Punk Music in North America

Punk Music in North America: November 7th

From Yesteryear to Here

Punk music is a unique form of music which incorporates heavy, raw and distorted guitars; intricate, deep sounding bass lines; high paced, pounding drum beats; and vocals that catapult ideologies of a world run by anarchy. Punk is a form of underground music which appeals to people who are either bored or dissatisfied with the way the world works.

In The Merriam Webster Dictionary the definition of the word punk is; a young inexperienced person or a petty hoodlum.1 This is the typical stereotype which is associated with punk. This definition is far too vague and neglects to mention that punk is also a form of music.

Punk is a relatively new form of music in the music world that originated out of New York's club scene in the mid sixties. Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg were two members of a band called the Fugs.

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These two men played a very important role in the foundation of punk music. They often performed in a bar called Dom which could be found in the basement of a night club called The Electric Circus. They tried to get their music played in other clubs but it was usually rejected due to the controversial and offensive subject matter that they used in their music. The Fugs refused to change their style because their originality was really all they had going for them. The band did however manage to influence other bands to go punk.2

More and more bands in New York started to follow this new trend of underground music. The styles of these spawning bands followed the obscene and offensive style of the Fugs. Bands such as Dave Peel and the Lower East Side and Velvet Underground were bands that were...