North America New York City , New York The origins of New York's punk rock scene can be traced back to such sources as the late 1960s
trash culture and an early 1970s
underground rock movement centered on the
Mercer Arts Center in
Greenwich Village, where the
New York Dolls performed, their updated form of 1950s' rock 'n' roll later became known as
glam punk. The influential New York duo
Suicide who formed in 1970 are credited with being one of the earliest artists to describe their music as "punk". While
the Dictators, formed in 1972, became another early key band in the scene. In early 1974, a new scene began to develop around the
CBGB club, also in
Lower Manhattan. At its core was
Television, described by critic John Walker as "the ultimate garage band with pretensions". Their influences ranged from
The Velvet Underground to the staccato guitar work of
Dr. Feelgood's
Wilko Johnson. The band's bassist/singer,
Richard Hell, created a look with cropped, ragged hair, ripped T-shirts, and black leather jackets credited as the basis for punk rock visual style. In April 1974,
Patti Smith came to CBGB for the first time to see the band perform. A veteran of independent theater and performance poetry, Smith was developing an intellectual, feminist take on rock 'n' roll. On June 5, she recorded the single "
Hey Joe"/"
Piss Factory", featuring Television guitarist
Tom Verlaine; released on her own Mer Records label, it heralded the scene's DIY ethic and has often been cited as the first punk rock record. By August, Smith and Television were gigging together at
Max's Kansas City. By the end of the year, the Ramones had performed seventy-four shows, each about seventeen minutes long. "When I first saw the Ramones", critic
Mary Harron later remembered, "I couldn't believe people were doing this. The dumb brattiness." That spring, Smith and Television shared a two-month-long weekend residency at CBGB that significantly raised the club's profile. The Television sets included Richard Hell's "Blank Generation", which became the scene's emblematic anthem. Soon after, Hell left Television and founded a band featuring a more stripped-down sound,
the Heartbreakers, with former New York Dolls
Johnny Thunders and
Jerry Nolan. That April, the Ramones' debut album was released by
Sire Records; the first single was "
Blitzkrieg Bop", opening with the rallying cry "Hey! Ho! Let's go!" According to a later description, "Like all cultural watersheds,
Ramones was embraced by a discerning few and slagged off as a bad joke by the uncomprehending majority."
The Cramps, whose core members were from
Sacramento, California, and
Akron, Ohio, had debuted at CBGB in November 1976, opening for the Dead Boys. They were soon playing regularly at Max's Kansas City and CBGB. At this early stage, the term
punk applied to the scene in general, not necessarily a particular stylistic approach as it would later—the early New York punk bands represented a broad variety of influences. Among them, the Ramones, the Heartbreakers, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and the Dead Boys were establishing a distinct musical style. Even where they diverged most clearly, in lyrical approach – the Ramones' apparent guilelessness at one extreme, Hell's conscious craft at the other – there was an abrasive attitude in common. Their shared attributes of minimalism and speed, however, had not yet come to define punk rock.
Cleveland in 1977 During the early 1970s, the influential
Ohio punk scene emerged alongside the initial New York punk rock scene in
Cleveland, Ohio, which included bands like
Mirrors,
Electric Eels,
the Styrenes and
Rocket from the Tombs. Bands in the scene drew influences from the Stooges, the Velvet Underground, MC5,
Captain Beefheart, and
free jazz as much as traditional
rock and roll. The scene began in 1974 with the proliferation of live shows which were dubbed "Extermination Night". Rocket from the Tombs later disbanded and led to the formation of
Pere Ubu, with guitarist
Cheetah Chrome later joining Ohio band the
Dead Boys, with both bands relocating to New York City.
Electric Eels drummer,
Nick Knox, went on to join
the Cramps, while guitarist,
John D Morton allegedly was the first punk rock musician known to wear a jacket held together by safety pins. However, guitarist
Peter Laughner admired the early NYC scene, routinely hanging around prominent
CBGB figures like Patti Smith, Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine during the early 1970s. Laughner had also reportedly auditioned to replace Richard Hell in Television and was responsible for organizing the band's first gig outside NYC, which was played at Cleveland's Piccadilly Inn on July 24–25, 1975 and supported by Laughner's group Rocket from the Tombs. Additionally, early Ohio punk band
Devo would form spearheading the
Akron Sound movement, with
the Cramps briefly relocating to
Akron, Ohio before settling in the early New York punk scene.
United Kingdom After a brief period unofficially managing the New York Dolls, Briton
Malcolm McLaren returned to London in May 1975, inspired by the new scene he had witnessed at CBGB. The
King's Road clothing store he co-owned, recently renamed
Sex, was building a reputation with its outrageous "anti-fashion". Among those who frequented the shop were members of a band called the Strand, which McLaren had also been managing. In August, the group was seeking a new lead singer. Another Sex habitué,
Johnny Rotten, auditioned for and won the job. Adopting a new name, the group played its first gig as the
Sex Pistols on November 6, 1975, at
Saint Martin's School of Art, and soon attracted a small but dedicated following. In February 1976, the band received its first significant press coverage; guitarist
Steve Jones declared that the Sex Pistols were not so much into music as they were "chaos". The band often provoked its crowds into near-riots. Rotten announced to one audience, "Bet you don't hate us as much as we hate you!" McLaren envisioned the Sex Pistols as central players in a new youth movement, "hard and tough". As described by critic
Jon Savage, the band members "embodied an attitude into which McLaren fed a new set of references: late-sixties radical politics, sexual fetish material, pop history, [...] youth sociology". of the
Sex Pistols flanked by guitarists
Glen Matlock and
Steve Jones, in front of drummer
Paul Cook performing in 1980
Bernard Rhodes, an associate of McLaren, similarly aimed to make stars of the band
London SS, who became
the Clash, which was joined by
Joe Strummer. On June 4 and July 20, 1976, the Sex Pistols performed at Manchester's
Lesser Free Trade Hall in what became one of the most influential rock shows ever. Among the approximately thirty to forty audience members were the two locals who organised the gig Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley, who had formed
the Buzzcocks after seeing the Sex Pistols in February. Others in the small crowd went on to form
Joy Division,
the Fall, and
the Smiths, the gig would also inspire the formation of influential independent record labels,
Factory and
Creation Records. In July, the Ramones played two London shows that helped spark the nascent UK punk scene. Over the next several months, many new punk rock bands formed, often directly inspired by the Sex Pistols. In London, women were near the center of the scene—among the initial wave of bands were the female-fronted
Siouxsie and the Banshees,
X-Ray Spex, and the all-female
the Slits. There were female bassists
Gaye Advert in
the Adverts and
Shanne Bradley in
the Nipple Erectors, while Sex store frontwoman
Jordan not only managed
Adam and the Ants but also performed screaming vocals on their song "Lou". Other groups included
Subway Sect,
Alternative TV,
Wire,
the Stranglers,
Eater and
Generation X. Farther afield,
Sham 69 began practicing in the southeastern town of
Hersham. In
Durham, there was
Penetration, with lead singer
Pauline Murray. On September 20–21, the
100 Club Punk Festival in London featured the Sex Pistols, Clash, Damned, and Buzzcocks, as well as Paris's female-lead
Stinky Toys. Siouxsie and the Banshees and Subway Sect debuted on the festival's first night. On the festival's second night, audience member
Sid Vicious was arrested for having thrown a glass at the Damned that shattered and destroyed a girl's eye. Press coverage of the incident reinforced punk's reputation as a social menace. Some new bands, such as London's
Ultravox!, Edinburgh's
Rezillos, Manchester's the Fall, and Leamington's
the Shapes, identified with the scene even as they pursued more experimental music. Others of a comparatively traditional rock 'n' roll bent were also swept up by the movement:
the Vibrators, formed as a pub rock–style act in February 1976, soon adopted a punk look and sound. A few even longer-active bands including
Surrey neo-mods
the Jam and pub rockers
Eddie and the Hot Rods,
the Stranglers, and
Cock Sparrer also became associated with the punk rock scene. Alongside the musical roots shared with their American counterparts and the calculated confrontationalism of the early
Who, the British punks also reflected the influence of
glam rock and related artists and bands such as
David Bowie,
Slade,
T.Rex, and
Roxy Music. However, Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten (real name John Lydon) insisted that the influences of the UK punk scene were not from the US and NY. "I've heard an awful lot of American journalists pretending that the whole punk influence came out of New York." He argued: "T. Rex, David Bowie, Slade,
Mott The Hoople,
the Alex Harvey Band — their influence was enormous. And they try to write that all off and wrap it around Patti Smith. It's so wrong!". In October 1976, the Damned released the first UK punk rock band single, "
New Rose". The Vibrators followed the next month with "We Vibrate". On November 26, 1976, the Sex Pistols' released their debut single "
Anarchy in the U.K.", which succeeded in its goal of becoming a "national scandal".
Jamie Reid's "anarchy flag" poster and his other design work for the Sex Pistols helped establish a distinctive
punk visual aesthetic. On December 1, 1976, an incident took place that sealed punk rock's notorious reputation, when the Sex Pistols and several members of the
Bromley Contingent, including
Siouxsie Sioux and
Steven Severin, filled a vacancy for
Queen on the early evening
Thames Television London television show
Today to be interviewed by host
Bill Grundy. When Grundy asked Siouxsie how she was doing, she made fun of him saying, "I've always wanted to meet you, Bill". Grundy, who was drunk, told her on the air; "we shall meet afterwards then". This instantly generated a reaction from Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones who pronounced a series of terms inappropriate for prime-time television. The episode had a major impact on the history of the scene and the punk term became a household name in 24 hours thanks to the press coverage, and several front covers of newspapers. Two days later, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned, and the Heartbreakers set out on the Anarchy Tour, a series of gigs throughout the UK. Many of the shows were cancelled by venue owners in response to the media outrage following the Grundy interview.
Australia A punk subculture began in Australia around the same time, centered around
Radio Birdman and the Oxford Tavern in Sydney's
Darlinghurst suburb. By 1976,
the Saints were hiring Brisbane
local halls to use as venues, or playing in "Club 76", their shared house in the inner suburb of
Petrie Terrace. Inspired mainly by the Stooges and MC5, they drew influences from Australian garage rock band
the Missing Links, and evoked the live sound of the British band
The Pretty Things, who had toured Australia and New Zealand in 1975. The Saints soon discovered that musicians were exploring similar paths in other parts of the world.
Ed Kuepper, co-founder of the Saints, later recalled: One thing I remember having had a really depressing effect on me was the first Ramones album. When I heard it [in 1976], I mean it was a great record [...] but I hated it because I knew we'd been doing this sort of stuff for years. There was even a
chord progression on that album that we used [...] and I thought, "Fuck. We're going to be labeled as influenced by the Ramones", when nothing could have been further from the truth. In
Perth, the
Cheap Nasties formed in August. In September 1976, the Saints became the first punk rock band outside the U.S. to release a recording, the single "
(I'm) Stranded". The band self-financed, packaged, and distributed the single. "(I'm) Stranded" had limited impact at home, but the British music press recognized it as groundbreaking. ==1977–1978: Peak of the first wave==