Posted on 09/13/2015 1:52:57 PM PDT by the scotsman
'Forty years ago this week, the Bay City Rollers were the biggest pop band in the UK and were about to the hit the United States, as the Scottish teen sensations rolled on towards turning the whole world tartan.'
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
To be fair, the fandom in the UK was insane at the time, the most fanatical since the Fab Four. Only the fandom for T-Rex, Slade and David Essex came close in the 70s.
Maybe in the US.
If anything saved rock and roll, it was British punk, along with some American bands. Bands from the US like The Stooges, New York Dolls, the MC5 then Talking Heads, Television, Blondie, Patti Smith saved it. And yes even The Boss.
Not to mention all the great British punk and new wave bands of 1976-1980: Sex Pistols, The Jam, The Clash, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Elvis Costello, The Buzzcocks, The Damned, Sham 69, Siouxsie and the Banshees........
I like the Ramones, but they didn’t save it. Frankly if any American bands saved rock and roll, it was The Stooges and the Dolls.
Lovely.
Ah, the days of rollergirl porn. LOL
This was an article on the BBC News website.
It is a relevant article as Scotland and the UK celebrates the 40th anniversary of Rollermania and the band breaking the US.
Lol! Was that a black light (glow in UV light) poster?
Look at those moose knuckles!
Acid eaters was a great LP
I totally agree on the Dolls.
That was an amazing post, and full of great history....I suppose of all the greats that you mention, you know, one has to sort of pick a favorite and organize a history around that. Like any history, events/causation are complex and that’s why history is so awesome...I read a little excerpt from Forrest McDonald recently talking about the nature of history in just that regard; but I digress.
Absolutely I am partial to the Ramones...and the Dolls.
And I became more so after (again) U2 did their absolutely beautiful and deserved tribute to Joey at the beginning of their recent album and as the opener of their tour. Incidentally, in the show I saw, they did snippets of Patti Smith’s “Power to the People” at the beginning and at the very end. I have read they did in other venues snippets of others, including the Talking Heads....and there is a song on the album about attending the Clash concert on college green (at Trinity Dublin) and they sing about how they sold their souls, their lives were changed and so on. And we know the rest of the history (part of the point being...the Clash are hugely important, as well...).
With regards to the New York Dolls: anyone interested should check out the fantastic documentary...called New York Doll. It’s available I think in its entirety on youtube. It’s about the reunion that Morrissey put together in London a few years back. It focuses on the story of Arthur Kane. I can’t praise it highly enough, and there is a bunch of awesome interviews with many musicians who make many of your excellent points. It is also very beautiful, as Kane found faith in the LDS church. Now as a traditional Christian, I have to take the LDS stuff with a grain of salt, but I do believe that Art came to know Jesus, and for that, I am grateful. But whether you are interested in the life of that man, in the music history, or just interested in the Dolls in particular this documentary is a must see.
Back to your post...I’m not familiar with Sham 69, or Siouxsie, or the Buzzcocks. I will check them out.
AGain, great post, thanks for putting it up!
holy smokes.
That is OUTSTANDING!!!!! Wow, thank you!!!!
I hated plaid, but bell bottoms, well, thank god those pictures are few and far between. Keeps the extortion down.
I was totally unaware of SCOTS. I can’t believe it....they are fantastic!!!! Rockabilly, blues...something Southern..something with a touch of the energy of punk...it’s really fantastic.
Thank you for sending my way!!!!
It looks like the entire band doesn’t weigh 250 pounds.
Glad to oblige
With the exception, of course, of The Stooges, the Dolls and the MC5 (all of whom greatly influenced the Ramones) most of those bands owe their very existence to the Ramones.
The Stooges and the Dolls would have just faded into obscure curiosity had not the Ramones carried on what they began.
No Ramones, no punk rock. No punk rock, and the excesses of 1960s-1970s rock and roll would have been endless.
Sorry, again your point is only America-relevant.
Firstly, I completely disagree, to try and suggest that without the Ramones, there’d be no Blondie, Television, Talking Heads etc is frankly nonsense.
Secondly, and going back to the original point, as a Brit, I can say that your argument is even more nonsense. The Ramones had little or no relevance to the British punk scene, which started 1975-76.
The British punk/new wave scene had its roots in the Mods and Mod music of the 60’s, along with rougher 60s bands like the Pretty Things, Rolling Stones and Kinks, then the Stooges, Dolls and MC5. It was those three US bands that were influential in the UK, not the Ramones. Hell, the Ramones never appeared in the UK until 1977!. And were never a huge band in the UK, BLONDIE were by a mile the biggest US punk act in the UK and still are.
In fact, the British scene, which produced as many of the crucial and classic punk/new wave bands as the US, if not more (as punk was bigger and more influential across the entire UK than punk ever was in the US, where it remained a cult at best). Punk and New Wave are as British if not more than the US, even if the US started both movements (but then they had their roots in the British music of the 60s).
I am not sure how much you even know (amazingly given the iconic bands we produced out of that movement) about the British punk and new wave scene of the late 70’s.
‘No Ramones, no punk rock. No punk rock, and the excesses of 1960s-1970s rock and roll would have been endless’
Utter rubbish. Maybe in America, but not Britain and Ireland.
Two more points:
1—The kickstart for the UK punk scene in 1975, was the London ‘pub rock’ r&b sound, with the likes of Dr Feelgood, Kilburn and the High Roads, Ducks Deluxe, The Stranglers.....a stripped down back to basics rock sound rooted in blues and r&b. A deliberate counterpoint to prog rock and stadium rock excess. Many of the great British ounk bands started off gigging in those London pubs.
2—IT was BRITISH punk and new wave that gave birth to the next great musical fashions of the late 70s and early 80s:
The New Romantics
Two Tone ska
Synth-pop
Whilst America lapsed in the post disco and post rock excess period into ‘corporate rock’: all those hideous ‘rock’ bands who all sounded the same, and had that boring FM sound: REO Speedwagon, Foreigner, Asia, Toto............(ok Foreigner were British and actually good)
....as usual, it was left to the young Brits to create genuinely exciting new music and new pop fashion trends. As we have continued to do for 50yrs from the Mersey Sound to today.
It is excellent to have a discussion with someone who is knowledgeable about the 1970s punk scene. It’s been a point of fascination with me since I saw Johnny Rotten on the cover of Rolling Stone in 1976, when I was 16. I didn’t get it at all, but I found it intriguing. It wasn’t until many years later that I appreciated the music and what it did for rock n roll.
Punk roots go back to the Stooges, the Dolls, and even the Velvet Underground. Some like to call The Who the first punk band, but I ain’t buying it. I’m a big Who fan, but no.
IMHO, Punk began in 1974 when the Ramones took the stage for the first time. They were like no one else. They were bad. They couldn’t play. They argued onstage. They were real.
I completely disagree that UK punk was an entirely homegrown thing. Malcolm McLaren saw the Dolls in New York and decided to form the Sex Pistols as a result. In fact, McLaren was so obsessed with the New York punk scene that Johnny Rotten wrote “New York” as a response.
Yes, the States went through the disco silliness, but Punk thrived during this time and spread from New York City to LA, spawning bands like X, Bad Brains, the Dead Boys, and the Dictators and on and on. With few exceptions, these bands were a direct result of the influence of the Ramones.
And Joe Strummer, among others, has pointed to the Ramones concert at the Roundhouse in London on July 4, 1976, and their subsequent playing at a London club, as THE galvanizing event in British Punk. In any event, it was hugely influential, with members of the Damned, the Pistols and the Clash in the audience. It was then that punk bands sprung up all over Britain. The Pistols and Clash had already formed, of course, but the Ramones served as a catalyst.
I think it was Captain Sensible who said that their were not many people at the shows, but those that were there all went out and formed punk bands.
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