You Say You Want a Revolution Pt. 2 Quiz

Answer: Dead Boys

In an article in PunkNews (November, 2017) music critic Tom Trauma declared that "if the Ramones were the Beatles of punk, then the Dead Boys were the Rolling Stones." He'd proceed to compare Stiv Bators, the Dead Boys flamboyantly unpredictable frontman, with the stoic stage presence of Joey Ramone. He marked the precision work of Johnny Ramone's speed guitar and set it against the blues-rooted twin guitar ceremony put forth by Cheetah Chrome and Jimmy Zero.

The Dead Boys formed in Cleveland in the mid-1970s and drew their inspiration and presence from Iggy Pop's stage craft and energy, the trash punk that characterized the New York Dolls and then added a little of Alice Cooper's menace to produce a punk sound that was jet fueled but with a working class mindset. You need look no further than the title of their 1977 LP, "Young, Loud and Snotty" (YLS), for an apt description of the band. Their big break came when they were invited by Joey Ramone to perform at New York's legendary CBGB Club where they soon became regulars. "YLS" opens with "Sonic Reducer", which has gone on to become a punk rock anthem, a song that hits you with the force of a drag racer at its maximum speed and, from there, the album never lets up. When bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Guns n Roses cite this disc as a major influence, then it is an LP whose importance should not be overlooked. Sadly, to burst Tom Trauma's Beatles/Rolling Stones balloon, the Rolling Stones would keep on rocking for over fifty years, the Dead Boys would survive just one more album.

Answer: The Sex Pistols

When I first heard the screeching diatribe "I am an anti-Christ! I am an anar-kyste!" ("Anarchy in the UK") escaping from the foaming mouth of Johnny Rotten way back in 1977, it frightened me. When I heard that same singer being interviewed on television, full of snotty attitude and angry ranting I dismissed the band and the album in its entirety. That was a mistake on my part.

What I failed to understand was where this album was born. It rose from the British working class and was built upon their dissatisfaction, no, more to the point, their rage and frustration at the establishment and its failure to rescue them from their state in life. It was in 1987, ten years after its initial release, that I finally ventured out and purchased the disc. With a little more maturity and understanding on my part I was now able to identify the genius behind the album. Nihilism and shock tactics aside, Rotten's attacks on the hallmarks of British society were carefully crafted critiques launched in a manner that would deliver bullets straight into the heart of the pretentiousness of its government. With this album the Sex Pistols bulldozed a new doorway into rebelliousness and, whilst many bands followed their lead, they remained in their shadows. In sitting down to write this quiz I sat down to re-listen the LP and it dawned on me that time has not diminished its energy at all.

Answer: The Heartbreakers

In 1977 the Heartbreakers (no link to Tom Petty) released one of the best albums to ever capture the New York punk scene at that time, and the essence of the CBGB club. It failed miserably. Here's that story.

The Heartbreakers formed out of two break-ups. The first was that of the New York Dolls. Despite Jerry Nolan and Johnny Thunders being the heart and soul of that band, the rest of the members had had enough of their drug obsessions and called it quits. The other break-up was that of Richard Hell walking out on his band Television. Thunders and Nolan joined forces with Hell and the potential of punk rock creating its first super-group gathered momentum. That didn't last very long as Thunders and Hell had different ideas as to which one of them should be the band's front-man.

The next issue was Thunders and Nolan's reputation with drugs preceded them and no label in the USA was prepared to sign them. The solution the band came up with was to go to England. Here they hooked up with the Sex Pistols and became their support act for the shambolic "Anarchy in the UK" tour. Whilst there they managed to find a studio prepared to fund their album and "L.A.M.F" was born. At least five of the tracks on this LP; "Born to Lose", "Get Off the Phone", "One Track Mind", "All by Myself" and the Hell and Dee Dee Ramone composition "Chinese Rocks", all laden with streetwise lyrics, punk rock spike and buckets of pop-rock nous, have since been labelled "classic tracks" by a number of rock critics. Once again, I hear you say... what went wrong?

Jerry Nolan took it upon himself to refine the sound and, in his drug addled state, did an appalling job. The mix was awful to the point of being unlistenable. As if to emphasize the point, their manager, at the time, Leee Black Childers (in an interview with Classic Rock magazine in 2016) stated "everyone was stoned. Walking into the studio was like walking into a crack house". The album bombed. The band broke up.

If it were only the mix it was a situation that could be rectified and, eventually, it was. Future remixes shone new light onto these songs but, by this time, the spiral that Nolan and Thunders were on was descending steeply. This should have been Thunders' enduring legacy but, for him, it turned to ash. The failure consigned both he and Nolan to live, forever, on the fringes of rock and roll. Thunders would pass away in a run-down New Orleans flat in 1991 and Nolan died a year later in hospital after suffering a severe stroke.

Answer: Wire

Steve Huey, from AllMusic, described the release of "Pink Wire" as "the most original debut album of the first wave of British Punk". A group of experimentalists, the band adopted the punk minimalist approach that the Ramones promoted so well but, unlike their US counterparts they stripped it back even further to produce a far more concentrated effect. Hence, they manage to float a total of 21 songs onto an album that runs for 35 minutes. Whereas the Ramones worked to a formula and stuck with it (if it ain't broke, don't fix it), the Wire were totally unpredictable and bombarded the LP with idea after idea. Their styles ranged from the hardcore punk of "12 x U" to the haunting tenderness of "Fragile".

The extent of the band's influence can be measured by the number of different artists who have covered tracks from this album; Henry Rollins' treatment of "Ex Lion Tamer" (1987), Firehose covering "Mannequin" (1992), Minor Threat producing their version of "12 x U" in 1982, Elastica adding a touch of Britpop to "Three Girl Rhumba" in 1994 and R.E.M's re-work of "Strange" in 1987. This is as varied a cocktail of artists as the album itself.

Answer: Sham 69

Sham 69 proved to be a band that was either loved or hated. Unfortunately for them, amongst the haters was a large portion of the music press, which meant they struggled to gain traction with a wider audience. Amongst the music critics they were labelled by some as being the equals of the Clash but, for the most part, they were seen described as simply "dumb".

Sham 69 was a project of Jimmy Pursey's and he was putting together a band to promote his ideas as early as 1975. It was in 1977 that the line-up that released the breakthrough album, "Tell Us the Truth", came together. Their live shows could not be described as artful but their intensity was undeniable, albeit, prone to violence. Their debut album is divided in two, one half, a live set, which endeavours to capture them in their most natural environment and the other is made up of studio recordings. Its critical reception was lukewarm. Whilst they would continue to produce albums in the future (2021 saw them release their 15th studio album), their debut is still seen by most as their best work.

So why are they here? Put simply, they were one of the forerunners of a punk sub-genre called Oi!. From its outset Oi! was considered a skinhead orientated movement that fused punk rock with a combination of elements such glam rock, the harder rock of the Who and the Small Faces and soccer chants. As if to emphasize the latter, midway through the live set of "Tell Us the Truth", the crowd erupts into a spontaneous chant of "Knees Up Mother Brown".

Answer: Generation X

In the hallways of punk rock Generation X will appear as a small blip on a large radar. The main reason is that they didn't fit in and will probably be best remembered as the band that launched the career of Billy Idol. That, however, is a little unfair as they, as a group, did as much to promote the concept of pop-punk as did the Buzzcocks. They were stylized punk and this incurred the ire of Johnny Rotten, whose vitriolic put-down of the band, only served to gain them more publicity.

Whilst they lacked the political nous that the Clash put forward and front on aggression of the Sex Pistols they did produce a much cleaner and more refined sound than their contemporaries and their vocals were much more focused. You won't find a directly political song, nor will you hear the band bemoaning their lot as youths on this, their self-titled debut album, but you will hear a range of full-on punk songs that have been sewn together with melodic sensibilities and delivered with Idol's trademark sneer. Within a year Generation X would fall from the charts and disintegrate but Idol would be the phoenix rising from those ashes.

Answer: Devo

The inclusion of Devo in this set is bound to raise eyebrows. Let's face it, when you say the band's name, the majority of people are going to say "Whip it... whip it good", point to their string of dance hits and say "huh"! It's true, virtually 90% of their songs in the 1980s were dance orientated and that overshadows the fact that their 1978 debut album was built on a foundation of punk rock. Yes, they did use synthesizers but, on this album, they are somewhat lost behind the guitars and drums and are generally used to provide a textural element to their overall sound.

Influences abound on this LP. The title was inspired by a line from the H.G. Wells' novel "The Island of Doctor Moreau" and its lyrics draw on the satire and absurd style that was introduced by the like of Frank Zappa and the Mothers. They broach subjects as obtuse as Ronald McDonald and cannibalistic apes and they produced a quirky and off-kilter version of the Rolling Stones' 1965 hit "Satisfaction". The latter is almost unrecognizable from the original and the band have denuded it of personality and emotion. Whilst it almost sounds sacrilegious to be toying with a classic in this manner it does sound like Devo are announcing "that was then... this is now". David Bowie would come out and declare them to be the "band of the future" and, in some respects, he was right. This LP would become a major stepping stone in the creation of the New Wave movement.

Answer: The Jam

Led by Paul Weller, The Jam were very much influenced by Ray Davies and The Kinks. They adopted the punk ethos of social protest and presented themselves as angry young men. However, they did so, not in worker's overalls or torn denim jeans, but well tailored suits. Labelled as a mod-punk revival band early in their careers, The Jam stepped out of the shadows with their third studio album "All Mod Cons" in 1978 to define their own style. Weller adopted a story writer's narrative with his lyrics, painting stark images of British factory floors and dole queues.

The album shows deep focus and maturity but the best is left to last, with the final two tracks providing a hellish picture of life in a British city. "A Bomb in Wardour Street" screams of rape and murder ("My head's been kicked in and blood's started to pour/Through the haze I can see my girl/Fifteen geezers got her pinned to the door") and "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" reeks of a similar brutality ('The last thing that I saw/ As I lay there on the floor/Was "Jesus Saves" painted by an atheist nutter"). It would be these captured moments that would earn Paul Weller the tag of the "voice of a generation".

Answer: X-Ray Spex

In an article in 2005, the punk rock magazine Popmatters, wrote nobody managed as potent a combination of rage, wickedly acerbic social commentary, pop hooks, and pure rock 'n' roll fun quite like X-Ray Spex did". Despite only releasing the one album, during the heady days of punk in 1977 and 1978, the Spex were in your face with their attacks on consumerism and artificiality. As lead singer Poly Styrene, graced with braces on her teeth and decked out in Day-Glo rags, was shouting out to audiences "I'm a poseur and I don't care! I like to make people stare", in the background, 15 year old Lora Logic was belting out notes on a saxophone - an instrument that was rarely seen in a punk outfits kitbag.

X-Ray Spex would become one of the influences of the underground female punk style of the 1990s, the "Riot Grrrl" movement. This is despite their only album never being released in the United States.

Answer: Siouxsie And The Banshees

In September 1976 Malcolm McLaren organized a two-day punk festival at the 100 Club in London. A day before the event a support slot became open and a young lady by the name of Susan Ballion cornered three of her friends, Steve Severin (bass), Marco Pirroni (guitar) and John Ritchie (later to be known as Sid Vicious) and suggested they should fill this slot. They attempted to play "Twist and Shout", "Knocking on Heaven's Door", "Deutschland Uber Alles" and an improvised version of "The Lord's Prayer". None of them could play and it showed. Their twenty-minute set was shambolic. But, the voice on that "chick" up front was pure dynamite.

The band became the basis for the Banshees, Susan Ballion became Siouxsie Sioux and, together, they would change the face of punk rock. Siouxsie was intense, domineering and presented herself as the gothic ice-queen. She changed the way that females presented themselves, she changed their outlook on fashion. She was an agitator, a provocateur. Eighteen months after that shambolic debut they launched their first album, "The Scream". The sound is raw but crisp. The melodies are never quite conventional. Siouxsie, at times, sounds tribal and piercing but leaves no doubt she is the star. The impressive nature of the album is its diversity in sound, with the members unafraid to sound poppy without losing their aggression. Did the band produce better albums later? They certainly did, but that doesn't matter. With this disc they turned rock and roll on its head and provided influence to numerous bands.