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Joined: February 16 2006
Location: Pennsylvania
Status: Offline
Points: 31169
Posted: February 12 2009 at 11:37
Easy Money wrote:
For the record: punk didn't kill prog-rock.
It did not, but it made it a hell of lot more difficult to start a prog band circa 1977 than it was 6 or 7 years prior - the record companies wanted nothing to do with that kind of music. And really, prog was never even killed anyway as far as I'm concerned, it just went more underground and never regained the sort of commercial success it (i.e. the big name groups) enjoyed throughout most of the 1970s.
Joined: May 29 2005
Location: hell
Status: Offline
Points: 28427
Posted: February 12 2009 at 11:58
Punk is quite combineable with prog and I don't hate it like I used to a long time ago but i just don't dig the Sex Pistols/Clash (they sound pretty similar to me) sound... I like some old hardcore punk like Minor Threat or Black Flag though. And Ramones are ok.
Joined: February 03 2007
Location: The Heartland
Status: Offline
Points: 16913
Posted: February 12 2009 at 12:12
The more I read about this, the more I want to hear SP again. I never shared their anger towards prog but I certainly share it towards the new cycle most days.
At the risk of repeating myself, check out Minutemen for one of the best punk bands of the old days.
Joined: August 11 2007
Location: Memphis
Status: Offline
Points: 10652
Posted: February 12 2009 at 12:16
NaturalScience wrote:
Easy Money wrote:
For the record: punk didn't kill prog-rock.
It did not, but it made it a hell of lot more difficult to start a prog band circa 1977 than it was 6 or 7 years prior - the record companies wanted nothing to do with that kind of music. And really, prog was never even killed anyway as far as I'm concerned, it just went more underground and never regained the sort of commercial success it (i.e. the big name groups) enjoyed throughout most of the 1970s.
Yeah, there is a lot of truth to that, but what I was trying to say was that all my old favorite bands began to loose their creative spark. I remember seeing ELP Works tour and just being disgusted, not because of the music but by the fact that they obviously didn't care anymore and were just going through the motions.
Same thing with Genesis after Hacket split. I had just seen them a year or two earlier with Bruford and they were incredible, but soon after that their shows were lifeless.
Fripp was the only old favorite that wasn't 'phoning it in'. Meanwhile I saw Black Flag at a small club and rock was alive and well again and very creative and energetic. It didn't hurt that Black Flag's music had obvious King Crimson, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath influences.
Anyway, I didn't mean to get off subject here, let's not have another boring debate about prog and punk, that has been done to death on this site many times.
Joined: August 11 2007
Location: Memphis
Status: Offline
Points: 10652
Posted: February 12 2009 at 12:22
^ modern punk eh ... I've been teaching some young teens how to play songs by Patent Pending, they are a funny band with a guy in a whale mascot costume on stage with them dancing around etc, sarcastic goofy teen humor like that still cracks me up.
Joined: February 28 2005
Location: Helsinki
Status: Offline
Points: 2818
Posted: February 12 2009 at 17:27
It's alright, although punk had much more to offer - like the aforementioned Minutemen as well as Gang of Four, Television etc. I suppose with those bands we're entering the post-punk realm though, which is a different beast altogether.
Joined: December 24 2007
Location: Ukraine
Status: Offline
Points: 25210
Posted: February 12 2009 at 18:58
mystic fred wrote:
mithrandir wrote:
I don't care for the Pistols, but I love PiL,
i agree - John Lydon's material has matured a great deal by this point (PiL), surrounding himself with top notch musicians and even a few good songs and melodies, though the avant-garde leanings and sense of rebellion is still there, a very entertaining and solid album.
NMTB on the other hand is not about music, it is a reactive fashion statement, a right wing protest movement against the establishment, an antithesis not to Prog in particular but the whole misunderstood image of the directionless decadent music scene of 1977.
Though many have an affection for many of the bands during this period, i feel Punk Rock became an inevitable stain on our music history page - against the complacent moguls of the music world, things have hardly changed today in some areas, though many movers and shakers within the music world play very safe these days, sticking to clone acts who have a PA department to vet their activities when dealing with the press (boy band, girl band, girl with guitar, boy with guitar, all very safe and stuff you could listen to with granny around).
Even Rap has become a sanitised neatly packaged establishment institution , it is also about fashion statements not music, though its decadent anti-establishment overtones are all very tongue-in-cheek, and should only influence or offend the foolish .
With the lack of anything new appearing these days, music will to continue to safely go round in circles for many years to come.
I shall add to/back up what Pnoom! said.
Why is Nevermind the Bullocks not about music? Why is it less about music than a prog rock album is, why is it less about music than a classical piece is, why is it less about music than a simple 3 chord Johnny Cash song is? A classical musician could easily say Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash is just about image and not about music, since it's all relatively simple stripped down songs and often both have been put in the media and shown to the world as something more about image than music.
As far as I can hear, NMTB has melody, harmony and rhythm. So tell me why it's not about music, if it has the common elements of what we regard as music and was printed to vinyl so people could LISTEN to it (key word, listen, because that's what you do with music, right?). Sure, perhaps the BAND was about an image to an extent, but the record is about music.
"I feel Punk Rock became an inevitable stain on our music history page" I feel Genesis and Yes left an inevitable stain on our music history page when they released pure garbage in the form of pop albums and in fact, looking around PA, I'd be inclined to think many would agree with me.
As a fan of music, as a Progressive Metal Team member and also as a fan of prog rock, I am proud to say I'm a fan of punk. As far as I'm concerned, and as Pnoom! said, punk changed music for the better, but I guess you have to be a fan of stuff like metal, hardcore and the indie scene, like I am to truly appreciate punk's massive positive contribution to music , otherwise you'll miss it entirely. The whole of Tech/Extreme wouldn't exist without punk, so lemme guess that you think Tech/Extreme is a 'stain on music history'? A lot of post rock and post metal is heavily influenced by hardcore/post hardcore, so I guess it's a 'stain on music history" too right? Bands like The Mars Volta and The Fall Of Troy which are included in the database in our very own PA are heavily influenced by post hardcore, The Fall of Troy in fact being a prime example of progressive post hardcore. THAT'S RIGHT, a prog punk band in essence. Whoever said punk and prog couldn't fit together was dead wrong.
Clone acts exist in every genre really, it's not a punk phenomenon. Anyone that thinks punk never progressed musically, clearly doesn't know the genre at all. Just like prog, like metal, like jazz, like classical, it spawned many any sub genres, some of which have produced very complex music with true virtuoso musicians. I can tell you now, a lot of punk bands play it anything but safe. I would hardly call the post hardcore/pysch/experimental prog stylings of The Mars Volta safe and easily digestable by the mass audience. As far as I'm concerned and can see, punk doesn't play it anymore safe or dangerous than prog rock.
Now, if I must make it clear, I'm more into post hardcore than any other punk sub genre, but I still have quite a decent knowledge of punk history from it's roots until today.
And as Pnoom! said, there is still plenty of rap that is down and dirty and doesn't go by the rules of the popular rap styles. I'm no expert on the field and I don't have the understanding of rap that Pnoom! or other PA members do, but I can tell you, if you take the 2 seconds extra that mainstream audiences don't do to look for something that is far removed from being sanitized and sugar coated, you will find something more extreme that is not compatible with mainstream listeners.
Joined: March 25 2006
Location: New Mexico
Status: Offline
Points: 933
Posted: February 12 2009 at 19:32
HughesJB4 wrote:
Anyone that thinks punk never progressed musically, clearly doesn't know the genre at all. Just like prog, like metal, like jazz, like classical, it spawned many any sub genres, some of which have produced very complex music with true virtuoso musicians.
I tired to make that point a long time ago around here on some other thread, but it was like talking to a wall,
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575
Posted: February 12 2009 at 19:44
^ It's down to context - at the time of its release Steve is correct in saying that Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols was not about the music - at the time it would not have mattered what was on the record because the music simply wasn't the point of it - it was the energy, the anger, the frustration and, yes, the fashion, but also remember that by late '77 the Punk scene in the UK was practically over (76 was the year of Punk) - NMTBHTSP was release at the end of Punk, not the beginning - the Pistols split-up three months later - music was already moving on and all it took with it was the fashion and trendy ethos of Punk, but none of it's ideology, none of it's anger and very little of it's music - what followed was a watered-down second wave of Punk that quickly became radio-friendly New Wave - yet NMTBHTSP was the most anticipated release of '77 because of the controversy surrounding it, not because of what was on it, it was actually "old hat" by then - the people who bought it and listened to it couldn't have cared less whether it had 2 chords or 12 as long as you could gob and pogo along to it.
Joined: September 02 2006
Location: OH
Status: Offline
Points: 4981
Posted: February 12 2009 at 19:49
First of all, Hughes, excellent post.
Dean, you make some good points, but I disagree with "at the time it would not have mattered what was on the record." If it had not been so perfectly put together, with music just as visceral as the image it represented, it certainly wouldn't be as big as it is today (though perhaps it would've been just as big back then, I can't honestly claim to know).
Also, New Wave is awesome and I'm not sure how bands like Black Flag and Dead Kennedys (who came in the wake of the Sex Pistols) are in any way "watered down" (or any band in that scene).
Joined: September 02 2006
Location: OH
Status: Offline
Points: 4981
Posted: February 12 2009 at 19:50
Also, I recommended this to The Miracle via PM, but anyone who wants to hear just how forward thinking and progressive punk can get need only listen to:
Joined: December 24 2007
Location: Ukraine
Status: Offline
Points: 25210
Posted: February 12 2009 at 20:05
As with Pnoom, The Shape of Punk to Come is one of my favorites. At The Drive In - Relationship of Command is equal in quality IMO as some of the best post hardcore ever produced. Very far removed from the 3 chord punk of old. For those not in the know, the vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala and guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez from At The Drive In went on to form The Mars Volta, which is how you get the post hardcore link to The Mars Volta. Those two guys were fed up by the other musicians into ATDI not wanting to progress into further, more complex territory, which is partly how TMV came about, since they were free to take the base sound of post hardcore and take it in a new direction. The Fall Of Troy (on PA) use a similar approach, they use post hardcore as the base sound, more so than TMV and threw in technical musicianship, extended compositions and metal influences, while still remaining still very much post hardcore at the core. Protest The Hero (also on the PA database) also came from a very staunch post hardcore background, as evidence by their EP "A Calculated Use of Sound" which is pure post hardcore, and their debut album is the result of taking the base sound of post hardcore, putting the musicianship in serious virtuoso territory and mixng it up with a dose of various metals of genre.
To me, those 3 bands are to an extent, doing for post hardcore and it's evolution as a genre in the 00s that Drive Like Jehu, Fugazi, Refused and At The Drive In did for Post hardcore in the 90s, although of course those 3 bands I mentioned obviously mash up a lot more genres into their sound to make something a lot less 'pure post hardcore' than Drive Like Jehu or Fugazi et al.
Joined: August 11 2007
Location: Memphis
Status: Offline
Points: 10652
Posted: February 12 2009 at 20:48
In the mid 80s in San Francisco there was a post hardcore scene with a strong prog-rock influence, some of the bands included Victims Family, Crash n Burn, Hello Kitty on Ice, No Means No (from Canada), Slovenly (LA) Rhythm Pigs (Texas) as well as Nuerosis (on PA) and Faith No More.
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