Punk Before You

Proto-punk: the typical label slapped on after the fact by music historians… ugh… History… but what does that have to do with punk? "Punk", which this year celebrates forty years of life: not bad for a "movement" whose mottos include no future.

In my opinion, celebrating its birthday isn't exactly the most "punk" thing in the world; but allow us a quick refresher on the "roots" of this counterculture: some will say these were garage, glam, or (hard)rock bands, but don't listen to them: they were simply… punk before you.

Sonics (1960)

It seems only right to start with 60's garage-rock, a seething cauldron of primal energy from which — for reasons of space — we can only pick one band, so let's go with the Sonics from Tacoma, Washington, and their sound, as abrasive as they come.

The tracks on "Here Are The Sonics" and "Boom", played at full volume, still cut a fine, noisy figure on contemporary weird-punk playlists, but even listening to their new work "This Is The Sonics" (released last year after decades of inactivity), you can't help but be struck by these rockers, septuagenarians only on paper.

MC5 (1964)

"Right now it's time to… kick out the jams, motherfuckers!" screams Rob Tyner at the start of the title track of the debut album by these Detroit prime-movers, a live record fittingly titled "Kick Out The Jams" (1969). Their fierce, politicized attitude earned them plenty of media attention (though Lester Bangs famously tore them apart), but they vanished after just three albums, only to be canonized as a "cult" band in the years that followed.

Their proto-punk is a blend of blues-drenched (hard) rock'n'roll, played through walls of distortion and driven by a wild frontman: what a sight they must have been live, in Detroit, at the tail end of the Sixties.

Stooges (1967)

The Iguana and the Stooges: legendary figures who entered the annals of rock'n'roll through the back door, the one that opens onto the dark, grimy alley where the most interesting stories happen; they've rightly been written about extensively, everywhere; and OndaRock itself has a thorough profile penned by editor-in-chief Claudio Fabretti.

So let's use this small space for a "Bet you didn't know..." moment (apologies to trivia buffs everywhere): there's the famous episode of Iggy smearing himself in peanut butter while crowdsurfing; well, that (enormous) jar of peanut butter was handed to him by a young Stiv Bators, future singer of Dead Boys and Lords Of The New Church.

Punk before you and after you.

New York Dolls (1971)

A band that undoubtedly fits the definition of "cult band" to a tee, a story marked by excess and, sadly, untimely deaths, so much so that only two original members survive today: the Jagger-esque frontman David Johansen and guitarist Sylvain Sylvain; this small remaining lineup gave rise, from the mid-2000s onward, to a new incarnation of the Dolls, aided by Morrissey, who helped organize their reunion in 2004.

The (scarce) video footage gives a good sense of their explosive performances, a perfect missing link between glam-rock (the feminine, over-the-top looks) and punk urgency.

Malcolm McLaren was utterly dazzled by them, and after a brief stint as their manager, he went back to England with the idea of forming a band…

Hollywood Brats (1971)

Their name recalls that of the more famous New York Dolls, and there's more than a passing affinity between the two bands: yet they're not mere British copycats of Johansen and Thunders, not least because their brief careers ran almost in parallel. The Brats didn't even release anything during their lifetime as a band: their debut album only came out, posthumously, in 1980.

They too are an important piece in the birth of punk, in this case in England: keyboardist Casino Steel would later join The Boys, after a stint in London SS, another short-lived band whose ranks included members who would go on to Damned, Clash, and Generation X.

Death (1971)

Detroit didn't just give birth to the likes of Stooges, MC5 or Alice Cooper — it's also the hometown of this trio of African-American brothers who chose to play a fast, noisy brand of rock'n'roll right in the city of the Motown Sound.

First struck by the sight of the Fab Four on the Ed Sullivan Show, and later by the explosion of the Detroit sound of Iggy & C., David Hackney picks up a guitar abandoned in an alley and recruits his brothers Bobby and Dannis to form a rock band: Rock Fire Funk Express, who would soon become Death, a name not exactly appealing to mid-Seventies marketing departments, so much so that Columbia dropped them after they recorded seven tracks in 1975, tracks that would remain unreleased for over thirty years. It was Drag City Records who, in 2009, brought Death's music back to light with "…For The Whole World To See": a distorted, groove-laden proto-punk record that's impossible to remain indifferent to.

Neon Boys (1972)

Tom Verlaine, Richard Hell and drummer Billy Ficca record a handful of songs under the name Neon Boys - between 1972 and 1973 - before "becoming" Television; the available material is so scarce that the 7" "That's All I Know (Right Now)"/"Love Comes In Spurts" had to be padded out with a couple of Voidoids tracks.

A garage-rock sound that picks up the Stooges' "lesson" and is already very punk, with Richard Hell's crooked vocals and the guitar - already recognizable - of a young Verlaine. Their contribution is fundamental to the birth of the New York "scene" - and beyond - from which a genuine musical "revolution" would soon spring.

electric eels (1972)

The fury of the Stooges, the experimentation of the Velvet Underground, a passion for free jazz, a (self-)destructive attitude and who knows what else all end up in the meat grinder of electric eels (written in lowercase), a shooting star (six live shows in total) based in Cleveland.

John Morton and co. founded the band before they'd even learned to play their instruments, which included - among other things - sheets of metal beaten with hammers and lawnmowers, "played" in extremely violent live shows that immediately earned them a reputation as a "dangerous" band, and consequently one that was easily banned from venues in the area.

Posthumous compilations give us an audio record of their performances, lo-fi recordings marked by a sonic assault of rare ferocity, decidedly punk and well ahead of its time.

Devo (1973)

The thriving "experimental" scene gravitating around Kent State University (Ohio) at the dawn of the '70s is the cultural humus from which the project of two pairs of brothers, the Mothersbaughs and the Casales, and their "concept" - de-evolution - sprang to life.

Humanity, after millennia of evolution, has started down the reverse path, a phase of regression of which contemporary American society is a symptom; a critique developed as a joke but with an absolutely lucid edge, which pairs perfectly with a surreal imagery (the jumpsuits, the Energy Domes on their heads), their deadpan humor and - last but not least - a musical approach that's utterly outside the box.

Dadaist, iconoclastic rock'n'roll, infused with electronics, somewhere between oddity and avant-garde, but also pop... post-punk before punk!

Rocket From The Tombs (1974)

Another pivotal band in the development of the emerging new wave: from their ashes would rise two "names" like Dead Boys and Pere Ubu, who would reuse part of their repertoire. Rough versions of songs like "Ain't It Fun", "Sonic Reducer" and "Final Solution", of which unfortunately no "official" recording exists, given that they too stayed together for only a short time, just one year, between 1974 and 1975.

This gap is filled by the collection of demos and live recordings "The Day The Earth Met The Rocket From The Tombs", released in 2002, followed by their first three studio albums, "Rocket Redux" in 2004 (thirty years after their debut), "Barfly" (2011) and "Black" (2015), which also features a cover of "Strychnine" by the aforementioned Sonics.

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