The Beginning of Punk

The first established punk rock group was The Ramones. Started in 1974 in New York City The Ramones recorded a very low budget first album and received little attention outside their home city. Their first gig outside of New York only had an audience of 10. It wasn’t till they played their first show in the UK at The Roundhouse in London on the 4th on July 1976, that they started to receive critical acclaim. The following night they played a second gig at The Roundhouse and met members of The Clash and Sex Pistols.

This meeting inspired these bands to take a new direction in the form of anti-establishment. The Clash were an instant success from the release of their debut album “The Clash”. The UK punk scene was now alive. The Sex Pistols then released what is claimed to be one of the most influential albums of all time “Never mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols” on 28th of October 1977. It went to number one in the UK and 106 in the USA, and became their only official album released.

Punk rock music continued after this with The Jam but they made it sound a lot more pop and were more image conscious than the previous mentioned bands. Singer Paul Weller’s lyrics were in contrast to the lyrics of The Clash and Sex Pistols. Where The Pistols called for destruction and The Clash called for revolutionary change, The Jam sang about the idealistic England from a socialist’s point of view.

Another influential Punk band of the 70s was The Buzzcocks. They received mainstream success with their most famous song “Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)”, which remains one of the most covered punk songs of all time.

Siouxsie & the Banshees were a band who merged punk and gothic rock. They were fronted by a woman, which was very different for a punk band at the time. They were very experimental and alternative to anything heard before. Siouxsie Sioux and Steven Severin met at a Roxy Music concert in September 1975 and decided to get a band together.

These six bands changed the face of music forever and influenced musicians everywhere.

Tommy Wilson