Post by petrolino on Oct 17, 2020 23:46:17 GMT
Rodeo Clowns : Sun, Sin & Sand
There are American punk tracks from the 1970s that have clear country music stylings. Bands like Suicide and the Voidoids were influenced by rockabilly music and the Cramps pioneered psychobilly music. It's hard to overestimate the impact the Cramps had on the music scene as they came to spearhead an entire movement. The fact they held roots in California, Ohio and New York was an essential ingredient as it made them the ultimate 1970s punk band in certain respects.
"Social Distortion may have gotten their start in the late 1970s Southern California punk scene, but the band’s musical lineage and influences go much further back (and spread further out) than the punk landscape. The group’s singer and leader Mike Ness recalls being shaped by a rich, roots-heavy musical upbringing.
“Around the house, my father liked country and my mother was more rock & roll,” Ness tells Rolling Stone Country. “I remember a lot of Johnny Cash, the Dillards and Buck Owens. Country music was just always in the background and I absorbed all of it. Also, this was in the period of the folk revival, so we had that big Smithsonian box set [The Anthology of American Folk Music] where I distinctly remember hearing the Carter Family for the first time. Their tones and that style of music really resonated with me as a kid. Early on, I wanted Social D to be the Carter Family with electric guitars.”
Inspired by the Sex Pistols and punk’s no-rules approach, Ness channeled that unruly inclusivity to mix punk with the roots music he had grown up loving, seeing a distinct connection between the styles. “To me, the main shared characteristic between the two of them is that they’re both working-class genres that deal with working-class issues in an honest way,” says Ness, who recently produced the traditionally styled country singer Jade Jackson’s debut Gilded. “Whether it’s Billie Holiday or Howlin’ Wolf or Johnny Cash, they’re singing about real-life things and that’s what punk is – a dissatisfaction with the status quo and wanting to honestly sing about it.”
“Around the house, my father liked country and my mother was more rock & roll,” Ness tells Rolling Stone Country. “I remember a lot of Johnny Cash, the Dillards and Buck Owens. Country music was just always in the background and I absorbed all of it. Also, this was in the period of the folk revival, so we had that big Smithsonian box set [The Anthology of American Folk Music] where I distinctly remember hearing the Carter Family for the first time. Their tones and that style of music really resonated with me as a kid. Early on, I wanted Social D to be the Carter Family with electric guitars.”
Inspired by the Sex Pistols and punk’s no-rules approach, Ness channeled that unruly inclusivity to mix punk with the roots music he had grown up loving, seeing a distinct connection between the styles. “To me, the main shared characteristic between the two of them is that they’re both working-class genres that deal with working-class issues in an honest way,” says Ness, who recently produced the traditionally styled country singer Jade Jackson’s debut Gilded. “Whether it’s Billie Holiday or Howlin’ Wolf or Johnny Cash, they’re singing about real-life things and that’s what punk is – a dissatisfaction with the status quo and wanting to honestly sing about it.”
- Will Hodge, Rolling Stone
Far Out Fables Presents 'Punk Rock Mouse And Country Mouse'
'Pony Dress' - The Flesh Eaters with John Doe & Exene Cervenka
In California, X were hardcore pioneers of country punk, which came to be known as cowpunk. Several members of the band were politically conservative (something common in country circles), drummer DJ Bonebrake was a master of railroad rhythms and guitarist Billy Zoom played "country cartwheels" as well as heavy punk riffs. The Blasters formed in 1979 and branded their roots-based music as "American Music". Members of X and the Blasters formed the Knitters in 1982, a folk-infused cowpunk band whose name is a play on the Weavers. Members of both groups also played with the Flesh Eaters, a California-based punk unit conducted by poet Chris Desjardins.
Country & western fanatics Social Distortion arrived on the scene in 1978. Cowpunk act Rank And File was formed in 1981 by former members of the Dils and the Nuns.
"Brothers Chip and Tony Kinman, foregrounding harmonies that were hardly close — imagine an inordinately dry Johnny Cash up against a washer-womanly blushing violet — trade in the class-warring of L.A. punk troupe the Dils for sagebrush pop rock as schooled in Ennio Morricone as Merle Haggard. On later records, they took themselves too seriously, but on this debut, hooky ditties like “Amanda Ruth” and “The Conductor Wore Black” win out. Secret weapon: former Nun and future adult-alternative hero Alejandro Escovedo on guitar."
- Chuck Eddy, SPIN
- Chuck Eddy, SPIN
X
'The World's A Mess, It's In My Kiss' - X
The Gun Club formed in 1979 and are now seen as progenitors of cowpunk. Their raw psychobilly sound was tribal in nature and dominated by distortion when they performed live. The Paisley Underground also emerged in California around the turn of the decade, a nostalgia-drenched art movement that drew heavily from baroque pop and psychedelia. Bands like Green On Red (originally from the punk scene in Tucson, Arizona) and the Long Ryders drew heavily from psychedelic country rock.
"Many, many years ago a friend put me on to the Gun Club saying that it was one of his favorite lesser known bands. Six or seven years into listening to them on a semi-regular basis, they've really grown on me, especially their 1982 album Miami. I was reading an issue of SPIN last year and Chuck Eddy wrote a short piece about the lesser known genre of cowpunk, which I have to say was new term to me.
To put it briefly, cowpunk is a genre of music from the UK and later the US during the early post-punk period where musicians drew influence from country music while maintaining punk's rawer edges. Other notable acts from the genre include Long Ryders, Meat Puppets, and X.
What is crazy to me is the influence this music would have on the music that follows it, but also how little it's talked about today. The Psychobilly genre ran parallel to Cowpunk in terms of timing, but both were influential on Social Distortion - I am personally not a fan of theirs, but their influence on refined pub punk / hard rock is pretty wide-reaching. It's hard to imagine if there would have been a Beck without the groundwork of cowpunk in Los Angeles. Though I don't consider Los Lobos as part of this scene, I'm sure they got around more because of it. Without Los Lobos, there probably wouldn't be a Graceland by Paul Simon, and there would be no Vampire Weekend, etc. I can't imagine a world without The Cramps - it would simply be an alternate reality."
To put it briefly, cowpunk is a genre of music from the UK and later the US during the early post-punk period where musicians drew influence from country music while maintaining punk's rawer edges. Other notable acts from the genre include Long Ryders, Meat Puppets, and X.
What is crazy to me is the influence this music would have on the music that follows it, but also how little it's talked about today. The Psychobilly genre ran parallel to Cowpunk in terms of timing, but both were influential on Social Distortion - I am personally not a fan of theirs, but their influence on refined pub punk / hard rock is pretty wide-reaching. It's hard to imagine if there would have been a Beck without the groundwork of cowpunk in Los Angeles. Though I don't consider Los Lobos as part of this scene, I'm sure they got around more because of it. Without Los Lobos, there probably wouldn't be a Graceland by Paul Simon, and there would be no Vampire Weekend, etc. I can't imagine a world without The Cramps - it would simply be an alternate reality."
- Ukilla Cosby, Reddit
The Bangles
'Mr. T Luv Boogie' - Screamin' Sirens
Cowpunkettes Screamin' Sirens portrayed the She-Devils in Max Tash's punk comedy 'The Runnin' Kind' (1989), which took its name from a song written by sister and brother Diane 'Boom Boom' Dixon and Gary Dixon, who was married to Fur Dixon of the Cramps. Punk poet Pleasant Gehman, Rose Flores (Rosie And The Screamers), Casey Gomez (the Pandoras), Boom Boom Lafoon (Keith Joe Dick And The Goners), Genny Schorr (Backstage Pass) and Annette Zilinskas (the Bangles & Blood On The Saddle) were all members of the Screamin' Sirens at one time or another.
"For the past 15 years, I’ve been booking, hosting and performing at Sleepless Nights, an annual Gram Parsons tribute held in San Francisco. I’ve come to learn that Parsons fans have different reasons for loving the guy. Some appreciate how he influenced the Byrds and the Rolling Stones. Others are drawn to his wild ride through life, and death – after his untimely passing at age 26, Parsons’ road manager stole his casket from the airport and set his corpse ablaze in the Joshua Tree desert. And there are other fans who believe he invented country rock. What still excites me today about his recordings are all the rabbit holes he gave us to explore. Digging through his discography led to my personal discoveries of Emmylou Harris, Tom T. Hall, Dan Penn, Judy Henske, Fred Neil, George Jones, Buffy Sainte-Marie and the Louvin Brothers.
A few years after getting into the country artists who influenced Parsons, I started reading about some of the bands that Parsons inspired. This eventually led me to the subgenre of country punk. What’s country punk? Well, it’s not quite the Supersuckers, nor is it someone’s dad wearing that shirt of Johnny Cash flipping off the camera. Country punk (or cowpunk) is so much more than that. Like a lot of underground music, country punk had its origins origins in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. At its foundation, much of this stuff is punk, post punk, power pop, new wave or rock with some of that Los Angeles-born, “Paisley Underground” guitar jangle. Needless to say, the subgenre gets its name from incorporating salient elements of country twang, blues tones and rockabilly rhythms. It should also be noted that country punk predated the whole Americana/alt country scene by a decade. But it totally seeded the soil of such roots rockers as Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, Son Volt, Whiskeytown and then Ryan Adams, Neko Case, Drive-By Truckers and almost everyone else who has ever combined twangy guitars with distortion pedals. Nobody really knows who the first country punk band was, but the movement sparked when underground musicians began discovering and sharing classic country records. This inspired bands and artists who were looking to try something different from the neon MTV trappings of the ’80s.
Any true underground music tribe has its own companion film. The punks have Suburbia. The mods have Quadrophenia. Goths have The Hunger. Cowpunks have Border Radio. Borrowing its title from a Blasters song, this 1987 indie film has been added to the Criterion Collection and features such staples of the subgenre as John Doe, Dave Alvin and Rank & File’s Tony Kinman. It also boasts a cool country punk soundtrack including the Gun Club, X, the Flesh Eaters, Chuck Prophet’s old band Green On Red and Tex & the Horseheads. Border Radio is a great opportunity to hear some essential country punk."
A few years after getting into the country artists who influenced Parsons, I started reading about some of the bands that Parsons inspired. This eventually led me to the subgenre of country punk. What’s country punk? Well, it’s not quite the Supersuckers, nor is it someone’s dad wearing that shirt of Johnny Cash flipping off the camera. Country punk (or cowpunk) is so much more than that. Like a lot of underground music, country punk had its origins origins in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. At its foundation, much of this stuff is punk, post punk, power pop, new wave or rock with some of that Los Angeles-born, “Paisley Underground” guitar jangle. Needless to say, the subgenre gets its name from incorporating salient elements of country twang, blues tones and rockabilly rhythms. It should also be noted that country punk predated the whole Americana/alt country scene by a decade. But it totally seeded the soil of such roots rockers as Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, Son Volt, Whiskeytown and then Ryan Adams, Neko Case, Drive-By Truckers and almost everyone else who has ever combined twangy guitars with distortion pedals. Nobody really knows who the first country punk band was, but the movement sparked when underground musicians began discovering and sharing classic country records. This inspired bands and artists who were looking to try something different from the neon MTV trappings of the ’80s.
Any true underground music tribe has its own companion film. The punks have Suburbia. The mods have Quadrophenia. Goths have The Hunger. Cowpunks have Border Radio. Borrowing its title from a Blasters song, this 1987 indie film has been added to the Criterion Collection and features such staples of the subgenre as John Doe, Dave Alvin and Rank & File’s Tony Kinman. It also boasts a cool country punk soundtrack including the Gun Club, X, the Flesh Eaters, Chuck Prophet’s old band Green On Red and Tex & the Horseheads. Border Radio is a great opportunity to hear some essential country punk."
- Eric Shea, Pandora
Belinda Carlisle & Pleasant Gehman
'People Ain't No Good' - The Cramps & The McMartin Preschool Choir
In England, Elvis Costello took an interesting career course. Costello's debut album featured backing from Clover, an American group who'd moved from psychedelia into country rock. Several members of Clover formed the band Huey Lewis & The American Express in 1979, which mutated into Huey Lewis And The News. For Costello, Clover ensured a track like 'Alison' sounded like an authentic country ballad, while rockers like 'Miracle Man' and 'Blame It On Cain' delivered a plentitude of country twang.
Costello formed the Attractions for his second album, 'This Year's Model' (1978). The Attractions included bassist Bruce Thomas (Quiver) and drummer Pete Thomas (Chilli Willi And The Red Hot Peppers) who were seen as old timers on the punk scene (much like Jet Black of the Stranglers and Andy Summers of the Police).
"WARNING : This album contains country western music and may cause offence to narrow minded listeners."
- Elvis Costello
A billboard advertising 'My Aim Is True' by Elvis Costello
'Watermelon Man' - The Gun Club with D.H. Laurence Jr (Debbie Harry) & Chris Stein
Subgenres like jazz punk, punk funk and folk punk are harder to qualify and even harder to quantify as these elements run throughout rock music. On top of that, punk was about experimentation, so nothing was off limits. In America, for example, Blondie ('Once I Had A Love'), the Patti Smith Group ('Redondo Beach'), Television ('The Fire') and Pere Ubu ('Laughing') were utilising reggae rhythms as the bedrock of original compositions. In the U K, reggae played an even greater influence and the ska punk movement (centred around 2 Tone Records) ran alongside the punk movement.
Blondie brought disco into the mix when their jagged set favourite 'Once I Had A Love' mutated into the more sophisticated pop punk anthem 'Heart Of Glass'. Blondie were instrumental in popularising rap punk too, thanks to Debbie Harry's unusual vocalising of 'Rapture'. Punk is also credited as being the source of the electropop duo "new wave" movement, a synth pop facet that was built upon a "keyboard-singer" band set-up sparked by the early innovations of Suicide.
Folk punk, also known as rural punk, or rustic punk, is a tricky one to nail down. Lots of punk groups incorporated folk into their music and it was a driver behind the work of the Patti Smith Group and Television. Moving into the 1980s, there are key albums in the evolution of folk and punk including 'Nurds' (1980) by the Roches, 'Murmur' (1983) by R.E.M., 'Secrets Of The I Ching' (1983) by 10,000 Maniacs, 'Violent Femmes' (1983) by Violent Femmes and 'The Doghouse Cassette' (1985) by Throwing Muses. Cowpunk and rustic punk are rural patches' kissin' cousins.
'Folk punk is a genre of music that combines elements of folk and punk rock music. There are two distinct types of folk punk. The first is artists like The Knitters - punk music musicians who play in a traditional folk style. There are also modern artists who perform acoustically in the folk style, this is the "riotfolk" genre.'
- Urban Dictionary
'Like A Bad Girl Should' - The Cramps