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How influential was Punk magazine, really? (possible spoilers)

posted 11 years ago by darksoulnohope
11 replies | jump to latest

I am curious because supposedly this movie claims that punk started with the magazine and that seems highly unlikely, especially with later scenes showing the people of the magazine trying to get chance interviews with established musicians (Especially Lou Reed being interviewed at CBGBs for the inaugural first issue) when the club was already opened and operating.

In addition, I met John Holmstrom at a comic book convention last year where at his panel I asked various questions to about certain bands and singers that were part of the punk scene (including Stiv Bators and the Dead Boys) that influenced other genres such as Goth Rock (one of those Goth bands being Stiv Bators, lead singer of The Lords of the New Church) that I enjoy much and asked if he had any knowledge of why many Punks progressed to Goth . He deflected my questions and claimed that he "got out of the scene" when it became in his eyes "political", so he didn't keep track of bands past the early to mid 80s (though I pointed out that's when the changes occurred and the Goth Rock scene started in England and the US). So I was kinda confused on how a self proclaimed "historian of Punk" would just drop all connections to the scene after a certain time period and not archive anything happening after something happened to the bands which in he disagreed with it.

With the film being created as sort of a "inside the comic book" design and at the end the name dropping of various bands with no mention of their progression beyond that time, was Holmstrom primarily responsible for that? (Mainly because it seems like they took most of his information from him about CBGB and the punk scene than other sources) Just really curious as it seems like with the opening scene seems to be more of a "pat on the back" for Holmstrom (as well as the comic design of the film) than a genuine explanation of how the punk scene really formed at CBGB.

[–] lazarillo 10 years ago

It did coin the word "punk" (in the non-prison-bitch sense). I also think it BECAME influential later when Bob Gucioone Jr. put Legs McNeil in charge of "Spin" magazine which helped usher in the whole early 90's punk revival. Then McNeil wrote the seminal history of this musical era with "Please Kill Me", and maybe he did overstate the influence of his first magazine on that original scene.

I'm curious why you think "punk became goth" though. In the UK punk became New Wave, and some of your whinier New Wave bands like the Smiths, The Church, Depeche Mode, and The Cure did certainly influence 90's goth and modern-day emo. NYC punk actually became "No Wave", which was never really popular outside NYC. Then in the 80's there was a dumbed-down West Coast punk that is mostly what continues to pass for punk in America today.

[–] bredlau3 10 years ago

Suicide was using the word PUNK to describe their music long before the mag PUNK came out.

[–] ultravio13 10 years ago

I believe in the 60s some people referred to garage bands like the Standells, the seeds, ? and the mysterians, and others as punk. The zine was great though, it was funny, dangerous and very offensive. Never been equaled as far as Im concerned.

[–] darksoulnohope 10 years ago

Well for the "maybe he did overstate" is a little of an understatement, at least in the semi-non-fictional realm of the movie universe. Because if true, they claim that the people who made Punk Magazine invented the scene, while at a later scene they show the Punk Magazine people interviewing Lou Reed for their inaugural issue at a packed CBGB club. Which means that the Punk scene was well established in NYC and that the Punk Magazine was just a fanzine that reported on the scene and didn't invent anything, they just popularized it with their publication.

As for the statement I made for "Punk became Goth", pretty much happened for some (not all) Goth bands in what Goths call the "First Generation" where bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees in England were well established as a punk band and then they slowly changed their style over time with their albums in the 1980s to a more droning and darker tone. In the movie, Stiv Bators is portrayed as this guy who had this wonderful punk band The Dead Boys but just did some horrific things and collapsed the band, but doesn't mention what happened afterward. Stiv Bators went on to England and formed The Lords of the New Church which was a Goth supergroup band formed with four artists from punk bands (including Bryan James of The Damned, which eventually changed their style from Punk to Goth with albums like Phantasmagoria), when I mentioned this band to Mr "I invented Punk" Holstrom, he acted like they don't exist to him (he also claimed to me he stopped paying attention to bands after a time in the 80s, I guess or can assume he has the attitude of "If it isn't Punk as I made it out to be, then that music doesn't exist to me.") There are many other punk bands who changed their style to Goth in both the US and England around the 80s, it was just what happened with many of them. Bands like The Sisters of Mercy as part of the second generation of Goth didn't have their major albums reflect their punk influence, but if you ever pick of the album "Some Girls Wander By Mistake" which is a compilation of many of their older songs, you can hear some of them are as fast and pounding as any of the punk bands in the past.

[–] cableaddict 10 years ago

1: Punk (the movement, not the name) started in Europe, mostly England & Ireland.

2: As soon as you make a magazine about the punk movement, it's almost by definition NOT punk. It's like writing a book about Zen.

3: This movie starts with a song by the Talking Heads. I loved the Heads, but they're about as punk as Barry Manilow. The movie was over right there.

[–] bredlau3 10 years ago

I think you have a poor view of musical history.

[–] coorsbeer 9 years ago

There's no definitive answer to where punk music started. I've never heard Ireland being a source though. I hope you're not arguing that the Sex Pistols were the first punk band.

The movie was about CBGB being open to playing new bands and not the punk movement. All kinds of bands started there. Blondie, the Talking Heads, Television, Patti Smith all played there, and none of them are punk.

[–] Slug-3 10 years ago

In my view, anything after the mid-eighties isn't really punk. The problem with reminiscing the punk era is that few understood it then and the catalysts for the scene were quickly forgotten (and usually left out of revisionist tales of the punk scene.)

Some post-punk punk is good, but most is just silly. Many aspects of the modern punk scene fly in the face of the original.

[–] fdog9 10 years ago

Punk Magazine was a huge part of the early NYC scene. It was very influential in defining that scene. The English scene started shortly afterwards.......the magazine there was called Sniffin' Glue.

There was no interweb at the time and magazines had a much bigger impact.

[–] Ruthlilycat 8 years ago

I can't vouch for NYC as I was born in LA (CA), but it had zero impact on punk in LA. Zilch.

[–] fdog9 7 years ago

LA had there own zines at the time.