Live Oak Blues What happens.

As a longtime bulk consumer of punk, I’ve always struggled with the concept of Proto-Punk or, Punk Before There Was Punk. Hell, I even struggle with the word “punk” itself. To name it at all, goes this line of thought, is to commodify it and strip of its transgressive energy. Johnny Thunders himself always said he hated the word and called what he did “Rock & Roll”–which it damn sure was. But name it we must, if no other reason than it allows us to talk about it. Obviously, then, the folks who influenced the Ramones, The Clash, and the Sex Pistols didn’t define themselves by what might come after them. So what, and who, is Proto-Punk?

For me, the bands who make up this hallowed group had several things in common: 1. they recorded music in 1975 or before; 2. the guitar in said music is all up in your face; 3. the music is raw and subversive in some way that is often difficult to define. The Big Dogs in this group are easy and mutually agreed upon: Stooges, MC5, Velvet Underground, New York Dolls, Patti Smith’s first record. But what about the Monks, a group of ex-GIs who shaved tonsures into their heads and put out some of the most freakish music this side of 1966? How about The Who, a band that every punk outfit worth their salt idolized openly? Link Wray? And what, pray tell, do you do with Big Star–a giant in the punk era even though they never recorded a song that sounds even remotely punk?

As you might have guessed by now, I be will investigating this phenomenon this Monday from 3 to 5 on Left Of The Dial, only on Grow Radio!