Punk
opposed to merely select tracks. 31 Central to these groups’ overlap with punk rock is their often ‘unpolished performance and production quality that ran counter to the more glossy, clean, mainstream sensibilities of the day’. 32 It should too be noted that these bands’ visual style also began to diverge from the more polished aesthetics of well- known bands. Select tracks with decidedly ‘punk’ sensibilities continued of course to be released, such as the gritty 1966 single, Talk Talk by the Music Machine; 96 Tears by ? and the Mysterians; and the 1967 release, Desdemona , by John’s Children, a band which recorded a ‘fake’ live album with ‘overdubbed screams’ in order to make themselves appear more popular to an American audience. 33 Given their one-off quality, such songs shall no longer be given focus in this essay. The Sonics are often considered to be the forerunners of garage punk, with some claiming them to be ‘the first punk band’. 34 The sound of their 1965 debut album, Here Are the Sonics , has been described as a ‘brutal musical attack on the establishment’. 35 The LP , with Gerry Roslie’s ‘harrowing soul - screams’, is raw and unrepentantly loud, with the Sonics purported to ‘only [be] satisfied … when all VU -meters were continuously in the red’. 36 Their lyrical content is more subversive too, such as the track, Strychnine : ‘ Some folks like wine / But I like the taste / Of straight strychnine ’ . Although some of their songs fulfil punk rock’s criteria, the Sonics are overall rather too embedded within R&B tradition – the majority of the tracks on their debut are merely covers, with only four of the twelve being originals, which still contain strong R&B flavourings anyway. Perhaps it is the success of their ballads, Love is All Around , and the brilliant Anyway That You Want Me that leads the Troggs’ alignment with punk rock often to be disregarded. Yet the Troggs released a number of tracks, which serve as ‘a thudding, crude … rebuke to fancy music of any stripe’. 37 Their 1966 debut album, From Nowhere , features several songs with a ‘pulsing beat, gritty guitar riffs, and a raw sound’. 38 The LP contains their smash-hit, Wild Thing , which, with its gritty vocals, is a ‘cornerstone of the garage punk sound’. 39 It would of course be odd to classify the Troggs – in their matching striped suits – as ‘punk rock’; they flirt too often with the mainstream and seem to be incapable of singing about anything asides from ‘ love ’ . The similarities between punk rock and more psychedelic garage bands should also be noted. For example, the 13 th Floor Elevators’ 1966 debut L.P. is crammed with intensely fierce tracks, such as You’re Gonna Miss Me, which are made all the more formidable by Roky Erickson’s ‘serrated howl’. 40 Or, in the case of the Seeds’ debut album, it is their aggressively simplistic songwriting – as demonstrated by the two-chord songs, Pushin’ Too Hard and No Escape – that is so manifestly ‘punk’. As with the Troggs, it would again be strange to categorize these bands as ‘punk rock’. Although more interesting
31 theguardian.com, 10 of the best: garage punk , [online]. 32 detriotpunkarchive.com, Detroit Punk Archive – Detroit’s Punk Rock Story , [online]. 33 allmusic.com, Smashed Block – John’s Children , [online]. 34 thesonicsboom.com, Bio , [online]. 35 Ibid., [online]. 36 history-of-rock.com, The Sonics , [online]. 37 dangerousminds.net, Wild things: Were the Troggs the very first punk band? , [online]. 38 beatcrave.com, The Troggs Facts – Beat Crave , [online]. 39 Ibid., [online]. 40 southwestreview.com, I Have Always Been Here Before , [online].
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