That's a tough call. He was definitely an influence on punk but so was The Velvet Underground, The Stooges and other lesser known bands like Death (the Detroit band), MC5 and even Captain Beefheart!

I've done a bit of research on this but indeed Peter Hammill was and still is a one of a kind musical icon who transcended petty genre distinctions.

Ton Steine Scherben play "Macht kaputt, was euch kaputt macht" - "destroy what destroys you" in 1972.

Amon Düül were quite punk as well by the way, in the beginning.

I remember coming across Death while looking for Death and being confused AF lol.

Apart from say, H to He Who Am the Only One, I've never been entirely convinced that either VDGG or solo Peter Hamill were conventionally Prog as outlined by any of the definitions available on PA. As also evidenced by King Crimson, the Eclectic label seems a bit of a stretch for any creative association that transcends any such perceived boundaries. The lyrics quoted by the OP are from Nadir's Big Chance from 1975 where Hammill inhabits the persona of prototypical Punk and inarticulate 'yoof' Rikki Nadir so there is some dramatic irony involved i.e. the same realm where theater ponces pretend they can't read a.k.a. white dopes on punk. Of the 11 tracks only about 5 are recognizably Punk in style and there's a danger in conflating anything John Lydon likes as being an endorsement of its Punk credentials. Like Hammill, VDGG and Crimson, Lydon outgrew his formative influences and matured into a discerning and thoughtful artist capable of growing into middle age and beyond producing work that is as relevant to us today as those it was inspired by in 1975

Nadir's Big Chance was recorded in 1974 and released  in early 1975, but I think all or at least most of the songs on it were actually old material, were written in the late 60s, in the early days of VdGG, most before they had recorded anything.

It is a kind of twin album to Fool's Mate.

Rob Halford is a huge fan of Peter Hammill. He was at the reunion concert of VdGG on May 6th 2005. As were Fish, John Lydon, Bruce Dickinson, Julian Cope and David Bowie, to name but a few.

And anybody who has ever heard the Van der Graaf live album "Vital" knows why.

I'll bet Peter Gabriel was there too. 

Hmmm...this single was actually released prior to Los Saicos (they did not sign a recording contract until early 1965), The Kinks from August, 1964 (in the UK, in the U.S. September, 1964)....

This single came out in the UK October, 1964 (U.S. December, 1964)....

Iggy Pop would have kicked Hammill's a**. And then probably smeared poor Pete's blood on himself and jumped back onstage.

Yeah,  The Kinks first album came out in 1964.  It does have a  similar raw rock 'n roll garage rock sound to Los Saicos and may have been an influence for all I know.  

I just saw this wikipedia timeline of Punk Rock:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_punk_rock" rel="nofollow - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_punk_rock

They start with " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_Louie" rel="nofollow - Louie Louie " by  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Berry" rel="nofollow - Richard Berry

From 1964, specific songs the mention are:

It's similar to the eternal debate about which was the first true rock & roll record.  Musical styles and genres evolve - they don't suddenly appear overnight.

Hi,

Ohhhh please!

White Punks on Dope ... and it says it all about many of the punk groups doesn't it?

That first album is magnificent and it is sad and a shame that they could not continue the whole thing! They fizzled, unfortunately.

As for the OP, the only thing that PH shows that could be interesting to some punk folks is that in the early solo albums, he screamed, cried, spoke and slaughtered lyrics in a style that might have given punk singers a good idea of what they could do that most didn't. Up until that time "singing" (as in note ... !!!) was very important, and all of a sudden, a lot of lyrics were standing out and creating a voice that was doing things differently, and this became something that a lot of folks do not like in PH ... his words DRIVE the music to help make them more important, whereas most bands just keep on with the same drum beat and bass and not creating special moments for the lyrics, and for me this is the difference between an average band, and a great band ... the great band knows how to add/subtract moments from their players to help augment the lyrical content ... the average bands, ignore the lyrics and the high school drummer continues on the same beat and volume and snare drum, like nothing happened!

True punk or not is ... a strange thought. Even before the googoodoll days of the start of Iggy, there were bands in LA and SF doing a lot of screaming and trying to get attention, even so far as a bunch of the bands in LA filed a lawsuit in LA that they won, to be able to get more air time. They still only got an hour or two at 3AM in the Okefanokee Swamp ... but what the heck! The idea was that most radio station owners were afraid of what the folks that paid all of their checks would think and react by not buying any more advertising ... and in those days, according to our local station in Santa Barbara, it was all about the LOCAL business and support as compared to 10 years later when these stations were owned by mega corporations and the Army/Navy, Pepsi/Coke and General Food commercials as well as a few others took over the whole thing and the local market pretty much got dumped as they could not afford the price anymore ... same thing with pro sports in small towns ... the station is already paying for a million or two and the chances of them getting 10% of that from the local business? NONE.

I believe there has always been some kind of punk in all music, and I would not be surprised to find it in black music, where it would have been quite deserved considering how the music business handled things and avoided so many of them.

I was more thinking of some things like THE LAST POETS, of which one piece is in the film PERFORMANCE and it is magnificent, and hard to believe that this had not been around before ... I think it was all along. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iqlv-KiJDOU

While not exactly punk, the lyrics are off the roof ... intense and right up front! Very much a punk tradition. I don't even think that a lot of black folks in the rap scene even realize where this came from although there is a feeling I have that a lot of this actually came from Africa, a place where a lot of music is still ignored, or is totally destroyed by senseless wars and political upheaval. It's a wonder that it even survived in some form or another.

Makes a lot of rap seem very silly and just a drum sound!