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- Ramones. Punk is all about infusing simplicity with personality, so here’s a simple statement about the Ramones: Punk simply wouldn’t have existed without the group from Forest Hill in Queens.
- Suicide. Suicide were years ahead of their time. The proto-electronic music group consisted of Martin Rev and the late Alan Vega, and though they brought drum machines and synthesizers to punk music, their influence on genres like industrial dance, noise, techno, and ambient music were deeply felt as well.
- Agnostic Front. Agnostic Front existed at the tail-end of punk’s first scene. They were one of the first hardcore bands in the New York scene, playing with tropes of punk and blending them with thrash metal.
- The Dictators. The Dictators are widely credited as the first true punk band to emerge out of New York City. They blended cheap aesthetics with hard and fast rock ‘n’ roll, creating punk music before it truly had a name or identity.
Nov 4, 2021 · published 4 November 2021. Crawling from the subways and onto the streets of The Bowery and beyond, these are the best New York punk albums. (Image credit: Maureen Donaldson/Gie Knaeps/Roberta Bayley/Getty Images)
- Best Heard On: Suicide
- Best Heard On: New York Dolls
- Best Heard On: Marquee Moon
- Best Heard On: Horses
- Best Heard On: The Dictators Go Girl Crazy!
- Best Heard On: Rocket to Russia
- Best Heard On: Eat to The Beat
- Best Heard On: L.A.M.F.
- Best Heard On: Blank Generation
- Best Heard On: Young, Loud and Snotty
“People were looking to be entertained,” Suicide singer Alan Vegatold The Guardianin 2008.“But I hated the idea of going to a concert in search of fun. Our attitude was, ‘Fuck you, buddy. You’re getting the street right back in your face. And some.’” The delivery system was Martin Revoperating the heavy machinery—a $10 Wurlitzer keyboard groaning t...
Unlike frequent billmates Suicide, the New York Dolls came not to destroy rock ‘n’ roll but to celebrate it. Their shows were an eternal celebration of outsiderness, turning being a misfit into something fabulous. Wearing women’s clothes they found in trash cans mixed with black leather, outrageously teased hair and a smear of lipstick and powder f...
Tom Miller and Lester Meyers were boarding school friends who ran away to New York City to become poets. Seeing the Dolls at Mercer Arts Center convinced the duo that rock might be a better delivery system for their French poetes maudits-inspired verse than self-published chapbooks. Changing their names to Tom Verlaineand Richard Hell, respectively...
A ragamuffin street poet in love with Bob Dylan, Arthur Rimbaud, the Beatsand the Stones, Patti Smithfirst began declaiming her simultaneously mystical and profane verses atop rock critic Lenny Kaye’s electric guitar improvisations in the early ‘70s. By the time CBGB was in full roar as early punk’s home venue, Kaye (now alternating on bass) was pa...
In many ways, the Dictatorsare even more the definitive New York punk band than the Ramones. Based around bassist Andy Shernoff’s smart-assed songwriting and the piledriving guitar of Ross “The Boss” Friedman, the Dictators were a more intelligent, more dynamic distillation of power chords, Madmagazine humor and American trash culture: “My favorite...
Not to take away a thing from the Ramones. “Blitzkrieg Bop”was definitely the “you can do this too” clarion call heard around the world. They made leather jackets and ripped jeans the standard and brought the Detroit high-energy ideal out to the provinces. They kept instrumentation deceptively simple, though they employed neck-snapping time-signatu...
Blondiebegan as a not terribly competent revitalization of ‘60s pop and girl group sounds, with a trash aesthetic straight out of the Dolls/Dictators/Ramones playbook—songs such as “Kung Fu Girls”and “The Attack Of The Giant Ants,”anyone? But they had two potent secret weapons: drummer Clem Burke, the Keith Moonof the Lower East Side, and singer De...
The New York Dolls’ untutored guitar genius Johnny Thunders and brilliant drummer Jerry Nolantired of singer David Johansen’s verbal abuse on the road in Florida in 1975. Flying back to NYC, in part to scratch their narcotic itch, they contacted Television’s recently departed bassist Richard Hell, asking him to bring his edgy, poetic songwriting, w...
Hell, meanwhile, watched his haircut, wardrobe and nihilistic persona go around the world, with little to show for his pioneering. Tiring of the primitive, garage-ist pounding he’d perfected in Television and the Heartbreakers, he sought to expand punk’s remit, perhaps giving it the free-thinking power of the best jazz. Hooking up with abstract exp...
Our last two acts were Cleveland exports looking to take a bite of the Big Apple’s new rock ethic. The Dead Boyswere essentially a renaming of ugly glam outfit Frankenstein, who evolved out of protopunks Rocket From The Tombs, taking the more basic Rockets tunes Pere Ubudiscarded. Joey Ramonesuggested Frankenstein vocalist Stiv Batorstake the band ...
- Tim Stegall
Feb 22, 2021 · A list of places that were pivotal to the rise punk scene in New York City, including iconic music venues, bars, restaurants and more.
New York Punk. While bands like the Stooges, the MC5, and the Velvet Underground laid the initial groundwork for punk, New York was home to the first punk scene, and was the location from which punk rock spread to later hotbeds like London and Southern California.
New York Punk. While bands like the Stooges, the MC5, and the Velvet Underground laid the initial groundwork for punk, New York was home to the first punk scene, and was the location from which punk rock spread to later hotbeds like London and Southern California.
Browse the top new york punk artists to find new music. Scrobble songs to get recommendations on tracks you'll love.
