ii © Copyright by Jarek Paul Ervin All Rights Reserved May 2017 iii ABSTRACT My dissertation takes a speculative cue from the reception of 1970s New York punk, which is typically treated as both rule – the symbolic site of origin – and exception – a protean moment before the crystallization of punk proper. For this reason, artists such as Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, the Ramones, and Blondie are today afforded the simultaneous status of originators, interlopers, innovators, and successors. This has led both to the genre’s canonicity in the music world and its general neglect within scholarship. I argue that punk ought to be understood less as a set of stylistic precepts (ones that could be originated and then developed), than as a set of philosophical claims about the character of rock music in the 1970s. Punk artists such as Patti Smith, Jayne County, and the Ramones developed an aesthetic theory through sound. This was an act of accounting, which foregrounded the role of historical memory and recast a mode of reflexive imagination as musical practice. At times mournful, at times optimistic about the possibility of reconciliation, punk was a restorative aesthetics, an attempt to forge a new path on memories of rock’s past. My first chapter looks at the relationship between early punk and rock music, its ostensible music parent. Through close readings of writing by important punk critics including Greil Marcus, Lester Bangs, and Ellen Willis – as well as analyses of songs by the Velvet Underground and Suicide – I argue that a historical materialist approach offers a new in-road to old debates about punk’s progressive/regressive musical character. iv My second chapter explores the way this conversation shifted from an abstract, philosophical debate to a concrete musical project. I call attention to a seldom-acknowledged early punk subculture centered on LGBTQ punk artists in the first years of the 1970s. Using work in queer theory by Tavia Nyong’o, Elizabeth Freeman, and Rosemary Hennessy, I emphasize the role of LGBTQ artists like Lou Reed, Magic Tramps, and Jayne County in shaping the early contours of the genre. My third chapter turns toward mid-seventies punk. Though a chief reference point for later portrayals of the genre (the classical moment of punk, as it were), the mid-1970s punk scene surrounding CBGB was intensely factionalized at the time. I use this dissensus as a vantage point to rethink punk’s status as a subculture. Drawing on the work of the Birmingham School as well as the writings of Benjamin and Marx, I argue that a historical materialist theory of subculture allows for a greater role of contradiction in social movements. My final chapter examines the fate of this alternative at the end of the 1970s. I chart the simultaneous explosion of punk as a transatlantic media obsession, and a wellspring for new subgenres. This chapter traces the way late seventies punk enacted, once again and for the last and first time, a set of claims about punk’s afterlife as postpunk. I argue that punk saw its simultaneous arrival as a meta-genre, and its fracture into dozens of antagonistic subgenres. In splitting into two, 1970s punk evinced the two paths its offshoots have followed since: to pull down its own future, and to start building again. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My dissertation research was generously supported by a Battestin Fellowship from the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Visiting Scholar Award from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Library and Archives, and the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Award from UVa’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs. During my studies, I was guided by a number of excellent teachers. Among many others, I owe thanks to Cynthia Folio, Steven Kreinberg, David Cannata, Jan Krzywicki, Stephen Willier, Allen Krantz, Patricia Melzer, Michael Klein, Steven Zohn, Bonnie Gordon, Judith Shatin, Scott DeVeaux, Ted Coffey, Fred Maus, and Stephan Fuchs. I am also grateful to have been part of an excellent community of colleagues at UVa, including Nicholas Rubin, Jon Bellona, Ryan Maguire, Kristina Warren, Paul Turowski, Peter D’Elia, Tanner Greene, Eli Stine, Max Tfirn, Tracey Stewart, Steven Lewis, Aldona Dye, Kyle Chattleton, Kevin Davis, Matthew Jones, Courtney Kleftis, and Victor Szabo. I benefited from the wisdom and friendship of many others during graduate school, including Mark Butler, Michael Austin, Roger Grant, Jamie Blasina, Gwynne Fulton, Maria Murphy, Carlo Lanfossi, Daniel Villegas-Vélez, and many friends and colleagues in IASPM-US. Special thanks are owed to the UVa Social Theory Reading Group, especially Robert Stolz, Brad Pasanek, Chris Ali, and Laura Goldblatt. vi Many helped my dissertation itself. Though not formally on my committee, Nomi Dave has been a persistent source of inspiration and a revelatory teacher me from my earliest days at UVa. Of my committee members, Karl Hagstrom Miller and Jack Hamilton are both owed a debt for agreeing to advise an unknown commodity and drag him kicking and screaming into the discipline of history. Richard Will always encouraged – or, at least tolerated – youthful delusions of grandeur and flights of intellectual fancy during my reading year and comprehensive exams. Michael Puri has been a tireless mentor, the best of all possible editors, and a dear friend through the hardships of graduate school. Though it might not always be apparent, his influence stands behind all I have done. I also am grateful for a number of people who helped me to have a life outside of the ivory tower (and sometimes in it, as well). Among those friends, I count Emily Diehl, BJ Cantlupe, Heather Straka, Kevin Doktor, and Mariko Schaper. Thanks to Stephan Hammel, Bryan Parkhurst, and Ben Laude, unwavering comrades to the end. I owe a lasting intellectual debt to Justin McBrien, my perennial sparring partner, collaborator, and spirit guide. And, “the Family” – Stephanie Gunst, Craig Comen, and Amy Coddington –shepherded my heart and mind through the best and worst moments of graduate school; for this, they will always have my undying love. Finally, thank you to my (real) family. Special thanks are due to Tim, who has always helped anchor me to home; Tim is more of a brother than a cousin, and has had my back from day one. Above all, thank you to mom, dad, and Danika. All that I have accomplished is a testament to your love and support. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ................................................................................................... v Table of Figures ........................................................................................................ ix Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 I. The Problem of Punk ..................................................................................................... 1 II. Literature Review ........................................................................................................ 3 II. Genre & Historical Materialism ................................................................................. 11 III. Punk as Melancholia & Reconciliation .................................................................... 29 1. After Rock: Punk as Melancholy & Horror ........................................................ 35 I. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 35 II. Inventing Punk .......................................................................................................... 40 III. The Rock Critical Project ......................................................................................... 45 IV. Velvet Underground & Melancholy ......................................................................... 54 V. Punk as Rock Avant-Garde ........................................................................................ 72 VI. Suicide & The Horror of Nonidentity ...................................................................... 80 2. Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl? New York Queer Punk in the 1970s .............. 91 I. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 91 II. New York as Queer World ......................................................................................... 97 III. New York Queer Punk ............................................................................................ 105 IV. Punk as Queer Aesthetic ......................................................................................... 119 3. New York Punk as Subculture .......................................................................... 135 I. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 135 II. Reinventing Punk .................................................................................................... 140 viii III. Punk as Subculture ................................................................................................. 157 IV. Punk as Subcultural Aesthetic ................................................................................ 172 4. After Punk: Postpunk at the End of the 1970s ................................................ 188 I. Introduction .............................................................................................................