1930s–1950s One of the earliest forerunners to the punk subculture is
folk musician
Woody Guthrie. Guthrie, whose career began in the 1930s and blossomed in the 1940s, has been called one of the first punks. According to
PopMatters writer Ian Ellis, the emergence of
skiffle in the 1950s in the United Kingdom similarly to punk "stripped music to its core", with its simplistic instrumental setup that "sent out a clear
anyone-can-do-it signal, and as the skiffle explosion proved, anyone could and did". According to Aidan Smith in
The Scotsman, popular skiffle musician
Lonnie Donegan embodied a "dangerous and daring and
do-it-yourself" aesthetic that was later adopted by punk; Smith also commented that one of Donegan's combos "attracted a wild following: men so epicly drunk they'd wet themselves and – very proto-punk, this – their duffel-coats were accessorised with alarm clocks hung round necks." According to Tom Ewing of
Freaky Trigger, Donegan's 1957 British chart-topper "
Cumberland Gap" was "the first punk No. 1". Ewing added, "Lurching speed-freak skiffle played on Christ knows what which sounds nothing remotely like any previous chart-topper: if punk is anything, it might as well be that." By the 1960s,
garage rock, a style of raw, loud and energetic rock music, had developed scenes in both the United States and United Kingdom. The Kingsmen and the Kinks came from the UK's garage rock scene; the former's cover of "Louie Louie" was described by academic Aneta Panek as "punk rock's
ur-text". In the following years, this raw sound was being adopted by other
British Invasion acts including
the Who on their single "
My Generation" (1965) and
the Rolling Stones on their 1966 live album
Got Live If You Want It!. In South America, the garage rock band
Los Saicos formed in
Lima,
Peru, in 1964, later being called "the world's first punk band" in Zona de Obras' book
Spanish Dictionary of Punk and Hardcore.
AllMusic states that bands like
the Sonics and
the Monks "anticipated" punk; they have been cited as examples of proto-punk and the Sonics' 1965 debut album
Here Are The Sonics as "an early template for punk rock".
Garage-psych bands like
the Seeds also presaged punk; other examples are
the Electric Prunes,
Red Crayola,
the Litter,
the Barbarians, Not only did the unconventional sound of garage rock bands go against what was popular in the mainstream, but the visual styles of many bands were purposely contrasted with more popular, polished aesthetics found in mainstream artists.
1970s New York's
the Velvet Underground were musically distinct from most other punk predecessors. They influenced punk through their
avant-garde take on rock, which incorporated dissonance and taboo lyrical topics such as
urban decay, drug addiction and
sadomasochism. In 2014, the
BBC stated, "The roots of underground and experimental music,
indie and
alternative, punk,
post-punk and
art-punk all snake back to the four Velvet Underground studio albums". In Japan, the anti-establishment , formed in 1969 and disbanded in 1975, mixed garage, psychedelic rock and folk; the band's first two albums were withdrawn from public sale after their lyrics were described in Mark Anderson's book
The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Japanese Culture to violate industry regulations, with their "spirit... [being] taken up again by the punk movement." In the early 1970s, the
UK underground counter-cultural scene centred on
Ladbroke Grove in
West London spawned a number of bands that have been considered proto-punk, including
the Deviants,
Pink Fairies,
Hawkwind,
Edgar Broughton Band,
Stack Waddy, and
Third World War; contemporaries
Crushed Butler have been called "Britain's first proto-punk band." According to
Allmusic,
glam rock also "inspired many future punks with its simple, crunchy guitar riffs, its outrageous sense of style, and its artists' willingness to sing with
British accents (not to mention the idiosyncratic images of David Bowie and
Roxy Music)". Bands anticipating the forthcoming movement were appearing as far afield as
Düsseldorf, West Germany, where "punk before punk" band
NEU! formed in 1971, building on the
krautrock tradition of groups such as
Can.
Simply Saucer formed in Hamilton, Canada in 1973 and have been called "Canada's first proto-punk band", blending garage rock, krautrock, psychedelia and other influences to produce a sound that was later described as having a "frequent punk snarl."
Detroit proto-punk sound The
MC5 (also known as the "Motor City Five") formed in
Lincoln Park, Michigan in 1963, the group began as an
R&B and
garage rock band, later releasing the single "Borderline" backed with "Looking at You" in 1968 on A-Square records, without the knowledge of that label's owner Jeep Holland, the single sold out thousands of copies. Guitarist
Wayne Kramer's style was retrospectively described by
The Guardian as showcasing "an edge of atonality and barely controlled chaos." Similarly,
the Up, formed in Michigan in 1967 were another Detroit band closely associated with the MC5 and early Detroit punk scene, they've been described as an "important step in the evolution of punk rock". In February 1969, the MC5 released their influential debut album,
Kick Out the Jams, which was later considered an influential and important forerunner to punk rock music. In August 1969,
the Stooges, from
Ann Arbor, premiered with a
self-titled album, produced by
John Cale, formerly of the Velvet Underground. The album was later followed by the release of further influential records;
Fun House and
Raw Power, both of which helped establish a "blueprint for punk rock". Stooges' vocalist
Iggy Pop would go on to be described as "the Godfather of Punk" due to his on-stage antics and confrontational attitude. The influence of the Stooges also inspired other early Michigan punk bands such as
the Dogs and
the Punks. In 1973,
Destroy All Monsters formed, featuring Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton and MC5 bassist
Michael Davis. Followed by, early punk supergroup, the
Sonic's Rendezvous Band which was formed by guitarist
Fred "Sonic" Smith, formerly of the MC5, Gary Rasmussen, formerly of the Up on bass and
Scott Asheton, formerly of the Stooges on drums. Additionally, Detroit band
Death formed in 1974, by three
African American brothers, recorded "scorching blasts of feral ur-punk". However, due to their name could not secure a record deal, they released the single "Politicians in My Eyes" backed with "Keep On Knockin" in 1976 and promptly disbanded, only to be rediscovered decades later.
Development of punk rock Formed in New York in 1971, the
New York Dolls merged Detroit's specific proto-punk sound with elements of glam rock, pioneering the
glam punk genre. According to
Alternative Press magazine, they "were the most important of all protopunk bands after the Stooges [sic]". Their style was adopted by a number of New York bands, including
the Stilettos,
the Brats and
Ruby and the Rednecks, and subsequently was the catalyst for the city's early punk rock scene, which included
Television,
Talking Heads,
Patti Smith,
the Ramones,
Blondie and
Richard Hell and the Voidoids. The Detroit proto-punk sound spread to
Cleveland, Ohio by the middle of the decade, where influential proto-punk bands including
Mirrors,
Electric Eels,
the Styrenes,
Rocket from the Tombs, and later
Pere Ubu formed. During the mid–1970s the British
pub rock scene, which was mostly based around London. Influenced by Detroit proto-punk, Many of the early British punk scene's musician began their careers in pub rock acts, including
the 101ers (
Joe Strummer,
Richard Dudanski,
Tymon Dogg),
Kilburn and the High Roads (
Ian Dury,
Nick Cash) and Flip City (
Elvis Costello). The Saints are regarded as a punk band and as being "to Australia what the Sex Pistols were to Britain and the Ramones to America," while Radio Birdman are regarded as co-founders of punk but have also been designated as proto-punk. ==See also==