Monday, November 24, 2008

The birthdate and place of Punk rock


Some may disagree, but I believe Punk rock is one of the few movements that's birth can be pinpointed to an actual moment in time. October 20th, 1967 The Doors played a concert in front of a bunch of drunken frat boys in University of Michigan's Yost Field House in Ann Arbor. Morrison, himself so intoxicated the show had to be paused and restarted, became irritated by the attitude of the crowd who chided his long hair and "girly" hippie attire. Morrison decided to mock the crowd by singing in a false falsetto voice, and squirming in a provocative, satiracly feminine frenzy. He berrated and taunted the preps in between sets and the crowd responded by throwing objects at him and yelling insults. It became quite ugly to the delight, it seems, of two people in particular: Morrison and a high school student in the audience, James Osterberg. The boy who would be grow up to become Iggy Pop was struck at that very moment with an idea for a new possible performer-fan relationship. A relationship fueled less by envy and worship, and more on confrontation, mutual aggression, angst and violent expression. James left that concert with the wheels turning in his head and soon began experimenting with new stage personas, tactics and provocative sets. When he took these ideas to New York City, he spread a virus to all the early Punks who started the NY, London and West Coast Punk scenes. No one was doing this before Iggy, and all the early punks saw an Iggy show at one point or another. I think the simplicity, the do-it-yourself attitude and the anti-rock god elements of Punk may have been an inevitable response to the state of commercial rock at the time, but the Punk attitude may not have ever caught fire without Iggy's influence.
Thus, I can make the bold statement: Punk, like most great things, was born in Ann Arbor, MI.
DOB: October 20, 1967
Location: Yost Field House

1 comment:

Mix Master Lee said...

While i'm not at all surprised Jim Morrison was irritated with the Ann Arbor frat boy crowd, (I've experienced the same emotion nearly every time I step foot in A2) I am surprised at your implication that anything else great ever came out of there.