Then and Now Part 2

Then and Now Images

The Sex Pistols

John Lydon circa 1977

John Lydon circa 2010

Sid Vicious circa 1977

Sid Vicious circa 1979 dead from heroin

Steve Jones circa 1978

Steve Jones circa 2011

Paul Cook circa 1977

Paul Cook circa 2012

Then and Now

A gallery of then and now punk rockers

The Clash

Joe Strummer circa 1979

Joe Strummer circa 1999 (died 2002)

Mick Jones circa 1977

Mick Jones circa 2012

Topper Headon circa 1977

Topper Headon circa 2013

Paul Simonon circa 1978

Paul Simonon circa 2012

The Eighties Sucked

At the tender age of 14 no one really knows what they like or what they will listen to when they are middle aged. At 14 our bodies are a seething mass of hormones run amuck. Stuffing a thousand other hormonal teens into an institutional learning facility seems like a cruel joke perpetrated by sadists, but that's how it is. When I was 14, my musical world revolved around the British Invasion; The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who. I didn't really listen to any American bands save for the odd Creedence Clearwater Revival tune I picked up on the radio. The other kids were into Judas Priest and Van Halen which was considered a "safe" group to listen to. This was the early eighties and a time of feathered hairstyles, Izod shirts and strict conformity to Ronald Reagan and his fear and loathing of all things Communist. The good kids played football and baseball and the good girls were cheerleaders. Occasionally you would hear about a scandalous party in the woods with stolen, warm beer that would be discovered by the local police, but that's about it. No hard drugs, no knocked up teen girls.....well, except for one my freshman year, but she disappeared shortly after school began.

School was never my favorite thing to endure. I flunked math when I was in the 8th grade and was sent to summer school. In truth I didn't mind as our instructor actually made it so I could understand formulas and basic algebra. To this very day, I still can't fucking do math probably thanks to an undetected learning disability. I see numbers backwards.......it's crazy and irritating and occasionally embarrassing, but I've managed. By the time I started as a freshman, I already had a chip on my shoulder about school. This soon made me an ideal target for the older kids who played football. After all, stuffing a skinny, short kid with glasses into a 10 inch wide locker or throwing him down a flight of stairs is funny, right? Today, this behavior is called "bullying" and it's a huge no-no in our society, but back in the 80's it was called "suck it up and deal because these guys are sports stars and you are not". Also words like "faggot" were used freely to describe anyone who didn't play sports and/or was not part of the popular crowd. I was an angry, frightened kid and I needed an outlet that would help channel that energy in a direction that didn't involve setting fires and building pipe bombs.

I'd heard about this oddly named band from England called "The Sex Pistols" that was supposedly  comprised of the most vile gang of villains since the Nuremberg Trail. At our local record store I found their album and I had to ask my mother for the $6 to buy it. At first she balked, but for some reason she gave me the money. As I played it for the first time on my cheap stereo that came from our local Radio Shack, I was transformed. The music was just as angry as I was and sounded raw and unclean. I wanted to play it loud until my ears bled. Soon, this was followed by my own version of the British Invasion.........The Damned, The Clash, The Anti-Nowhere League and others. After I was done with the UK, I changed direction and started listening to California hardcore a la Dead Kenedys, Circle Jerks, Husker Du, Black Flag, Fear, Suicidal Tendencies and others. If it was played loud and fast, I wanted it....I needed it like a drug. I wanted to crawl into the safe confines of my stereo speakers and never leave.

My teen years were a pretty bleak existence and I was only really friendly with one other punk in my class. I was on my own pretty much from day one. Despite this I somehow got invited to a few Friday night parties at this older dude's flat. He was probably in his early 20's but to me, he may as well have been 40. All the local punks hung out at his house and he encouraged the slow destruction of his living quarters by graffiti and petty vandalism. There were also a lot of drugs and underage drinking that I didn't like, but I was buoyed by the fact there were a large number of disaffected kids even if they weren't from the area. I remember watching this Asian girl who shaved one side of her head repeatedly cut herself with a razor until the blood ran down her arm and dripped on the floor one drop at a time. I was thinking how fucked this was and after that I never went back to that apartment, it was simply too depressing even for someone with few friends and fewer places to hang out.

Thanks to my love of The Clash, I developed an early interest in politics and social issues. I began to actually read the newspaper and pay attention to what was going on in the world. I couldn't stand the self-indulgence and self-destruction I was witnessing with the other punks. An idea began to form in my mind that if you were unhappy with something, don't take pills, fucking get out there and change it! My anger had changed direction and focus. I was now pissed off by things I would read about in the news; injustice, inequality, corruption to name a few. Occasionally I would still get hazed by the football nazis, but for the most part they left me alone.

Today, I still listen to all that "old" stuff with a whole bunch of new music added. The 1990's and 2000's have been very good decades for music and punk is more popular now than ever before. I still love the pioneering bands I even got my wife to attend a show by X recently. It was a bit surreal when I realized that the musicians on stage were now her parent's age.

Tim
April 2014

Ten Punk Albums From The 1980's That You Need

Top ten punk albums of the 1980's (in no particular order)

10: Zen Arcade by Husker Du. SST Records 1984. Groundbreaking second album for Husker Du and a first being that it was released as a double album and told the story of a young man who runs away to escape an abusive home life. The album has been called "the closest hardcore will ever get to an opera....a kind of thrash Quadrophenia"

9: Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables by Dead Kennedys. Alternative tentacles 1980. The debut album by the Dead Kennedys and now considered one of the best punk albums every recorded.

8: I Against I by Bad Brains, SST Records 1986. Third studio album by the Bad Brains, I Against I continues to receive critical accolades and remains the best selling album by the Bad Brains even to this day. 

7. Combat Rock by The Clash, CBS Records 1982. The fifth studio album by the Clash, it charted in the UK at the number 2 spot for 23 weeks and is by far the best selling album by The Clash. It has now been certified 2X platinum here in the US.

6. Walk Among Us by The Misfits, Ruby, Slash Records 1982. The first full length release by The Misfits despite being the 8th recording release by them. Walk Among Us is know for it's lack of any political or social message and instead relies on a purely whimsical horror fantasy theme. 

5. The Record by Fear, Slash Records 1982. Fear's debut studio album has been called the "punk equivalent of the movie Animal House--puerile, offensive and often reveling in it's own ignorance but pretty entertaining on a non-think level." Despite such harsh words from early critics, the album is now considered a classic album of the LA hardcore punk scene in the early 80's. 

4. Group Sex by Circle Jerks, Frontier Records 1980. The debut studio album by the Circle Jerks features 14 songs and is a little over 15 minutes long and is now considered a landmark album in hardcore punk.

3. Damaged by Black Flag, SST Records 1981. The debut studio album for Black Flag is considered one of the most influential punk records ever made. Rolling Stone listed Damaged as #340 in The 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time.

2. Mommy's Little Monster, Social Distortion. 13th Floor Records, 1983. Critically acclaimed first album by southern California-based Social Distortion was not a huge commercial success initially. The album today has been reissued several times with different labels and various formats. 

1. Los Angeles, X. Slash Records, 1980. The debut album by X is now a classic and a must have for any record collection. Los Angeles was rated #24 on Rolling Stone's list of 100 best albums of the 80's. 

The Dolls of New York

The New York Dolls has the odd distinction of being one of those bands whose past members outnumber the current lineup three times over. It's almost of a case of who didn't play with the New York Dolls. Despite this, the Dolls were one of the most influential bands of the early 1970's and were plank owners of the developing punk music scene in New York City. Bands such as the Sex Pistols, The Damned, The Smiths and The Ramones all cited the Dolls as their inspiration. 

The original line-up of the Dolls, circa 1971, included vocalist David Johansen, guitarist Johnny Thunders, bassist Arthur Kane, guitarist and pianist Rick Rivets and Billy Murcia on drums. After only a few months, Rivets would be replaced by Sylvain Sylvain, an Egyptian Jew whose family was forced to flee Egypt due to anti-Semitism in the early 1950's. The band took it's name from the famed New York Doll Hospital on Lexington Avenue in the Upper East Side of Manhattan which specialized in antique doll repair. At the time, Sylvian worked across the street at a men's shop and would see the sign for the doll hospital on a daily basis which then became the inspiration for the band's name. 

On Christmas Eve 1971 the Dolls played their very first gig at the Endicott Hotel in the Upper West Side. The Endicott at the time was noted for being one of the most violent and dangerous welfare hotels in the city and would soon achieve infamy in 1972 when it became the scene of four brutal murders. According to popular legend, on Christmas Eve, the hotel staff was organizing a party for the residents when they heard the Dolls jamming across the street and asked them if they would play in exchange for food. Soon, the band was attracting a cult following in Lower Manhattan due to their hard playing style and flamboyant attire. Despite the band's growing popularity, most record companies at the time refused to sign them due to their blatant vulgarity and cross dressing which was at this time still considered to be too far out for most sensibilities. 

The first real break for the band happened early in 1972 when Rod Stewart asked them to open for him at a concert in London. Sadly, at this time the Dolls lost their original drummer, Billy Murica, who passed out from a drug overdose and asphyxiated in a bathtub. Murcia was replaced by Jerry Nolan who was a friend of the band and who had narrowly beat out a young drummer by the name of Mark Bell for the position. Mark Bell would soon find fame as Marky Ramone, the drummer for The Ramones. 

Finally, on March 20th, 1973 the New York Dolls signed a two record contract with Mercury Records with famed musician Todd Rundgren producing in the studio. Rundren would regularly shout at the band to "get the glitter out of your asses and play!". The band's first studio album, titled "The New York Dolls" was released on July 27th, 1973 and featured the band on the cover dressed in women's clothing, high heels, exaggerated makeup and garters, all of which was intended to shock the viewer. Despite less than stellar sales, the album was praised by music critics of the time. Famed music critic Nick Kent stated that the record was "The only album so far to fully define just exactly where 1970's rock should be coming from." The second album, "Too Much Too Soon" was released on May 10th, 1974 and proved to be prophetic. The album was a commercial failure despite positive critical reviews. Mercury dropped the Dolls soon after the album failed to even place in the top 100 of Bilboard 200. 

It was about this time that problems within the band began to become apparent. Johnny Thunders was well into heroin and the rest of the band dabbled in their own addictions to pills and alcohol. This came to a head in 1975 when Thunders and Nolan left the band midway through a tour in Floriday. Blackle Lawless replaced Thunders on guitar and Tony Machine replaced drummer Jerry Nolan. This version of the New York Dolls, now with roadie Peter Jordan on bass, continued until 1977 when David Johansen left for a solo career and Sylvian went on to form The Criminals who would become a regular at CBGB'S. 

In the post-Dolls years, David Johansen achieved a fair amount of success under the pseudonym Buster Poindexter. Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan went on to form The Heartbreakers with Richard Hell of Television. Sadly, Johnny Thunders died from an overdose of heroin and methadone in his New Orleans hotel room on April 23rd, 1991. It was discovered during his autopsy that he was suffering from leukemia as well, so if the drugs didn't kill him, the cancer most certainly would have. He was 38 years old. Jerry Nolan died on January 14th, 1992 after suffering a stroke brought on by bacterial meningitis. He was 45. 

In 2004, Johansen, Sylvian and Arthur Kane reunited for the Meltdown Festival in London. The reunion was organized by long time fan and head of the UK Dolls fanclub, Morrissey of The Smiths fame. On July 13th, 2004 Arthur Kane checked himself into the emergency room of a Los Angelas hospital thinking he had the flu. Two hours later he died from undiagnosed advanced leukemia. The two surviving members, Johansen and Sylvian still continue to tour as the New York Dolls with a new lineup and are still producing new material to this day. 

From the early proto-punk, glam rock beginnings, the New York Dolls were and are an important park of the New York Cith music scene of the 1970's and that is evident by the huge numbers of fans they have today, many of whom were not even alive yet when the band put our their first record. 

Ten Pioneering Punk Albums Everyone Needs

 10: Dead Boys "Young Loud and Snotty" Sire Records, 1977. The first track, "Sonic Reducer" is a classic and has been covered by numerous other bands today.

9: Buzzcocks "Love Bites" United Artist Records, 1978. Pete Shelly's "Ever Fallen In Love" made it to the #12 spot on the UK Singles Chart.

8. Blondie "Blondie" Private Stock Records, 1976. Debbie Harry's debut album and a must for every fan of the New York music scene.

7. Iggy Pop "Lust For Life" RCA Records, 1977. Iggy's second solo record and one of his most successful both critically and commercially.

6. New York Dolls "New York Dolls" Mercury Records 1973. The Dolls debut album that blurs the line between 70's glam rock and early proto-punk. A must have!

 5. The Damned "Damned Damned Damned" Stiff Records, 1977. The very first full length album released by a UK punk group, "Damned Damned Damned" still receives critical praise today.

 4. The Dictators "Bloodbrothers" Asylum Records 1978. The third record from the NYC based band and probably the most popular. 

3. The Clash "The Clash" CBS Records, 1977. The debut album by the Clash received high critical acclaim upon it's release and is still widely listened to today.

2. Sex Pistols "Never Mind The Bollocks" Virgin Records, 1977. The only studio album put out by the Sex Pistols, it has now reached cult status and is considered a modern classic.

1. The Ramones "Ramones" Sire Records 1976. The debut album by the New York based quartet is considered an iconic and historic album in music history.

Scissorfight live at the Elvis Room 1994 (Timothy Donovan photo)