LONDON, NEW YORK, BOLLOCKS.

PHOTO - RADIO BIRDMAN 1977.

Watching THE SAINTS video clip below got me thinking about the 'history of punk' and the way so many people have written about it, it strikes me that it was a lot like the history lessons we used to get in schools, i.e we only learned about the kings and queens and not what what was happening around them. For example, who remembers learning about the lives of the mass of people involved in the 1381 poll tax rebellion? or how the peasant population was affected by the events of the battle of Hastings or the inhabitants living around the country leading up to the battle of agincourt?
Like wise with the 'history of punk', we only ever hear about a select group of bands from new york and London. This narrow 'history' which has been so repeated over and over again totally ignores the emergence of bands from the 1970's who were just as important as THE SEX PISTOLS or THE RAMONES in their own particular scenes.
Punk didn't just happen in three cities (London, Manchester and New york), it was also emerging in cities and countries all over the world at the same time as the 'kings and queens' of punk were being crowned.
THE SAINTS are the easiest example (what with having that gem of a video clip below which i never knew existed before i found it and then put it up straight away) of punk happening away from the big well known places, down under had its own punk scene/s (im going to include New Zealand and Australia as one for the purpose of this article -Anzac punk if you like!), apart from the SAINTS there was also RADIO BIRDMAN, and that is just two bands who managed to make a name for themselves abroad, there was also many others who never became well known outside of their local scene or country, the only other 'punk' band who made a name for themselves were INXS who had detoured musically and gone down the 'pop' road before they became famous, and another band who were good but didn't make much of a musical dent despite having records released here were I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVY, their 'fruit loop city LP is just one record that was good but ignored.
Auckland in New Zealand produced a compilation LP in 1979 called AK79 that combined the bands that had been around for the previous few years and featured local 'top' bands like PROUD SCUM, THE SCAVENGERS, THE TERRORWAYS, TOY LOVE, THE SWINGERS and THE PRIMMERS (some bands had shifting and swapping line ups), and that's just the bands that made it on to vinyl.
France is another example of a country who had a mid 1970's 'punk' scene that is ignored, the only punk band from France who ever get a mention in all the 'punk history' books were THE STINKY TOYS, yet there was enough of an early French scene to put on a festival (the Mont de marson festival), famous for putting on THE DAMNED and some PUB ROCK bands who were thought of as punk in France (they were less snobby than many musically, which makes a change!) as well as french bands that played (who are never even mentioned by name), the Paris punk scene in the mid 1970's was musically centered on the NEW YORK DOLLS, FLAMING GROOVIES (American pub rock!) as well as THE RAMONES, PATTI SMITH and later the emerging English bands, they even had their own bands and some have claimed that France 'had' a punk scene before London or new york, by the late 1970's they were producing bands like METAL URBAIN then the TROTSKIDS and some time later THE BRIGADES, Paris even had its own version of the ROUGH TRADE/SMALL WONDER record shops where the Parisian punks would go to by records and hang about outside during the 1970's as well as having its own record labels, the most famous being SKYDOG, and there was also the label that released the SEX PISTOLS for the french market.

Even Belgium was releasing punk records in the 1970's and its RAVEN label produced what is one of the rarest SEX PISTOLS bootleg's of their 'indecent exposure' LP
Holland had its own bands as well in 77, THE HAMMEROIDS being just one example (a late 1990's mixed seven inch e.p called 'lets start a riot -in Holland' gave us previously unreleased bands from '77 for the first time on record), Switzerland even started producing bands in 77, KLEENEX being their first.
Even Sweden had a scene in 77, the two most famous bands being EBBA GRON and (their bestest early band) THE RUDE KIDS, and later we had THE SHITLICKERS who made a great e.p called 'cracked cop skulls' (i wonder what that was about? the drawing of a punk kicking a downed policeman on the cover gives us a hint!) and Norway gave us TROJNE* in the late 70's.
Even Germany had DIE TOTEN HOSEN by 1977.
PUNK wasn't just 'born' in two cities as the 'history' books tell us, it was happening all over the world during the 1970's, even other American scenes are only just mentioned, the west coast punk scene in the U.S is barely mentioned despite giving us the likes of THE AVENGERS, and X to name just two, Ohio gets a look in sometimes in passing due to the fact that they produced PERE UBU and DEVO, both original sounding punk bands in the 70's, and over here the early Scottish and Irish scene's only rarely gets a mention despite the great bands they produced.
So when reading about the same bunch of bands that get mentioned every time the 'history of punk' is yet again re-told see if any of the above bands get equal treatment despite their importance for the punk fans who didn't have access to the 'kings and queens' of punk (SEX PISTOLS, RAMONES, BUZZCOCKS, RICHARD HELL, JOHNNY THUNDERS, BLONDIE, PATTI SMITH, THE SLITS, etc etc), because without these bands to keep local scenes going there wouldn't of been anyone around for there to be a ready made market for the 'first wave' bands to play and sell records to or set the scene for later bands.
These 'unsung' bands were just as important to early punks ascension and helped punk to catch on in so many places so quickly, punk wouldn't of got where it did without these unknown bands and deserve their place alongside the likes of THE DAMNED and the DEAD BOYS (the DEAD BOYS coming later than many of the bands ive already mentioned despite their status as an 'early' punk band).
Get hunting and you will find a world full of punk music and bands that were just as important but were sadly overlooked or ignored.
VIVE LE PUNK!

*see correction in the comment section.