The Rise Of Punk Rock

Punk Rock Punk rock, what is it? Is it rebellion? Anarchism? What makes rock truly punk? Being rooted from garage rock and getting away from the excess mainstream rock, comes punk. A rock genre that spoke often of anti-establishment, anarchism, and rebellion to the norm and society. Genre that was started in a garage and becoming a major cultural phenomenon.
The Garage musicians in the 60’s started pushing the limits and playing with no rules stepping away from the rock norm. Starting with the Sonics, playing music like there were no rules. Mid to late 60’s there was the appearance of the Stooges and the MC5 in Detroit. These bands were raw, crude, and often political. often concerts get really violent, and opening the eyes of the music world.

Named after the neighborhood they all came from, they were at the first Sex Pistol shows, quickly realizing that could be them.
Within a year, the Bromleys had formed a large portion of the London Punk scene, including The Clash, The Slits, Siouxsie and the Banchees, Generation X and X-Ray Spex. Now the British Punk Scene was in full swing.
By the late ‘70s, punk had finished and become an amazing genre with a following triple the size from when it was just garage musicians. Becoming the solid musical force no one in that time saw coming. With this rise in popularity comes many sub-genres of punk. New musicians embraced the DIY movement and began to create their own individual scenes with specific sounds.
Sub genres like Anarcho Punk this movement can be linked by one song. The Sex Pistols first single,” Anarchy in the UK”, first time bringing punk and anarchy together helping it rise to a specific genre. Anarcho Punk isn’t entirely about anarchy but heavily motivated by politics. Lyrics often conveying messages about political issues, including animal rights and anti-government stances. Bands like Crass founded the movement preaching communalism and DIY movement. This sub-genre dismissed other punk bands like the Sex Pistols as puppets of the music industry and believed that the only way to get your belief out was to produce your own

Only salvation of this genre was Epitaph records by providing a new home to American hardcore bands to release records, and ultimately, other hardcore labels followed. In 1989, a band called Sweet Children made an appearance, later becoming a name we all know, Green Day. They created a scene for the next wave, Pop punk. Pop punk included all these great bands like Blink-182, MxPx and Australia’s the Living End, who would be rolling in full force by 1992.
Many ladies felt punk rock was a male dominated scene, this created a need for Riot Grrrl movement during this time. Bikini Kill’s first appearance in 1990 founded the movement of punk rock feminism. Many of the older names that started punk rock started to disappear, bands like The Talking Heads breaking up in 1991, the Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls died of an overdose in 1991, to be followed by his former bandmate Jerry Nolan, died of a stroke the next year.
From the mid ‘90s through early 2000s, Punk enjoyed a resurgence in