Stuff You Should Know - A Brief Overview of Punk Rock

Episode Date: August 27, 2019

Punk rock really needs about 10 episodes to do it justice, but we'll try and tackle anyway. Learn all about this movement right now.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hello, Maine and Greater New England. Hello. We're coming to see you guys in Portland, and we can't wait, we would love to see you there. Yep, we'll be at the State Theater on August 30th,

and if you're interested, you can get tickets and information at sysklive.com. Throw some lobster at us. Welcome to Step You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. ["How Stuff Works"] Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.

There's Charles W. Thraschkorb. I'm already regretting this. There's Chuck Bryan over there. Charles W. Chuck Bryan. There's Jerry Jerome Rowland. And like I said, I'm Josh. This is Step You Should Know. Hey ho, let's go.

Exactly. I want to issue a COA off the top here. Okay. To fans of punk music. Get ready to be mad at us. Yeah, please don't beat us up though. Yeah, here's the thing. Punk, it's sort of like the hip hop episode.

It's not just music, it's a culture. Sure. It's a movement. And it is so, there are so many tentacles. Alternative tentacles. So many subgenres, so many like, the more I started getting into it, I was like, why are we even doing this?

I had the same feeling. In a single episode. I had the same feeling. Because it can only disappoint. But we're doing it anyway. No, there's a lot of people out there who don't know squat about punk who are gonna be like, cool, I'm punk now, I get it.

And the people who are punk now are gonna love us for it. Well, I mean, you know, there are certainly podcasts, I'm sure, that are dedicated to the history of punk. Right, no, I know. And the thing is with a big distinction here between the hip hop episode and this episode, is that the hip hop episode doesn't beat you up if you show up to it, there's shows

and you're not wearing the right thing. That's true. Punk's kind of protective of punk, which makes sense because it's pretty punk, right? Like you kind of, you can't allow for commercialization of punk or else it stops being punk. So by definition, it has to be vigilantly defended and protected.

But the irony of the whole thing is when you do that, you actually strangle it from becoming anything ever and you kind of kill punk, strangling it in the cradle, the end. Yeah, and I listen to a lot of music while researching this and there's just so many things that could possibly fall under the banner of punk and probably so many real punk fans

that will fight you on any of them if you say like, you know, the talking heads were punk, our television was punk. Not really, but were they new wave? I don't know. Yeah. The New York dolls, I was listening to them, proto-punk, when you listen to them though,

they sound like sort of like dressed up rock and roll, like Rocky Horror Picture Show style. Right, but make no bones about it. The New York dolls were a direct predecessor of punk. Yeah, but then I started listening to things I never listened to growing up at all. Like I wasn't a punk kid, but I saw all the jackets with minor threat

and circle jerks and dead Kennedys on them. And I started listening to that stuff today and I liked a lot of it. Oh, it's good music. And some of it I didn't quite love. Okay, which ones? I think, you know, my deal is I like vocals and vocalists and punk is not known for that,

but stuff like that had a really unique bent and it wasn't just screaming, I liked a lot more. So you like the misfits a lot? I like the misfits, I like the damned, I like the circle jerks. Very great. Did not like the germs? I was never into the germs.

What about the cramps? Didn't listen to the cramps yet. They're like rockabilly punk. All right, I'll probably like it. But stuff that had a little more melody, little more vocal styling, I liked much more than the germs, which, you know, Derby Crash just screaming things

that you can hardly understand. Didn't love Black Flag, what little I listen to. Like the Henry Rollins Black Flag? I listen to a little bit of both. But it's all very interesting to me and I dig the music for sure. Yeah, it's hard not to in some way, shape or form, like punk when you hear it.

Right. Like it's just too, it just gets under your skin just too easily, really quickly. You might not even realize like your head's like kind of nodding and your knees like shaking or whatever. That's right. But like, no matter who you are, punk can get to you like that.

Now, whether you're like, I'm gonna start buying punk records and like get a Mohawk or something like that. That's maybe a couple of steps down the road. Most people probably wouldn't, but I think everybody can appreciate punk on some level, especially to me, the greatest punk band of all time. And what I would argue would be the first punk band

is the Ramones. Right. If you like melody and you like singing, but you also like punk, they've got everything you need. Yeah, and if you like songs that are 95 seconds long. Sure, well, that was a big thing. Like punk grew out of this idea that Led Zeppelin had like 11 minute songs they were playing on the radio

and guys like the Ramones were like, shut up. And so they purposefully and deliberately went the opposite way and they started making songs or sometimes less than a minute. Like one of the greatest punk songs of all time, in my opinion, Circle Jerks Wasted, is like 52 seconds long. Get in, get out.

It's all you need. He gets the point across. He talks about all the drugs he's on. He talks about all the stuff he does when he's on drugs, all in less than a minute. Yeah, but I think you bring up an important point is punk was a reaction. It was a reaction to the bloated money

and the bloated song links and the arena rock, cucumber in the pants, hard rock, Mckismo getting the ladies like this great quote from one of the Ramones. These were kids on the outside. And he said, Johnny Ramone in 1976 in Rolling Stone said, they got together because none of them could get girls. So they all found solace in each other.

And he said, girls always wanted to go with guys who had corvettes. So we had nothing to do but climb on rooftops and sniff glue. The Ramones in a nutshell. But if you look at 1977, like the albums that came out in 1977, you've got the Sex Pistols and the Ramones and stuff like that.

But you've got Eric Clapton's Slow Hand, Fleetwood Max Rumors, point of no return from Kansas. The Stranger from Billy Joel. Which one was that? It was one of the great ones, but they all were great. Asia from Steely Dan. And like these are like the big chart toppers. And so punk came along and was just like, no,

screw all that. To heck with you guys. Yeah, that's what it says. So it was an ethos and a spirit even as much as it was music. Yeah, and I think one of the other things I commonly ran across in researching this was that it was not just kind of like rock sucks

because it's getting so 11 minutes long per song. There's lots of guitar solos and stuff like that. But also that it was hopelessly commercialized. And so punk was like, there's nothing inherently wrong with rock. It's just gone on this path that it's been on for so long that it's just become, I think like you said, bloated. Let's take rock back and scrape away all the blow

and just get back to like the core and the point of it originally, which was rebellion. Which is, that was what punk was built on in the late 70s. And the Ramones again, I'll go to my grave saying they were officially the first punk band that ever existed. But there was music that led up to that immediately before it and even a decade or so before it

that really laid the foundation in the groundwork for bands like the Ramon and the punk music that took off right afterward. Yeah, and you also got to remember that coming into the early 70s where some of these proto punk bands started, this was coming off of the late 60s and the hippie movement and Nixon and Vietnam.

Which so all that had proved a failure. Yeah, and flower power and peace and love and all that stuff, there still cries who stills in ash and hanging around. But there's also a younger generation that thumb their nose or more specifically their middle finger at that whole generation. And that's what sort of birthed the punk movement

and the proto punk movement at least. So I saw the earliest proto punk band I could find. That you could trace a direct line to is actually from Peru. Okay. They were around in starting in 1964, Los Secos, S-A-I-C-O-S. And if you go listen to a Los Secos song, you will, it's quite clear that this was proto punk.

Did it have the speed? A little bit, yeah. Because I think that's a bit of the distinction. Like there was that whole Nuggets era garage rock of the 60s, you can hear a little bit of that but it still didn't have that chugga chugga chugga speed that punk rock would be known for. Yes, it did.

It did. Yeah, no, like another proto punk band that's more garage rock, but kind of some of the sentiments they came up with, the chocolate watch band. Sure, I've heard of them. Had this anthem called like, I'm not like everybody else. And it's like real kind of, it's groovy.

But if you listen to the words, it's like this guy's talking about being a punk. But it's long before punk. If they're musically, they were not punk at all. Los Secos was punk. Like their sound is definitely punk and they were around at the same time. Yeah, and the specifics of what you're doing musically

on a guitar with punk is the downstroke. So, you know, it's hard to talk about it without showing you, but if you're playing like an Eric Clapton rhythm part, it's like, you know, you're stroking down and up, chinga chinga ching. If you're playing punk, you're just going down, that chinga chinga chinga ching.

Nice, that was a really, really great impression. And the Ramones made a career out of two or three chords, played fast, playing that same rhythm and downstroke over and over and over and over. Like I'm convinced you just did a two second snippet of a misfit song. I could hear it like playing his day. It's great though.

I was listening to stuff today. I was like, man, I really like a lot of this and I missed out. So I see myself diving into it again or diving in for the first time, rather. You totally should. I mean, I know about the Clash and the Ramones and stuff like that for sure, but.

Oh, there's like, I mean, as you know, a whole world out there. Yeah, there's a whole world. And then the thing about punk is the more like you find, oh, I like this band. And then, oh, it turns out this guy used to be in this other band. Yeah, there was a lot of that.

But they're from the same scene as this other band. It just keeps going and going and going. Because one of the through lines of punk is that anybody could be in a punk band. It was super democratized. And the DIY ethos was basically the foundation of punk music. All right, well, let's take a break.

We'll go back in time a little bit and talk about New York and London. And then we'll get to that. What I think is kind of the coolest part of this whole thing is that DIY aesthetic. Okay. Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s,

called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it.

And now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips?

Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling

of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place

because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael.

Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now.

If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say, bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, so I mentioned London and New York. I sourced this from a bunch of articles.

Can't remember if this was the pitchfork one or not. But the headline of this part is The Tale of Two Cities, New York and LA, I'm sorry, New York and London. But LA would come along a bit later with its own scene. And also London gets mentioned here at the expense of Manchester, which I would say is like, that's ground zero next to New York. Right, also ground zero,

which doesn't get nearly enough press is Australia. Oh yeah? These things were going on in parallel all over the world. That's really interesting to think like, this stuff is happening almost independently of one another. It was because it's not like someone in Australia heard someone on the internet in 1974.

But there were a couple of bands, one called Cheap Nasties on the Western, I think in Perth and then the Saints, probably the biggest punk band to come out of Australia. This is at the same time that CBGBs and the Stooges were like getting big, it's crazy. Yeah, so the Stooges would technically qualify as Proto Punk too.

But they came from Michigan along with MC5 and Death. Death is an even earlier Proto Punk band than the Stooges. That documentary is great. I actually haven't seen that one. Yeah, there's one on Death. It's just called like a band called Death, right? Yep.

Yeah, it's very, like they're amazing. And they were, I think three African American brothers from Detroit. Just killing it. Who in 1971 formed like a punk band. Yeah, and this was before the Stooges. I think this was before MC5. Before Bad Brains, that's for sure.

For sure. So all of these bands are starting to kind of lay the groundwork and then it's almost like it just kind of ignites like we're saying in different parts of the world, virtually at the same time. Yeah. Which I just find endlessly fascinating. Yeah, and I think that's what really lends a lot

of credence to the fact that it was a movement. It was a feeling people were rebelling against more than anything, which can happen parallel in different parts of the country and world, you know? If there's anything that can bring the whole world together, it's disdain for hippies, you know? They really bring that out in everybody. Did you see the Tarantino movie yet?

Once upon a time in Hollywood? Oh, yes. There's a lot of anti-hippies stuff in there that was pretty funny. Yeah, a little. Some of them are beaten to death, literally. Well, I just mean all the DiCaprio stuff was really funny. How much hate did the hippies?

I know. But Tarantino really like pointed out like, you know, the Manson family's been celebrated and romanticized at least in some weird ways and they should not be. And this is why. I think you did a really good job of doing that. So, we were talking about the Stooges and MC5 in Michigan in New York cities where things really crystallized

with the club CBGB owned by Hilly Crystal. Crystal? No, just crystal. Is it crystal? I think so. Like Billy Crystal? Right, by Hilly. And originally, you know, that stands for country blue grass

and blues. And that was what it was supposed to be when it opened in 1973. Yeah, but then in about two years, the Ramones started playing there. Talking Heads started playing there in 1975. Blondie, television, I think. Love television.

Like television, I'm okay with them. Like I don't love them, I don't hate them, but they were essential to that scene happening for sure. And a lot of people kind of overlook them, I think, as like one of the foundation bands for punk. Yeah, which is like I mentioned earlier, like it's such different kinds of music. Like I love Talking Heads and television and Blondie

and the Go-Go's and they were all in that early scene, but I don't think that's anything like the Misfits or the Damned or the Ramones. No, but the Misfits and the Ramones both started their careers at CBGB. So it was like the place where punk began in the United States. Yeah, but also at Maxis Kansas City in New York,

legendary club, this is where like Patty Smith is hanging out, the Velvet Underground is hanging out. Again, they're not punk at all, but they were in that scene. Right, and one thing that we're kind of not really mentioning that is a common thread to all these bands, not necessarily music, but heroin was a huge thread. They shared their deep, deep, deep love of heroin in common and that definitely bound them together at CBGB for sure.

And that was a huge factor on the early punk scene was heroin. That's right. Which I mean, this is, if you remember back just a few years ago for Oxycontin, turned everybody into junkies in the world, heroin was not a big drug at all. And back then, especially, it was like you were a total

burnout if you were doing heroin, like it was not done. So the fact that these people were like shooting heroin like in the clubs, that was another kind of badge that they took on that separated them from everybody else. You know, even their preference of drugs was super hardcore. Yeah, for sure. Another interesting thing happened early on in 1977

when these two scenes sort of exported one of their early big bands to play in the other city. In 1977, The Damned played in the United States and less than a year before that, the Ramones had gone to the UK to play shows in London. And that was a big deal because all of a sudden you had these two different scenes swapping bands. Of course, it wasn't anything they planned,

but they got a taste of New York City and London with the Ramones in a big, big way. And the same can be said in New York City with The Damned. Very British. And then a month before the Ramones played in London in Manchester on June 4th, 1976, the Sex Pistols had their first show. And a lot of people point to this

is this is when UK punk happened. It was this one show at the Lesser Free Trade Hall, which is like a hall, might as well be a VFW basically. And that's where the Sex Pistols had their first show. But some of the people who were there were so influential, including a 17-year-old Morrissey, who went to cover the thing for New Music Express, that it just spread out like a germ.

Like it was the single point that UK punk spread out from. And this was June of 1976. And within six months, the major record labels were lining up to sign any and every punk act they could get their hands on. Six months. So not only did it spread and grow in parallel around the world at the same time,

when it hit the scene, it's hard to overstate how quickly it just blew up. Like just from nothing to it in six months. Yeah, I mean, if there's one thing, I mean, I don't know about the music industry today, but previous to digital content, the music industry was always there waiting to commodify the next big thing.

Yeah, and they did it to punk big time. Yeah, so let's talk about this DIY thing for a little bit. It was really cool, this article about these DIY origins in punk music. What happened was when punk started coming around in the mid 1970s, this coincided with a big shift in equipment and recording gear and modernizing recording gear.

Among like the big labels. Yeah, sure. And so all of a sudden there was all of this, these rooms and this gear that you could either rent cheap or buy cheap. Yeah, they're old stuff that they didn't need anymore. Yeah, and so the punks came along and started using it. And the very first punk labels were self-started.

Miles Copeland started Step Forward. Bob Last started Fast Product. And of course, very famously, Tony Wilson started Factory Records. Yes, dude, which by the way, see 24 hour party people if you never have everybody. It's amazing. Yeah, I need to see that again.

I saw it once when it came out. Yeah, it's a good movie. But it follows this progression of punk into new wave into the 80s. It just does it in a spectacularly great way because it's Steve Coogan who's great at everything. He's so good. But people trace the punk on record,

or on recorded tape rather. Right. To the very first single they claim, very first punk single, November 76, the dams, New Rose. Which I thought that was weird because the Ramones released their album before them. But maybe because the Ramones were on a label

when they released their album, they're saying like, this is the first DIY punk release. Maybe. When was the Ramones first album? I think like the full year before. 75. I'm pretty sure. Oh, wow.

If not at least 76 then, but I'm pretty sure 75. Well, the Buzzcocks put out an EP and I listened to a lot of that today. I enjoyed that. Yeah, it's good. Spiral Scratch was this EP, it was apparently the first British homemade record. And that was a really big deal.

This was in 1977. They sold out a thousand copies that they printed. Then they went on to sell another 16,000. And the influence of Spiral Scratch really spread out and told everyone. Because they printed, it was very cool. They printed on the little record jacket. Like how much it cost, how they produced it,

and what the money was all about for 153 pounds. Basically saying, go do this. Right, and here's how to do it. Yeah. They kind of set the tone for other records. Like other punk bands released their own records. Also included instructions on the sleeve that the record came in.

And the whole DIY record release thing that the Buzzcocks kicked off. Other people started to find other ways to kind of make it so punk could exist outside of the influence of the record companies. Like people would release records in Ziploc baggies. Like that was the record sleeve that your record came in. And people loved it.

Like you don't need like this expensive sleeve for the thing to come in. Like you could just pop it in a Ziploc bag and sell it. It's very punk. It's super punk. And then also, if you can form a band, it was put like this. Like the Sex Pistols showed that anybody could be

in a punk band. Yeah. You didn't even need to be very talented. Right. You didn't even need to know how to play an instrument. And you could be in a punk band. And the Buzzcocks came along and showed that anybody could press a record.

But there was still one very essential ingredient missing. And that was distribution. And like you said, mail order made up for a lot of the Buzzcocks EP sales. But they realized that there were more people out there who wanted this stuff, but didn't have a way to get to it. So what was called the Cartel was formed,

which was a group of independent record stores around the UK that would basically serve as a distribution network for these DIY punk records. It's so cool. It is. Not only that, but Zines were very important early on in the punk. And really kind of a lot of music genres.

Zines were really big, which are these, you know, fan-made magazines. Yeah. Photocopy, not even photocopy, like Mimeograph stuff. Yep. And you would just print out your Zine. And some of these Zines got to be pretty big. And they would attach distribution to these Zines sometimes and sneak 45s, not sneak them,

but a pack of 45 in the Zine. And that's how you could release your stuff. And it was just this, again, it sounds so trite to say very punk rock attitude. But that's exactly what it was. The way they were doing things was all onto the radar, all on their own, and that changed pretty quickly. It did.

And it's because the big players came in. They smelled money, they smelled something new, the next big thing, and they started signing everybody they could left and right. And these punks were going like, no, bollocks, I don't want your money. They're like, what if we pay you in heroin? They said, oh, okay, yeah, I like it.

No, you can put it that way. You could buy drugs with money. Right. So again, within six months of what most people point to as the source of UK punk, that one specific show by the Sex Pistols, the Sex Pistols were so new, Sid Vicious wasn't even in the band. He was still Suzy in the band, she's drummer.

So this is how young this stuff was. Within six months, they were signed onto a major record label. The clash was signed onto a major record label. The fall, the jam, the stranglers, everybody got signed in this feeding frenzy where everyone who had a punk band could get a record deal with a major label six months after the Sex Pistols had their first show. Yeah, Generation X with a young Billy Idol.

Yeah. Which I didn't ever do that dance with myself was originally a Generation X song. I didn't know that either. They released it, then he re-released it as a solo artist like a year later. Wow. And it became a much bigger hit.

Yeah. I'm sure they were like, thanks a lot. But yeah, Sex Pistols went with EMI, the stranglers at UA, the clash signed to CBS, the jam went to Polydor, Generation X and Stiff Little Fingers went to Chrysalis, and even the Buzzcocks, they were very quick to hop on that train too with United Artists.

Which actually, that's not too bad. You could have signed with worse because United Artists was started by Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith so that artists could have more control and ownership over their work. Yeah, I mean, it was a movie company and I guess they dabbled in records.

Yeah. So one of three things happened basically to the little DIY small label movement. You either got Pilferd, they used one example in Belfast, the Good Vibrations label, four of its first six bands were stolen away. Right. Or signed away, I guess.

So you either got Pilferd and then just shut down and gave up. Or you grew and got bigger to where you were, like Rough Trade and Factory Records, those all became like bigger independent labels. Yeah, Rough Trade's still around. I checked they have state-of-the-art cutting edge bands. Oh yeah, that's great.

Or they stayed small and just kept going. Right, they went punk and went back underground. Yeah, like they didn't all go away. They didn't all say, you know, we're all getting Pilferd so we're just gonna shut down. They would just find more underground bands and go deeper and deeper and deeper. But then something happened in 1979,

February of 1979 that a lot of people point to just as they point to that first Sex Pistols show as the beginning of punk in the UK, they point to the death of Sid Vicious as the end of punk, at least the first wave of punk. His death from a heroin overdose is widely pointed to as the death of punk, which is a really dumb thing to say

because punk very clearly went on. But what I think people are saying, sorry, I guess it's not entirely dumb now that I say it out loud. But what people are saying is that punk transformed into something else. And that punk really, as it originally existed, was only around for about two, three years.

Maybe four or five of you. I'm sure there are some people at a bar right now that are just saying that over and over again. Punk only lasted three years. Okay, well I agree with you, drunk person, in this sense. But it's not like punk went away, it transformed and became something else. And so what it transitioned into is commonly called

hardcore, hardcore punk, where stuff just got faster, louder, little angrier. And it just went in a different direction, predominantly in the United States. Yeah, there were a couple of scenes. The LA scene had already sort of been born by the late 70s. If you haven't seen it,

there's a great documentary from Penelope Sverus, The Decline of Western Civilization. It's so good. Released in 81, but filmed over, I think, 78, 79, 80 maybe. Covered the LA scene, and that's The Germs, and I think Blondie and the Go-Goes, and stuff like that. All right, I was going to say Blondie was- And the circle jerks have like one of the best sets ever

in The Decline of Western Civilization. Yes. It's very good. And The Germs too, that's where I was watching some of that today, and that's when I knew I didn't like The Germs. Right. But Pat Smear, of course, the Foo Fighters,

he was in The Germs. You know- So he liked money. And also if you're like, who's Penelope Sverus? You may be familiar with her work if you've seen the movie Wayne's World. That's right. Or the movie Black Sheep,

the Chris Farley-David Spade movie. Or The Decline of Western Civilization, I think she ended up doing like three or four of those, right? At least three. Because I know she did one on metal. The second one was metal. Which is good too. Those are the only two I saw.

Did you ever see that documentary about- Heavy Metal Parking Lot? Yes. Yeah. Where everybody's smoking PCP at a Judas Priest concert? Yeah, it's pretty great. Did you know early 80s metalheads smoked PCP? No.

I didn't until that documentary. Because it was quite a surprise. No, I was scared of all those people. Well, they were kind of scary because they were all on PCP. Especially when you're like eight or 10. They're very scary. So American, we were talking about the punk bands

releasing their own albums. This started happening on the West Coast. They started forming their own labels even to release their albums and sign other like bands. Like SST, very famous punk label, was started from the guy, the original guy from Black Flag, right? Yes.

What's his name? Greg. G-I-N-N. Either Ginn or Jinn. Jinn. I'm sorry, punkers. I know you're mad at me right now that I don't know this. Yeah, I think he was like the founder of Black Flag.

Okay. Jello Biafra, of course. Dead Kennedys. They formed, or he formed, Alternative Tentacles. With East Bay Ray. Yeah, in 1979. And 79 was a big year because that's the same year that a band called Bad Brains came out in Washington DC,

which I didn't love. Did you see the Dave Grohl documentary series? No. So I can't remember what it was called, but he did this 10-part documentary series where he would do the music of a different city. And it was really, really good, except for the last 15 minutes of it,

he would get the Foo Fighters together in a studio and they would play some of those songs. And if you're really into the Foo Fighters, I imagine you loved it all. Not into the Foo Fighters, so I would just stop it there. But he does Seattle, but what got me on this was one of the most interesting episodes was the Washington DC episode.

Cause I didn't know it was such a hardcore scene. Like that's where when people talk about hardcore, they're like, well, DC is kind of the cradle of it. And Bad Brains, which my friend Jason Jenkins in college introduced me to. And that's when it was like really fast, had a little metal edge, but Bad Brains was also started out as like jazz fusion

and had reggae roots, also African-American guys. Four of them, yeah. Yeah, and really, really good stuff. Yeah, so you've got at the same time, LA and DC as the new like seats of punk music in the US. Yeah, punk slash hardcore. And it's going like way more hardcore, way more masculine, way more macho than the UK went.

The UK went a different route. They went way more political, way more like class struggle. And there's definitely lots of political threads that American punk music went through. But I think the UK went to it earlier, like Crass is a great, great punk band from the UK. They're kind of like, they're just great, check them out.

But they were doing like anarchy stuff in the 70s. Yeah, the clash certainly is notable for their political statements. Very political. And then you've got like the six sex pistols talking about anarchy in the UK. They didn't really mean it. They were just saying something, right?

But there were a lot of like politically motivated bands in the UK in the early 70s. That didn't pick up till later in the 80s in the US. Yeah, because Ramon certainly were not political. They were not political. But the other thing, the other differentiation I saw between UK and US punk was that UK punk didn't take itself quite as seriously

as the US started to in the late 70s, early 80s. And that this guy I read, I think a Guardian article, traced that back to a love of glam rock. That glam rock really led to punk, especially in the UK. And if you're into glam rock, you just can't quite take anything fully seriously, including punk music. And the US, even though punk came out

of the New York dolls in part, which was definitely glam rock, it just didn't have that through thread. So it did get taken way more seriously. And that was a big part of hardcore and what differentiated it from the earlier punk, taking things really, really seriously. And it being a little more political than ever before

and angsty against things like the boredom of suburban life. Yeah, I mean, I think punk is just as important for things that it inspired that happened afterward as it was the actual movement itself. Because you can point to stuff in Minneapolis like Husker Do, or bands like The Minutemen, who I loved. And they had a very punk sound to them. And maybe you're even considered punk?

Probably post-punk. Post-punk. I think Minutemen are considered punk, but Husker Do would definitely be post-punk, for sure. And stuff like Sonic Youth, which... I would call them post-punk, too. Post-punk straddling into the early grunge, though, too. Well, yeah.

I mean, it's easy sometimes to trace that through line, and sometimes it's really difficult. But we want to. We want to be able to say like... I know, right? You know, it went from Bad Brains to Husker Do to Sonic Youth to Nirvana. Right.

You know, four degrees of Nirvana or whatever. And green days, and they're going, what about us? Right, exactly. But you just, you can't. But at the same time, you also can't discount the effects that these later bands got from the... listening to the earlier bands that came before them.

Like there's undoubtedly an influence. It's just not quite as crisp and clean as we like to make it. Yeah, and it's even argued in one of these articles that the birth of hardcore came about because like you kind of teased earlier on, because punk flouts the rules and norms of rock and roll, then they form their own rules and norms, and we're really pretty serious about it.

And so hardcore came along because they didn't quite fit in with the true punk aesthetic. Right. And it took punk even further because punk was being commodified and commercialized otherwise. That's right.

Which would make it kind of easier to break from, especially if you just go slightly angry or in faster and louder. Right, but you also can look at stuff like, talk about tracing the through line. If you want to think about early Manchester and stuff like Joy Division that goes to New Order, that goes to orchestral maneuvers in the dark

and simple minds and all of a sudden it's a John Hughes soundtrack. Sure. And then it's like, what is punk about anything? Right. And that like sort of softer new wave. But at the same time, you can also say, well, New Order was just straight up new wave,

but then new wave caught on and got commercialized and commodified and then you end up having a John Hughes soundtrack because the record labels got ahold of the new wave band, right? So that's kind of like the story with music is somebody comes up with something raw and organic and rebellious. Everybody loves it.

The big guys come along, get their hands on it, co-opt it, commodify it, commercialize it, ruin it. And then some thread kind of jumps off of that and it starts something else. And the whole thing always, it just continues on and continues on, except until the mid 2000s when music died forever and ever and ever. All right, well, let's take another break here

and we'll talk a little bit about the end of punk. And before that, maybe we'll hit on the fashion of punk. Oh boy. Hey dude, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses

and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends and non-stop references to the best decade ever.

Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper

because you'll wanna be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael.

And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen

so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with a Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. OK, Chuck. We're talking fashion and punk? Yeah. So every genre has its own look.

I cannot remember what. It had to have been the safety pin short stuff, where we talked about Richard Hell being considered the guy who started the safety pin as a fashion statement. I think so. Pretty short, but it was Richard Hell. He was the guitarist for television. Yeah, yeah.

And he was like the first guy with the mohawk, like the Elmer's glue kind of mohawk. And safety pins holding his shirt together, which is, I mean, that's quintessential punk. But at the same time, dressing like a Ramon is quintessential punk too, with like the jeans with the knees in it. Black jeans, Doc Martens, or Converse low tops,

or Converse high tops. Sure. Black biker jacket? Yeah, the New York Dolls were very famous for wearing the jean jackets, super, super small. It jokes in this article that they could barely fit in them. Right, they also wore super tight lycra, shiny pants, and stuff too.

Yeah, but they were glam. Right. But it was really those black rip jeans. And this was a time where that wasn't like the cool thing to wear. If you didn't walk around with holes in you, now it's become a recurring thing in fashion to have holes in your jeans being cool.

Right. At the time, it was not cool. It meant that you were poor. Exactly, man. This was like somebody in this article, I think from Pitchfork said, you know, Didi Ramon had holes in the knees of his jeans. Not because it was cool, but because he didn't have any money

for some new jeans. And those jeans just had holes in them. So that's what he wore. Now, you pay like $100 or $200 for jeans that have pre-ripped holes that are just right. Yeah. That's a perfect example of the commoditization of punk. Yeah, for sure.

Other, you know, in LA, they have their own fashion scene going on because it's LA. And they don't have harsh winters and cold rainy weather. So they went to the thrift stores and bought things and cut them up. And that's where you never saw a shirt on a punk in the LA scene that didn't have like the net cut out or the sleeves cut off.

Or in the case of the gogos in their earlier punk days wearing like literal trash bags as fashion. Very funny and blondie too. Sure. They all had a very like specific aesthetic in Los Angeles. Yeah. It's interesting that the gogos started out in the punk scene when they were, I think, to the casual music fan known

very much for just sort of a bubblegum sing-along pop hits that they had. Just lovable as all get out. As all get out. Great songs. And Belinda Carlisle too. Like her solo stuff is just kiss everybody. You couldn't see that, but that's what I gave.

But it's that whole pop punk thing, which is kind of where it started to go bad. You could make the case that it's starting in the beginning of 1977 when all those first record labels came in and started to go bad then. But hardcore, this is where I, this is my reading of this. And I'm not a punk or even music historian by any stretch of the imagination.

But from what I gathered from this research is that early punk got co-opted and commodified by the record labels immediately. Hardcore grew out of that. Hardcore is way harder to commodify because it's much more raw. There's much less melodic. It's much more in your face and angry

than the original punk was. And it's also jealously guarded and defended by the fans, where at the beginning of the show, we're saying, please don't beat us up. Like if you go to a hardcore show and they think you're a poser, like you may get beaten up if this is the 80s or the 90s. I don't know if they still do it today.

I remember feeling that threat not upon me, but like the punks at the school, like you didn't want to cross them. It was part of being a punk was like you beat somebody up to basically defend punkdom, to keep it from getting commodified. Like, like seeing kids like wear thrasher t-shirts today and they have no idea what thrasher is.

Like it's like, if you did that with punk in the 80s and 90s, you would get beaten up. Maybe even at school, definitely at a punk show. And so in doing so, they were able to defend hardcore from commoditization because they kept it their own violently. But at the same time, they also, it's kind of like how a language evolves,

the more people speak it. And the more free and easy the rules on it are by putting these very tight restrictions on what's punk and what's not punk, and who's allowed to come to a punk show, which is super ironic for punks to do, to come up with all these rules and regulations. Right.

They kept it from evolving. They definitely kept it underground and it's still around today, but it's the same thing over and over again because it wasn't allowed to grow and evolve because the fans have kept it, at least in America, have kept it underground purposely, deliberately, and violently.

So punks kill punk. Kind of, they would argue, no, punk's still around. I go see punk shows all the time and don't come to it because you're a poser and we'll beat you up. So they're still punk. But as far as you and I walking around are concerned, punk is dead as a doornail for now. Yeah.

For now. Well, I mean, I remember when we did our UK tour, I remember seeing a group of punks in Manchester that looked like they stepped right out of 1981 with the full spiked mohawks and the leather, studded leather collars and I was scared of them then. Were you? A little bit.

You're like, those are bad because they're gonna try to get me to smoke. I'm in town to do a podcast. Well, what's funny is, is that fashion that you're talking about, that quintessential punk fashion, that was a commodification immediately too. The Sex Pistols manager used to be the manager of the New York Dolls, Malcolm McLaren,

and he owned a shop, kind of BDSM fashion shop with Vivian Westwood in London, and he basically used the Sex Pistols to promote the fashion he was selling at his shop to make it fashionable so he could sell more clothes. This is the manager of the first UK punk band ever. Well, and he had put them together, right? It's not like the Sex Pistols all got together

because they were mates, like they were formed by a manager. Yes, by this guy, Malcolm McLaren. They were the monkeys. Kind of, they were the monkeys of punk. They were the punks. So many people are mad at us right now. For sure, but it's true. I mean, go look up your history if you're mad.

These punks are gonna beat us up next time we go on tour. Some 13 year old just looked down at the show and went, that's what the Sex Pistols are. I had no idea. Well, it's funny though that you talk about the pins and the, it was all homemade stuff. Like I remember it being a very, I mean, I was certainly way too square,

but I remember seeing the punks in my school doing stuff to their clothes during class and at lunch and thinking it was the coolest thing. Whether it was black magic, black Sharpie, doing the Dead Kennedys or the Anarchy symbol. Well, the Dead Kennedys did have the coolest symbol around. That was pretty cool. Or just fraying their jackets or adding safety pins.

It was all created out of that homemade aesthetic. Sort of like the music. And it appealed to me, but I was afraid of it. And now that's why I'm just now starting to listen to some of this music. Are you gonna turn all punk now? Maybe. Okay.

That would be one of the bigger surprises you've ever laid on me, man. But a pop punk we should talk a little bit about. They call it bittersweet in this article. Sweet in the sense that you could get tons of money and be super famous, but bitter because it, you know, it spawned a genre that I think a lot of true punks really loathe.

Like I think true punks like a square more than they like a Blink 182 fan. Indubitably. You know? Yeah. And that whole scene, the Vans Warp Tour and the Rancid and Offspring and Green Day and all these groups was a part of a big second wave

of these kids who grew up definitely listening to that stuff. And I guess feeling like they were a part of it. I mean, I'm sure Green Day really feels like they're a punk band and part of a punk movement. Whereas I remember the first time I heard Green Day thinking, these are guys pretending to be a punk band. Yeah. Which is a really cruddy thing to say.

But I mean, it is, it like, it's totally understandable how you would think that, but they are, it is punk in some way, shape or form. It's punk, the stuff they're talking about is pretty punk. But punk bands don't release acoustic songs talking about the time of their life. Well, that's definitely not, no. It's used unlike sitcoms.

The first album, Dookie, right, is what we're talking about. I guess, was that the first one? I think so. I just remember hearing it and going like, why is that guy trying to sound British? Well, that's pretty punk actually. That first big hit, is it? Very punk, yeah.

For sure, an American kid trying to sound British. Well, I guess so. But yeah, I don't, I would guess you're right though. They're on Broadway. That punks. That's it. Well, yeah, there was a brief shining moment where you could have conceivably called them a punk band.

Here's the thing though, man, people like money. Yeah, but that's been a through, not just in the punk scene, but just in music in general, although hats off to the punk culture for keeping it at bay better than anybody ever has, any other genre. I would like to hear, I'm sure there are people listening

that know of punk bands that did stick their middle finger up to the money and say, nope. I can tell you one, Fugazi. Well, I love Fugazi. So Fugazi's out of DC, or I guess hardcore. Hardcore, yeah. And they, I think they formed Discord Records. If not, they're a big act on Discord Records.

And they have done this whole DIY thing like from the get-go. They've eschewed the major labels. As far as I know, their whole career and they were extremely successful despite that. Yeah, I saw them in Athens once. Oh yeah? Yep.

What'd you think? That was great. I think they got together in the like 87-ish and this was more like 92. Okay. Well, they were still huge and they were probably bigger. That was when they were at their height, I would guess, is 92.

Yeah, I mean, technically they had a, I don't know about how it performed on the literal charts, but they had that one song that had a big MTV hit. Waiting Room? Yeah. It's a good song. It's a really good song. Yeah.

So I just wanted to give some shouts out for anybody who's like, this is really interesting. I want to know more. Go listen to the cramps. I would recommend the cramps. Listen to crass. Go watch the decline of Western civilization. Definitely check out the circle jerks.

Who else, Chuck? I'm going to say for my picks, the bad brains and the damned. Okay. For sure. I'm going to toss Gigi Allen out there. Oh yeah. Although he kind of transcends everything.

Just punk. And Yumi was sending me some, I didn't catch any of the names, but she said there's a big punk scene in Japan still. And that was another thing too. As somebody said, punk's not dying. It's just coming up in other places. Right.

Like in Islamic countries, there's a big punk movement. I saw Mexico's got a big one right now. Apparently Japan has it. And then there's a whole riot girl feminist punk. That is, man, if that's not a punk, I don't know what it is. Like Eastern Block punk riot girls.

I love it. Yeah. So punk is still alive. Punk not dead. Punk no dead. Punk's not dead. Okay. If you want to know more about punk music,

go listen to that stuff we just told you to go listen to. And since I said that's time for Listener Man. If you want to learn more about punk music, you can probably go to literally any other place other than this episode and learn more about punk music. If you want to know more about punk music, go to your local library and read up.

It's fundamental. All right, guys. I'm going to call this poop. Nope. Okay. On that short stuff about the guy who didn't eat for a year. We talked about the fact that he didn't poop that much.

And she said, this is the norm for people with a colostomy or ileostomy. I had a temporary ileostomy and ostomy connected to the ileum instead of the colon due to Crohn's complications. My colon was completely severed from the rest of my digestive system during this time and basically sat dormant

while food exited into an ostomy pouch. No food means no poop, but the body still produces the normal gut stuff like mucus and cells and needs to evacuate on occasion, which I think that's what we talked about. For people with years of bowel issues, such as pain and running to the bathroom every 30 minutes, this can be a literal lifesaver.

Anyway, my colon is currently now reattached to the rest of my intestine and my Crohn's is in remission. I had no idea so this person had a colostomy and then it was reversed. Yes. I had no idea they could do that. Yeah, we should do something on Crohn's. Sure.

And just tie all this stuff together. Okay. I just wanted to give you a little perspective on the topic. Actually, ostomies would be an interesting topic for you to tackle. For sure. Thanks for doing the best podcast around.

According to my podcast app, I've listened to over 400 episodes. Yikes. Well, Sonya in Canada, you have another, what, 750, 800? What are we up to now? What? A number of episodes.

850, we're up to like 1200. Well, she's listened to 400. Oh, okay. So just do a little math. Oh, wait. Okay, hold on. I can do this. So another like 800 or so?

Yeah, I would say so. All right. Well, you're a third of the way there. Keep at it. Yeah, roughly. Yeah, you got it a third. You guys should have just seen Chuck like look up into the air from the side of his eye.

She said, we'd love to see you to come out to the Prairie provinces. So I know in Canada, we do Toronto and Vancouver, but there's a lot of country in the middle there that we should probably go to at some point. In the U.S., we call them flyover states. Well, in Canada, they call it prairie country. Right.

Well, if you want to get in touch with us like did. Sonya. Thanks again, Sonya. You can go on to StuffYouShouldKnow.com and check out our social links. And you can also send us an email to StuffPodcast at iHeartRadio.com. StuffYouShouldKnow is a production of iHeartRadio's

How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses

and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life.

Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say, bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.