80 Fun Facts About Punk Rock

Hilly Kristal, owner of the New York club CBGB, preferred to call the new movement at his venue what?

Kristal's preferred label, "Street rock", never caught on; the name that stuck came from Punk magazine, which John Holmstrom and Legs McNeil launched at the end of 1975.

By the end of 1974 the Ramones had played seventy-four shows, each lasting roughly how long?

Each of the Ramones' seventy-four 1974 shows ran about 17 minutes: two-minute songs played at breakneck pace, stripping rock and roll back to its primal level.

Which band formed from the audience of the Sex Pistols' June 1976 Lesser Free Trade Hall gig?

Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook were in the thirty-odd-strong audience; they formed Warsaw, renamed Joy Division in 1978. Others present went on to the Fall, the Smiths and Factory Records.

The Damned's October 1976 single, regarded as the first UK punk rock single, was called what?

"New Rose", released by Stiff Records on 22 October 1976, beat the Pistols' debut single to the shops by over a month; the Vibrators followed with "We Vibrate" in November.

The Sex Pistols' notorious 1976 Bill Grundy interview happened because they filled a vacancy left by which band?

EMI labelmates Queen dropped out of Thames Television's Today programme on 1 December 1976, so the Pistols were sent instead; the swearing that followed put punk on the front pages.

Which member of the Sex Pistols did most of the swearing at Bill Grundy on live television?

Guitarist Steve Jones supplied the expletives after Grundy, who had been drinking, suggested to Siouxsie Sioux that they "meet afterwards"; Johnny Rotten had only muttered one swear word earlier.

Where did the Sex Pistols play their first gig under that name on November 6, 1975?

The Pistols supported Bazooka Joe at Saint Martin's School of Art on Charing Cross Road; the set was cut short, yet the band soon drew a small, dedicated following.

Before recruiting a new singer and renaming themselves, the future Sex Pistols went by what name?

Wally Nightingale, Paul Cook and the future Pistols guitarist formed The Strand in the early 1970s; McLaren was already managing them when the singer's job came open in August 1975.

What single-word name did McLaren and Westwood give their King's Road boutique?

McLaren and Westwood rebranded 430 King's Road as Sex, selling rubber and bondage wear as "anti-fashion"; the shop became the meeting point for the future Pistols.

Which Sex Pistols single reached number two on the UK chart in June 1977?

"God Save the Queen" was released on 27 May 1977 and peaked at number two on the chart dated 11 June, Jubilee week, amid claims the chart was fixed to deny it the top spot.

What did Sid Vicious throw at the 100 Club Punk Festival in September 1976, leading to his arrest?

A glass thrown by Vicious during the Damned's set shattered against a pillar and blinded a girl in one eye; the press coverage cemented punk's reputation as a social menace.

Which Australian band was the first punk group outside the US to release a record, "(I'm) Stranded" in 1976?

The Saints, from Brisbane, self-released "(I'm) Stranded" in September 1976; co-founder Ed Kuepper hated the first Ramones album because he knew his band would be labelled copyists despite playing that way for years.

Sydney's Radio Birdman built the early Australian punk scene around which venue?

Radio Birdman ran their Oxford Funhouse nights upstairs at The Oxford Tavern in Darlinghurst; the band released its debut Radios Appear on its own Trafalgar label in 1977.

Which Ohio city's early-1970s scene produced Rocket from the Tombs, Electric Eels and later Pere Ubu?

Cleveland's scene billed its Rocket from the Tombs and Electric Eels shows as "Extermination Night"; Rocket guitarist Cheetah Chrome went on to the Dead Boys.

Devo spearheaded a movement named after which Ohio city?

Devo led the late-1970s "Akron sound", named for Akron, the rubber-industry city they came from; the Cramps briefly relocated there before settling into the New York scene.

The Stooges, fronted by Iggy Pop, came from which Michigan city?

The Stooges formed in Ann Arbor in 1967; their debut arrived in August 1969, six months after the MC5's first album, with Fun House and Raw Power following.

Which former Velvet Underground member produced the Stooges' 1969 debut album?

John Cale, the Velvet Underground's viola player until 1968, produced The Stooges' debut in 1969 and later the Modern Lovers' demos that became their self-titled album.

What was the title of the MC5's influential February 1969 debut album?

Kick Out the Jams was recorded live at Detroit's Grande Ballroom over two nights in October 1968 and released in February 1969; it is now considered a forerunner of punk.

Which critic mockingly called Iggy Pop "that Stooge punk" in the December 1970 issue of Creem?

Lester Bangs wrote the jibe in Creem's December 1970 issue while mocking more mainstream rock musicians; by 1971 Creem writers were applying "punk rock" to mid-1960s garage acts.

Who first used the phrase 'punk rock' in print, in the Chicago Tribune on March 22, 1970?

Ed Sanders, co-founder of the Fugs, was quoted describing his own first solo album as "punk rock - redneck sentimentality"; it is the first known use of the phrase in print.

Whose liner notes for the 1972 anthology Nuggets applied "punk rock" to 1960s garage bands?

Lenny Kaye, who compiled the Nuggets double album for Elektra, used "punk rock" for the garage bands in his notes; he went on to play guitar in the Patti Smith Group for decades.

Which 1966 hit was Question Mark & the Mysterians' biggest song?

"96 Tears" topped the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1966; Dave Marsh later described the band as giving a "landmark exposition of punk rock" in Creem in May 1971.

Which song by the Kingsmen is often cited as punk rock's defining "ur-text"?

The Kingsmen's 1963 recording of "Louie Louie", with its slurred vocals and three-chord riff, is often cited as punk's defining "ur-text"; the Kinks' "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night" were both influenced by it.

When William Shakespeare used the word "punk" in The Merry Wives of Windsor, what did it mean?

Prostitute was the Elizabethan sense of the word; it later shifted to mean a young hustler, gangster or hoodlum before rock critics attached it to music in the early 1970s.

Which English fanzine printed the famous 1976 drawing of three chords captioned 'Now form a band'?

Tony Moon's fanzine Sideburns ran the three-chord diagram in its first issue; the image summed up the DIY ethic that pub rock's small venues and independent labels had helped make possible.

Which Richard Hell song, played in Television's early sets, became the anthem of the New York scene?

"Blank Generation" became the New York scene's anthem; Hell left Television in 1975 and later titled his Voidoids' 1977 debut album after the song.

Patti Smith's 1974 debut single, often called the first punk record, paired "Hey Joe" with which B-side?

"Piss Factory", a spoken-word piece about Smith's time on a New Jersey assembly line, backed "Hey Joe" on the 1974 single she released on her own Mer Records, with Television guitarist Tom Verlaine playing on it.

Which band did Richard Hell form after Television, with ex-Dolls Thunders and Nolan?

Hell formed The Heartbreakers in 1975 but left in early 1976 to found the Voidoids, described as one of punk's most harshly uncompromising groups.

"Chinese Rocks", co-written by Richard Hell and a Ramone, takes its title from a strong form of which drug?

Heroin was the drug: "Chinese rocks" was street slang for a potent form of it. Hell, his Ramone co-writer, Thunders and Nolan all used it, and Thunders helped popularise it among British punks on tour.

Which label released the Ramones' debut album in April 1976?

Sire Records, Seymour Stein's label, issued Ramones on 23 April 1976 after sessions costing about $6,400; a discerning few embraced it while the majority dismissed it as a bad joke.

Which Ramone shouted "1-2-3-4!" at the start of every song?

Bassist Dee Dee Ramone barked the count-in, which made it sound as if the group could barely master the rudiments of rhythm.

Which Ramones album was released in November 1977, their third in nineteen months?

Rocket to Russia, released in November 1977, followed Ramones (April 1976) and Leave Home (January 1977); the same season saw debut albums from the Dead Boys and the Voidoids.

Which hardcore band's 1981 Saturday Night Live set sparked an on-air riot and mosh pit?

Fear played the Halloween 1981 episode at John Belushi's invitation; the slam-dancing pit included future scene figures Ian MacKaye, Harley Flanagan, Tesco Vee and John Brannon.

Bad Brains launched the Washington D.C. hardcore scene in 1980 with which rapid-fire single?

"Pay to Cum", the band's 1980 debut single, clocked in at about ninety seconds; Bad Brains, an all-black band, later relocated to New York and joined its growing hardcore scene.

Minor Threat, SS Decontrol and 7 Seconds built which movement based on abstinence from drink and drugs?

Straight edge took its name from Minor Threat's 1981 song "Straight Edge"; the movement rejected the self-destructive lifestyles of hardcore peers in favour of positivity.

Discharge, founded in 1977, established which punk subgenre in the early 1980s?

D-beat is named for the Discharge drumbeat that the band's early-1980s records, such as Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing (1982), spread worldwide; Amebix and Antisect developed crust around the same time.

Napalm Death, Carcass and Extreme Noise Terror defined which extreme genre in the mid-1980s?

Grindcore fused anarcho-punk roots with death-metal guitar work and extremely fast tempos; Napalm Death's 1987 debut Scum is the landmark record.

Music journalist Garry Bushell is credited with labelling which working-class punk subgenre in 1980?

Oi! was the label journalist Garry Bushell applied in 1980 to working-class street punk; he compiled the EMI collection Oi! The Album that November, and the name stuck.

Which band's pre-song shout, used instead of counting in, gave a punk subgenre its name?

The Cockney Rejects' singer Stinky Turner opened songs with that shout, replacing the time-honoured "1, 2, 3, 4!" count-in that most punk bands used.

Crass's Essex commune, the hub of anarcho-punk, was known by what name?

Dial House, a 16th-century farmhouse near Epping that Penny Rimbaud opened as a commune in 1967, was Crass's base; the band's Crass Records label inspired Subhumans, Conflict, Poison Girls and Flux of Pink Indians.

What was the late-1970s British ska revival around the Specials, Madness and the Selecter known as?

2 Tone took its name from the Coventry label Jerry Dammers of the Specials founded in 1979; punk had primed the ground, as the Clash, the Slits and the Ruts all absorbed reggae rhythms.

Which 1994 Green Day album sold nine million US copies in just over two years?

Dookie, Green Day's major-label debut on Reprise, arrived in February 1994; its single "Longview" topped Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart that June, arguably the first American punk song to become a top-forty airplay hit.

Epitaph Records, home of NOFX and the Offspring in 1994, was founded by the guitarist of which band?

Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz founded Epitaph; in 1994 the label put out Let's Go, Punk in Drublic and Smash in a single year, each eventually certified gold or better.

A bootleg MP3 of which Offspring single was downloaded a record 22 million times?

"Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)" was the lead single from Americana, the Offspring's 1998 Columbia debut, which entered the Billboard 200 at number two.

Which Blink-182 album, their first fully major-label release, sold four million copies in under a year?

Enema of the State, released by MCA in June 1999, also produced "What's My Age Again?"; its second single "All the Small Things" peaked at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 2000.

Which Sum 41 single from All Killer No Filler topped the US Alternative chart in 2001?

"Fat Lip" topped Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart in the summer of 2001; All Killer No Filler, the Ajax, Ontario band's debut album, went platinum in the United States.

A 1993 advertising campaign claimed which car was "like punk rock"?

The Subaru Impreza was sold in a 1993 US campaign as "like punk rock"; by then punk trappings were routinely used to market highly commercial acts as "rebels".

Roughly how much did Nirvana spend recording their first album, Bleach, in 1989?

Bleach cost about $600 (the famous bill was $606.17), paid by guitarist Jason Everman; two years later Nevermind brought huge and unexpected success, and Kurt Cobain called punk "musical freedom".

The 1991 riot grrrl concert billed "Love Rock Revolution Girl Style Now" was in which city?

The lineup at the International Pop Underground Convention included Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, L7 and Mecca Normal.

Which art punk group did Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna form in 1998?

Le Tigre, formed by Kathleen Hanna with Johanna Fateman and Sadie Benning in 1998, mixed punk with electronics; meanwhile Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein had cofounded Sleater-Kinney in 1994.

Which member of Rage Against the Machine declared in 2016 that "Rage is a punk band"?

Bassist Tim Commerford argued in a 2016 interview that the band's ethics were punk because it never did anything anyone wanted it to do.

Which band's 1977 single 'Oh Bondage Up Yours!' was banned by the BBC but became a punk essential?

X-Ray Spex, fronted by Poly Styrene, released the single in 1977; it never charted, and women were near the centre of the London scene from the start.

The Clash's debut album included a cover of which recent Jamaican reggae hit?

"Police and Thieves", Junior Murvin's 1976 Lee Perry production, was covered on The Clash (1977); the album rose to number twelve in the UK and "White Riot" entered the top forty.

Which December 1979 Clash album mixed punk with reggae, ska, R&B and rockabilly to wide acclaim?

London Calling, a double album released in December 1979, ranged across reggae, ska, R&B and rockabilly; it exemplified classic punk's breadth just as the scene split into hardcore and new wave.

The Clash were widely accused of "selling out" in 1977 for signing with which record company?

The Clash signed to CBS in January 1977 for a reported 100,000 pounds, prompting fanzine editor Mark Perry to write that punk died that day; the same accusation followed Green Day onto major labels in the 1990s.

Which Covent Garden club, run by Andrew Czezowski, was London's first dedicated punk venue?

The Roxy, on Neal Street, opened as a punk club in December 1976; the Clash headlined on 1 January 1977, and Don Letts' reggae DJ sets there spread the music among punks.

Who co-wrote The Boy Looked at Johnny, an early book on punk, with Julie Burchill?

Tony Parsons, then an NME writer like Burchill, co-wrote The Boy Looked at Johnny, subtitled "The Obituary of Rock and Roll", which declared punk dead almost as soon as it had started.

Which self-released Buzzcocks EP became a benchmark for the DIY ethic in British punk?

Spiral Scratch, released on the band's own New Hormones label in January 1977, set the DIY benchmark; the Manchester band had formed after seeing the Pistols in February 1976.

Which designer's "anarchy flag" poster and other Sex Pistols work helped establish punk's visual aesthetic?

Jamie Reid, a friend of McLaren from art school, designed the torn-flag poster for "Anarchy in the U.K.", released on 26 November 1976; his ransom-note lettering defined the Pistols' look.

The Cramps and South London's the Meteors were innovators in which fusion style?

Psychobilly crossed rockabilly with punk energy and horror-movie camp; the Cramps used the word on their 1976 flyers, and the Meteors built a South London scene around it.

Milwaukee's Violent Femmes jumpstarted which American fusion scene, as the Pogues did across the Atlantic?

Folk punk paired acoustic instruments with punk attitude: the Violent Femmes' 1983 debut brought it to US college radio, while the London-Irish Pogues did the same with Celtic music.

Which 1980 Dead Kennedys song is a classic hardcore attack on middle-class values?

"Holiday in Cambodia", released as a single in May 1980, skewers privileged college kids by packing them off to Pol Pot's Cambodia; the San Francisco band also led a US anarcho-punk scene alongside Austin's MDC.

Which future hip-hop stars debuted in 1981 as a New York hardcore band?

Beastie Boys began in 1981 as a hardcore act, releasing the Polly Wog Stew EP in 1982 before turning to hip-hop; they were part of a scene that soon added the Cro-Mags, Murphy's Law and Agnostic Front.

In LA around 1979, the older crowd were "Hollywood punks"; the new hardcore kids were what kind of punks?

Beach punks was the tag for the younger suburban hardcore crowd from the South Bay and Orange County shoreline, as opposed to the older "Hollywood punks" of the original LA scene.

Los Saicos, a 1960s band retrospectively credited with pioneering punk, came from which country?

Los Saicos formed in Lima, Peru, in 1964 and screamed souped-up songs about prison escapes, funerals and destruction; "Demolicion" is their signature track.

Which band of American G.I.s in Germany released the proto-punk album Black Monk Time in 1966?

The Monks, five ex-servicemen who stayed on in Germany sporting tonsures and nooses for neckties, made Black Monk Time their only album, fusing beat music with raucous garage rock.

Which New York duo, formed in 1970, was one of the earliest acts to describe its own music as "punk"?

Suicide, the duo of Alan Vega and Martin Rev, billed their gigs as "punk music" or a "punk mass" for a couple of years, well before the New York scene adopted the word.

What was the title of the Dead Boys' debut LP, released at the end of August 1977?

Young, Loud and Snotty, produced by Genya Ravan, opens with "Sonic Reducer"; guitarist Cheetah Chrome had carried the song over from Rocket from the Tombs.

Sonic Youth grew out of which late-1970s New York scene, associated with Lydia Lunch and James Chance?

No wave, documented on Brian Eno's 1978 compilation No New York, rejected the rock conventions of the downtown clubs; Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo emerged from its circles in 1981.

Which band's 1995 album ...And Out Come the Wolves was the first record of the 1990s ska revival to go gold?

Rancid's ...And Out Come the Wolves, released by Epitaph in August 1995, went gold within months; Sublime's self-titled 1996 album followed it to platinum early in 1997.

Which was Liverpool's first punk group, short-lived but the seed of several well-known post-punk acts?

Big in Japan lasted from 1977 to 1978 but seeded Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the KLF, the Lightning Seeds and Siouxsie and the Banshees' drummer; the band moved in a glam, theatrical direction rather than a stripped-down one.

Stiff Little Fingers formed in which city, far from the London punk scene?

Stiff Little Fingers formed in Belfast in 1977, writing "Suspect Device" and "Alternative Ulster" about the Troubles; the Skids, from Dunfermline in Scotland, formed in the same second wave.

Which Anaheim band, with Boston's Mighty Mighty Bosstones, led the mid-1990s ska punk boom?

No Doubt, formed in Anaheim in 1986, led the boom with Tragic Kingdom (1995) and its single "Don't Speak", while the Mighty Mighty Bosstones broke through with Let's Face It in 1997.

Which Australian "punkabilly" band became major stars at home with its self-titled 1998 debut?

The Living End's self-titled 1998 debut topped the Australian chart on the back of "Prisoner of Society"; the trio's rockabilly-punk hybrid arrived at the height of the North American pop-punk boom.

Alongside the mall chain Hot Topic, which touring festival brought punk further into the US mainstream?

Warped Tour, the skate-and-punk festival Kevin Lyman launched in 1995, put pop-punk bands in front of huge crowds; purists argued that major labels and MTV meant bands were buying into the system punk set out to challenge.

Jon Savage outlined the concept of post-punk in the November 1977 "New Musick" issue of which magazine?

Sounds ran its "New Musick" special in late November 1977; Savage used it to survey the acts already pushing beyond punk's three-chord template.

In which part of London was the Hamborough Tavern, firebombed during an Oi! gig in July 1981?

Southall's Hamborough Tavern burned on 3 July 1981 after local Asian youths, who believed the show by the Business, the 4-Skins and the Last Resort was a neo-Nazi gathering, clashed with skinheads and police.

Which song by the Exploited was adopted as an anthem by Mexico's disaffected urban "bandas" in the 1980s?

"Punks Not Dead", the title track of the Exploited's 1981 debut album, became an anthem for Mexico's bandas; one banda even named itself PND after the song's initials.

Which Electric Eels member may have been the first rock musician to wear a jacket covered in safety pins?

John D Morton, the Electric Eels' guitarist, wore a jacket studded with safety pins in the mid-1970s; Richard Hell is usually credited with the safety-pin aesthetic that inspired McLaren.

Before settling on their famous name, Black Flag formed in Hermosa Beach in 1976 under what name?

Panic, named in 1976, played its first show at a Redondo Beach party in December 1977; the band became Black Flag in 1978, with Raymond Pettibon suggesting the new name and drawing the four-bar logo.