2025! The 50th Anniversary of PUNK?

1975: It Was a Very Good Year!

This year will kick off “The 50th Anniversary of PUNK,” since the magazine was launched at the dirty, dingy “Punk Dump” storefront office at 10th Avenue and 30th Street in November 1975. That was really the year that punk rock started, when you think about it:

Television opened 1975 with four weekend shows in January and February. When Richard Hell was in the band they were punk rock. There is some videotape of early Television that shows this, and I heard that a feature film documentary cleared the rights and it will be available soon. When does the Sundance Film Festival begin? It might debut there.

The New York Dolls, leaders of New York City glam rock scene, played their last New York City show with Thunders and Nolan at the Little Hippodrome club in March 1975, supported by Pure Hell and Television—which marked Richard Hell’s last performance with the band he co-founded. It was when glam rock died and punk rock began to take over the New York music scene. But it’s also when Television drifted away from punk rock and became a guitar band. Meanwhile Richard Hell joined The Heartbreakers with Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan and Walter Lure. They played their first gig on May 30, 1975 t The Coventry and performed at CBGB on July 4th.

That was also the first time I heard about CBGB’s: a nice woman picked me up and got me into the New York Dolls’ after-party, but I got bored and left and sadly never saw her again. (And yes, she warned me about the dog shit on the floor!)

That same month The Dictators Go Girl Crazy! LP was released. Although their music was more classic rock ’n’ roll than Ramones-style punk, at the time it was the most punk rock noise anyone ever heard. The music was fast and loud and the lyrics were offensive, funny and stupid.

In the early 1970s those of us who loved punk rock music listened to bands like The Stooges, the MC5, The Alice Cooper Group, Brownsville Station, and what’s now called “garage rock.” Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets LP, and Greg Shaw’s Who Put The Bomp magazine called those bands “punk rock.” They weren’t far off. CBGB bands were all trying to bring rock music back to its roots. The Dictators were definitely a bridge between garage and punk.

The shows at CBGB featuring Patti Smith and Television on the same bill in early 1975 received a lot of positive media attention. The Patti Smith Group received their first record contract on May 1st as a result. That was the first time when it started to get crowded,” doorwoman Roberta Bayley said, “and I think by the end it was sold out.” (Quote from “Patti Smith’s Star Rises,” posted at The Downtown Pop Underground).

The 1975 CBGB Summer Rock Festival brought media attention to bands like the Ramones, the Talking Heads and Blondie. Forty bands performed over that summer and CBGB became “The Place” for new bands to get noticed. I went to see the Ramones in August, 1975 and there wasn’t a huge crowd, but the scene was growing and I figured that this was the future of rock ’n’ roll.

The summer of 1975 is also when I went back to my hometown and worked with Ged Dunn, Jr. and Eddie McNeil, and when I played that first Dictators LP, which inspired us to start a new music magazine.

Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music was released in July, 1975: a double album of feedback noise. I always think this was the ultimate punk statement.

The Sex Pistols performed their first gig in November 1975, opening for Bazooka Joe, a 1950s-style rock ’n’ roll band. Only a few dozen people attended the show, and the Pistols weren’t advertised on the poster for the show.

On November 10, 1975 The Patti Smith Group’s first LP Horses was released, bringing a lot of attention to CBGB and the early punk rock scene. Above is a record cover parody I did, hope you like it!

A few weeks later, on Thanksgiving weekend I interviewed Lou Reed at CBGB and the first issue of PUNK began to be printed on December 31st, 1975. And around this time the Ramones signed their first record contract with Sire Records. So I always figure that punk rock was conceived in 1975: The elements all started to come together, and set the stage for everything that happened in 1976. Once the first issue of PUNK was published and the Ramones first LP was released in April 1976, “punk rock” was born. So 2026 will mark the 50th Anniversary of PUNK!

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