1. A Punk song that defines the genre: New Rose
2. A Punk band that defines the genre: The Clash
3. The ultimate Punk band lineup (Vox/Lead/Rhythm/Bass/Drums): Strummer/Jones/Cook/Glen Matlock
4. One Punk album you would want on a desert island: Never Mind The Bollocks
5. One Punk song that makes you dance: Janie Jones
8. A band that shouldn't be thought of as Punk, but regularly are: Stooges, Sonic Youth
9. British or American: British, no contest
10. Sonic Youth's most Punk Rock song (no covers): They've never done a punk song

1. A Punk song that defines the genre: Stranded - The Saints.

2. A Punk band that defines the genre: The Clash.


7. A band that should be thought of as Punk, but rarely are: The Saints. anyone who knows the Saints knows they're punk. But the Ramones are loved by every kid, but they don't know who the Saints are. I remember watching a documentary where Ed Kuepper said he was really disheartened when the Ramones came out because they were doing it way before the Ramones were and they weren't getting the recognition like the Ramones.

9. British or American: Punk bands exist outside of these two countries.

Not really.

sex pistols are corporate like black sabbath. they made their own records for music's sake, but the publicity and image is entirely different. the crucial difference is that black sabbath is a damn fine band that just wanted to play music, and the image and pr is just another aspect. now with punk, there is an entirely different cause, meaning and intention. it is at its most simple and universal mode anti-establishment, and anything even moderately established begins to loose its punk credibility. that being said, that is why I called the sex pistols corporate. maybe it was the young punk from highschool burried in this Tewahedo Rastaman that made me lash out... ahh I miss real pits...

Yeah, I was even about to use that word "image" when I was writing that I sort of "got" your meaning.

Oh well, although we now live with that lossy cultural impact, my perception of what they were all about to begin with is unfazed. I can't help it if future generations don't have much of a clue about the history or meaning of the music of the Sex Pistols.

Watch The Filth & The Fury. There is no band more punk. In today's world, it's not even possible. And yet I take constant shit from people every single fucking time I ever mention them.
They are a band that demonstratively protested every chance they got. Of most note, they did this in their dealings with the press, on television (specifically on the "Today" programme), and with an illegal show onboard a boat on the Thames during Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee (which was a huge national holiday celebrating a quarter of a century of the Queen's rule). They came to be so despised by the government that they eventually became more-or-less completely censored. They were banned from the airwaves, their singles and album sales were not reported in the media, all press presented them as the boogeyman, and they were prohibited from playing gigs in cities. Some even report that they were hounded by detectives and government agents, and that conspiracies were hatched to ruin McClaren...you name it.
And let's not forget their lyrics. Two from songs that come to mind right away are the criticism of the British government with lines like "no future" and "the future dream is a shopping scheme." "Corporate," you write? I think not.

Wake up and smell the coffee, Laruso!

I was talking about music with a guy once , and when I said I like the Pistols , he looked disgusted just like if it was the worst boys band ever.
It seems to be a commonly accepted idea ( and a popular one ) that they suck.
A lot of people love to hate them and I don’t get why.

I don't like the Sex Pistols. They bore the shit outta me. They remind me of them kids at school who try and play the role of the misfit purely for image.

My opinion.

lol:D

1. A Punk song that defines the genre: I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU - FEAR
2. A Punk band that defines the genre: DEAD KENNEDYS
3. The ultimate Punk band lineup (Vox/Lead/Rhythm/Bass/Drums): Steve Albini (VOX) / Paul Leary (GTR) / Jerry Only (BASS) / Claudio De Pujadas (DRUMS)
4. One Punk album you would want on a desert island: PINK FLAG - WIRE
5. One Punk song that makes you dance: HORROR HOTEL - MISFITS
6. One Punk song that makes you think: THINK AGAIN - MINOR THREAT
7. A band that should be thought of as Punk, but rarely are: THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS
8. A band that shouldn't be thought of as Punk, but regularly are: TOO MANY
9. British or American: AMERICAN
10. Sonic Youth's most Punk Rock song (no covers): INHUMAN

Why has no one else said Silver Rocket? I'm not saying your opinions are wrong but surely I can't be the only one who thinks it is SY's most "punk" song.

Inspired shamelessly by Dead-Airs Survey threads:

1. A Punk song that defines the genre: ANOTHER STATE OF MIND (not the biggest fan, but an important song nonetheless)
2. A Punk band that defines the genre: BLACK FLAG
3. The ultimate Punk band lineup (Vox/Lead/Rhythm/Bass/Drums): Tony Adolescent (cadena or montana)-vocals; Greg Ginn-lead gtr; Paul Cutler (45 Grave)-rhythm gtr; John Doe-bass; Don Bolles-drums
4. One Punk album you would want on a desert island: MILO GOES TO COLLEGE by The Descendents
5. One Punk song that makes you dance: FROSTED FLAKE by Redd Kross
6. One Punk song that makes you think: KIDS OF THE BLACK HOLE by The Adolescents
7. A band that should be thought of as Punk, but rarely are: REDD KROSS
8. A band that shouldn't be thought of as Punk, but regularly are: Iggy/Stooges
9. British or American: American (the birthplace)
10. Sonic Youth's most Punk Rock song (no covers): CATHOLIC BLOCK

Alot of people name the Stooges.
I see them as rock 'n' roll.

I don't see how anyone can say the band that recorded Raw Power wasn't punk, nor the band who the Sex Pistols ended their career with a cover by. Arguably all of the best punk bands could also be deemed rock 'n roll as they were actively bringing life back to that corpse. The Stooges were at it well before the rest of the pack, but that doesn't make them anything but the leaders. They set the standard for what would be considered punk by bringing a new primitivism to the rock form that bordered on minimalism and backing that up with an energy and intensity that hadn't really been seen before.

That said, they will always be considered more "proto" than simply "punk" as the godfathers they were, and the Pistols will always be the punk rock archetype.

I often find it interesting that the 'anti-[x]' aspect of the Pistols, while no doubt entirely present and true for those living through the times and shortly after (NB I wasn't anything like born at the time) becomes a narrative, a mode of edification that ceases to mean a great deal by the time my generation comes along - for my part, when people talk about the impact the Pistols had, and Public Enemy afterwards, I tend to think of how Atari Teenage Riot and Asian Dub Foundation impacted the teenage me. That's not to say their incursions into society are meaningless now - I would blithely analogise it to the difference between suffragette-era feminism and the so-called 'third-wave' (itself a broad, indistinct blanket term for 'schools' of feminism occuring after a faint point in the mid-70s). That is to say, while certain 'revolutionary' activities (whether the politically 'proper' revolutions or the cultural-staging revolutions I would put the Pistols under) must maintain their importance and relevence for certain age-groups, it is important that whatever effects the Pistols had be ignored/ rejected/ blind-sided by the younger generations. I don't want this to be considered an ageist sentiment, but there's no doubt that's a latent subterfuge I can't avoid. The point being that the Pistols define punk by being both entirely revolutionary but not revolutionary a priori. Their mark is felt on all genuinely political 'punk' music, in aspects of British society (I would argue here the Pistols were symptomatic of a wider malaise than instigative, but this doesn't impact their relevence any) and on the alleged mass-marketed facsimiles of punk.

Hmm, long post, exciting. The point I was originally inspired to make was regarding Throbbing Gristle. I find it interesting that, from a pop-culture point of view, the narrative that has become the Pistols has not quite followed the same trajectory as that of Throbbing Gristle. TG were labelled 'reckers of civilization' in parliament, and like the Pistols, created events that impacted British law. Genesis-P was hounded out of the country (by a few accounts - I may be erring on insubstantiation here) - interesting to note that, for all their anti-monarchistic sentiment, none of the Pistols were refused entry to Britain. Generally speaking, and to weigh in with my own thoughts, while the Pistols' 'culturo-revolutionary' actions are entirely palletable to a certain cache of society for whom the punk narrative is an 'exciting' one, rarely to TG fans care about the similarities between the objective TG narrative and the Pistols' narrative, and it's never used as a trope (noose) with which to describe them. TG make, to my mind, unsettling and troublesome (but by no means 'difficult') music, while the Pistols exact only a staging of 'unsettling' music. I wouldn't label TG as punk, but if the word has any currency (which it doesn't) I'd label them it.

I sometimes wonder why I bother, I really do...

A really interesting comparison. From my knowledge, the controversy around TG in parliament referred more to their earlier COUM project, which was funded by a public Arts Council grant. The real issue was not what they were up to, but whether the government should be funding it. That said, it's surely undeniable that TG provided a more substantial and coherent form of critique than that offered by the Pistols. It's the fact that, as you say, they emerge out of two different 'narratives': TG coming out of the 'shock' aesthetic of a sixties avant-garde loosely associated with such counter-cultural figures as Burroughs, the Vienna Aktionists, etc, while the Pistols on the other hand were stemming from a more 'established' path which made them far easier for the industry (albeit belatedly) to properly absorb (in essence, MacLaren was doing little more than updating tactics laid down in sixties by the Stones' manager Andrew Loog Oldham). The Pistols shook up the industry because, by the mid 70s it'd become lazy and self satisfied. It didn't take long however for it to adjust (hence New Wave). TG operated in a sphere that the industry could never possibly adjust to, at least in terms of its 'mainstream'. There simply wasn't the sufficient reference points for it to turn to for guidance.

Without wanting to sound overly pretentious, TG perhaps best illustrate the point made by Adorno that an avant-garde (assuming we might want to think of punk, as MacLaren surely did, as avant-garde) is effective only in so far as its very form cannot be appropriated by mass industry.

I've actually forgotten the point of what I'm trying to say here. Nope, can't remember. Anyway, bloody interesting thing you did there, comparing the Pistols with TG.

Anyway, I'm off to listen to a Dickies album.

Yeah, I did that old trick of bending facts to make my point with the COUM thing, and you're right about the 'public arts' bit as well. Still, who's to let a few niggling facts get in the way of a good point, eh?

I'd never thought about putting Adorno into that argument (it's a recurring theme of mine) so thanks. I shan't be using Adorno, but he'll at least be considered. I have a cardinal rule about Adorno - so long as I continue to pretend I know nothing about him (which isn't the case in the slightest) I don't have to be eternally confused and annoyed.

1. A Punk song that defines the genre: D.O.A. - Fuck You