History of The Punk Subculture - Origins

Origins

The phrase "punk rock" (from "punk", meaning a beginner or novice), was originally applied to the untutored guitar-and-vocals-based rock and roll of United States bands of the mid-1960s such as The Standells, The Sonics, and The Seeds, bands that now are more often categorized as "garage rock". The term was coined by rock critic Dave Marsh, who used it to describe the music of Question Mark and the Mysterians in the May 1971 issue of Creem magazine, and it was adopted by many rock music journalists in the early 1970s. In the liner notes of the 1972 anthology album Nuggets, critic and guitarist guitarist Lenny Kaye uses the term "punk-rock" to refer to the mid-60s garage rock groups, as well as some of the darker and more primitive practitioners of 1960s psychedelic rock.

The next step in punk's early development, retroactively named protopunk, arose in the north-eastern United States in cities such as Detroit, Boston, and New York City. Bands such as the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, MC5, and The Dictators, coupled with shock rock acts like Alice Cooper, laid the foundation for punk in the US. The transvestite community of New York inspired the New York Dolls, who led the charge as glam punk developed out of the wider glam rock movement. The drug subculture of Manhattan, especially heroin users, formed the fetal stage of the New York City punk scene. Art punk, exemplified by Television, grew out of the New York underworld of drug addicts and artists shortly after the emergence of glam punk.

Shortly after the time of those notes, Lenny Kaye (who had written the Nuggets liner notes) formed a band with avant-garde poet Patti Smith. Smith's group, and her first album, Horses, released in 1975, directly inspired many of the mid-1970s punk rockers, so this suggests one path by which the term migrated to the music we now know as punk. There's a bit of controversy which isn't mentioned. The term punk was used to define the emerging movement was when posters saying "PUNK IS COMING! WATCH OUT!" were posted around New York City. Also, Punk Magazine would use the term and help popularize it. From this point on, punk would emerge as a separate and distinct subculture with its own identity, ideology, and sense of style.

Economic recession, including a garbage strike, instilled much dissatisfaction with life among the youth of industrial Britain. Punk rock in Britain coincided with the end of the era of post-war consensus politics that preceded the rise of Thatcherism, and nearly all British punk bands expressed an attitude of angry social alienation. Los Angeles was also facing economic hard times. A collection of art school students and a thriving drug underground caused Los Angeles to develop one of the earliest punk scenes. The original punk subculture was made up of a loose affiliation of several groups that emerged at separate times under different circumstances. There was significant cross-pollination between these subcultures, and some were derivative of others. Most of these subcultures are still extant, while others have since gone extinct. These subcultures interacted in various ways to form the original mainline punk subculture, which varied greatly from region to region.

Donny the Punk wrote: "It arose at New York City's small but legendary club, CBGB's, at the end of 1975; spread to England and California in 1976, to Canada, Australia, and other parts of America in 1977, and grew internationally in the 1980s until it is now found all over Europe, South America, Japan, and many other countries."