[lbo-talk] Modern punk - WAS Re: The Cramps!

Philip Pilkington pilkingtonphil at gmail.com
Sun Feb 8 16:28:36 PST 2009


On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 5:33 AM, B. <docile_body at yahoo.com> wrote:


> Charles,
>
> Yes. Punk rock ('n roll) is not sui generis.
>
> -B.
>
>
>
> Charles Brown wrote:
>
> "Do you trace punk's roooooots to the blues ?"
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>

Sorry, but I think that this is completely off. I don't think that punk can be put down to the blues at all. Blues music, and much of the rock music which followed it, seems to me to be structurally self-repressive. It never aspired to being wholly "raw". The closest thing was delta blues but even that was somewhat self-repressive - one of those Scorcese documentaries has a delta bluesman saying how they used to use euphemisms for the "bossman" so that he wouldn't notice (e.g. "My woman doing me so much harm" = "my bossman doing me so much harm"). The same structures seem to have been integrated into most blues music - which is why most blues musicians nowadays will simply rattle off a few scales and call it a song. Punk broke through this at some point... and then went into remission...



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