great Kat

[clymere]

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!

This discussion is sooooooo lame

[corrosiv]

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.

The purpose is to be alternative by rebeling

[psyklohps]

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.

Music is Art

[ColonBlow]

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.

Cobain & grunge ripped off the Replacements

[swb]

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.

Facts straight

[slave]

The sex pistols were a shameless industry ripoff of the Ramones repackaged with a psuedoshocking name. Let's hear it for corporate music. woot.

I take back what I said...

[colenski]

yesterday about you guys being big dorks. I humbly submit that stories like this are the omelette

Question (OT)

[phatlipmojo]

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.

Re:Question (OT)

[invenustus]

In Philadelphia, where I grew up, public (as in somebody-else-driving, not as in government) transit is tightly controlled by the government.

You'd think a city with widespread poverty would let people with a car and a driver's license and not much else to offer start their own taxi businesses, but each cab is required to have a medallion, which costs tens of thousands of dollars. I thought many times while waiting hours for overcrowded government-run buses that I could buy an old yellow schoolbus, run the same route as the bus I was waiting for but at half the fare, and recoup my costs pretty fast, but it's not that easy. There are any number of government barriers - I'd be using nonunion workers (i.e. myself), and I'd be lacking any number of permits.

This was a Good Story

[flyneye]

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.

I wanna be sedated...

[NetSerf2000]

I dont know about you guys, but as far as I am concerned... the UK Punk movement was when the disenchanted youth of the time got violent... Punk for the disenchanted youth had been around since one fateful night in August 1974 at a small club called CBGB in manhattens lower east side... A gig seen by a huge total of 5 people (six if you include the bartenders dog)... and the rest is history.

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

Re:Huh. (rent another flick)

[dogfart]

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).

Sid spit beer on me in '78!

[depicture]

Winterland, SF.

virtuoso != good music

[Funk_dat69]

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.

Re:Huh. (rent another flick)

[flyneye]

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!

Re:Huh. (rent another flick)oh yeah and.....

[flyneye]

"ladies and gentlemen,introducing the fabulous stains" has members of the clash and pistols in it too along with diane lanes lil titties!

Punk Rawk

[kaoshin]

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.

Re:Ian Stuart is awesome

[black88]

You must be a fan, or possible descendant of, Salieri.

...and don't forget:

[Weaselmancer]

...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

Re:Punk - Just a revival of Rockabilly.

[maddskillz]

Hey...how many combinations are there for three chords? Of course they had to rip people off!

News for Nerds.......

[fred911]

..... and STUFF THAT MATTERS.....

Sounds topical enough to me. 25 years since the Pistols sure makes me feel old:-)

Seems like.... bla..bla..bla

Exactly

[ArcSecond]

That's exactly what I was gonna say. "Fuck you!" sums up what being punk is better than any arty/intellectual analysis of Punk as a social phenomenon. "Fuck you" is definitely a better punk credo than any political or philosophical statement. Being punk isn't about being noble, it's about going to a show, getting drunk, puking in the alley, and crashing on someone's couch.

That, and shouting "Oi!" a lot... and getting beat up by boneheads.

Re:What's with the anarchy?

[antistuff]

no its a joke on the guys who wrote just your friendly lake county IL liberatarian

Re:Hate Nsync? Hate Sex Pistols?

[chimpo13]

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?

Actually, McLaren was the farce

[reptilicus]

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.

Re:Actually, McLaren was the farce

[zazas_mmmm]

Actually, you're right. I figured I'd wait until the end of the day to reveal the hoax.

I thought it would be funny to play McLaren's advocate.

It was so easy to rile people up. Throw in a few slightly distorted "facts" and voila. Malcolm Mclaren was an old fart who tried to co-opt a legitimate youth movement. The Sex Pistols are fun and a novelty, but come on...they were hardly sowed [from] the fertile and largely underexplored ground of pop-proletarian art. What a load of crap. And McLaren's role was more of a crook and fake than an innovator of "situationist art." It was James Reid, not McLaren who created the cover art for the album.

Had mderators been more clever, they would have seen through my "situationist art" and given me a -1 Flamebait.

Speaking of Punk Anniversaries...

[CorkHorko]

...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.

Re:What's with the anarchy?

[antistuff]

Im sitting here trying to think of ways to explain it, but i cant really. Punks are just crazy people who dont want to be told what to do. THen there are others who are all activisty and trying to get the whole world to join them in doing nothing (see crusty punk). I guess it all started because of a sex pistols song that everyone misinterpreted.

the whole punk subculture is beyond understanding and explanaion because it doesnt make any sense. but in a good way.

Suprise Bollocks

[johnos]

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.

The only thing I ever knew about the Sex Pistols

[lildogie]

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...

Re:They saved music from The Great Kat

[dw3ll]

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, god why? Re:A history of punk

[ShinGouki]

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)

Re:Not quite, but more ironic still

[Exiler]

Unix was, Linux wasn't. There's a huge difference.

Re:Punkers don't do opensource

[LatJoor]

Check this out then:

unixpunx.org

Re:poseurs....

[JebusIsLord]

Whatever man, tell me you like Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground and then we can talk.

Re:Punkers don't do opensource

[kaitos]

http://www.unixpunx.org" - Site made up of exactly the people you just said didnt exist.

80s punk all dead hard and serious?

[fantomas]

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?

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[alpg]

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