A Rap Fan's Guide to Punk Rock

Lou Reed (1942 - 2013) was a tai chi master and gave infamously crotchety interviews. More importantly, he was a founding member of The Velvet Underground, the 1960s art rock group that helped pave the way for the punk scene in New York City. Reed's influence is hard to measure because he's the nexus between so many different genres. He was born to connect different communities through music. His close friends included Andy Warhol and David Bowie, he recorded a horrible album with the metal band Metallica, and he also wrote a glowing review of Yeezus. While there are more obvious choices for the title of punk rock icon, no one deserves it more than Lou Reed. It can be argued that punk rock is just as much an attitude and a way of life as it is a musical genre. If that's the case, Reed would be the physical embodiment of what it means to be punk—unapologetic, free, bad ass, and dedicated to telling stories about living life on fringes of society.

Four weird-looking dudes from Forest Hills, Queens with very little talent decided to form a band in the mid-1970s. They went on to become the Ramones, one of the most successful groups in American musical history. The Ramones are pretty much synonymous with punk rock, but it doesn't take a skilled listener to pick up on the fact that Joey Ramone, Johnny Ramone, Dee Dee Ramone and Tommy Ramone (no relation), weren't real musicians. That doesn't matter. What matters is that The Ramones were not hippies. They became the quintessential anti-hippies when America's youth was desperately trying to break away from the 1960s flower power movement. The Ramones gave punk its look. They became the poster boys. As a result, songs such as "I Wanna Be Sedated," "Beat On The Brat," and "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker," became indisputable anthems of punk rock. 

Punk rock wasn't confined to New York. Various cities across different continents developed their own scenes. That said, if you were a punk band touring before 2006, CBGB was where you wanted to get booked. The list of artists who have performed there reads like a who's who of punk rock history. Patti Smith, the Talking Heads, Television, The Misfits, and Suicide are just a few of the numerous bands that made a home on the venue's filthy, beer-stained stage. CBGB was the official stomping ground for the disaffected youth of New York City and became hugely instrumental in turning a subculture full of unruly misfits who barely knew how to play instruments into a fully-fledged musical movement.

Historian Jon Savage is said to have described punk rock as a "bricolage of almost every previous youth culture in the Western world since World War II stuck together with safety pins." This is a fitting quote because the one accessory that all young punks have and cherish are buttons attached to leather jackets with flimsy safety pins. Punk rock was ultimately a working-class genre. Kids at punk shows didn't have a lot of money, but they went to shows religiously and proudly displayed their favorite band's logo on their label or shirt pocket. It's like earning a ribbon in the military. The pins punk rockers wear are a reflection of the kind of punk you are, and how many mosh pits you've survived.

At some point, punk rock became a lesser version of its former self. While no one band can be held responsible for breaking punk rock, there are a few bands that helped speed the process along. Rancid is one of them. They do a good job of combining the multiple sounds that had come to characterize punk rock by the time they released their first album in 1993, but that's also sort of the problem. Rancid is completely derivative, and made a career doing things everyone else had already done—many times before and also better. Again, Rancid isn't the only band responsible for doing this (there's also Blink-182, Green Day, and Limp Bizkit), but they have managed to stake a claim in the annals of punk rock history as though they were responsible for creating something new, as though they were original. They're not. They're just overrated.

When CBGB closed in 2006, it was the end of an era and the future of punk seemed to be in limbo. Sure there were other famous venues around the country (most notably the 9:30 Club in D.C.), but none of them had the same allure as CBGB, a place people were willing to travel far and wide to experience. There is no punk rock mecca. As the music business continues to devour itself, there are fewer opportunities for small, intimate clubs—the ones in which punk music was able to thrive—to survive. So where do you go if you want to see live punk music? There is no easy answer. There are new bands such as Perfect Pussy and Death Grips that are recording music that remains loyal to the original punk rock ethos, but those bands are few and far between. Otherwise, it's always good to hit up festivals such as ATP, SXSW, and the CMJ. Unlike the massive, hyper-commercialized festivals that are pretty much the antithesis of punk rock, these festivals still cater to audiences and musicians who value the intense connection that can be created in an intimate space. That's the best way to see a punk show.