Dan Fleming: Punk Rock

Punk rock comes from, america, the UK and australia 1974 and 1976.

There lyrics were normally, Political DIYing it by self- producing there recordings, and selling them however they could.The Ramones were one of the first punk bands out there, they preformed 2,263 concerts in all and toured for 22 years non stop. There music style was influenced by pop music and classic rock bands such as the beach boys, the Beatles, the kinks and the rolling stones.

They did like the heavily produced stuff that took over the pop chart and over produced. they also adopted a long hair, leather jackets,t-shirts, torn jeans and trainers, this fashion was a powerful influence on 1970's punk scene.

The sex pistols came next who were hugly influencal on many alternative rock and punk. They are wide and huge influence on the punk scene in the 1970's and are counted as an important event in popular music, The releases of "Anarchy in the U.K.", "God Save the Queen" and Never Mind the Bollocks became history because of how much uproar they caused, the sex pistols were about not caring, rebelling, it all fitted in with the punk fashion. Johnny rotten even influenced the director of Batman, the dark knight to design the character The joker.

Chrsitopher Nolan was infulenced by the style of punk when thinking of Joker's costume.

The clash was a hugely influential punk band their music included genres such as reggae, ska, sub, dance and well as punk rock, again their rebellious attitude, musical experimenting, was very influential on alternative rock music. These bands and many more have influenced many bands such as guns and roses, nirvana, green day and oasis. Many genres are influenced by the punk movement including grunge, indie, thrash metal and even rap.

The Punk fashion was huge, the classic punk look was a t-shirt, motorbike jacket and jeans, however punk photographer Roberta Bayle set of the basic styles of punk rock, he did a cover of the Ramones debate album cover 1976. Richard Hell created a look involving safety pins. Johnny Rotten was one of the first British punk artists to rip his shirt, and Sex Pistols bassist Sid Viscous as the first to use the safety pink look. Over time tattoos, piercing, metal studs and spiked acessories were common within punk fashion, also short choppy hair, even though the mohawk came in many colours such as bright greens, blues but red became popular and a lot of fans even had the skinhead style.

Studs, spikes & coloured hair.

However before any of this there were garage bands that just wrote up songs and performed music in a garage, this happened a lot of these bands such as Kingsmen from portland, they where influenced by the hard edge of british punk innovation. The Kinks really kicked off the whole punk scene and the Ramones were influenced by them. The who also progressed after there first single "I Can't Explain" but this single was not very popular with the punk scene in america at the time. By 1966 the U.S seemed to hate it, but it was bands like The Seed that were to be seen as the gods of punk rock.

The lyrics of punk rock can often sound 'nasal', sometimes shouted. The vocals rarely shift in pitch, volume and intonational style. However the visuals of punk rock are completely different to normal rock styles, for example the classic selection of clothing involves: T-Shirts, Jeans and a leather jacket. Tattoos piercings and metal studded clothing and accessories often acompliment this look. The music is normally heard at festivals such as the Reading festival or Download. It isn’t heard in clubs such as other genres and is usually on music labels with other similar stylists and bands. Punk rock bands are strongly followed online on social networking sites such as myspace and facebook, where pretty much any punk rock band will have a fan page populated with fans of similar artists and links to other band pages.

Reading festival in motion.

Popular modern Punk Rock bands include;

Blink 182, Sum 41, +44, Bowling for Soup, Rise Against, The Bloodhound Gang, Billy Talent, Four Year Strong, Gallows, Green Day, Less Than Jake, The Offspring and more…

Punk Associated Record Labels