Bowie, Queen, The Beatles?
For a punk band from the 70's those were pretty unlikely idols, don't you think?
shareFor a punk band from the 70's those were pretty unlikely idols, don't you think?
shareHow so?
Bowie especially was an influence on a lot of punk bands.
The Clash sang "No Elvis, Beatles or The Rolling Stones" in 1977.
Queen were flamboyant and partly prog-rock-like. Punks hated progrock.
And Bowie... well, he was too artsy and pretentious, I would have thought. But then, The Germs philosophy as portrayed in this movie was pretentious, too.
Queen were flamboyant and partly prog-rock-like.
Punks hated progrock.
I agree and I didn't mean to say that those bands suck. Just thought they were unusual influences for a punk band like The Germs.
shareI agree, I would've expected them to be into proto-punk bands like The Stooges, The Velvet Underground, and Captain Beefheart. Their influences seemed so mainstream.
share[deleted]
>And Bowie... well, he was too artsy and pretentious,
>I would have thought.
You have to remember that the stuff Bowie was doing just a few years before was completely freaky for the time -- not to mention amazing. As someone else said, he was a huge influence on a lot of punk bands.
The Beatles is also not that surprising if you really think about it. Yes, they were a lot more main stream but they also did some pretty weird stuff in the last few years they were together. You also have to remember that '77 punks went through their late childhood/early teens when the Beatles were doing that.
>But then, The Germs philosophy
>as portrayed in this movie was pretentious, too.
I think you'll find that pretentiousness is pretty common in most art/music movements. While many people into punk tried to pretend that they weren't pretentious, they were very often as pretentious as anyone you'll ever meet.
I did find it amusing in the movie that they all hated the Doors, even though one of the songs actually sounded like it was influenced by some of the more pretentious Doors stuff.
Well, it was true that punk was supposedly "against" bands like Queen that had gone too far into that sort of glitzy arena rock kind of thing.
But I recall reading that Pat Smear was actually a big Yes fan. As I recall, there's one Germs song where he cribbed the intro from Roundabout. Years later, after he became famous from playing with Nirvana, Pat was asked in Guitar Player who his favorite guitarist was, and he said Steve Howe.
So in fact, it could be argued that Pat, at least, was an unlikely person to be in a punk band.
The Clash sang "No Elvis, Beatles or The Rolling Stones" in 1977.
And Bowie... well, he was too artsy and pretentious, I would have thought. But then, The Germs philosophy as portrayed in this movie was pretentious, too.
>Punks hated progrock.<
Yeah, and this is one of the main reasons I always hated punk. Progrock is a far more creative and challenging subgenre of rock & roll. Hearing people like the Germs and Sex Pistols, who could barely even play their simple three-chord songs correctly, claim to be superior to musicians like Yes, Queen, Pink Floyd, ELO, Moody Blues or ELP is far more "pompous", arrogant and "pretentious" than anything that the progrock bands ever did. Progrock was always an honest form of music - musicians who actually CARE about music playing to the best of their abilities, trying to stretch beyond the straight-jacket of simple verse/chorus pop formats. That tradition continues today through bands & artists such as Pendragon, Circa:, Billy Sherwood, Mystery, Landmarq, GPS, Magenta, Marillion, etc. Punk was based on the idea that, as Malcom McLaren said "A band that can't play their instruments is better than a band that can". For anyone who actually has any sort of love of music in their soul, this is the biggest crock of Bulls**t ever stated - but still people ate it up.
the problem with prog is the musicians take themselves too seriously.
the problem with punk of the germs variety is they dont take it seriously enough. i can't tell the difference between what Darby Crash did onstage and someone just taking a dump onstage (hello GG Allin!)
For a punk band from the 70's those were pretty unlikely idols, don't you think?
Darby Crash was a teen in the 70's after all and the film is accurate on his tastes in music. He was a huge Queen and Bowie fan. A lot of the early punk rockers from LA were heavy into 70's glam rock before punk emerged.
As for the Beatles.....I've met few people that didn't like them.
For a punk band from the 70's those were pretty unlikely idols, don't you think?
No glam, no punk.
for several reasons this is true. Some reasons are contradictory.
Dictated, but not read.