Prog & Punk - Connection??

let's start a 'worst teeth' thread- I nominate Shane McGowan of The Pogues

Thanks for reminding me of Magazine! Anyone who thinks prog is pretentious should check out Howard Devoto's lyrics ("The Book" is a great example)

but I like 'em anyway...especially "I Love You, You Big Dummy"

I'm starting to get the feeling that richardh is not a big fan of punk

emdiar wrote: James Lee wrote: emdiar wrote: My fave punk tracks are "The Day Before" and "The Ungovernable Farce" from "The Ungovernable Force", by Conflict. They mix thrash punk anarchy with concept album formats and a proggy attitude to arrangements. They have also recorded at the Enids studio, borrowing RJG's keyboards. http://www.conflict.org.uk/music.cfm ps. Punk Poetry? John Cooper Clarke's yer man. Woohoo- a Conflict fan! "Force or Service" is my fav track from that album- are you into Crass too? "Reality Asylum" is one of the scariest songs I've ever heard Yeah, but hold on a cotton pickin' minute, a Conflict fan, Stateside?? What gives buddie? edit: sorry, I learned my Americanisms from black and white B movies.

That's OK, I learned Britspeak from Monty Python and Doctor Who

Yeah, when I was a dirty skatepunk I found Conflict and Crass (from the same freaky brit friend that got me into Tones on Tail). For some reason they appealed to me a little more than most of the hardcore punk that the US was producing around the same time- although Black Flag's "Damaged" is right up there too...

emdiar wrote: My fave punk tracks are "The Day Before" and "The Ungovernable Farce" from "The Ungovernable Force", by Conflict. They mix thrash punk anarchy with concept album formats and a proggy attitude to arrangements. They have also recorded at the Enids studio, borrowing RJG's keyboards. http://www.conflict.org.uk/music.cfm ps. Punk Poetry? John Cooper Clarke's yer man.

Woohoo- a Conflict fan! "Force or Service" is my fav track from that album- are you into Crass too? "Reality Asylum" is one of the scariest songs I've ever heard

Edited by James Lee

emdiar:

There were certainly plenty of punks at the few Hawkwind gigs I've been to!

At school my immediate circle consisted of a handfull of headbangers, and a gang of gothic type creatures with Robert Smith haircuts. They didn't go for rock much, but liked us because we had the p!ss taken out of us by the trendies almost as much as they did. So there was some common ground. I sucessfully managed to get the gothies on board with Hawkwind, Marillion (Script for a jesters tear only..) and the Lamb lies down on Broadway. I tried to convince them them that Gabriel along with Bowie and the like had contributed to the goth scene. A few of them bought it! My work was almost done...

Then it turned out they were all Pink Floyd fanatics anyway, but wouldn't acknowledge Floyd as prog. Bless 'em..

Hit the nail on the head there, James. Certif1ed, were you sitting next to me at school from '78 till '84 or something? It seems we've been at all the same festivals, and now have exactly the same perspective on punk. Great to see Here&Now get a mention. (any idea where I can get "Fantasy Shift", btw? I'm going mad trying.)

Every Hawkwind gig I've ever been to was packed with punks!

We can all deliberate on the validity of The 'Pistols' NMTB and TGR&RS till the cows come home, but trying to decide if it's deep social comment, cool as long as you're aware of the irony, or a double irony that means Lyden was taking the piss anyway, is futile and irrelevant. Just play the music. If it makes you wanna kick the cat whilst snearing with panache then it's done its job in my book.

My fave punk tracks are "The Day Before" and "The Ungovernable Farce" from "The Ungovernable Force", by Conflict. They mix thrash punk anarchy with concept album formats and a proggy attitude to arrangements. They have also recorded at the Enids studio, borrowing RJG's keyboards.

http://www.conflict.org.uk/music.cfm

ps. Punk Poetry? John Cooper Clarke's yer man.

Edited by emdiar

the Who??

Joren wrote: You mean the Cardiacs? The songs I know from them are really funny and good!

One of my undergrad students introduced me to the Cardiacs (Kingston uponThames finest???) and I reciprocated with Porcupine Tree (and he quickly ended up with moreTree than me).  Eventually found Sing To God Part One  in a dumper bin in Andys Records locally, with that amazing track which I reckon is prog meets punk headon: Fiery Gun Hand.

Mind you as to the rest of the discussion, I think we done a lot of it before. Sex Pistols and Van der Graaf, Johnny Rotten Lyden being in to Can and applying for the position of lead singer, PIL's Flowers Album being Lyden does Can. Fripp, Hillage and Hammill on a Stranglers album. Siouxsie & The Banshees doing at least one psychedlic/underground album.  ETC.

Joren wrote: I only accept some early punk (Ramones, Sex Pistols). That is just ordinary (RAW) rock 'n' roll, a little like AC/DC maybe. Punk, nowadays, is poppy and polished.

Totally!

"punk" nowadays is not worthy of the name. Punk was about the attitude first, and the music (supposedly) second - although I like most (proper) punk music.

Now it's just a term which defines a particular sound, which seems to have NOTHING in common with the punk I remember from 1976. Back then every major punk band sounded DIFFERENT to each other - I mean significantly different. The Damned are instantly recognisable, as are the Stranglers, the Clash, Sham 69, the Buzzcocks, Cockney Rejects, the Pistols, Siouxsie et al. Now "punk" means that you trot out three cheesey chords, wear "shorts" that go down to your ankles and have stupid looking spiky hair - and probably a skateboard.

BTW, did you know that Lemmy once played bass for the Damned? The only recording in circulation that I know of is a cover of the Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz" (a classic song and a classic 70s band if ever there was one!). The Damned could well be considered a Prog Punk band, IMO - they covered "Alone Again Or", by Love, and "History of the World" and "Smash It Up" part II are both very proggy in feeling. Irony?

I was never keen on the Fall - but it's not easy music to listen to, and I found it hard to find any value outside the aesthetic - which was not to my taste. The Clash did some good stuff, like Guns of Brixton, but overall I think they were overrated. They certainly led the way for an underground explosion of punk/reggae, which the Police made a career out of very quickly, and Here and Now (the Gong side band) produced some superb live performances (although the studio albums are a bit lacklustre in comparison).

My favourite of all the punk/reggae fusionists are Subhumans / Culture Shock / Citizen Fish (same band, essentially). They always wrote for the moment, so can sound a little dated - but the three Culture Shock albums are all timeless classics. Check them out if you like punk/reggae even slightly - they'll blow your mind!

http://www.citizenfish.com/

/edit - what the heck, check them out even if you don't like that sort of thing - it's punk - who cares?

Edited by Certif1ed