20 pulverizing punk essentials from the 1970s
By Jonathan Eig
“Final Solution” by Pere Ubu (1976)
Or maybe it wasn’t the Electric Eels. Maybe punk rock – the American brand – came from, of all places, Cleveland, Ohio. Rocket From the Tomb took what bands like the New York Dolls and the Stooges were doing and scuffed it up even more. Rocket made a big splash in a small pond in Cleveland in 1975 but split apart before they could ever get a formal album recorded. The bands they spawned had more impact.
Singer/songwriter/keyboard player David Thomas formed Pere Ubu and began releasing singles within a year. One of the earliest, “Final Solution” was simultaneously punk and something different. Its droning bass and ultra fuzzy guitar had a lo-fi pedigree and Thomas’ angry vocals sounded punk. But this wasn’t played at lightning speed. It used creepy effects beyond simple power chords. In a very real and weird sense, Pere Ubu was playing post-punk music before punk music was even really a thing.
“New Rose” by the Damned (1976)
The Damned weren’t England’s first true punk band, but they were the first to get that raucous, anarchic sound on record. Damned Damned Damned was preceded by the single “New Rose,” which opens with singer Dave Vanian quoting American girl group the Shangri-Las (who may well have been a punk band if they were allowed to be back in the ‘60s.)
Then drummer Rat Scabies (not his given name) starts pounding away and Brian James begins a simple chord attack that had more raw energy than anything coming from the big-selling arena acts at the time. The revolution hadn’t quite started, but it was about to.
“God Save the Queen” by Sex Pistols (1977)
And here it is. If punk rock wasn’t a formal, recognizable genre prior to Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, the Sex Pistols one and only complete studio release made one thing clear. Punk rock demanded recognition. It was loud. It was fast. It was vulgar and never more irreverent than when vocalist Johnny Rotten snarled out “God save the Queen – She ain’t no human being – And there’s no future – In England’s dreaming.” The barbarians were no longer at the gates. They were swarming the palace.