cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/261026
Featured song: Rumble by Link Wray and The Ray Men (March 31st, 1958/Cadence Records/New York, NY)
I find myself commenting about punk history a lot in this place. Seems a lot of you have questions and misunderstandings about the genre. Thought I’d throw my hat into the “Post something every day” ring, but with an informative twist. Of the things I’m encyclopedic about, punk history might be the one thing I’ll never run out of stuff to say about.
To begin, I’d like to answer the most hotly debated question in punk rock: Who was first? There are a number of oft-cited answers but this one’s mine.
It’s winter, early 1958, in Virginia. While trying to lay down a guitar-centric version of The Stroll by The Diamonds, Link Wray’s amp makes a noise it’s not supposed to. Might have been some faulty electrics, might have been some bizarre environmental variables. All we know is that nobody had ever heard distorted guitar like this before, and that the world just wasn’t the same afterward. The resulting instrumental, originally called ‘Oddball’ becomes a crowd favorite, with audiences requesting it multiple times a night. It also becomes one of Link’s favorites, because he gets to make that noise again.
But it’s never quite the same as that first time. Whatever the circumstances led to this early distorted guitar, they were too arcane for 1958 to fathom. Legend has it that Link destroyed a number of speaker cones trying to replicate the sound. Including the studio speaker he used to demonstrate the original sound to producer Archie Bleyer. Bleyer didn’t like the song, didn’t see the appeal. However, his stepdaughter was enamoured with it and convinced him that it should be released on Cadence Records.
When you listen to the song, are you picturing a bunch of 50s teenagers squaring off for a fight in an alleyway? If not, why not? Also, what would you call those kids with the greasy hair and leather jackets rolling around in gangs? Would you call them punks, per chance?
Phil Everly of The Everly Brothers noticed this too, and suggested the title Rumble because it sounded like a street fight. In fact, this imagery was so powerful that, to this day, Rumble remains the only instrumental to ever get banned from US airwaves. Despite being banned, it reached #11 on the R&B charts.
Rumble is my pick for first punk rock track because it was the first to mix ideas about punks and ideas about rock. When The Ramones got together 16 years later, they based their look and feel on the street toughs that came to mind when people heard the song in '58.
Further reasoning:
- “Punk is about being ugly.” - Jehangir Tabari
Sure, Michael Muhammad Knight isn’t the guy to tell the story of punk and Islam, but he made a good point there. The whole point of Rumble is that an electric guitar wasn’t supposed to sound like that. But Link went ahead with it anyway, because despite being “ugly” it was cool and slightly menacing. What’s more punk than that?
- They banned an instrumental!
It’s the hysteria surrounding rock music and juvenile delinquency in its barest form. Rumble was so in-your-face for the time that it got banned for indecency despite having no lyrics. It pissed off parents across the nation and what’s more punk than that?
Recommended Reading: None (homework is for squares, anyway)
Recommended Viewing: Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World (2017)
Tomorrow, Punk Goes West