October 30, 2024 • 64 mins
In this episode of Listen to This, host Eric Leckey blasts through the raw, rebellious sound of original punk rock. Featuring tracks from legendary bands like The Ramones, Sex Pistols, and The Clash, Leckey takes listeners back to the roots of punk, exploring the DIY ethos, anti-establishment lyrics, and intense energy that fueled the genre's rise. Alongside unforgettable songs, he shares stories of how these bands challenged the music industry, shook up society, and left an enduring legacy. Tune in for a high-energy episode celebrating the pioneers who made punk a powerful movement in rock history.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to listen to this season thirteen finale. This is
the podcast that is dedicated to bringing you stories behind
the artists, behind the songs, and hopefully we are introducing
you to old songs that have influenced all the music
that we hear today. The goal is I want you
to hear an artist that you might not normally listen to,
and search out the music on whatever streaming service you
(00:22):
subscribe to and maybe buy it on physical media. We
invite you to subscribe, comment, recommend this podcast to a friend,
and please please please share with those that you love
and keep the word going. Anyways, Today's final episode of
the season has a theme, as all episodes do, and
the theme today is the origins of punk.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Never in the history of the United States a monster
of such size and power.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Welcome to listen to this a podcast that brings you
the stories behind the songs and artists with the theme
to tie it all together, here's your host.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
The birthplace of punk rock is as contested as the
proverbial chicken in the egg argument. The UK, the US, Australia,
amongst others all have a deserted horse in the race.
But the truth is it's a little less clear cut.
What is generally referred to as punk refers to the
(01:24):
artistic and musical movement of the mid to late nineteen
seventies that spilled through the eighties. As a movement in
the seventies, punk was heavily politicized. It was, though not
to be confined to a nihilist expression or a lack
in prospects for the working class youth, but it extended
beyond the realms of socioeconomic limitations to foster anyone with
(01:48):
an anti establishment leaning in need of aggressed artistic outlet.
Punk was an art movement as much as a political one.
If you were young and pissed off about something in
the nineteen seventies, punk probably would have been your filter. Musically,
nineteen seventies punk opted for a stripped back approach to songwriting.
(02:10):
Gone were the overly self indulgent guitar and keyboard solos
that dominated rock music at the time for something that
could be achieved with just three chords or even fewer.
That's not to say that punk music only favored the
music non virtuosos, even if they were looked on with
a little distaste. Rather, punk looked to uproot the traditions
(02:33):
of music to create a visceral expression that anyone could do.
On the surface, punk was an exhibition of rejecting conformity
to the preceding generations, politics, and philosophies, both internally and externally,
in an attempt to carve out something fresh and new,
and in many respects it was. However, as with most movements,
(02:55):
its roots had been fermenting far before what we know
as definitive punk music. We all know the sex Pistols
are punk, but what were before the sex Pistols. Punk
did not happen overnight, by the way, both politically and musically,
punk was in its infancy during the wave of beat bands,
British invasion groups and US garage rockers of the nineteen sixties,
(03:19):
who were partly inspired by rock and roll and blues
artists of the nineteen fifties. The nineteen seventies just gave
punk a home, a broken home. Music is cyclical and
is a prerequisite needs inspiration from pre existing artists. That
ethos of punk can be traced back to time memorial,
(03:41):
But musically the precursors of punk are a little less abstract.
Punk music had its musical ancestors just as every music
movement does. Without some of the following bands, groups like
the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, the Slits, the Saints, the Clash,
amongst many others, would have undoubtedly never came kicking and
(04:01):
screaming into the nineteen seventies and beyond. So as we
dive in on the season finale of the Origins of Punk,
Let's get It started with a former beetle Don't give me.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
That bone alone So long, A.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
Wab bus, don't take no word, watch.
Speaker 6 (04:59):
You no Jesus O'Mara foundagon grad mad.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Badam?
Speaker 7 (05:28):
Do you know do make you.
Speaker 6 (05:34):
Somebout all mava?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
That was John Lennon with the song I found out.
I did play this song for you in our in
Depth Beatles album that Never Was with special guest Matt
Welch a few seasons back, but it is an important
song the origins of punk, so I wanted to add
it again for this episode. It's a crunchy amp sound,
(06:10):
the guitar mistakes, the gritty vocals, and the anger all
hallmarks of what punk would become and was undoubtedly an
influence on it. In this angry and bitter song, Lenin
attacks a number of falsehoods, such as the idolatry of
the Beatles and how he is the focus for many
of those involved in the peace movement. The song includes
(06:32):
the line the freaks on the phone won't leave me alone,
so don't give me that brother. Brother Lenin explained the
lyric to the January edition of Rolling Stone that year,
he said, I'm sick of all these aggressive hippies or
whatever they are, the now generation, being very uptight with me,
either on the street or anywhere on the phone, just
(06:53):
demanding my attention as if I owed them something. Ringo
Starr played drums on this track. After the breakup of
the Beatles, Lennon continued to have a good relationship with Ringo,
actually most of the members of the band did. He
explained why in the same Rolling Stone interview quote, in
spite of all the things, the Beatles could really play
music together when they weren't uptight, And if I get
(07:15):
a thing going, Ringo knows just where to go and
just like that, and he does it well. We've played
together so long that it just fits. That's the only
thing sometimes I miss about being with some of those
blokes and just knowing that whatever noise I make They're
going to make a noise that counters it and it
sounds great. Other than that, I don't miss those guys
that much.
Speaker 8 (07:59):
Long to turn blow. I've seen the girls the dress
in their sun a clothes. I have to turn my
head until my darkness goes.
Speaker 7 (08:15):
I see a line of cars of the arts into
blood with flowers and my love.
Speaker 9 (08:23):
For never to come to birth.
Speaker 10 (08:27):
I've seen people turn their.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
Heads and quickly along the waves that bout baby. It
just happens every day.
Speaker 11 (08:39):
I will inside myself and see my heart's blare.
Speaker 7 (08:45):
I see my red door I was heading into blood.
Speaker 8 (08:51):
Maybe din't half fed awaves that kind of faith of fence,
not be the base and not wave your whole world?
Speaker 9 (09:01):
Is that.
Speaker 7 (09:03):
Lo well?
Speaker 12 (09:04):
My green single turn.
Speaker 9 (09:06):
A deeper blue.
Speaker 8 (09:09):
I could not foresee this.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Thing, have the.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Rolling stones there with painted black and the just the
mood of that beginning is just as punk as it gets,
the subject matter, just everything about that song. In fact,
I personally contend that it is the very first punk song,
at least as a mainstream song, as it pertains to
style of music, mood, lyrics, the whole kind of kitten kaboodle.
(09:37):
It was written from the viewpoint of a person who
is depressed. He wants everything to turn black to match
his mood. There was no specific inspiration for the lyrics.
When asked at the time why he wrote a song
about death, Mick Jagger replied, I don't know. It's been
done before. It's not an original thought by any means.
I guess it just depends on how you do it.
(09:57):
My thinking on it, the song seems to be a
about a lover who died. I see a line of
cars and they're all painted black. Those are the hearses
and limos with flowers and my love both never to
come back. The flowers are from the funeral and the
hearse he talks about his heart being black because of
his loss. I could not foresee this thing happening to you. Well,
(10:19):
it was an unexpected and sudden death. If I look
hard enough into the setting sun, my love will laugh
with me before the morning comes. I think this refers
to her in heaven, but that's just my interpretation. The
Rolling Stones wrote this actually as a much slower conventional
soul song. When Bill Wyman began fooling around on the
(10:40):
organ during the session doing a takeoff of their original
as a spoof of music he played at Jewish weddings.
Co manager Eric Easton, who had been an organist, and
Charlie Watts joined in and improvised a double time drum pattern,
echoing the rhythm heard in some Middle Eastern dances. This new,
more upbeat rhythm was then used in the recording as
(11:01):
a counterpoint to the morbid lyrics on this track. Stones
guitarist Brian Jones played the sitar, which was introduced to
pop music by The Beatles on their nineteen sixty five
song Norwegian Would. On the single, there is a comma
before the word black in the title, rendering it painted
comma black well. This of course changes the context, implying
(11:24):
that the person named black being implored to paint. While
some fans interpreted this as a statement on race relations,
it's far more likely that the rogue comma was the
result of a clerical air, something that was really not
uncommon in the sixties.
Speaker 9 (11:50):
Oh Oh, that was the Kingsman.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
With Louis Louis. Louis Louis was written by an R
and B singer named Richard Barry in nineteen fifty five
with his group The Pharaohs. He was also the first
to record this song. I got some airplay in some
cities in the Western US when it was released in
nineteen fifty seven. Various garage bands heard it and started
covering the song until it became a phenomenon with The
(12:58):
kingsman'steen sixty three version. While much of the song's notoriety
comes from the indecipherable lyrics and Barry's original version, the
words are actually quite clear. This song is about a
sailor who spends three days traveling to Jamaica to see
his girl. The words to Louis Lewie are almost impossible
to understand on the Kingsman and version in every other
(13:20):
version since then, and are rumored to be obscene. No
question that this added significantly to the sales of the single.
There were probably a leak somewhere that the lyrics were obscene,
otherwise no one would have realized it. This was the
most ingenious marketing scheme ever. The FBI actually tried to
track down Richard Berry, the Kingsmen, and various record company
(13:42):
executives to get an answer from them. They were never
able to determine the actual lyrics used. The Kingsman insisted
that they said nothing. Lu despite the obvious mistake at
the end of the instrumental, where Jack Eli started to
sing the last verse one bar too soon and can
be heard yelling some thing in the background. Eli also
said that he's sang far away from the microphone, which
(14:04):
is what caused the fuzzy sound, and that notoriety was
initiated by the record company. The Kingsman version of the
song was prominently featured in the nineteen seventy eight film
Animal House starring John Belushi, even though the song was
released in nineteen sixty three and the movie is set
in nineteen sixty two, but who cares. It was a
great movie. The song cost a mere fifty dollars to record.
(14:27):
The Kingsman went to the studio after a radio station
executive in Portland saw them perform at live and gave
them fifty bucks and said, why don't you go record?
Speaker 12 (14:35):
Its?
Speaker 7 (15:00):
Christian than has be.
Speaker 13 (15:03):
The wicked and Ambella mass up and the world says.
Speaker 14 (15:13):
The relatives have passed her by.
Speaker 12 (15:17):
To scared to.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Even the same hell.
Speaker 7 (15:22):
She's in the vine on the night she shuts up
the day and goes about persona a sycope not sycafa,
what a.
Speaker 10 (15:42):
Lover about her usul.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Custom that was The Kings with Wick Annabella and songs
like Destroyer and the guitar sound on songs like You
Really Got Me were an absolute creative and mood influence
(16:10):
on punk. But as I had played those for you before,
I wanted to play another song that has punk roots,
so I played Wicked Annabella from the album The Kinks
Are the Village Green Preservation Society. After guitarist Dave Davies,
in a fit of rage, slashed the speaker cone to
his amplifier, The subsequent distorted guitar tones seemed to fit
(16:32):
perfectly in the raucous energy of the group. The Kink's
first single, You Really Got Me, paved the way for
their explorations into aggressive rock, and their sound quickly gathered
momentum on both the UK and the US. The kinks
aggressive music was often mirrored by their aggressive temperament, especially
towards each other. They were renowned for their borish and
(16:55):
drunken antics that even landed them a four year band
from playing in the USA after a violent fracas with
a TV worker on Dick Clark's Afternoon TV show, where
the action is the early British Invasion era Kinks songs
are fast, upbeat and relatively easy to play, sharing them
do it yourself ethos of punk. It's no wonder then
(17:18):
that the Kinks are heralded is a major influence on
punk rock. As for the song Wicked Annabella and its
ties to punk, This dark and creepy track features a
dissonant melody, a loud and distorted guitar riff, and unsettling
lyrics concerning a witchy girl from Ray davies youth in London.
When asked Ray Davies who Wicked Annabella was, he replied,
(17:41):
Annabella was too good for me sexually. She was way
out of my league. She was very voluptuous and I
was just a shy kid. She knew how to take
virginity and not feel a thing. She has a dark side,
but also a good side, and her innocence was crushed
when she was young. You see, I do a backstory
on all of them. I'm like a detective. Rai's brother,
Dave Davies takes lead vocals on this one. The Kink's
(18:03):
front man said in a Rolling Stone interview quote, her
mother was a widow and she lived in a big
house with her mother. It's very Charles Dickinson. I cast
the song for Dave because it had power chords in it.
The Wicked and Annabella had never been performed live by
The Kinks. It has become a personal concert favorite of
Dave Davies when he's performing solos.
Speaker 14 (18:36):
I'll talk to Bellie steps, come on, come.
Speaker 7 (18:50):
On, you don't.
Speaker 15 (19:05):
Come allay le do.
Speaker 7 (19:12):
I'm your baby. Don't do that.
Speaker 15 (19:22):
You have mess so game.
Speaker 10 (19:26):
Go away?
Speaker 3 (19:28):
All right?
Speaker 7 (19:29):
Come read you God gotta re you be the bb.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
That was the song Girl You Captivate Me by question
Mark and the Mysterians. At first glance, question Mark and
the Mysterians seem far removed from this generally termed punk,
but the term became increasingly prevalent during the early nineteen
seventies to retroactively label many US garage bands of the
(20:10):
nineteen sixties. Punk as a term was kind of used
towards many of these young hopefuls that were playing in
aggressive garage rock bands at the time. Partly taking influence
from the British Invasion and the beat groups across the pond,
groag rock quickly became an assertive force in the US.
It was inherently brash and fast, favoring snarling vocals as
(20:33):
opposed to anything too melodic. Fuzz guitar tones became the norm,
with accompanying swelling bass risks, and the use of organs
became a staple of the garage rock sound question mark.
The Mysterians were no exception, even if they were on
the slightly lighter side of garage rock compared to some
ninety six tiers like Songs, which became their most well
(20:54):
known song, although Girl You Captivate Me is perhaps more
in the vein of the rocous garage or rock, which
is wild Lady Dream Dream.
Speaker 7 (21:04):
Check out the town over God, Yeah, I'm.
Speaker 10 (21:19):
Pretty good, give my food, did get all got in
through winter pressing room, the hater did?
Speaker 13 (21:30):
I don't know how you want quick as girl, Sun
and Window started right about sign.
Speaker 10 (21:37):
Look the kick out, the dry.
Speaker 5 (21:41):
Chick out, the set out, shot a tigle.
Speaker 10 (21:49):
I'm the first, just don't want one friend, fund them about.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Rid of friends, got a head there they do it
when you get fulfilling, you.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Got them look up mimn.
Speaker 10 (22:08):
Let the check out, the yea check out, the.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
Gotta chick on.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
I had to play MC five live because it's that
energy that makes them a huge influence on punk. That
is just basically a punk song that was live. From
nineteen seventy, the Michigan based proto punk band MC five
took the already energized British Invasion inspired garage rock of
the United States and just gave it a shot in
(23:08):
the arm. MC five where the disaffected electricity of politically
entrenched proto punk. Disillusioned by their often riotused surroundings in Michigan,
five disciples of rock and roll, expanded on what garage
rock had started, boosting its raw, unflinching sound with no
small amount of help from distortion. Renowned for their pretty
(23:32):
dynamic live performances, MC five opted against recording in the
traditional way. Instead, their first album, Kick Out the Jams,
was recorded live in nineteen sixty nine. Intense beyond measure,
MC five thrust their simple, stripped back sound into a
heap of controversy. Kick Out the Jams, from the album
(23:52):
of the same name, opened with the infamous lyric kick
Out the Jams. Mother efferr Punk sensibilities had not yet
cut up with the group, and their uncompromising approach to
life in the music industry garnered them little support from
record labels. The signature song of MC five, kick Out
the Jams, was also their rallying cry and their credo.
(24:14):
The phrase was often taken to mean overcome obstacles, but
it wasn't written as a song of perseverance. Wayne Kramer explained,
we were using that expression for a long time because
we would be critical of other bands that came to
Detroit that MC five would open up for. They'd come
into town with this big reputation and they'd get up
(24:34):
on stage and they weren't very good. So we used
to harass them. We'd yell at them kick out the
Jams or get off the stage. Finally, one day we said,
I like that expression. We should use that as a
title of a song. The song is notorious for the
line the opening line, kick out the Jams, mother effers,
shouted by lead singer Rob Tyner before the music kicks in.
(24:56):
This line appears on the uncensored version of the album
clean version, where it is replaced with kick out the Jams.
Brothers and Sisters was used on the single and later
made available on censored versions of the album along with
the rest of the album. This was recorded live at
the Grand Ballroom in Detroit, in October thirtieth, Mischief Night
and Halloween Night in nineteen sixty eight. By this time,
(25:20):
the MC five had gained a fervent live following in
the Detroit area, but had not released any material yet.
By the time this album was issued a few months
later in early nineteen sixty nine, they had stood up
a lot of controversy for their revolutionary stunts and associations.
Sometimes they even brought unloaded rifles on stage. Many bands
(25:40):
benefit from controversy, but the kerfuffle over the song did
not go well for them, and when they pushed the
provocation too far, it actually got them dropped from their label.
Many retailers even refused to stalk the album, which in
and of itself as a direct line and influence of
what punk would become, including a local chain called Hudson's.
(26:01):
The band took this as an affront and placed an
ad in an underground newspaper called The Fifth Estate that
read f Hudson's. Hudson's responded by threatening to pull all
of Elektra Record Company albums. Judy Collins and The Doors
were among those artists, so on April sixteenth, nineteen sixty nine,
the label dropped MC five and recalled Kick Out the Jams,
(26:23):
the album that was still in stores, and replaced it
with the cleaner versions.
Speaker 15 (26:44):
Give it a danger, little stranger, and you.
Speaker 7 (26:52):
Give it a danger little stranger.
Speaker 5 (26:55):
Now E is.
Speaker 9 (27:00):
Dead and in my dreams just some.
Speaker 7 (27:03):
Ugla memo reasons. It's me laft or shun breeze.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Now if you're real In my love.
Speaker 7 (27:21):
I was she and saying leaving your pen in my master,
I wok.
Speaker 13 (27:30):
N as fan.
Speaker 7 (27:32):
Just nucor left the lie up.
Speaker 12 (27:36):
Their left as.
Speaker 7 (27:39):
May my hands one more?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
All the students getting dark there with gimme a sting.
That's kind of the godfather of punk, Iggy Pop didn't
attain his title undeservedly exhibitions a state of mind that
is irrational, sensuous, disordered, and even drunken or mad. Art
characterized the half naked visceral front man, whereby Iggy would
(28:17):
cut himself and bleed on the audience, or even vomit
on the audience if he felt so inclined.
Speaker 9 (28:22):
To do so.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
But musically too, the Stooges were busy setting the stage
for definitive punk rock as far back as nineteen sixty
nine with the release of their first self titled album.
The Stooges seem to predate the disaffected philosophies that pervaded
punk ethos and the mid to late seventies. With often
pretty nihilist lyrics screamed by Iggy and a noisy, repetitive
(28:46):
guitar riff, the Stooges cast the hippie mentalities of the
late sixties aside for their own bleak reality of the
United States. The song I Chose for You was Gimme Danger.
Iggy Pop wrote many of the lyrics for the Raw
Power album. While wandering around Hyde Park in London with
a notebook. Gimme Danger finds him wary of a girl
(29:08):
who could be his ruin. If this is likely Joanna,
a girl he says, quote drove me out of my mind,
and he wrote her about her again on the nineteen
seventy seven Kill City album track Joanna Pop wrote this
song with The Stooges. When guitarist James Williamson, who layers
acoustic and electric guitars on the track, quote, in those days,
(29:30):
I almost exclusively wrote songs on acoustic guitar. He said,
I'd sit in my room with my little acoustic because
I didn't make a lot of noise and disturb the neighbors.
I also liked the tonal qualities. You can hear the
notes quite well. So anyways, I was fooling around and
just came up with those chord patterns the beginnings of
that song, and fleshed it out from there. It was
a very convoluted process of actually stringing all that stuff together,
(29:51):
but once it came out, I was immediately like, Wow,
this is a song, and let's record.
Speaker 7 (30:27):
Have you remember love the double.
Speaker 10 (30:35):
Sam Come.
Speaker 16 (30:38):
Let me struck yourself? How listens classes to the right.
Speaker 7 (30:51):
Housing someone else?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Just like running nine minutes and fifty eight seconds. The
song was just short by two seconds to make it
on our Long Songs episode, but I definitely thought it
fit better here.
Speaker 9 (31:42):
Anyways.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
That was the band Television with Marquee Moon and this
is really television's magnum opus, renowned for the inventive interplay
between guitarist Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd. It's the title
track to their nineteen seventy seven debut album, but the
song was actually years in the making. It started as
an acoustic ballad that Verlaine put together. The band started
(32:04):
playing at nineteen seventy four, when they were regulars at
a club CBGB's in New York. Television was actually the
first to emerge from that club and later provided a
home base for Blondie, The Ramones, and The Talking Heads.
They honed the song through live performances in pretty diligent rehearsal,
so when they recorded the album in nineteen seventy six,
they had perfected it. The entire album was recorded and
(32:27):
mixed in just three weeks. When the Marquis Moo album
was released in February of nineteen seventy seven, the title
track was clearly the standout, but not something that could
garner radio play in America. Has also a tough sell
because the band wasn't known outside of New York and
didn't even really adhere to a particular genre. Pop doesn't
(32:48):
really do it justice because of the song's complexity, and
it's still far from actual punk. The album never made
the charts in the US, but was later hailed as
a classic in most music surveys. Kay, though, was a
little more welcoming. The single charted at number thirty, and
the band made the cover of the music magazine New
Musical Express critical acclaim for television was most robust in Britain.
(33:12):
Early performances of this song usually lasted about five minutes,
but it got longer as the years went by. After
the song was released, the live renditions would typically surpass
the ten minute running time, sometimes even stretching for twenty minutes.
Speaker 17 (33:31):
Well she revetted she understood me, she understood being things
for nineteen.
Speaker 10 (33:43):
Foot great, but she does all these things that.
Speaker 7 (33:46):
A hockcatstead hock at Jeff.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
He says no.
Speaker 7 (33:50):
Then the mad g crack upset.
Speaker 10 (33:57):
Oh she crack.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
You're right, well she.
Speaker 10 (34:06):
Crab.
Speaker 7 (34:08):
I you all she did these stays that I go,
she self destroyed.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
That's is so to our self a job, I self
de velt, that's so to selt.
Speaker 12 (34:27):
She crass.
Speaker 7 (34:29):
I'm sad brble, that's fine, she cracks.
Speaker 10 (34:37):
All right.
Speaker 7 (34:40):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
From nineteen seventy two, that was She's cracked by the
Modern Lovers. Wanting to be thoroughly un British invasion, the
modern Lovers sought their musical inspirations elsewhere, notably from nineteen
fifties Rock and roll, the Stooges and even the Velvet Underground.
By all accounts, frontman Jonathan Richmond had an ego the
(35:03):
size of the Modern Lover's breeding ground, New York, Richmond
held a tight grip over the band's output. Despite proto
punk classics like Roadrunner and Cheese Cracked being the obvious
musical direction for the group, Richmond eventually refused to go
down that increasingly heavy path and wanted to do away
with electricity for heartfelt acoustic songs instead. Therefore, the Modern
(35:26):
Lovers produced very little during their original incarnation, only releasing
one album in nineteen seventy six, which was released after
the original lineup had disbanded, though the songs were actually
recorded in seventy one and seventy two. For a man
who'd often cry on stage at his own emotional lyrical content,
it had an internal crusade against drug usage that would
(35:48):
often halt the band's live performances if he thought the
audience wasn't listening closely enough. Richmond was hardly the Vitruvian
man of punk rock. However, what the Modern Lovers did
was fuse richmond unrelenting lyrical and on stage contrariness with harsh,
repetitive music that outwardly shunned that safe seventies rock at
(36:08):
the time. It's very punk rock Side.
Speaker 7 (36:11):
Won't pick it up, take them right away, Tad won't
figure it up, don't take y'all night away, Tide won't
pick it up, don't time, don't take my night?
Speaker 10 (36:23):
Oh wow?
Speaker 7 (36:25):
Please don't see.
Speaker 12 (36:26):
Ask me, I don't you know?
Speaker 7 (36:31):
If you don't know what I'm doing? What you know?
Speaker 10 (36:35):
Sis, we'll pick it up? Take them night away says
we'll get it up.
Speaker 7 (36:41):
Don't quote y'all got away, Sis, we'll pick it up.
Speaker 5 (36:46):
Don't time, don't.
Speaker 12 (36:47):
Take my night?
Speaker 5 (36:48):
Oh woy?
Speaker 7 (36:50):
And please don't tell ask me if I yeah, because
I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
I Dolls from.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Nineteen seventy three a band that is considered one of
the first actual punk bands as a movement and as
music That was the New York Dolls with the song
trash They're adrogynous bunch of ragtag musicians. The New York
Dolls were the archetype of the drug induced rock and
roll belligerents. They fought on stage, screamed at audiences, and
(37:27):
much else. The New York Dolls were willfully anarchic and
predated punk with their unobtrusive attitude and strident music, yet
preferred the glam aesthetic rather than the unpretentious street look
of the proto punk counterparts, The New York Dolls would
often sport dresses and makeup and platform shoes, almost to
mirror their subversive temperaments and music. Taking influences from the
(37:51):
velvet underground mainly, the New York Dolls ramped up their
fellow New Yorker's outlook on music of producing an electric
sound without much more care than traditional musicianship. It was
also conceived something of their own, it was original. After
the release of their first self titled album in nineteen
seventy three, the New York Dolls were on a path
(38:11):
of internal destruction. Artistic differences and drug abuse sowed the
seeds of friction amongst these proto punkers. Drummer and founding
member Bill mrcia died one year prior, so that Dolls
appeared to be a band that could never sustain itself,
and indeed they didn't. The song I Played for You
Trash is the debut single by that American band, the
(38:35):
New York Dolls, and it was recorded in their nineteen
seventy three self titled album and released as a double
a side with the song Personality Crisis in July of
seventy three. The song is just a quintessential Dolls track, raw,
defiant and catchy as hell. Todd Rungren actually produced the
song Trash and also contributed background vocals. He also produced
(38:57):
all albums for artists like Badfinger, Grand Funk Road, Meat Loaf,
Cheap Trick and others. Run Great is also a successful
solo artist and a member of the band Utopia, but
is a much better producer than he was a recording artist.
This song did not chart upon its release, but became
a staple of the punk rock genre over time.
Speaker 9 (39:16):
Hello, I'm Johnny Cash.
Speaker 7 (39:26):
I hear the train coming.
Speaker 11 (39:28):
It's rolling around a pin and I ain't seen the
sunshine since I don't know when I'm stuck in polls,
in prisons and time beeps, drag and all, but the
train peeps rolling.
Speaker 5 (39:46):
All down the side.
Speaker 9 (39:48):
I'm sold.
Speaker 11 (39:50):
When I was just a baby, my mama told me, son,
always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns.
But I shot a man and reno.
Speaker 9 (40:02):
Just to watch him die. When I hear that it was.
Speaker 7 (40:09):
Old boy, I hng my head and cry.
Speaker 16 (40:28):
Boy.
Speaker 11 (40:38):
I'd bet there's Rich houlting from a fancy dining car.
They're probably drinking coffee and smoking mixed cigars. Well, I
know I hadn't coming.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
I know I can't be freezing, but.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Those people keep moving and that's what sores here.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Well.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Now, that might have surprised you. That might not be
an artist or a song that you would associate with punk.
But I challenge you to find me one punk person
who doesn't love Johnny Cash and was influenced by Johnny Cash.
And this song is essentially punk rock with a cowboy hat.
But I shot a man in Reno just to watch
him die. That's pretty punk rock just in and of itself.
(41:28):
Compared to Cash, listen to other country pop stars at
the time, just not the same. He stood out as
this punk ethos. They just didn't know what it was
at the time. One of his earliest songs. Cash first
recorded this for Sun Records all the way back in
nineteen fifty six, but it was the thrilling electric version
recorded live at Fulsome Prison in California on January thirteenth
(41:51):
of nineteen sixty eight that really came to define his
outlaw persona. The Live from Fulsome Prison album also helped
revitalize his career. Fulsome Prison Blues was a number one
country hit for four weeks and generated a great deal
of interest in the rebellious Johnny Cash, who made prison
reform his political cause of choice and started regularly performing
(42:13):
in jails, doing about twelve of these shows a year,
mostly for free, mostly in Fulsome and San Quentin. Said Cash,
I don't see anything good that has ever come out
of prison. You put them in like animals, and tear
out their souls and the guts of them and let
them out worse than they went in. Standing up for
the rights of prisoners is not a popular stance, but
(42:34):
Cash came off as a champion for the oppressed. His
next hit, recorded in San Quentin prison, was the humorous
A Boy Named Sue, which proved that he could be
clever and funny, at least while he was singing words
written by shel Silverstein. The most famous line in this song,
I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die,
Cash said, he wrote while trying to think of the
worst possible reason for killing another human. He added, it
(42:57):
didn't come to mind quite easily, though. He came up
with the line after watching a nineteen fifty one movie
Inside the Walls of Fulsome prison while serving in West
Germany as the US Air Force.
Speaker 5 (43:08):
I had everybody's head about the beddd man, the bets
I win a wad. Bad man is a when I
went to bed bad man. When a bet is a win,
I went a mad bad man the bands I went
away to bed bab man. The bed is a win.
I went a bend man. The man. I went away
in a bed bad man. The man I went. I
went to bed bad man. When the bed is a win,
(43:30):
I went a bend man. The man I went, I
went to down't June. Now by the bad everybody knows
that the man is a win a bed. I had
everybody's head a bat bench man man.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Man is the trash Man with surfing bird. And It's
a medley made up of the choruses of two R
and B classics by the sixties do wop group the Rivingtons.
The bird is the word and haapa ooh mau mau,
the brainchild of trash Men drummer Steve Waher. The song
was quirky and a consumable hit, boldly combining surf music
(44:09):
with what they would call novelty R and B. The
trash Men were a garage band from Minneapolis, which isn't
surfing territory for sure, and despite the critical acclaim, they
only managed just one more minor hit before disbanding in
the late sixties. In nineteen sixty four, they had a
mild hit, went to number thirty and it was the
Bird Dance Beat. When this became a hit, the Rivingtons
(44:32):
were awarded writing credit for the song, since it was
based on their compositions. Well this was a huge financial benefit,
as they received royalties every time this song is used
in a movie, TV show, or commercial. The trash Men
claim that they had heard the Rivington songs through cover
versions played by a Wisconsin band called the Sorenson Brothers,
and insisted that Surf and Bird was an original recording.
(44:54):
The trash Men were left with the performance royalties only, which,
while certainly not scraps, were far less lucrative. The band
says that for the first payment, they each received a
check for one dollar and eighty eight cents and eventually
got a lump sum of forty five hundred dollars each.
This was all they got until the mid nineteen eighties,
when they filed a lawsuit against the company that had
(45:16):
bought the recording. How did a band from Minnesota create
a surf rock classic. Well, the Quartet soaked up the
sunshine and sounds of California when they took a road
trip there in spring in nineteen sixty three. Returning home,
they incorporated that surf sound into their shows when they
played local gigs and eventually worked up the song Surfing Bird.
The Ramones gave this song new life when they recorded
(45:38):
it for their nineteen seventy seven album Rocket to Russia.
Other artists to cover the song include The Cramps and Silverchair.
Speaker 7 (45:45):
There has a new sensation.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
I've done some.
Speaker 7 (46:00):
A stranger When you feel alone, it's a gey and
that's why Bee say, do the stranger.
Speaker 9 (46:17):
On the tables.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
Quickly place on Mabel.
Speaker 10 (46:24):
So well, Ja.
Speaker 7 (46:27):
Said the bed a style serve here, Bluie says he
sweet bears, that's a fair round siet of the tangle
fed with my bangle. That don't old bead slider lingo.
(46:55):
It burs off blue jeans.
Speaker 5 (46:59):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Do the Strand, which is the opening song on Roxy
Music's sophomore album For Your Pleasure, as a theatrical homage
to a fictional dance Craze called the Strand as is
typical for Roxy Music. The lyrics contain numerous art and
cultural references. Front man Brian Ferry explained there was a
(47:30):
particular genre of songs based on dance crazes like the Twist,
the Jerk, the Madison Time, etc. Which I found amusing
to do. The Strand was a nod in their direction,
although it attempted to be more high brow or a
bit further uptown, as much as I wanted to turn
the Sphinx and Mona, Lisa, Lolita and Guernica into a
rhyming couplet. Brian Eno, who went on to become a
(47:53):
very successful and influential producer, played synthesizer in Roxy Music.
Leaving after the For Your Pleasure album The Sex Pistols.
Guitar Steve Jones named his first band, The Strand after
this song. Jones later named Roxy music self titled album
as the must have album and influence of all punk music.
Speaker 10 (48:31):
Doctor man calling on a phone, I've got no kind
of be un known.
Speaker 7 (48:37):
I'm coming now. I would tie the fad to think.
Speaker 11 (48:41):
I do not mind.
Speaker 10 (48:42):
I'm friend that oh oh friend, that far bone. All right,
I'm riding.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
On an I traid That was the band the Saints
with I'm Stranded and because they were from Australia and
there was no social media at the time, they didn't
even know the sex Pistols existed, but yet they sounded
just like them. This is a Howl of Rage against
boredom and Oppression was the first song released by this
(49:18):
pioneering Australian rock band, issued in September of seventy six,
at pre dated debut singles by better known punk acts
like The Sex Pistols, That Damned and even The Clash.
The Saints were from Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, Australia.
This song was inspired by the corrupt government and police
force that ran the band's state at the time. Saints
(49:39):
frontman Chris Bailey said, when you were sixteen or seventeen,
there's heaps of things that you can get angry about,
your parents', school, job if you've got it, and even
the police. You are at an age where you want
to be doing a whole range of things that are
restricted because of your age, especially in Brisbane at the time,
where there was active harassment from the police force. The
Saints were signed and November of nineteen seventy six to
(50:02):
a three album Deal by EMI and the UK on
the strength of the single. According to Chris Bailey, this
had been wrongly labeled as a punk rock classic quote.
It's basically an Eddie Cochran riff, he said in an
interview in twenty fourteen. But because we were young and rebellious,
we just played it a bit faster. So I guess
in the end it became punk.
Speaker 7 (51:00):
Get gonna.
Speaker 5 (51:00):
Family's not gonna rate at the time because they want
to be off there, okay, hood at the bone.
Speaker 7 (51:04):
And I'm gonna say get along.
Speaker 5 (51:05):
Follow that shot, said my eyes.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Mh they can get less up like you, they can
get lets up.
Speaker 7 (51:17):
I mean, I'm gonna say I'm the end some way
that they want to be.
Speaker 10 (51:20):
So I was wearing my time.
Speaker 5 (51:21):
I said, go with the times. Follow that shot, said.
Speaker 10 (51:23):
My eyes, always trying to me when they tell us up.
Very fable said that, young man, we have so long
or some one to come along and correct along.
Speaker 9 (51:48):
But the way.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
That was the band death with Politicians in my eyes,
predating the Ramones debut by over a year. They are
the forerunners of punk and should be mentioned in the
same breath as other bands that are argued amongst music
Nerds of Who was the first true punk band, But
they had an interesting story because not only are they
(52:17):
from Detroit, not exactly the mecca of punk music, but
they were just three black guys playing music that the
rest of their neighborhood wasn't interested in. They were definitely
the forerunners of punk by the early seventies. They were
playing relentless, energetic versions of politically charged rock and roll,
inspired by bands like The Who and the Sound of Funk,
(52:38):
but with the speed comparable to bands like Black Flag
Unheard of Him in their heyday, they were rediscovered, and
rightfully so.
Speaker 7 (52:59):
The things you want to No One, here's a dange,
I can't wait, loose my mother with the side.
Speaker 15 (53:15):
Way you may kiss engine?
Speaker 14 (53:17):
Might no man know your mama?
Speaker 7 (53:19):
Lo look at me with the sashes?
Speaker 5 (53:22):
This is fine, No one, here's a tabe.
Speaker 7 (53:24):
I can't wait.
Speaker 13 (53:50):
Yeah, look at me at her funny.
Speaker 7 (53:55):
Luck, God made your mind.
Speaker 10 (53:58):
You can just talk a little.
Speaker 5 (54:00):
Don't take love me?
Speaker 1 (54:13):
That was the Phantom with love Me. I wanted to
play you some stuff you might not have ever heard.
It's one of my favorite things to do on this podcast,
showing you a lot of new discoveries and this is
a perfect example. How many of you ever have heard
that song and that band? I assume probably none. That
band is from nineteen fifty eight and it was the
(54:34):
Ragged Hollers and Ramshackle instrumental and the voice of Jerry
Lott aka the Phantom. He even wore a mask like
the Lone Ranger, but he's singing rockabilly on the song
that I just played for You Love Me. He pushed
that Elvis Presley template of rock and roll to its
breaking point and would become a favorite of the seminal
punk band the Cramps. In fact, if you listen closely,
(54:56):
you could pretty much hear the sound that the Cramps
copied on their from some else.
Speaker 9 (56:23):
Link.
Speaker 1 (56:23):
Ray and his ray Men one of my favorites and
goes in that category of an artist that I can
listen to no matter what mood I'm in.
Speaker 9 (56:31):
Well, they managed to.
Speaker 1 (56:32):
Get a crunchy low grumble on his instrumental song Rumble,
which was actually banned from the US radio in nineteen
fifty eight. The distortion of his songs were achieved by
slashing the amp speaker cone with razor blades. And what's
more punk rock than that song? I played for You
is called Jack the Ripper, but link rated far more
(56:52):
for punk than introducing those hefty chords. He added a
virtuoso component to the ability to showcase new sounds, like
on the song I Played for You. Jack the Ripper
in this ray would add surf guitar, t is tough rockabilly,
and up the tempo, getting even closer to a punk
sound before punk was a thing.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
A wout Baby, You're gonna me crazier, I said, babe,
you gotta me crazyer.
Speaker 7 (57:27):
Halloa. You turned me home, then you set me down.
Hellou down me baby.
Speaker 12 (57:38):
Man.
Speaker 1 (57:38):
I gots y'all.
Speaker 13 (57:42):
Sig ow allou bam, you gotta me crazier. I've said
mine man, damn all.
Speaker 12 (58:02):
Sigh oh wow.
Speaker 1 (58:37):
From Tacoma, Washington. The Sonics were a band that never
had the first Billboard hit, but their use of speed
and aggression and heaviness was a template that later bands
would refine. Their nineteen sixty five song Psycho, which is
what I Played for You, was all just machine gun
drum fills, distorted screams and lyrics about nihilism preempting the
(59:01):
sex Pistols, and there no future mentality. Their belief in
nothing mindset would be advanced with each successive band that
copied them going forward. And now I have to go
off and polish my Doc Martins and cut some holes
in a nice leather jacket. So we will bring you
to our final song of the season and of this episode.
(59:22):
Surfacing in the nineteen sixties, the Andy Warhol endorsed Velvet
Underground were in a world of their own. When so
many bands of the sixties were speaking hope and perceived enlightenment,
the Velvet Underground were singing of scoring heroines, sadism, masochism
and prostitution, and sexually deviant themes like that, communicating the
(59:46):
bowels of urban life rather than the florally arcadian ideals.
I have to say Oi oi oi to the world,
and this episode on the origins of punk, and I
couldn't think of anyone better than the Velvet Underground. I
had a lot of fun doing this. I'm gonna leave
you with another artist similar to Johnny Cash, that all
punks admire and that all punks have deep connections with
(01:00:07):
aesthetically and sound wise, I mean lou read In. The
Velvet Underground with the song I'm Waiting for the Man
is literally just punk before punk lyricists in front man
lou Reid sought to emulate the beat poets with his
words and appall audiences rather than uplift them. Musically, The
Velvet Underground mixed a tonism with harsh energy. They use
the guitar as an instrument to capture in harmonic sounds
(01:00:31):
like feedback of a guitar solo, as if to mirror
the pace and disunion with their lyrical themes. This is
another in The Velvet Underground's canon of songs about drugs.
Not only does it fit nicely with their song Heroin,
which I played for you on a Wow That's Inappropriate
episode a while back, it's also on the same album
and was also written by lou Reid at the same
(01:00:53):
time as Heroin, during Reid's attendance at Sarah Hughes University
in the early sixties. It describes a trip to Harlem
Brownstone near the intersection of Lexington Avenue in one hundred
and twenty fifth Street, to buy drugs from a dealer
or the man in this title. Once again, it neither
condones nor condemns the experience, It just merely describes it.
(01:01:14):
The song is about scoring twenty six dollars of Heroin
and Harlem. According to Rolling Stone magazine, lou Reid said,
everything about that song holds true except for the price.
David Bowie loved the song and played it on stage
a lot early in his career. Besides David Bowie, amongst
the many acts to cover, I'm waiting for the Man,
most notable or cheap trick Bauhaus and the UK subs
(01:01:37):
it shares credit with The Ramones fifty third and third
for being the famous song related to drugs. The Ramones
one is about turning a trick for drug money. By
the way, it pinned it to a specific New York intersection.
So this is going to bring us to the end
of our episode and the end of our season. This
has been an absolute fun one, not just an episode,
(01:01:58):
but a fun season. I can't tell you all how
much I appreciate you listening and sharing, recommending this podcast
to a friend and please, we really need reviews people,
So go on there and review us. Hopefully you give
us five stars. If not, I will find you and
beat you with a baseball bat. Anyways, I love you all.
I will see you next season. Hopefully it won't take
(01:02:19):
too long, and of course turn this song up.
Speaker 15 (01:02:40):
Waiting for my Man ten is six dollars in my
hand up to Lexington one two five music and did
in a I'm waiting for my man. Hey, white boy,
(01:03:14):
what you're doing uptown?
Speaker 7 (01:03:20):
He white boy? You chasing all women around?
Speaker 15 (01:03:27):
Hoop on me, sir. It's where it's from my mind.
I'm just getting away to your differend. In my mind,
I'm waiting for my man. He comes, he's all dressed
(01:03:49):
in black. He your shoes and a extraw hat. He's
never he's always me. He's listening and that he's got
you always got.
Speaker 7 (01:04:08):
A waity.
Speaker 4 (01:04:11):
Waiting for my name.
Speaker 3 (01:04:17):
Thank you for listening to listen to this. Please recommend
to a friend, and don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe.
For more podcasts and online content, please visit this is
funner dot com.
Speaker 7 (01:04:29):
This is Funner
Welcome to listen to this season thirteen finale. This is
the podcast that is dedicated to bringing you stories behind
the artists, behind the songs, and hopefully we are introducing
you to old songs that have influenced all the music
that we hear today. The goal is I want you
to hear an artist that you might not normally listen to,
and search out the music on whatever streaming service you
(00:22):
subscribe to and maybe buy it on physical media. We
invite you to subscribe, comment, recommend this podcast to a friend,
and please please please share with those that you love
and keep the word going. Anyways, Today's final episode of
the season has a theme, as all episodes do, and
the theme today is the origins of punk.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Never in the history of the United States a monster
of such size and power.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Welcome to listen to this a podcast that brings you
the stories behind the songs and artists with the theme
to tie it all together, here's your host.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
The birthplace of punk rock is as contested as the
proverbial chicken in the egg argument. The UK, the US, Australia,
amongst others all have a deserted horse in the race.
But the truth is it's a little less clear cut.
What is generally referred to as punk refers to the
(01:24):
artistic and musical movement of the mid to late nineteen
seventies that spilled through the eighties. As a movement in
the seventies, punk was heavily politicized. It was, though not
to be confined to a nihilist expression or a lack
in prospects for the working class youth, but it extended
beyond the realms of socioeconomic limitations to foster anyone with
(01:48):
an anti establishment leaning in need of aggressed artistic outlet.
Punk was an art movement as much as a political one.
If you were young and pissed off about something in
the nineteen seventies, punk probably would have been your filter. Musically,
nineteen seventies punk opted for a stripped back approach to songwriting.
(02:10):
Gone were the overly self indulgent guitar and keyboard solos
that dominated rock music at the time for something that
could be achieved with just three chords or even fewer.
That's not to say that punk music only favored the
music non virtuosos, even if they were looked on with
a little distaste. Rather, punk looked to uproot the traditions
(02:33):
of music to create a visceral expression that anyone could do.
On the surface, punk was an exhibition of rejecting conformity
to the preceding generations, politics, and philosophies, both internally and externally,
in an attempt to carve out something fresh and new,
and in many respects it was. However, as with most movements,
(02:55):
its roots had been fermenting far before what we know
as definitive punk music. We all know the sex Pistols
are punk, but what were before the sex Pistols. Punk
did not happen overnight, by the way, both politically and musically,
punk was in its infancy during the wave of beat bands,
British invasion groups and US garage rockers of the nineteen sixties,
(03:19):
who were partly inspired by rock and roll and blues
artists of the nineteen fifties. The nineteen seventies just gave
punk a home, a broken home. Music is cyclical and
is a prerequisite needs inspiration from pre existing artists. That
ethos of punk can be traced back to time memorial,
(03:41):
But musically the precursors of punk are a little less abstract.
Punk music had its musical ancestors just as every music
movement does. Without some of the following bands, groups like
the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, the Slits, the Saints, the Clash,
amongst many others, would have undoubtedly never came kicking and
(04:01):
screaming into the nineteen seventies and beyond. So as we
dive in on the season finale of the Origins of Punk,
Let's get It started with a former beetle Don't give me.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
That bone alone So long, A.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
Wab bus, don't take no word, watch.
Speaker 6 (04:59):
You no Jesus O'Mara foundagon grad mad.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Badam?
Speaker 7 (05:28):
Do you know do make you.
Speaker 6 (05:34):
Somebout all mava?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
That was John Lennon with the song I found out.
I did play this song for you in our in
Depth Beatles album that Never Was with special guest Matt
Welch a few seasons back, but it is an important
song the origins of punk, so I wanted to add
it again for this episode. It's a crunchy amp sound,
(06:10):
the guitar mistakes, the gritty vocals, and the anger all
hallmarks of what punk would become and was undoubtedly an
influence on it. In this angry and bitter song, Lenin
attacks a number of falsehoods, such as the idolatry of
the Beatles and how he is the focus for many
of those involved in the peace movement. The song includes
(06:32):
the line the freaks on the phone won't leave me alone,
so don't give me that brother. Brother Lenin explained the
lyric to the January edition of Rolling Stone that year,
he said, I'm sick of all these aggressive hippies or
whatever they are, the now generation, being very uptight with me,
either on the street or anywhere on the phone, just
(06:53):
demanding my attention as if I owed them something. Ringo
Starr played drums on this track. After the breakup of
the Beatles, Lennon continued to have a good relationship with Ringo,
actually most of the members of the band did. He
explained why in the same Rolling Stone interview quote, in
spite of all the things, the Beatles could really play
music together when they weren't uptight, And if I get
(07:15):
a thing going, Ringo knows just where to go and
just like that, and he does it well. We've played
together so long that it just fits. That's the only
thing sometimes I miss about being with some of those
blokes and just knowing that whatever noise I make They're
going to make a noise that counters it and it
sounds great. Other than that, I don't miss those guys
that much.
Speaker 8 (07:59):
Long to turn blow. I've seen the girls the dress
in their sun a clothes. I have to turn my
head until my darkness goes.
Speaker 7 (08:15):
I see a line of cars of the arts into
blood with flowers and my love.
Speaker 9 (08:23):
For never to come to birth.
Speaker 10 (08:27):
I've seen people turn their.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
Heads and quickly along the waves that bout baby. It
just happens every day.
Speaker 11 (08:39):
I will inside myself and see my heart's blare.
Speaker 7 (08:45):
I see my red door I was heading into blood.
Speaker 8 (08:51):
Maybe din't half fed awaves that kind of faith of fence,
not be the base and not wave your whole world?
Speaker 9 (09:01):
Is that.
Speaker 7 (09:03):
Lo well?
Speaker 12 (09:04):
My green single turn.
Speaker 9 (09:06):
A deeper blue.
Speaker 8 (09:09):
I could not foresee this.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Thing, have the.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Rolling stones there with painted black and the just the
mood of that beginning is just as punk as it gets,
the subject matter, just everything about that song. In fact,
I personally contend that it is the very first punk song,
at least as a mainstream song, as it pertains to
style of music, mood, lyrics, the whole kind of kitten kaboodle.
(09:37):
It was written from the viewpoint of a person who
is depressed. He wants everything to turn black to match
his mood. There was no specific inspiration for the lyrics.
When asked at the time why he wrote a song
about death, Mick Jagger replied, I don't know. It's been
done before. It's not an original thought by any means.
I guess it just depends on how you do it.
(09:57):
My thinking on it, the song seems to be a
about a lover who died. I see a line of
cars and they're all painted black. Those are the hearses
and limos with flowers and my love both never to
come back. The flowers are from the funeral and the
hearse he talks about his heart being black because of
his loss. I could not foresee this thing happening to you. Well,
(10:19):
it was an unexpected and sudden death. If I look
hard enough into the setting sun, my love will laugh
with me before the morning comes. I think this refers
to her in heaven, but that's just my interpretation. The
Rolling Stones wrote this actually as a much slower conventional
soul song. When Bill Wyman began fooling around on the
(10:40):
organ during the session doing a takeoff of their original
as a spoof of music he played at Jewish weddings.
Co manager Eric Easton, who had been an organist, and
Charlie Watts joined in and improvised a double time drum pattern,
echoing the rhythm heard in some Middle Eastern dances. This new,
more upbeat rhythm was then used in the recording as
(11:01):
a counterpoint to the morbid lyrics on this track. Stones
guitarist Brian Jones played the sitar, which was introduced to
pop music by The Beatles on their nineteen sixty five
song Norwegian Would. On the single, there is a comma
before the word black in the title, rendering it painted
comma black well. This of course changes the context, implying
(11:24):
that the person named black being implored to paint. While
some fans interpreted this as a statement on race relations,
it's far more likely that the rogue comma was the
result of a clerical air, something that was really not
uncommon in the sixties.
Speaker 9 (11:50):
Oh Oh, that was the Kingsman.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
With Louis Louis. Louis Louis was written by an R
and B singer named Richard Barry in nineteen fifty five
with his group The Pharaohs. He was also the first
to record this song. I got some airplay in some
cities in the Western US when it was released in
nineteen fifty seven. Various garage bands heard it and started
covering the song until it became a phenomenon with The
(12:58):
kingsman'steen sixty three version. While much of the song's notoriety
comes from the indecipherable lyrics and Barry's original version, the
words are actually quite clear. This song is about a
sailor who spends three days traveling to Jamaica to see
his girl. The words to Louis Lewie are almost impossible
to understand on the Kingsman and version in every other
(13:20):
version since then, and are rumored to be obscene. No
question that this added significantly to the sales of the single.
There were probably a leak somewhere that the lyrics were obscene,
otherwise no one would have realized it. This was the
most ingenious marketing scheme ever. The FBI actually tried to
track down Richard Berry, the Kingsmen, and various record company
(13:42):
executives to get an answer from them. They were never
able to determine the actual lyrics used. The Kingsman insisted
that they said nothing. Lu despite the obvious mistake at
the end of the instrumental, where Jack Eli started to
sing the last verse one bar too soon and can
be heard yelling some thing in the background. Eli also
said that he's sang far away from the microphone, which
(14:04):
is what caused the fuzzy sound, and that notoriety was
initiated by the record company. The Kingsman version of the
song was prominently featured in the nineteen seventy eight film
Animal House starring John Belushi, even though the song was
released in nineteen sixty three and the movie is set
in nineteen sixty two, but who cares. It was a
great movie. The song cost a mere fifty dollars to record.
(14:27):
The Kingsman went to the studio after a radio station
executive in Portland saw them perform at live and gave
them fifty bucks and said, why don't you go record?
Speaker 12 (14:35):
Its?
Speaker 7 (15:00):
Christian than has be.
Speaker 13 (15:03):
The wicked and Ambella mass up and the world says.
Speaker 14 (15:13):
The relatives have passed her by.
Speaker 12 (15:17):
To scared to.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Even the same hell.
Speaker 7 (15:22):
She's in the vine on the night she shuts up
the day and goes about persona a sycope not sycafa,
what a.
Speaker 10 (15:42):
Lover about her usul.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Custom that was The Kings with Wick Annabella and songs
like Destroyer and the guitar sound on songs like You
Really Got Me were an absolute creative and mood influence
(16:10):
on punk. But as I had played those for you before,
I wanted to play another song that has punk roots,
so I played Wicked Annabella from the album The Kinks
Are the Village Green Preservation Society. After guitarist Dave Davies,
in a fit of rage, slashed the speaker cone to
his amplifier, The subsequent distorted guitar tones seemed to fit
(16:32):
perfectly in the raucous energy of the group. The Kink's
first single, You Really Got Me, paved the way for
their explorations into aggressive rock, and their sound quickly gathered
momentum on both the UK and the US. The kinks
aggressive music was often mirrored by their aggressive temperament, especially
towards each other. They were renowned for their borish and
(16:55):
drunken antics that even landed them a four year band
from playing in the USA after a violent fracas with
a TV worker on Dick Clark's Afternoon TV show, where
the action is the early British Invasion era Kinks songs
are fast, upbeat and relatively easy to play, sharing them
do it yourself ethos of punk. It's no wonder then
(17:18):
that the Kinks are heralded is a major influence on
punk rock. As for the song Wicked Annabella and its
ties to punk, This dark and creepy track features a
dissonant melody, a loud and distorted guitar riff, and unsettling
lyrics concerning a witchy girl from Ray davies youth in London.
When asked Ray Davies who Wicked Annabella was, he replied,
(17:41):
Annabella was too good for me sexually. She was way
out of my league. She was very voluptuous and I
was just a shy kid. She knew how to take
virginity and not feel a thing. She has a dark side,
but also a good side, and her innocence was crushed
when she was young. You see, I do a backstory
on all of them. I'm like a detective. Rai's brother,
Dave Davies takes lead vocals on this one. The Kink's
(18:03):
front man said in a Rolling Stone interview quote, her
mother was a widow and she lived in a big
house with her mother. It's very Charles Dickinson. I cast
the song for Dave because it had power chords in it.
The Wicked and Annabella had never been performed live by
The Kinks. It has become a personal concert favorite of
Dave Davies when he's performing solos.
Speaker 14 (18:36):
I'll talk to Bellie steps, come on, come.
Speaker 7 (18:50):
On, you don't.
Speaker 15 (19:05):
Come allay le do.
Speaker 7 (19:12):
I'm your baby. Don't do that.
Speaker 15 (19:22):
You have mess so game.
Speaker 10 (19:26):
Go away?
Speaker 3 (19:28):
All right?
Speaker 7 (19:29):
Come read you God gotta re you be the bb.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
That was the song Girl You Captivate Me by question
Mark and the Mysterians. At first glance, question Mark and
the Mysterians seem far removed from this generally termed punk,
but the term became increasingly prevalent during the early nineteen
seventies to retroactively label many US garage bands of the
(20:10):
nineteen sixties. Punk as a term was kind of used
towards many of these young hopefuls that were playing in
aggressive garage rock bands at the time. Partly taking influence
from the British Invasion and the beat groups across the pond,
groag rock quickly became an assertive force in the US.
It was inherently brash and fast, favoring snarling vocals as
(20:33):
opposed to anything too melodic. Fuzz guitar tones became the norm,
with accompanying swelling bass risks, and the use of organs
became a staple of the garage rock sound question mark.
The Mysterians were no exception, even if they were on
the slightly lighter side of garage rock compared to some
ninety six tiers like Songs, which became their most well
(20:54):
known song, although Girl You Captivate Me is perhaps more
in the vein of the rocous garage or rock, which
is wild Lady Dream Dream.
Speaker 7 (21:04):
Check out the town over God, Yeah, I'm.
Speaker 10 (21:19):
Pretty good, give my food, did get all got in
through winter pressing room, the hater did?
Speaker 13 (21:30):
I don't know how you want quick as girl, Sun
and Window started right about sign.
Speaker 10 (21:37):
Look the kick out, the dry.
Speaker 5 (21:41):
Chick out, the set out, shot a tigle.
Speaker 10 (21:49):
I'm the first, just don't want one friend, fund them about.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Rid of friends, got a head there they do it
when you get fulfilling, you.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Got them look up mimn.
Speaker 10 (22:08):
Let the check out, the yea check out, the.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
Gotta chick on.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
I had to play MC five live because it's that
energy that makes them a huge influence on punk. That
is just basically a punk song that was live. From
nineteen seventy, the Michigan based proto punk band MC five
took the already energized British Invasion inspired garage rock of
the United States and just gave it a shot in
(23:08):
the arm. MC five where the disaffected electricity of politically
entrenched proto punk. Disillusioned by their often riotused surroundings in Michigan,
five disciples of rock and roll, expanded on what garage
rock had started, boosting its raw, unflinching sound with no
small amount of help from distortion. Renowned for their pretty
(23:32):
dynamic live performances, MC five opted against recording in the
traditional way. Instead, their first album, Kick Out the Jams,
was recorded live in nineteen sixty nine. Intense beyond measure,
MC five thrust their simple, stripped back sound into a
heap of controversy. Kick Out the Jams, from the album
(23:52):
of the same name, opened with the infamous lyric kick
Out the Jams. Mother efferr Punk sensibilities had not yet
cut up with the group, and their uncompromising approach to
life in the music industry garnered them little support from
record labels. The signature song of MC five, kick Out
the Jams, was also their rallying cry and their credo.
(24:14):
The phrase was often taken to mean overcome obstacles, but
it wasn't written as a song of perseverance. Wayne Kramer explained,
we were using that expression for a long time because
we would be critical of other bands that came to
Detroit that MC five would open up for. They'd come
into town with this big reputation and they'd get up
(24:34):
on stage and they weren't very good. So we used
to harass them. We'd yell at them kick out the
Jams or get off the stage. Finally, one day we said,
I like that expression. We should use that as a
title of a song. The song is notorious for the
line the opening line, kick out the Jams, mother effers,
shouted by lead singer Rob Tyner before the music kicks in.
(24:56):
This line appears on the uncensored version of the album
clean version, where it is replaced with kick out the Jams.
Brothers and Sisters was used on the single and later
made available on censored versions of the album along with
the rest of the album. This was recorded live at
the Grand Ballroom in Detroit, in October thirtieth, Mischief Night
and Halloween Night in nineteen sixty eight. By this time,
(25:20):
the MC five had gained a fervent live following in
the Detroit area, but had not released any material yet.
By the time this album was issued a few months
later in early nineteen sixty nine, they had stood up
a lot of controversy for their revolutionary stunts and associations.
Sometimes they even brought unloaded rifles on stage. Many bands
(25:40):
benefit from controversy, but the kerfuffle over the song did
not go well for them, and when they pushed the
provocation too far, it actually got them dropped from their label.
Many retailers even refused to stalk the album, which in
and of itself as a direct line and influence of
what punk would become, including a local chain called Hudson's.
(26:01):
The band took this as an affront and placed an
ad in an underground newspaper called The Fifth Estate that
read f Hudson's. Hudson's responded by threatening to pull all
of Elektra Record Company albums. Judy Collins and The Doors
were among those artists, so on April sixteenth, nineteen sixty nine,
the label dropped MC five and recalled Kick Out the Jams,
(26:23):
the album that was still in stores, and replaced it
with the cleaner versions.
Speaker 15 (26:44):
Give it a danger, little stranger, and you.
Speaker 7 (26:52):
Give it a danger little stranger.
Speaker 5 (26:55):
Now E is.
Speaker 9 (27:00):
Dead and in my dreams just some.
Speaker 7 (27:03):
Ugla memo reasons. It's me laft or shun breeze.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Now if you're real In my love.
Speaker 7 (27:21):
I was she and saying leaving your pen in my master,
I wok.
Speaker 13 (27:30):
N as fan.
Speaker 7 (27:32):
Just nucor left the lie up.
Speaker 12 (27:36):
Their left as.
Speaker 7 (27:39):
May my hands one more?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
All the students getting dark there with gimme a sting.
That's kind of the godfather of punk, Iggy Pop didn't
attain his title undeservedly exhibitions a state of mind that
is irrational, sensuous, disordered, and even drunken or mad. Art
characterized the half naked visceral front man, whereby Iggy would
(28:17):
cut himself and bleed on the audience, or even vomit
on the audience if he felt so inclined.
Speaker 9 (28:22):
To do so.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
But musically too, the Stooges were busy setting the stage
for definitive punk rock as far back as nineteen sixty
nine with the release of their first self titled album.
The Stooges seem to predate the disaffected philosophies that pervaded
punk ethos and the mid to late seventies. With often
pretty nihilist lyrics screamed by Iggy and a noisy, repetitive
(28:46):
guitar riff, the Stooges cast the hippie mentalities of the
late sixties aside for their own bleak reality of the
United States. The song I Chose for You was Gimme Danger.
Iggy Pop wrote many of the lyrics for the Raw
Power album. While wandering around Hyde Park in London with
a notebook. Gimme Danger finds him wary of a girl
(29:08):
who could be his ruin. If this is likely Joanna,
a girl he says, quote drove me out of my mind,
and he wrote her about her again on the nineteen
seventy seven Kill City album track Joanna Pop wrote this
song with The Stooges. When guitarist James Williamson, who layers
acoustic and electric guitars on the track, quote, in those days,
(29:30):
I almost exclusively wrote songs on acoustic guitar. He said,
I'd sit in my room with my little acoustic because
I didn't make a lot of noise and disturb the neighbors.
I also liked the tonal qualities. You can hear the
notes quite well. So anyways, I was fooling around and
just came up with those chord patterns the beginnings of
that song, and fleshed it out from there. It was
a very convoluted process of actually stringing all that stuff together,
(29:51):
but once it came out, I was immediately like, Wow,
this is a song, and let's record.
Speaker 7 (30:27):
Have you remember love the double.
Speaker 10 (30:35):
Sam Come.
Speaker 16 (30:38):
Let me struck yourself? How listens classes to the right.
Speaker 7 (30:51):
Housing someone else?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Just like running nine minutes and fifty eight seconds. The
song was just short by two seconds to make it
on our Long Songs episode, but I definitely thought it
fit better here.
Speaker 9 (31:42):
Anyways.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
That was the band Television with Marquee Moon and this
is really television's magnum opus, renowned for the inventive interplay
between guitarist Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd. It's the title
track to their nineteen seventy seven debut album, but the
song was actually years in the making. It started as
an acoustic ballad that Verlaine put together. The band started
(32:04):
playing at nineteen seventy four, when they were regulars at
a club CBGB's in New York. Television was actually the
first to emerge from that club and later provided a
home base for Blondie, The Ramones, and The Talking Heads.
They honed the song through live performances in pretty diligent rehearsal,
so when they recorded the album in nineteen seventy six,
they had perfected it. The entire album was recorded and
(32:27):
mixed in just three weeks. When the Marquis Moo album
was released in February of nineteen seventy seven, the title
track was clearly the standout, but not something that could
garner radio play in America. Has also a tough sell
because the band wasn't known outside of New York and
didn't even really adhere to a particular genre. Pop doesn't
(32:48):
really do it justice because of the song's complexity, and
it's still far from actual punk. The album never made
the charts in the US, but was later hailed as
a classic in most music surveys. Kay, though, was a
little more welcoming. The single charted at number thirty, and
the band made the cover of the music magazine New
Musical Express critical acclaim for television was most robust in Britain.
(33:12):
Early performances of this song usually lasted about five minutes,
but it got longer as the years went by. After
the song was released, the live renditions would typically surpass
the ten minute running time, sometimes even stretching for twenty minutes.
Speaker 17 (33:31):
Well she revetted she understood me, she understood being things
for nineteen.
Speaker 10 (33:43):
Foot great, but she does all these things that.
Speaker 7 (33:46):
A hockcatstead hock at Jeff.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
He says no.
Speaker 7 (33:50):
Then the mad g crack upset.
Speaker 10 (33:57):
Oh she crack.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
You're right, well she.
Speaker 10 (34:06):
Crab.
Speaker 7 (34:08):
I you all she did these stays that I go,
she self destroyed.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
That's is so to our self a job, I self
de velt, that's so to selt.
Speaker 12 (34:27):
She crass.
Speaker 7 (34:29):
I'm sad brble, that's fine, she cracks.
Speaker 10 (34:37):
All right.
Speaker 7 (34:40):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
From nineteen seventy two, that was She's cracked by the
Modern Lovers. Wanting to be thoroughly un British invasion, the
modern Lovers sought their musical inspirations elsewhere, notably from nineteen
fifties Rock and roll, the Stooges and even the Velvet Underground.
By all accounts, frontman Jonathan Richmond had an ego the
(35:03):
size of the Modern Lover's breeding ground, New York, Richmond
held a tight grip over the band's output. Despite proto
punk classics like Roadrunner and Cheese Cracked being the obvious
musical direction for the group, Richmond eventually refused to go
down that increasingly heavy path and wanted to do away
with electricity for heartfelt acoustic songs instead. Therefore, the Modern
(35:26):
Lovers produced very little during their original incarnation, only releasing
one album in nineteen seventy six, which was released after
the original lineup had disbanded, though the songs were actually
recorded in seventy one and seventy two. For a man
who'd often cry on stage at his own emotional lyrical content,
it had an internal crusade against drug usage that would
(35:48):
often halt the band's live performances if he thought the
audience wasn't listening closely enough. Richmond was hardly the Vitruvian
man of punk rock. However, what the Modern Lovers did
was fuse richmond unrelenting lyrical and on stage contrariness with harsh,
repetitive music that outwardly shunned that safe seventies rock at
(36:08):
the time. It's very punk rock Side.
Speaker 7 (36:11):
Won't pick it up, take them right away, Tad won't
figure it up, don't take y'all night away, Tide won't
pick it up, don't time, don't take my night?
Speaker 10 (36:23):
Oh wow?
Speaker 7 (36:25):
Please don't see.
Speaker 12 (36:26):
Ask me, I don't you know?
Speaker 7 (36:31):
If you don't know what I'm doing? What you know?
Speaker 10 (36:35):
Sis, we'll pick it up? Take them night away says
we'll get it up.
Speaker 7 (36:41):
Don't quote y'all got away, Sis, we'll pick it up.
Speaker 5 (36:46):
Don't time, don't.
Speaker 12 (36:47):
Take my night?
Speaker 5 (36:48):
Oh woy?
Speaker 7 (36:50):
And please don't tell ask me if I yeah, because
I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
I Dolls from.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Nineteen seventy three a band that is considered one of
the first actual punk bands as a movement and as
music That was the New York Dolls with the song
trash They're adrogynous bunch of ragtag musicians. The New York
Dolls were the archetype of the drug induced rock and
roll belligerents. They fought on stage, screamed at audiences, and
(37:27):
much else. The New York Dolls were willfully anarchic and
predated punk with their unobtrusive attitude and strident music, yet
preferred the glam aesthetic rather than the unpretentious street look
of the proto punk counterparts, The New York Dolls would
often sport dresses and makeup and platform shoes, almost to
mirror their subversive temperaments and music. Taking influences from the
(37:51):
velvet underground mainly, the New York Dolls ramped up their
fellow New Yorker's outlook on music of producing an electric
sound without much more care than traditional musicianship. It was
also conceived something of their own, it was original. After
the release of their first self titled album in nineteen
seventy three, the New York Dolls were on a path
(38:11):
of internal destruction. Artistic differences and drug abuse sowed the
seeds of friction amongst these proto punkers. Drummer and founding
member Bill mrcia died one year prior, so that Dolls
appeared to be a band that could never sustain itself,
and indeed they didn't. The song I Played for You
Trash is the debut single by that American band, the
(38:35):
New York Dolls, and it was recorded in their nineteen
seventy three self titled album and released as a double
a side with the song Personality Crisis in July of
seventy three. The song is just a quintessential Dolls track, raw,
defiant and catchy as hell. Todd Rungren actually produced the
song Trash and also contributed background vocals. He also produced
(38:57):
all albums for artists like Badfinger, Grand Funk Road, Meat Loaf,
Cheap Trick and others. Run Great is also a successful
solo artist and a member of the band Utopia, but
is a much better producer than he was a recording artist.
This song did not chart upon its release, but became
a staple of the punk rock genre over time.
Speaker 9 (39:16):
Hello, I'm Johnny Cash.
Speaker 7 (39:26):
I hear the train coming.
Speaker 11 (39:28):
It's rolling around a pin and I ain't seen the
sunshine since I don't know when I'm stuck in polls,
in prisons and time beeps, drag and all, but the
train peeps rolling.
Speaker 5 (39:46):
All down the side.
Speaker 9 (39:48):
I'm sold.
Speaker 11 (39:50):
When I was just a baby, my mama told me, son,
always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns.
But I shot a man and reno.
Speaker 9 (40:02):
Just to watch him die. When I hear that it was.
Speaker 7 (40:09):
Old boy, I hng my head and cry.
Speaker 16 (40:28):
Boy.
Speaker 11 (40:38):
I'd bet there's Rich houlting from a fancy dining car.
They're probably drinking coffee and smoking mixed cigars. Well, I
know I hadn't coming.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
I know I can't be freezing, but.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Those people keep moving and that's what sores here.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Well.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Now, that might have surprised you. That might not be
an artist or a song that you would associate with punk.
But I challenge you to find me one punk person
who doesn't love Johnny Cash and was influenced by Johnny Cash.
And this song is essentially punk rock with a cowboy hat.
But I shot a man in Reno just to watch
him die. That's pretty punk rock just in and of itself.
(41:28):
Compared to Cash, listen to other country pop stars at
the time, just not the same. He stood out as
this punk ethos. They just didn't know what it was
at the time. One of his earliest songs. Cash first
recorded this for Sun Records all the way back in
nineteen fifty six, but it was the thrilling electric version
recorded live at Fulsome Prison in California on January thirteenth
(41:51):
of nineteen sixty eight that really came to define his
outlaw persona. The Live from Fulsome Prison album also helped
revitalize his career. Fulsome Prison Blues was a number one
country hit for four weeks and generated a great deal
of interest in the rebellious Johnny Cash, who made prison
reform his political cause of choice and started regularly performing
(42:13):
in jails, doing about twelve of these shows a year,
mostly for free, mostly in Fulsome and San Quentin. Said Cash,
I don't see anything good that has ever come out
of prison. You put them in like animals, and tear
out their souls and the guts of them and let
them out worse than they went in. Standing up for
the rights of prisoners is not a popular stance, but
(42:34):
Cash came off as a champion for the oppressed. His
next hit, recorded in San Quentin prison, was the humorous
A Boy Named Sue, which proved that he could be
clever and funny, at least while he was singing words
written by shel Silverstein. The most famous line in this song,
I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die,
Cash said, he wrote while trying to think of the
worst possible reason for killing another human. He added, it
(42:57):
didn't come to mind quite easily, though. He came up
with the line after watching a nineteen fifty one movie
Inside the Walls of Fulsome prison while serving in West
Germany as the US Air Force.
Speaker 5 (43:08):
I had everybody's head about the beddd man, the bets
I win a wad. Bad man is a when I
went to bed bad man. When a bet is a win,
I went a mad bad man the bands I went
away to bed bab man. The bed is a win.
I went a bend man. The man. I went away
in a bed bad man. The man I went. I
went to bed bad man. When the bed is a win,
(43:30):
I went a bend man. The man I went, I
went to down't June. Now by the bad everybody knows
that the man is a win a bed. I had
everybody's head a bat bench man man.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Man is the trash Man with surfing bird. And It's
a medley made up of the choruses of two R
and B classics by the sixties do wop group the Rivingtons.
The bird is the word and haapa ooh mau mau,
the brainchild of trash Men drummer Steve Waher. The song
was quirky and a consumable hit, boldly combining surf music
(44:09):
with what they would call novelty R and B. The
trash Men were a garage band from Minneapolis, which isn't
surfing territory for sure, and despite the critical acclaim, they
only managed just one more minor hit before disbanding in
the late sixties. In nineteen sixty four, they had a
mild hit, went to number thirty and it was the
Bird Dance Beat. When this became a hit, the Rivingtons
(44:32):
were awarded writing credit for the song, since it was
based on their compositions. Well this was a huge financial benefit,
as they received royalties every time this song is used
in a movie, TV show, or commercial. The trash Men
claim that they had heard the Rivington songs through cover
versions played by a Wisconsin band called the Sorenson Brothers,
and insisted that Surf and Bird was an original recording.
(44:54):
The trash Men were left with the performance royalties only, which,
while certainly not scraps, were far less lucrative. The band
says that for the first payment, they each received a
check for one dollar and eighty eight cents and eventually
got a lump sum of forty five hundred dollars each.
This was all they got until the mid nineteen eighties,
when they filed a lawsuit against the company that had
(45:16):
bought the recording. How did a band from Minnesota create
a surf rock classic. Well, the Quartet soaked up the
sunshine and sounds of California when they took a road
trip there in spring in nineteen sixty three. Returning home,
they incorporated that surf sound into their shows when they
played local gigs and eventually worked up the song Surfing Bird.
The Ramones gave this song new life when they recorded
(45:38):
it for their nineteen seventy seven album Rocket to Russia.
Other artists to cover the song include The Cramps and Silverchair.
Speaker 7 (45:45):
There has a new sensation.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
I've done some.
Speaker 7 (46:00):
A stranger When you feel alone, it's a gey and
that's why Bee say, do the stranger.
Speaker 9 (46:17):
On the tables.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
Quickly place on Mabel.
Speaker 10 (46:24):
So well, Ja.
Speaker 7 (46:27):
Said the bed a style serve here, Bluie says he
sweet bears, that's a fair round siet of the tangle
fed with my bangle. That don't old bead slider lingo.
(46:55):
It burs off blue jeans.
Speaker 5 (46:59):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Do the Strand, which is the opening song on Roxy
Music's sophomore album For Your Pleasure, as a theatrical homage
to a fictional dance Craze called the Strand as is
typical for Roxy Music. The lyrics contain numerous art and
cultural references. Front man Brian Ferry explained there was a
(47:30):
particular genre of songs based on dance crazes like the Twist,
the Jerk, the Madison Time, etc. Which I found amusing
to do. The Strand was a nod in their direction,
although it attempted to be more high brow or a
bit further uptown, as much as I wanted to turn
the Sphinx and Mona, Lisa, Lolita and Guernica into a
rhyming couplet. Brian Eno, who went on to become a
(47:53):
very successful and influential producer, played synthesizer in Roxy Music.
Leaving after the For Your Pleasure album The Sex Pistols.
Guitar Steve Jones named his first band, The Strand after
this song. Jones later named Roxy music self titled album
as the must have album and influence of all punk music.
Speaker 10 (48:31):
Doctor man calling on a phone, I've got no kind
of be un known.
Speaker 7 (48:37):
I'm coming now. I would tie the fad to think.
Speaker 11 (48:41):
I do not mind.
Speaker 10 (48:42):
I'm friend that oh oh friend, that far bone. All right,
I'm riding.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
On an I traid That was the band the Saints
with I'm Stranded and because they were from Australia and
there was no social media at the time, they didn't
even know the sex Pistols existed, but yet they sounded
just like them. This is a Howl of Rage against
boredom and Oppression was the first song released by this
(49:18):
pioneering Australian rock band, issued in September of seventy six,
at pre dated debut singles by better known punk acts
like The Sex Pistols, That Damned and even The Clash.
The Saints were from Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, Australia.
This song was inspired by the corrupt government and police
force that ran the band's state at the time. Saints
(49:39):
frontman Chris Bailey said, when you were sixteen or seventeen,
there's heaps of things that you can get angry about,
your parents', school, job if you've got it, and even
the police. You are at an age where you want
to be doing a whole range of things that are
restricted because of your age, especially in Brisbane at the time,
where there was active harassment from the police force. The
Saints were signed and November of nineteen seventy six to
(50:02):
a three album Deal by EMI and the UK on
the strength of the single. According to Chris Bailey, this
had been wrongly labeled as a punk rock classic quote.
It's basically an Eddie Cochran riff, he said in an
interview in twenty fourteen. But because we were young and rebellious,
we just played it a bit faster. So I guess
in the end it became punk.
Speaker 7 (51:00):
Get gonna.
Speaker 5 (51:00):
Family's not gonna rate at the time because they want
to be off there, okay, hood at the bone.
Speaker 7 (51:04):
And I'm gonna say get along.
Speaker 5 (51:05):
Follow that shot, said my eyes.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Mh they can get less up like you, they can
get lets up.
Speaker 7 (51:17):
I mean, I'm gonna say I'm the end some way
that they want to be.
Speaker 10 (51:20):
So I was wearing my time.
Speaker 5 (51:21):
I said, go with the times. Follow that shot, said.
Speaker 10 (51:23):
My eyes, always trying to me when they tell us up.
Very fable said that, young man, we have so long
or some one to come along and correct along.
Speaker 9 (51:48):
But the way.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
That was the band death with Politicians in my eyes,
predating the Ramones debut by over a year. They are
the forerunners of punk and should be mentioned in the
same breath as other bands that are argued amongst music
Nerds of Who was the first true punk band, But
they had an interesting story because not only are they
(52:17):
from Detroit, not exactly the mecca of punk music, but
they were just three black guys playing music that the
rest of their neighborhood wasn't interested in. They were definitely
the forerunners of punk by the early seventies. They were
playing relentless, energetic versions of politically charged rock and roll,
inspired by bands like The Who and the Sound of Funk,
(52:38):
but with the speed comparable to bands like Black Flag
Unheard of Him in their heyday, they were rediscovered, and
rightfully so.
Speaker 7 (52:59):
The things you want to No One, here's a dange,
I can't wait, loose my mother with the side.
Speaker 15 (53:15):
Way you may kiss engine?
Speaker 14 (53:17):
Might no man know your mama?
Speaker 7 (53:19):
Lo look at me with the sashes?
Speaker 5 (53:22):
This is fine, No one, here's a tabe.
Speaker 7 (53:24):
I can't wait.
Speaker 13 (53:50):
Yeah, look at me at her funny.
Speaker 7 (53:55):
Luck, God made your mind.
Speaker 10 (53:58):
You can just talk a little.
Speaker 5 (54:00):
Don't take love me?
Speaker 1 (54:13):
That was the Phantom with love Me. I wanted to
play you some stuff you might not have ever heard.
It's one of my favorite things to do on this podcast,
showing you a lot of new discoveries and this is
a perfect example. How many of you ever have heard
that song and that band? I assume probably none. That
band is from nineteen fifty eight and it was the
(54:34):
Ragged Hollers and Ramshackle instrumental and the voice of Jerry
Lott aka the Phantom. He even wore a mask like
the Lone Ranger, but he's singing rockabilly on the song
that I just played for You Love Me. He pushed
that Elvis Presley template of rock and roll to its
breaking point and would become a favorite of the seminal
punk band the Cramps. In fact, if you listen closely,
(54:56):
you could pretty much hear the sound that the Cramps
copied on their from some else.
Speaker 9 (56:23):
Link.
Speaker 1 (56:23):
Ray and his ray Men one of my favorites and
goes in that category of an artist that I can
listen to no matter what mood I'm in.
Speaker 9 (56:31):
Well, they managed to.
Speaker 1 (56:32):
Get a crunchy low grumble on his instrumental song Rumble,
which was actually banned from the US radio in nineteen
fifty eight. The distortion of his songs were achieved by
slashing the amp speaker cone with razor blades. And what's
more punk rock than that song? I played for You
is called Jack the Ripper, but link rated far more
(56:52):
for punk than introducing those hefty chords. He added a
virtuoso component to the ability to showcase new sounds, like
on the song I Played for You. Jack the Ripper
in this ray would add surf guitar, t is tough rockabilly,
and up the tempo, getting even closer to a punk
sound before punk was a thing.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
A wout Baby, You're gonna me crazier, I said, babe,
you gotta me crazyer.
Speaker 7 (57:27):
Halloa. You turned me home, then you set me down.
Hellou down me baby.
Speaker 12 (57:38):
Man.
Speaker 1 (57:38):
I gots y'all.
Speaker 13 (57:42):
Sig ow allou bam, you gotta me crazier. I've said
mine man, damn all.
Speaker 12 (58:02):
Sigh oh wow.
Speaker 1 (58:37):
From Tacoma, Washington. The Sonics were a band that never
had the first Billboard hit, but their use of speed
and aggression and heaviness was a template that later bands
would refine. Their nineteen sixty five song Psycho, which is
what I Played for You, was all just machine gun
drum fills, distorted screams and lyrics about nihilism preempting the
(59:01):
sex Pistols, and there no future mentality. Their belief in
nothing mindset would be advanced with each successive band that
copied them going forward. And now I have to go
off and polish my Doc Martins and cut some holes
in a nice leather jacket. So we will bring you
to our final song of the season and of this episode.
(59:22):
Surfacing in the nineteen sixties, the Andy Warhol endorsed Velvet
Underground were in a world of their own. When so
many bands of the sixties were speaking hope and perceived enlightenment,
the Velvet Underground were singing of scoring heroines, sadism, masochism
and prostitution, and sexually deviant themes like that, communicating the
(59:46):
bowels of urban life rather than the florally arcadian ideals.
I have to say Oi oi oi to the world,
and this episode on the origins of punk, and I
couldn't think of anyone better than the Velvet Underground. I
had a lot of fun doing this. I'm gonna leave
you with another artist similar to Johnny Cash, that all
punks admire and that all punks have deep connections with
(01:00:07):
aesthetically and sound wise, I mean lou read In. The
Velvet Underground with the song I'm Waiting for the Man
is literally just punk before punk lyricists in front man
lou Reid sought to emulate the beat poets with his
words and appall audiences rather than uplift them. Musically, The
Velvet Underground mixed a tonism with harsh energy. They use
the guitar as an instrument to capture in harmonic sounds
(01:00:31):
like feedback of a guitar solo, as if to mirror
the pace and disunion with their lyrical themes. This is
another in The Velvet Underground's canon of songs about drugs.
Not only does it fit nicely with their song Heroin,
which I played for you on a Wow That's Inappropriate
episode a while back, it's also on the same album
and was also written by lou Reid at the same
(01:00:53):
time as Heroin, during Reid's attendance at Sarah Hughes University
in the early sixties. It describes a trip to Harlem
Brownstone near the intersection of Lexington Avenue in one hundred
and twenty fifth Street, to buy drugs from a dealer
or the man in this title. Once again, it neither
condones nor condemns the experience, It just merely describes it.
(01:01:14):
The song is about scoring twenty six dollars of Heroin
and Harlem. According to Rolling Stone magazine, lou Reid said,
everything about that song holds true except for the price.
David Bowie loved the song and played it on stage
a lot early in his career. Besides David Bowie, amongst
the many acts to cover, I'm waiting for the Man,
most notable or cheap trick Bauhaus and the UK subs
(01:01:37):
it shares credit with The Ramones fifty third and third
for being the famous song related to drugs. The Ramones
one is about turning a trick for drug money. By
the way, it pinned it to a specific New York intersection.
So this is going to bring us to the end
of our episode and the end of our season. This
has been an absolute fun one, not just an episode,
(01:01:58):
but a fun season. I can't tell you all how
much I appreciate you listening and sharing, recommending this podcast
to a friend and please, we really need reviews people,
So go on there and review us. Hopefully you give
us five stars. If not, I will find you and
beat you with a baseball bat. Anyways, I love you all.
I will see you next season. Hopefully it won't take
(01:02:19):
too long, and of course turn this song up.
Speaker 15 (01:02:40):
Waiting for my Man ten is six dollars in my
hand up to Lexington one two five music and did
in a I'm waiting for my man. Hey, white boy,
(01:03:14):
what you're doing uptown?
Speaker 7 (01:03:20):
He white boy? You chasing all women around?
Speaker 15 (01:03:27):
Hoop on me, sir. It's where it's from my mind.
I'm just getting away to your differend. In my mind,
I'm waiting for my man. He comes, he's all dressed
(01:03:49):
in black. He your shoes and a extraw hat. He's
never he's always me. He's listening and that he's got
you always got.
Speaker 7 (01:04:08):
A waity.
Speaker 4 (01:04:11):
Waiting for my name.
Speaker 3 (01:04:17):
Thank you for listening to listen to this. Please recommend
to a friend, and don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe.
For more podcasts and online content, please visit this is
funner dot com.
Speaker 7 (01:04:29):
This is Funner
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