THE BIRTH OF PUNK at CBGB on November 23, 1975
Part One: MEETING THE RAMONES
To me, it’s obvious that punk rock started when a magazine called “PUNK” went to a dive bar on the Bowery to interview a then (mostly) obscure rock band called the Ramones, talked with them about “punk rock,” then landed an interview with Lou Reed (who had recently released a double album of guitar feedback and noise called Metal Machine Music, which almost ended his career). That first issue of PUNK Magazine ended up stirring up so much interest in the media that “punk rock” became a new phenomenon.
I plan to spend the next year going over some of the events that took place in 1976, and promoting events related to the upcoming 50th anniversary of punk rock.
Eddie McNeil and I rented a storefront on 10th Avenue and 30th Street in late October 1975, and Ged Dunn, Jr. joined us soon afterwards. Before that I was living in Brooklyn, trying to get work as an illustrator. At the time Eddie and I were working on a comic strip for a men’s magazine (I wish I had saved the drawings—they were good!). After Ged agreed to start a company with us we quickly got to work on that idea.
The three of us came together after shooting Eddie McNeil’s indie comedy film (The Unthinkables) during the summer of 1975. Ged planned to start a film company with Eddie and a magazine with me. I had a bit of experience: I published a comic book (DomeLand, with CHARAS in September 1973), and had taken classes at the School of Visual Arts with Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman that involved publishing. I also took a night class at SVA on “How to Start a Business with Little or No Money” with Shelli Lipton. Of course, my father had self-published a book of his POW sketches as well, so I was familiar with the territory.
But the incident that got me started thinking about starting a magazine (instead of working in the comic book industry) took place in May 1974, when Harvey Kurtzman set up a meeting with the publisher of a new humor magazine called The National Harpoon. Harvey talked the publisher into hiring me as one of the editors: Harvey was even going to draw the cover illustration for the first issue! The drawing was going to show an Arab oil sheik squeezing the balls of the world globe (the oil crisis was in full bloom at the time and this would have been very commercial). Being the editor of a magazine seemed like a very cool job! I started thinking up all kinds of ideas for a new humor magazine: this was the most fun I ever had.
Unfortunately, the publisher only started the magazine to threaten The National Lampoon into getting bought out in a lawsuit, and his scheme worked. I lost my job within a week or two, but the idea of being the editor of a national magazine was something… Wild! Fun! Crazy! And… suddenly possible. So when Ged Dunn, Jr. offered the opportunity to work together to publish a magazine together, I was all in.
Ged Dunn, Jr. had no experience whatsoever in publishing or film but he figured that Eddie and I knew what we were doing and could make things happen. Ged was often saying: “Decades define themselves in the middle,” as in how Elvis and rock and roll music started in the mid-1950s and the Beatles started ‘60s culture in late 1963-64, so what were waiting for! We had the opportunity to start something that would define the 1970s. We might not have known what we were doing but we knew that we had to make it happen. We were determined to change the world!
Eddie was working with a hippie film cooperative that was making a dumbass hippie film (Total Impact!) about their commune. Meanwhile they tried to fund their project by making a porn film: Blow Dry (available at xhamster if you’re curious, Eddie plays a small, comedic role in the movie).
Eddie wanted nothing to do with the magazine at the time, he thought the idea of starting a magazine was “stupid,” so Ged and I co-founded the magazine, working with a lawyer I met once upon a time. After we came up with the idea to call the magazine “PUNK” and blue-skied about setting up a wrestling match between Eddie and Handsome Dick Manitoba of The Dictators, we nicknamed Eddie “Legs” and he agreed to get involved as the “Resident Punk.” The three of us were on the same page for a short time. Ged had a few thousand dollars for the start-ups. We had a cool office space. Life was good.
What brought the three of us together was The Dictators Go Girl Crazy, their first album that I brought to Ged’s apartment in the middle of Cheshire, Connecticut while we worked on Eddie’s film, so of course we wanted to put them on the cover of PUNK #1. After we contacted Epic Records and were told that the Dictators broke up and “would NEVER get back together again”, I knew the Ramones would be the next best option: I had seen them at CBGB’s in August 1975 and thought those two bands would be the foundation for a new music revolution. I somehow knew the Ramones would get a record deal soon and assumed they’d become huge! I had seen a lot of rock bands over the years and they were just so amazing.
The Ramones were appearing at CBGB’s over Thanksgiving weekend. Ged visited his family over the holiday weekend (hoping that he could talk them into allowing him to use his trust fund to fund his new ventures). Eddie wanted to go, and talked a couple of photographers from the film commune (Marty Knopf and Pat Homes, who gifted us the photos and wished us good luck after the event—sometimes I love hippies!). Legs also brought along the film commune’s cook: Mary Harron.
When we got to the door of CBGB, Legs barged his way into the door, snarling: “We’re from PUNK Magazine!’ Somehow the door person (probably Roberta Bayley) let the three of us in for free since we were press—instead of throwing us out. (Also probably because the place was almost empty.) This was big, since we didn’t have the $2.00 admission fee back then: six bucks was a lot of money!). We soon got permission from the Ramones manager (a guy named Danny Fields) to do an interview: after their first show. (Back in the day, CBGB would book two bands to pay two sets).
Legs, Mary and I sat at the front table, just a few feet away from the Ramones as they performed an amazing set. Their 20-minute set was amazing. At one point they all got pissed off and stormed off the stage! Rock bands didn't show that kind of emotion onstage back then. And it wasn’t part of their performance. The Ramones were just plain weird.
Legs and I pumped our fists in the air when the Ramones played “Blitzkrieg Bop” and I envisioned that the song would someday be played in football stadiums, the way Gary Glitter and The Bay City Rollers were.
After their first set, our interview with the band was a bit difficult. I think this might have been the first time they ever did a formal interview. Only Tommy and Johnny spoke, and they were guarded in their comments. They wanted to portray themselves as a “bubblegum” band, influenced by bands like the 1910 Fruitgum Company (“Simon Says,” “Indian Giver” and “One, Two Three Red Light”, which was covered by the Talking Heads back then) and the Ohio Express ( whose 1960s hits were: “Yummy Yummy Yummy” and Chewy Chewy”. This made some sense at the time, since their manager Danny Fields was editor of Sixteen magazine at the time, and he could have promoted them through the most popular pre-teen, bubblegum-loving music magazine in the world. But I thought of them as the personification of PUNK!
Leather jackets, blue jeans, sneakers, and t-shirts. Short songs without a drum solo. Without a guitar solo. “Judy is a Punk!” Snarling, punk attitude towards the audience.
This is something people need to understand: CBGB was not a punk rock club in 1975-1976, not in the sense that people think of the movement today. Most of the bands were united that they were attempting a rock music revival. Most of the bands were influenced by the British Invasion groups like The Who, The Kinks, etc., others by American garage rock. Wayne County loved the Dave Clark Five. The CBG juke box featured mostly songs from Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets LP. It was a new movement that eventually created “New Wave” music.
Except for the Ramones (who were influenced more by The Stooges than 1910 Fruitgum Company to be honest), there were no punk bands at CBGB. Early Televison were totally punk rock, but by 1975 they were a guitar band, more like the Grateful Dead than the Sex Pistols. Blondie was raw and played some hard rock songs, and the Talking Heads were a weird novelty act that everyone loved (but no one thought could ever become commercial). Most of the bands that played there were far from punk rock. We were the only people promoting “punk rock” back then—but even the Ramones didn’t want any part of it. They wanted to be a rock ‘n’ roll band—like the Beatles, the tones, The Who, etc. The CBGB bands welcomed any publicity we might give them, but not many musicians embraced the label.
Most musicians performing at CBGB in 1975 and 1976 thought the Ramones were a bad joke. As someone said to me after they got signed: “People aren’t going to buy their record since all their songs sound exactly the same! No one’s going to like it!”
The English press covered the CBGB music scene very early on (especially the New Musical Express). In one article they referred to the Ramones as “Heavy Metal Bubblegum,” which was spot on. Had I known that description at the time I might have used the term. But I saw them as the first true “punk rock” band. I first read about “punk rock” in the pages of Creem magazine when Lester Bangs was the editor.
It was a loose term, given to describe trashy, mostly glam bands (The Stooges, Alice Cooper, Sweet, the New York Dolls) as opposed to “glitter rock” (Rod Stewart, Elton John, Jobriath). When Slade quit their glam image, cut their hair and wore Doc Martens and overalls, punk rock was obliviously on the horizon. Other English bands (like The Sensational Harvey Band and Australian band AC/DC, who were touring England at the time) were glam bands that took on the “punk attitude.” Eddie and the Hot Rods (now referred to as a “Pub Rock” band) were often referred to as a “punk rock” band by the English press back then. Meanwhile, back in the states, you had Stooges-influenced bands like The Gizmos, Rocket From the Tombs, MX-80, Pure Hell and others. But none of them were able to deliver the goods like the Ramones.
To me? In 1975? The Ramones defined punk rock. Although they resisted the term for many years: They were the first punk rock band. That first album changed the world.
The Ramones defined the sound of punk rock, and PUNK Magazine created the movement behind them. “Legs” McNeil was the first self-described punk and PUNK Magazine created an instant sensation in the rock press at the time. We spent a lot of time promoting the Ramones and “punk rock” after the first issue was published in 1976. And people thought we were nuts.
Anyhow, back to CBGB. After Eddie and I interviewed the Ramones, Danny Fields mentioned that Lou Reed was in the club. “Would you like to talk with him?”
NEXT: Meeting Lou Reed
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A lot of what you say about trying in the blossoming of what came to be called “punk rock” to the birth of Punk Magazine will piss some people off. But I say, hey, that’s how I remember it too.
If you can't piss someone off, then you can't call yourself "punk," right?