Prog & Punk - Connection??

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

Motorhead are indeed a good example of where rock met punk head on, with good results.

It seems to me that any prog influence or closet appreciation by punk bands usually manifested itself later in their careers. In particular Killing Joke. I have always liked their music. Even when they were at their hardest and most unlistenable, you could tell that their approach was different. For a start they tended not to use standard rock 'n' roll riffs and arrangements as the pistols, the Damned and the Exploited did. Also, you could hear they could play better than their peers. By the time they were releasing albums like 'Brighter than a thousand suns' and 'Outside the Gate' they were showing themselves to be quite conceptual, and displaying an ability to right quite moving melodies, and conjure up both dark and light atmospheres in their music.

Interesting discussion, folks. Thanks

I understand that one of Rotten (ne Lydon)'s favourite Hammill tracks was "The Institute of Mental Health Burning" from "Nadir's Big Chance". This album was basically PH exploring his punk alter-ego before punk rock became a reality - as defined by the UK Punk Rock explosion led by the Sex Pistols.

There's arguments about who was the first punk band - New York Dolls, Ramones, MC5, Hawkwind, but there's no denying that the Pistols spearheaded (or warheaded) the movement. When "Anarchy in the UK" burst forth from my TV set back in 1976, and I watched open-mouthed as Bill Grundy was crushed by the very "yobs" he was poking fun at, I was completely taken aback. I had NEVER heard anything with such power, aggression and an evil sense of humour to boot - if you were in on the joke, that is. If you weren't, it was quite scary.

As I stated in another thread somewhere, things might have been very different if UA had released Motorhead's first LP proper "On Parole", which was recorded in 1975. Then again, they might not have been different, because The Damned released "Damned Damned Damned" and the Vibrators released their 1st LP (I forget what it's called, but it sits at the back of my collection!) before "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols" was released, and it was NMTB that people bought.

I remember 1977 very well - the huge amount of fuss over the single "God Save the Queen" - not only the outrage the lyrics caused, especially in the Daily Mail, and the timing of the single to co-incide with the Queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations, but the shocking cover, which featured Her Maj with a safety pin through her nose. It was banned from airplay, like most of the Pistols' material, which practically guaranteed it a #1 slot, and, like everyone else, I bought it to find out what the fuss was about because you couldn't hear it on the radio.

I was a bit disappointed to find that it was just another pseudo-rock'n'roll number with lyrics that were only a bit funny the first few hearings. "The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle" put it all into perspective - one of the big jokes is that it's a concept album. The concept is that it's all cheesey old rock'n'roll and rubbishy throw away music, but you bought it you sucker, and made the perpetrators a lot of money, even though they told you it was worthless junk. "Punk" means something worthless.

Erk.

I'm waffling again...

I don't know if it's true or a popular myth, but apparently when Johnny Rotten was hired for the Sex Pistols, he was wearing a Pink Floyd t-shirt that had "I Hate" written above the band's name. He did later admit an appreciation for Peter Hammill, though.

I think the more open-minded (or pretentiously trendy) prog fans were more likely to appreciate punk than vice versa; even if the class of '77 punkers were willing to drop the de rigeur rejection of anything mainstream (hard to believe now that prog was part of that, eh?), prog's complex arrangements and arena performances had very little to offer those who valued the DIY attitude and bare-bones roots-rock club scene of punk. I'll bet more than a few of the more avant-garde punk explorers would have admitted liking prog if the punk image hadn't demanded that it be derided; certainly there's an art-house connection in the Lou Reed/ Iggy Pop/ David Bowie/ Brian Eno circle that at times intersected Fripp, Gabriel, and Zappa, among others. 

When Gabriel was putting together "Lamb Lies Down" he was very conscious of the need to address 'streetwise' themes, and so we got Rael- a proto- punk protagonist created about the same time The Ramones were getting their sound going.

On the other side of the spectrum, 1977 saw a slight prog and punk meeting in the the classic Television album "Marquee Moon". Guitarist and co-founder Tom Verlaine was a fan of Fairport Convention, and the title track especially proved their acceptance of extended musical exploration. The Kronos Quartet later did a version of the song that wouldn't have sounded out of place on an italian prog album.

Then again, I'm in the same boat as you- I wasn't really conscious of musical or social trends in 1977 (I was in kindergarten!) and we've had several decades of revisionist musical history and mistaken reminiscence to cloud the issue.

the only connection between punk and prog i know is called the cardiacs...

this forum redirected u to a wrong site...or, whatever...

just type www.cardiacs.com