Urban Space and the Birth of Punk

Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College Honors Theses Florida Atlantic University Libraries Year Urban Space and the Birth of Punk Paul Fletcher This paper is posted at DigitalCommons@Florida Atlantic University. http://digitalcommons.fau.edu/wilkes theses/9 URBAN SPACE AND THE BIRTH OF PUNK by Paul Fletcher A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Wilkes Honors College in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences With a Concentration in History Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University Jupiter, Florida May 2006 URBAN SPACE AND THE BIRTH OF PUNK by Paul Fletcher This thesis was prepared under the direction of the candidate’s thesis advisor, Dr. Christopher Ely, and has been approved by the members of his supervisory committee. It was submitted to the faculty of The Honors College and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences. SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: ___________________________ Dr. Christopher Ely ___________________________ Dr. Daniel White ___________________________ Interim Dean, Wilkes Honors College ____________ Date ii I owe a few people a great deal of gratitude for their guidance, keen insight, and emotional assistance during this long, arduous saga that I like to refer to as my Honors Thesis. These people are: Dr.Ely, for without his support, encouragement, and excitement, I would have given up a long time ago; Amanda Kennedy, for the long hours she spent discussing, correcting, and advising my thesis, without her, I would also be at a great loss; my father, Orland Fletcher, for encouraging and funding my education, without his support, I would not feel as happy and fulfilled as I do now. Also, I’d like to thank everyone else at the Honors College for three years of beautiful experiences. I will never forget them. iii ABSTRACT Author: Paul Fletcher Title: Urban Space and the Birth of Punk Institution: Wilkes Honors College at Florida Atlantic University Thesis Advisor: Dr. Christopher Ely Degree: Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences Concentration: History Year: 2006 While the general public agrees that the Sex Pistols were punk—they were dirty, vile, low-class, and they sang crass lyrics—their aesthetics were originally brought into punk by the New York Dolls, by bringing the street into their performance. The New York Dolls were from the New York City streets; they were mediocre musicians, unglamorous, and not at all phantasmagorical. They removed the hierarchy and the bourgeois elements from their performances that had been established by previous New York City bands like the Velvet Underground—who performed as high-class, elitist artists. The New York Dolls destroyed this hierarchy, allowing the audience to join them. So, all the aesthetics that are associated with punk are the physical, visual, and auditory manifestations of the original scene and unity that began with the New York Dolls. iv To My Mother, For Whom All My Days Are Spent Dreaming Table of Contents Chapter 1—Introduction…………………………………………………….1 Chapter 2—The New York Dolls and New York City……………………………………………………………... 15 Chapter 3—Television and CBGB’s OMFUG…………………………….. 28 Chapter 4—Conclusion: The New York Dolls’ Music Scene Was Named Punk……………………………………………. 40 Bibliography……………………………………………………………….. 43 v Urban Space and the Birth of Punk Chapter 1—Introduction “The city, as one finds it in history, is the point of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a community. It is the place where the diffused rays of many separate beams of life fall into focus, with gains in both social effectiveness and significance. The city is the form and symbol of an integrated social relationship…Cities are the product of the earth”—Lewis Mumford.1 Punk is normally understood as a musical genre with specific political philosophies and grungy aesthetics. Its music is fast, distorted, and is screamed and not sung; its political philosophies include individual freedom, anarchy, and nihilism; and mohawks, spiked collars on leather jackets, colored hair, safety pins, and torn clothing are but a few of its tattered aesthetics. Still, what punk is and what it has become, as its versions constantly shift and change, are enigmas. Punk is hard to define, in part, because we tend to recognize it in almost anything: in attitude, clothing style, manners, music, etc. It is still referred to today in some aspects of popular culture: in Green Day’s music and in Pink’s constantly altering hair styles and colors. Often moments of punk are associated with the Sex Pistols and the Ramones for their rebellious attitudes, unkempt hair, safety pins, and fast, ‘to-the-point’ music. This association, however, is misconstrued; many musicians have been rebellious in the public realm—remember the Elvis taboo, the Rolling Stones’ dangerous, sexual charm, and Jim Morrison’s profane use of English and his violation of public decency. These are but a few exemplary characteristics often associated with punk. The main reason punk is difficult to clearly define is that its roots are deeply grounded in the story of modernity. In modern societies, since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the dominance of the middle- and upper-class values has played a 1 Lewis Mumford. The Culture of Cities Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc, New York: 1970, 3. 1 crucial role in the foundation of culture, politics, and economic discourse. Countless factions have arisen in reactionary opposition to the dominance of bourgeois control. The problem of defining punk arises because it is an attempt to transgress and transform society and it can easily be swept into the same pan as bohemians and other revolutionaries and nonconformists in modern societies. Elizabeth Wilson presents an excellent description and discussion of these counter cultural social factions in Bohemians: The Glamorous Outcasts. She argues that the impact of the French and Industrial revolutions on Europe’s economic and political climate brought about two distinct, dialectical forces: the bourgeoisie (the middle class, city dwellers) and the bohemians (those whose values and lifestyles contrast with the bourgeoisie’s). While the bourgeoisie was synonymous with capitalistic principles, valuing goods and services by price, and valuing individuals by their ability to acquire “expensive” goods and services or by their value as labor, the bohemians adhered to a much different code of values and ethics. The bohemians understood success not as the acquisition of goods or services but rather as the process of self-realization through art and aesthetics. Following these descriptions of bohemians, one can draw many parallels between bohemians and punks. Like bohemians, punks valued self-expression above and beyond consumption. Their lifestyles were inextricable from the desire of creation and art. A punk was his or her art. Modern cities provided the setting for the creation of the bohemian’s oppositional identity.2 While the bourgeoisie established the thesis, or main structure, of modern society through their capitalistic principles and values, artists, poets, writers, and other nonconformist intellectuals managed to create an alternative or antithetical subculture, 2 Elizabeth Wilson. Bohemians: The Glamorous Outcasts. Rutgers University Press, New Jersey: 2000. p31 2 known as Bohemia. In Western cities across the world including Berlin, Munich, London, Paris, San Francisco, and New York, countercultures created alternative domains where oppositional ideals and values were not only accepted but encouraged. Cities offered practical advantages to the bohemian subculture. As well as providing an escape from the responsibilities of the family, a necessary structure of Bourgeois life, the city made possible the formation of new groups and friendships based on interest and work.3 For, it was in these alternative places that the bohemian identity was made manifest. Likewise, punk can be understood more clearly by examining the modern city, for the modern city enabled the existence of punk. In order to understand the punk, as is true of the bohemian, the soil from which he or she bloomed must be examined. For the remainder of this thesis, I describe a venture into the city in pursuit of punk, revealing punk’s origins. While the general public may think of punk in terms of its aesthetics, philosophies, music, etc., it fails to understand punk as a social phenomenon evolving out of the city. Stripped of its emblems, music, and nihilistic behaviors, punk remains a social engagement, the destruction of social barriers, and the common celebration of the detachment from the past. The scene created by the New York Dolls in New York City during the early 1970s marks the ascent from the traditional boundaries between a performer and an audience into a shared, social relationship. The story of punk’s development unfolds rather disjointedly as the specific actors and places change. If one traces the different chapters, it becomes more cohesive and the origin becomes locatable. In what follows, I trace the story to its origin: the New York Dolls in New York City, and ultimately define what punk really means. 3 Ibid, 28 3 Like bohemians, punks needed an urban environment in which to grow and to establish an identity. Punks used the city as a stage upon which they could perform their oppositional identities. It was here in public that they were able to be identified as different. For instance, Johnny Rotten was included into the Sex Pistols not only for his distinct, screeching voice and wild attitude, but also for his appearance. He liked to wear garbage liners as clothes, spiked and dyed hair, and torn shirts and pants, loosely patched together with safety pins. It was because of this style that he was first invited to audition for the Sex Pistols. On the day of his audition, he was wearing a Pink Floyd t-shirt with “I hate” superimposed on the band’s name.

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