Punk: Attitude Page #3

I'm a street walking cheetah

With a heart full of napalm

I'm a runaway son

Of the nuclear a-bomb

Handsome Dick Manitoba

was on the cover...

you know and he had this big afro

and he was dressed in this wrestling suit...

but inside the cover,

if you pulled it out...

there was a cover and they're

all in black leather jackets...

sitting in a White Castle

hamburger stand...

and that's when

we said "Yes".

We were into White Castles

and p*ssy and getting drunk...

and playing rock 'n' roll...

and we're gonna spit out our culture

and what we think is cool.

I am the world's

goddamn voice

The world needs

something to destroy

You heard a lot about these groups

often from word of mouth...

and from other people

on the street...

and a lot of flyers were up...

and then people were pressing

their own singles, you know.

It was truly alternative, cause it really

was people doing it for themselves...

because they wanted

to express something.

We were kinda like uh smashing

those aisles you might say...

the status quo of the

guitar bass and drums...

and we took them all out

and then we had only two guys...

and the name

Suicide on top of it...

and, yeah,

we knew it was different.

I mean Suicide were around at

the time that The Dolls were around.

They were pre punk,

you know...

and they were doing something that

was so completely off the deep end.

They were out like with their with their

radiated glasses and radiated music.

Alan Vega would come out with this motor

cycle chain that was like 8 feet long...

and Marty stopped playing and

he would sing a couple of notes...

and then he would start whipping

the floor with this board, cycle chain.

This completely frightened

people out of the room.

Bebebebebebebe

He's lookin' so cute

Sneakin' round round round

In a blue jumpsuit

I'd have to think that Suicide had

to be a tremendous influence...

on absolutely everybody.

Ghostrider motorcycle hero

At that time there was only 2 bars

to play that played original music...

and that was

CBGB's and Max's.

I opened in December

'73 as CBGB's...

which stands for Country,

Blues Grass, Blues.

I made it a policy the only way

they could play here...

not they could the only way

they could play here...

is they had to do

their own music.

That was the first time

I had this new wave

of what we call punk music...

with the group Television,

but they didn't sound good to me.

I saw Television

maybe 20 times...

I think and I saw them, I think,

in some of their very first shows...

so I was, uh, really inspired by

that whole scene very early on.

There is something very French

in a way for me about Television.

I don't know why but...

aesthetically they

were very different...

and their music could have extended

instrumental passages...

that would just lift you away

and transport you somewhere.

Jesus's dead to somebody's sin

But not mine

We had Patti here in

the Spring of 75 for 7 weeks.

She's one person who sort

of really predates punk...

as far as like being like an artist

in her performance and her writing...

and but at the same time she really

informed punk to such a degree...

and so she's very significant

the way she comes in.

I thought Patti Smith was

the queen of the universe...

I mean the number of times I've sat

in front of, of her first album...

turned up the all

the way on my stereo.

I mean I just

thought this is it.

This is rock that

I've dreamed about.

The boy licked Johnny

Johnny wanted to run

Johnny wanted to move

But the movie kept moving as planned

The boy gripped Johnny

He whispered against a locker

He drove it in, he drove it home

He drove it deep in Johnny

These records were not records that were

what you would think as punk rock...

they weren't sort of, you know,

sped up Chuck Berry riffs...

and it wasn't, it wasn't, you know,

this, this kind of hammer...

you know, punk rock recording

thing, you know.

These were more other

worldly in a way.

When suddenly Johnny

Gets the feeling

He's being surrounded by

Horses, horses,

horses, horses

There was always an intellectual

side to the punk movement.

Many of those bands

from that time...

were picking up influences

from the poets and the writers...

that they had grown

up listening to...

Rimbaud certainly...

and actually a big one was Jack Kerouac

you know, "On The Road".

I was sayin' let me

out of here before

I was even born

It's such a gamble when you get a face

It's fascinatin' to observe

What the mirror does

But when I dine it's for the wall

That I set a place

I remember Richard Hell

walking in one night.

Richard kinda walked in wearing

these clothes safety pinned together...

and Malcolm was totally taken

by that idea of like anti fashion.

He was very bright and he wrote

"Blank Generation"...

and when he did that and sang

that with Television first...

and then he started

Richard Hell & The Voidoids...

Malcolm saw that and took

it back to London.

I belong to the

blank generation

And I can take it

or leave it each time

Some of the safety pins and the

stapled cuffs and things like that...

were more of a necessity...

of people actually trying to

hold their clothes together.

And then in London...

we'd see these pictures of kids

who called themselves punks...

and they'd have safety

pins all over the place.

They'd rip the

clothing on purpose...

just so they could buy

a whole bunch of safety pins...

and put the safety pins and

the rips all over the place.

And then we'd have to

hear about how they're...

on the dole and they

don't have any money.

The Ramones were rehearsing

down the hall from us...

when they and in

the rehearsal place...

and Joey comes

over and goes...

"David come down the hall

and hear my band", you know...

and so I get down the hall...

and they start,

they play me a song...

and I was like...

"You gotta be kiddin",

like, "Get a job", you know.

I had no idea that

they were so fabulous.

I don't wanna walk around

I don't wanna

walk around with you

I don't wanna

walk around with you

So why you wanna

walk around with me?

In the early 70's

we discovered bands...

like The Stooges, the MC5,

The Velvet Underground...

and later

The New York Dolls.

They're piling

in the back seat

They're generating

steam heat

Pulsating to the back beat

The blitzkrieg bop

Dee Dee had heard

about CBGB...

because Dee Dee,

Dee Dee was a friend of Richard Hell.

A few Sundays later we put

Television in and The Ramones.

They were worse

than Television.

One, two, three, four

It was a really interesting set because

our equipment kept breaking down...

and we kept breaking strings and we'd

get into fights between songs...

so we hardly ever, you know,

finished a song.

I remember seeing The Ramones

and hating them, I hated them.

I walked out so pissed off that

my friend brought me here...

and for 24 hours I could not think

of anything else but how mad I was...

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes