Punk rock is a music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the corporate nature of mainstream 1970s rock music. They typically produced short, fast-paced songs with hard-edged melodies and singing styles with stripped-down instrumentation. Lyricism in punk typically revolves around anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian themes. Punk embraces a DIY ethic; many bands self-produce recordings and distribute them through independent labels.
Power pop is a subgenre of rock music and a form of pop rock based on the early music of bands such as the Who, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Byrds. It typically incorporates melodic hooks, vocal harmonies, an energetic performance, and cheerful sounding music underpinned by a sense of yearning, longing, despair, or self-empowerment. The sound is primarily rooted in pop and rock traditions of the early-to-mid 1960s, although some artists have occasionally drawn from later styles such as punk, new wave, glam rock, pub rock, college rock, and neo-psychedelia.
Spacemen 3 were an English rock band, formed in 1982 in Rugby, Warwickshire, by Peter Kember and Jason Pierce, known respectively under their pseudonyms Sonic Boom and J Spaceman. Their music is known for its brand of "trance-like neo-psychedelia" consisting of heavily distorted guitar, synthesizers, and minimal chord or tempo changes.
Steven John Bator, known professionally as Stiv Bator and later as Stiv Bators, was an American punk rock vocalist and guitarist from Girard, Ohio. He is best remembered for his bands Dead Boys and The Lords of the New Church.
A punk zine is a zine related to the punk subculture and hardcore punk music genre. Often primitively or casually produced, they feature punk literature, such as social commentary, punk poetry, news, gossip, music reviews and articles about punk rock bands or regional punk scenes.
Frank Secich is an American rock musician, songwriter, author and record producer. He was the bass player and founding member of the group Blue Ash from 1969 to 1979 and guitarist and bassist for the Stiv Bators band from 1979 until 1981. He played in the Cleveland-based group Club Wow with Jimmy Zero of the Dead Boys from 1982 to 1985 and produced the Ohio band the Infidels from 1985 to 1990. He is currently the rhythm guitarist for the Deadbeat Poets who were formed in 2006 in Youngstown, Ohio. Frank Secich's autobiography "Circumstantial Evidence" was published by High Voltage Publishing of Australia in 2015. His second book "Not That Way Anymore" was published in November 2023 by High Voltage Publishing. His current band, The Deadbeat Poets are on Pop Detective Records, which is owned by Mark Hershberger.
The Weirdos are an American punk rock band from Los Angeles. They formed in 1975, split-up in 1981, re-grouped in 1986 and have remained semi-active ever since. Critic Mark Deming calls them "quite simply, one of the best and brightest American bands of punk's first wave."
Greg Shaw was an American writer, publisher, magazine editor, music historian and record executive.
The Masque was a small punk rock club in central Hollywood, California which existed from 1977 to 1978. It is remembered as a key part of the early LA punk scene.
Slash was a punk rock-related fanzine published by Steve Samiof and Melanie Nissen in the United States from 1977 to 1980. The magazine was a large-format tabloid focused on the Los Angeles punk scene. The fanzine also gave birth to Slash Records, an important punk record label.
Neo-psychedelia is a diverse genre of psychedelic music that draws inspiration from the sounds of 1960s psychedelia, either updating or copying the approaches from that era. Originating in the 1970s, it has occasionally seen mainstream pop success but is typically explored within alternative rock scenes. It initially developed as an outgrowth of the British post-punk scene, where it was also known as acid punk. After post-punk, neo-psychedelia flourished into a more widespread and international movement of artists who applied the spirit of psychedelic rock to new sounds and techniques.
The history of the punk subculture involves the history of punk rock, the history of various punk ideologies, punk fashion, punk visual art, punk literature, dance, and punk film. Since emerging in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia in the mid-1970s, the punk subculture has spread around the globe and evolved into a number of different forms. The history of punk plays an important part in the history of subcultures in the 20th century.
AIP Records is a record label that was started by Greg Shaw's Bomp! Records in 1983 to continue the Pebbles series. AIP stands for "Archive International Productions". The first 10 volumes in the Pebbles series had been released by BFD Records of Kookaburra, Australia in 1979–1980 and have been kept in print by AIP for many years. Including those in the companion Highs in the Mid-Sixties series – which concentrated on American regional music scenes – there are over 50 LPs covering some 800 obscure, mostly American "Original Punk Rock" songs recorded in the mid-1960s – primarily known today as the garage rock and psychedelic rock genres – that were previously known only to a handful of collectors.
Garage punk is a rock music fusion genre combining the influences of garage rock, punk rock, and often other genres, that took shape in the indie rock underground between the late 1980s and early 1990s. Bands drew heavily from 1960s garage rock, stripped-down 1970s punk rock, and Detroit proto-punk, and often incorporated numerous other styles into their approach, such as power pop, 1960s girl groups, hardcore punk, blues, early R&B and surf rock.
The Red Hearts are an American garage punk band from Los Angeles, California, United States.
The Vampire Lovers, also styled as Vampyre Lovers or Vampire Lovers, were an Australian punk rock band formed in 1982 in Brisbane, Queensland. Original band members were Axle "Axe Babe" Conrad on vocals, Brendan Kibble on guitar, Shane Cooke on bass guitar, Matt "Nasty" Le Noury on guitar and Dave Chamberlain on drums. Other members included guitarist Jason Shepherd; and drummer, Ziggy Staten. Initially the group existed from 1982 to 1984 and then reformed in 1988 to disband finally in 1990. In 1983 their first single, "Buzzsaw Popstar", brought greater recognition from the Australia alternative rock fans. In 1991 they released a mini-LP, Acid Commandos from Planet Fuzz, a year after they had disbanded.
Slope Records is a record label based in Sunnyslope, Arizona.
The Original Modern Lovers is an album of songs recorded by American rock band the Modern Lovers. The sessions were produced by Kim Fowley in 1973 and first released in 1981 by Fowley's short-lived Mohawk Records label, a subsidiary of Bomp! Records.
Disconnected is the debut solo album by Stiv Bators, released in December 1980 on Bomp!. The album is a radical departure from the punk rock sound of his previous band the Dead Boys, and sees Bators venturing into 1960s-inspired power pop.
Punk 45: Chaos in the City of Angels and Devils is a 2016 compilation album released by Soul Jazz Records. The album compiles early music from the Los Angeles punk rock music scene from various intendent music labels, such as Dangerhouse, Upsetter and Bomp! Records.
