Do the terms "proto-punk" or "pre-punk" take something away from a band's importance?

Why are the Stooges called pre-punk or proto-punk? Why aren't they simply called "punk rock"? What specifically makes them NOT punk rock?

doing bendy-knee guitar solos, doing acoustic numbers, doing hippie chants, being around before punk

CCR and steve miller were around before the term "classic rock" was used. So by your logic, they would not qualify as classic rock, correct???

Deep.

also, circle jerks did accoustic numbers, so did violent femmes, pixies, nirvana. Are all of these bands disqualified as being punk just for the act of doing accoustic #s???

yes

also fuck off wagemann

OHMIGOD YOU ARE BLOWING MY FUCKING MIND!

i always liked proto-punk way more than actual punk, so the answer to this thread's question is an overwhelming NO. i think the term usually adds to a band's importance, esp in the case of the stooges.

also- neither violent femmes, nirvana, or the pixies are "punk", sorry

I've never heard the term "pre-punk" before.

Yeah "proto-punk" is probably going to pique my interest more than just "punk".

Stooges not punk because We Will Fall

no one from michigan can be punk, it's in the rulebook

Oh wait, it's EVB. Stop asking dum quastions.

Why are the Stooges called pre-punk or proto-punk? Why aren't they simply called "punk rock"? What specifically makes them NOT punk rock?

I think maybe you don't know what proto means?

Do the terms "suggest ban" or "this fuckin guy" take something away from a poster's importance

Has PEW registered again?

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SLs59nEa4X4/SWPnibsP9fI/AAAAAAAAAB0/H4u0aETnQdI/s320/holy+pop.jpg

One of the most famous prepuces arrived in Antwerp in the Brabant in 1100 as a gift from king Baldwin I of Jerusalem, who purchased it in Palestine in the course of the first crusade.

Why are the Stooges called pre-punk or proto-punk? Why aren't they simply called "punk rock"? What specifically makes them NOT punk rock?

Just like The Beatles and The Who are not britpop or powerpop, I guess. Has to do with chronology.

Is the right answer.

"Punk" as term (like many other genre names) describes a particular cultural movement as well as a sonic aesthetic. Even if some earlier bands had a similar aesthetic to their music, they weren't part of the movement because it didn't exist yet, hence they're called "proto-punk".

Whereas "classic rock" was never a particular movement nor a genre name used at the time, it is by definition a tag that can be only added postfact.

nailed.

Hahaha, I scrolled down as far as Iggy's head and immediately panicked: "Oh shit, NSFW alert!"

Well, personally, I've always hated seeing MX-80 Sound referred to as "punk" or (worse) "post-punk", 'cause they predated both, plus they were so much more than that. But then I'm famously protective/possessive when it comes to those guys. (Calling 'em "proto-punk" is just fine.)

The terms "proto-punk" and "post-punk" are both annoying, because in truth they're a single continuum, and "punk" circa '76-'77 of the sonically limited variety is (to my ears) a minor, dead-end offshoot of the main branch--so hardly deserving of being the concept by which the main is defined. but, at this point, they're terms of convenience. "Punk" always was more salable for lazy rock-crit-history writing and "journalism," the others are genuinely artful and thus a little complex and nebulous.

Any proposals for a catchy, one-word name for whatever the hell runs from Velvets/Stooges/Can/Kraftwerk/Faust/Roxy Music/Eno/(+James Brown+Miles Davis+Serge Gainsbourg+King Tubby...) through Pere Ubu/MX-80 Sound/Devo through Go4/Wire/Family Fodder/Talking Heads/etc.? Even 1/2 of the most famous emblems of "punk" proper clearly didn't give a shit about the dead-end of punk (Sex Pistols --> Public Image Limited).

The terms "proto-punk" and "post-punk" are both annoying, because in truth they're a single continuum, and "punk" circa '76-'77 of the sonically limited variety is (to my ears) a minor, dead-end offshoot of the main branch--so hardly deserving of being the concept by which the main is defined.

OTM. In my mind "proto-punk" at least makes sense in terms that were around pre-1977--going at least a decade back (Monks, for instance?)--when many of these bands were just weird little uncategorizable things. The movement that was punk hadn't coalesced yet. But "post-punk" has always confused me, because it was happening simultaneously. If the chronology isn't there, then it can't be "post" anything.

OMG THE INSIGHTS OF THIS THREAD ARE SO INTERESTING I JUST JIZZED MYSELF

don't be an asshole.

pere ubu are proto-punk but they've always felt more post-punk even though they came before punk

please alert me when this thread decodes the meaning of 'post-core'

Why are the Stooges called pre-punk or proto-punk? Why aren't they simply called "punk rock"? What specifically makes them NOT punk rock?

I think maybe you don't know what proto means?

― Mordy

lol, pwned.

"Any proposals for a catchy, one-word name for whatever the hell runs from Velvets/Stooges/Can/Kraftwerk/Faust/Roxy Music/Eno/(+James Brown+Miles Davis+Serge Gainsbourg+King Tubby...) through Pere Ubu/MX-80 Sound/Devo through Go4/Wire/Family Fodder/Talking Heads/etc.?"

The Wire Magazine genre of music.

The terms "proto-punk" and "post-punk" are both annoying, because in truth they're a single continuum, and "punk" circa '76-'77 of the sonically limited variety is (to my ears) a minor, dead-end offshoot of the main branch--so hardly deserving of being the concept by which the main is defined. but, at this point, they're terms of convenience.

― pgwp

No offense, but I hate this argument. Sure, I agree, but who cares? The last sentence is the one that counts. And it's not just convenience, it's utility. Fighting against the way words are conventionally understood just seems like such a losing game.

Same goes for the whole "NOOOO! Jimi Hendrix is METAL!" thing, btw.

^^ challops

Creeps - the text you copied was actually said by Soundslike, one post above mine. And who's "fighting" against the terms? I (and Soundslike) can acknowledge that the terms are ill-fitting without making a call to arms, right?

Oops uhyeah, I meant to credit Sounds. A thousand pardons. And sure, I don't think you're saying anything offensive/unacceptable. Just rubs me the wrong way. I mean, it seems obv to me that punk is more useful as a term for the '76-'77 "punk moment" than as a catchall for anybody that happened to hear a Sonics/VU/Stooges record.

But that's just me, I guess.

Strange (from a post-post-punk perspective on proto-punk) to read the Legs McNeil oral history of punk book and see that the people turning up in this imagined entirely separate, hostile, OTHER continuum of VU-MC5-Stooges stories are all also, you know, almost as excited about seeing the Doors (and/or also hoping a mashed and naked Jim Morrison manages not to fall off too many castle roofs while they try to get some sleep through Nico's wailing), say.

(ok, not that strange and probably not that accurate, was just skimming back through yesterday looking for the bits starring Ron Asheton, RIP)

don't be an asshole.

Gentlemen, you can't fight! This is the punk thread!

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2005/09/07/strangelove_wideweb__430x284.jpg

Aargh
http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2005/09/07/strangelove_wideweb__430x284.jpg

They're called "proto-" and "pre-" for two reasons: the first is that all genres are created backward as people become aware of a type coming into existence and then try to define it by working back to a source; the second is that those proto- and pre-punk bands don't sound like the '76 and '77 punks. It's mostly a matter of pacing (maybe the quality and quantity of the speed available...), but you aren't about to confuse Simply Saucer, the Electric Eels, and Debris with the Dils, Pagans, and Valves, right? Even the first song (best I can tell) to move along at punk's pace, Iggy's "I Got a Right," lurches and surges more than it drives, but it's clearly a serious move towards '77 punk, especially for '73.

The problem, as always with discussions of "punk," is one of definitions, particularly whether one is using the word to describe a specific music (60s garage, NYC '75, London '77, and so on) or a general attitude. Of course the Stooges are punk rock in the ass-kicking sense, but they're proto-punk if you're stepping back and starting to get a bit critical, even musicological. And of course "proto-punk" tends to be applied a bit more to US bands than to UK ones. UK pre-punk outfits often get stuck with the glam, biker, pub, and thug tags (this last is often applied to bands like the London SS and the early Johnny Moped and Damned practice versions that didn't release records).

Also, the desire to take "punk" back from the codified proto-PUNK-post timeline is that it attempts to trade this useful, (at least semi-)accurate model of artistic communication and change over time for a giant shapeless mass that has no connection to a particular time or place, and that instead just sort of broods over a vast spaghetti collection of only loosely related things. Like "pop" or "rock", but even less specific and more contentious.

... the desire is a problem in that...

If Stooges, MC5 and New York Dolls were proto punk, then what were The Prodigy? ;)

dorks

"all genres are created backward as people become aware of a type coming into existence"

OTM. When it gets really weird, particularly if you were in from the start, is when genres are created 10-20 years after the event, usually by record collectors: Northern Soul, Freakbeat, streetpunk, garage and, yes, proto-punk.

. . oh yeah, don't forget that eBay favorite "KBD PUNK"

Street punk? Not sure about that one.

OK, I don't remember it being used at the time - may have missed an issue of Sounds!

Well I'm too young to have known about it at the time but most articles I've read seem to say it was called street punk before it was called Oi.

Even the first song (best I can tell) to move along at punk's pace, Iggy's "I Got a Right," lurches and surges more than it drives, but it's clearly a serious move towards '77 punk, especially for '73.

First? I doubt it.

'Helter Skelter' is about that pace, for one, granted it's not as quote-unquote 'punky'

There's lots of fast garage & freakbeat stuff. Hell what about Kick Out The Jams?

who let PEW back?

It's OK he got banned again.

Too late! I've been sucked into another punk-trolling thread!

Anyway, most people here seem to really hate it, but I found Stewart Home's one-draft rant "Cranked Up Really High" useful on genres and definitions. Page one: ". . rather than being stable and static, PUNK ROCK is fluid and its boundaries are subject to ongoing renegotiation" I really don't care who made the first punk record. However, I do find proto-punk and the various other micro-genres quite useful in identifying bands I'd like to hear. But, Carry On Renegotiating.

Someone should be along to claim the latest ringtone pop sensation as punk very soon now, if I know ILM.

lol @ this thread still going

Oh I wasn't talking about the first "punk" record. I'm not going near that one.

xpost well I was ignoring it until OP got banned :)

I'd say "I Got a Right" is more proto-hardcore than proto-punk. I actually think it has more manic energy and aggression than most 76-era stuff.

Yeah I can go with that.

you know a question is dumb when Geir and Tuomas have more rational answers for it than anybody else.

Y,ICGWT!

Yeah wtf am I doing I only came to post to query Soukesian saying "street punk" as a term was invented after the fact. Which I'm not even sure is wrong anyway.

you know a question is dumb when Geir and Tuomas have more rational answers for it than anybody else.

Pretty much OTM

OTM. When it gets really weird, particularly if you were in from the start, is when genres are created 10-20 years after the event, usually by record collectors: Northern Soul, Freakbeat, streetpunk, garage and, yes, proto-punk.

I'm pretty sure I saw an old interview with one of the Stooges who said "we're kind of like a proto-punk band."

Wouldn't it be cool if they'd said that in 1969?

Well I'm too young to have known about it at the time but most articles I've read seem to say it was called street punk before it was called Oi.
Huh. I always thought street punk was the later american stuff, but what do I know.

you know a question is dumb when Geir and Tuomas have more rational answers for it than anybody else.

Pretty much OTM

Ha. Indeed.

"I got a Right" pulses with rhythm and melody; hardcore plays right through those and flattens them out. I wouldn't think anything the Stooges did took the sex out of music like classic 1980-83 hardcore bands did (I mean this musically, not in terms of straight-edge behavior), so I'd have a hard time thinking of them as fathers of hardcore.

"Helter Skelter" rides a mean groove, but do you really think it moves like "I got a right?" It's more of a grind than a surge.

A great proto-punk album is the Outsiders' C.Q.. 1968, Netherlands, and "Misfit" prefigures about everything the Swell Maps would ever accomplish, while "The Man On The Dune" does play right through the song's own melody in sort of a triple-timed skiffle, and is in its own way proto-hardcore.

I wouldn't think anything the Stooges did took the sex out of music like classic 1980-83 hardcore bands did (I mean this musically, not in terms of straight-edge behavior), so I'd have a hard time thinking of them as fathers of hardcore.

This true, but it's a continuum. Early Black Flag isn't sexless, has a pulse, a feel for rhythm and even melody.

Yeah, and a smart person would point out that hardcore was less a genre than a scene that, for all the crap it gets about being a bunch of suburban white boys, was actually pretty open to a large range of sounds (from Flipper and Kilslug, to the Zero Boys, Artificial Peace, and the Middle Class. (Which is why I was careful to hedge with "classic 1980-83 hardcore.")

But all this just kicks our genre problem down the road...let's agree not to get started on post-punk.

UK pre-punk outfits often get stuck with the glam, biker, pub, and thug tags (this last is often applied to bands like the London SS and the early Johnny Moped and Damned practice versions

Not denying this -- in fact, I think it's interesting, and I agree that Brit bands don't seem to be called "proto-punk" as frequently as U.S. ones do -- but I swear this is the first time I've ever heard "thug" used to signify an actual genre (as opposed to just a description of thuggish music), weird for something that happens so "often." Where exactly is that term used? And are you saying they were known as "thug-rock" at the time, or just in retrospect? (Also not clear what the U.K. "biker" bands would be -- like, the Count Bishops and Hammersmith Gorillas, maybe? Who I just always figured were extremely hard rocking pub bands. I usually associate "biker rock" with badass Southern rockers like say Point Blank, or Australian ones like say Rose Tattoo, but really the Count Bishops weren't boogieing all that far from some of that stuff. I guess Motorhead would obviously fit, too.)

most articles I've read seem to say it was called street punk before it was called Oi....Huh. I always thought street punk was the later american stuff

Yeah, me too. Don't think I'd ever heard "street punk" referring to a particular kind of punk until the past few years, when it usually seems to apply to much-later-day U.S. bands whose sound falls somewhere in between hardcore and oi!, but don't quite sound jolly or drunk enough for the latter. But who knows, maybe Sham 69 or Slaughter and the Dogs or somebody were singled out as "street punks" in pre-oi! days. Totally news to me though.

As for punk vs. proto-punk, it's probably worth mentioning somewhere on this thread that, when a couple critics at Creem first gave punk rock it's name, bands like the Ramones and Sex Pistols were still a few years away from existing. Weird to say those critics were "wrong", but maybe somebody could argue that were just right for their time, or something. (More interesting dichotomy, and I swear I've heard people make this distinction but never really understood it, is "punk" vs. "punk rock." Like, maybe punk is an attitude that's always been around in certain kinds of rock music, whereas punk rock started at a specific point in time? I dunno.)

Yeah, you're kind of right, "thug" might be more a personal genre (or at least used mostly in my circle) to get at the tougher pub rock bands (I mean, you've got to distinguish somehow between Brinsley Schwarz and ballsier outfits like Stormtrooper, Crushed Butler, or the early Johnny Moped). So many practice bands milling around from 1973 to 1975, just biding their time and trying to work things out (again, in hindsight...). Biker is more the continuum from Hawkwind to Motorhead, so there's still a touch of psych workouts going on. Pink Fairies and sympathizers. More analogous to the MC5/Simply Saucer thing over here? You know some of those guys had mustaches and bellbottoms.

man, punk vs. punk rock is really splitting hairs. a distinction without a difference? I just think the basic thing to keep straight when you're talking punk is to be clear whether you're talking attitude (in which case--and I'm sort of cribbing from Kugelberg's recent Ugly Things piece on the subject--Jonathan Richman's gentle "Not yet three" is about as punk a thing as there is) or musical style. Otherwise you're always getting into these pointless discussions where the other person tries to point out how much more "Punk" Heavenly were than the Pagans, or that PUNK=CUDDLE. Ugh.

Telling how silly the whole thing can get when you acknowledge that the band to start the whole punk-as-genre obsession (where did this come from? Does Year Zero have a pre-history?) are the oddest fit into all this. The Pistols were pretty much pre-punk in everything they did. But then there's Mr. Rotten.

Some bands (and not just the opportunists like the Kursaal Flyers) surfed the stylistic changes as they happened. Cock Sparrer, for what it's worth, was, in quick succession, glam, pre-punk, punk, and street punk (yes, used of the boots and braces crews worldwide in the 90s til now, but not so much back then). "Teenage Heart" still works for me, though the cleft between the syncopated beat and the lyrics of "England Belongs to Me" can get me queasy as I sing along....

As per usual, you are ALL wrong. For the correct answer look here:

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.viewcustom&friendID=66316956&blogID=306694278&swapped=true

your blog sucks

Those things are, of course, all true, but the point being made was that nobody bothered to unearth/organize them until '77 Punk came along and people started wondering how this movement that seemed to disavow all ancestry had sprung into being so fully-formed. The answer, as the link/blog points out (as have many writers), was that there was almost nothing new to '77 punk. And yet you'd never confuse the Dils with any of the earlier punks, right?

(Reminiscent of Robert Graves's aside that there was nothing new to Christianity other than Christ's personality. True enough, and yet....)

The more material the blog presents, the more it falls into the trap of revealing its post-'77 need to trace punk's roots.

"Punk" is also decayed wood useful as tinder...and therefore not the worst metaphor for what happened when '77 punk used old materials to put its match to.

Does the term hardcore take something away from a band's punk importance?

Quite a lot of this thread is good but I thought PEW was banned on sight

Just coming back to this: Don't think I'd ever heard "street punk" referring to a particular kind of punk until the past few years

This doesn't completely support what I was saying as it came out in 1986, so not "pre-oi":
http://content.answers.com/main/content/img/amg/pop_albums/4/3/l/e43194vqal4.jpg

OI!

I've always used "streetpunk" as an umbrella term for the sound: including 1st gen bands like Cocksparrer as well as for later revivalists.

Have been corrected by serious punk people for such usage, though, so who knows.

Maybe it's used differently in the USA to the UK. Seems like it based on this thread so far.

[ Insert "Part Time Punks" youtbue link here ]

That blog = lolz.