Robert Palmer's book companion to the BBC series, Dancing in the Streets, contains some very relevant and useful chapters about the punk and pre-punk scenes. He begins the chapter by distinguishing between rock and pop, with the main difference being art - art is the pursuit of rock, whereas it has no bearing on pop. This is certainly true of the early New York punk scene, where art played an prominant role in the homology between poets, artists, filmmakers, composers, and rock'n'rollers that was common and central to the scene. Palmer identifies the background of many of the important punk figures as 'arty,' with the head of Elektra records, Danny Fields, stating, "these were middle-class, spoiled, creative young people, and they took the record companies by surprise" (p.178). Dick Hebdige (if memory serves me correctly) also investigated the backgrounds of many punk leaders, noticing that they were typically art school students as opposed to lower class and unemployed. This is a reading I will revisit over the coming weeks, however, it is already clear that art, as a background and as a pursuit, is an important element in the identity and values of those operating in this particular subculture.
This pre-punk/art-punk movement, along with the garage-rock and glam scenes that followed it, is inextricably linked to the outsider status. As Palmer notes, this exclusion occurs not only in society but also in the heirarchy of rock. Though more acceptable in England, which had a history of the camp and such, this music found little support in America. Its images of drugs and androgeny were too offensive to the conservative mainstream, and the decadent and nihilstic sound was too alien to the rest of the hippie counter-culture. This no doubt helped this music flourish as a scene, as it remained contained in the lower East side of New York because it was the only place these bands could find an appreciative audience. This no doubt would help define and the typical sound and values of the region, which is important to the subcultural theory of locality.
"Without the Velvet Underground and the Stooges (and to a lesser extent, the Doors and the MC5), one has to wonder where the first wave of American punk rockers would have found inspiration" (p.185). This another quote that affirms the importance of the pre-punk bands (only one of which was from New York, but whose influence over the others extended so far as the Stooges seeking Cale to produce their album and give it the typically decadent New York sound). These important bands soon broke up, and it was then up to the New York Dolls - "New York's immediate punk precursors" (p.185) - to continue their work.
Palmer's book is the only one to investigate the changes that resulted in the booming New York live music scene. He identifies two main causes: the closure of medium sized venues around the state; and the distance between fans and performers increasing at a rate proportional to their monetary value.
"The punk -rock story, for all practical purposes, begins in New York city" (p.265), where "enough musicians found common ground in their dissatisfaction with the state of rock and roll to do somethign about it, trnsforming a gaggle of alienated individuals into a full blown movement" (p.265-66). This paragraph highlights what was one of the main impetus for the punk scene. These individuals drew from earlier New York bands and, like those before them, congregated around specific venues. CBGB's was the latest in a line of alternative venues - Max's Kansas City, home to the Velvet Underground, and the Mercer Arts Centre, where the New York Dolls regularly performed. Television were the first prominant band to perform there, drawing on the sonic experimentation of the Velvet Underground. Six months later, the Ramones debuted there. Word spread of CBGB's willingness to showcase unsigned and raw bands with original material, and so it quickly became home to a pulsing alternative music scene.
Lastly, and most interestingly, Palmer is the only one to mention the media in his article. Because the music business and press are centred in New York, even the underground movements draw attention and get coverage. This is useful as it often confused me how people in the UK like David Bowie were apparently influenced by Lou Reed when they never toured outside of the US and sold minimal records.
The relationship between this scene and the media was no doubt important to the progression of punk. I have heard or read somewhere that Lester Bangs was a big supporter of this early movement, and so it would be helpful to source some information on him as a link between the subculture and the media (since that is the focus of the course, after all).
This article is very helpful. It is full of the detail and analysis that has been lacking in the previously reviewed texts. It provides a greater understanding of the contexts that helped the scene developed and of the important values of the scene.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375293/combined
(For you UQ students out there, the library has both the book and televisual counterpart of the Dancing in the Street series. http://library.uq.edu.au/search?/tdancing%20in%20the%20street/tdancing+in+the+street/1%2C4%2C6%2CB/exact&FF=tdancing+in+the+street+a+rock+and+roll+history&1%2C3%2C)
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