Punk blues
Punk blues | |
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Stylistic origins: | Jump blues, R&B, Rockabilly, Punk rock, Post-punk, early rock'n'roll, Garage rock, Blues, Swamp rock |
Cultural origins: | Early 1980s United States |
Typical instruments: | Guitar - Bass - Drums-Piano-Harmonica-Hammond, Farfisa or |
Mainstream popularity: | Largely underground and popular with Punks, Teds, Rockers, Greasers and Hipsters. A few bands such as The White Stripes have had mainstream success. |
Regional scenes | |
England, Europe, United States | |
Other topics | |
Timeline of alternative rock, Swamp rock, No wave, Post punk, |
Allmusic.com states that punk blues draws on the influence of the "...garage rock sound of the mid-'60s, the primal howl of early Captain Beefheart, and especially in the raw and desperate sound of the Gun Club's landmark Fire of Love LP from 1981."[1] According to allmusic.com, "...punk blues really came to life in the early '90s with bands like the seminal Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the Gories, and the Gibson Brothers", and "...continued into the 2000s with even more visibility thanks to the popularity of the White Stripes."[2]
Contents |
Notable Performers
1980s
Gun Club
Denise Sullivan of allmusic.com likens the Gun Club band leader Jeffrey Lee Pierce's vocal style to an “exorcism-in-progress”, and states that “tribal, psychobilly blues is the best way to describe Gun Club's energetic death rock...”. Sullivan calls their 1981 debut album, Fire of Love “a punk/blues hybrid” and refers to the band’s 1985's EP Death Party as “a swingin' piece of punkabilly”. [3] According to Greg Prato of allmusic.com, the Gun Club’s “merging...of hardcore punk, rockabilly, and country” made the band’s style an antecedent to the '' genre. [4]
1990s
Flat Duo Jets
The Flat Duo Jets were a drums and guitar two piece band from [North Carolina]. Fronted by singer songwriter Dexter Romweber they formed in 1983 but did not release a full length album until 1990. They combined blues and rockabilly influences with punk rock and influenced Jack White of the White Stripes.
The played a noisy and sinsister brand of blues influenced garage music, strongly influenced by the Gun Club. Reviewer Ben Donnelly from Dusted magazine states that the Chrome Cranks "came at the tail end of the trash rock vibe that ran through the underground and overlapped through post-punk, noise rock and grunge." Donnelly says that the "...Cranks weren't the peak of the form (as the liner notes by singer Peter Aaron all too modestly admit", but he states that "...the roughest tracks on [albums like] Diabolical Boogie, the sort of things that could be overdriven blurs, are the most powerful."[5]
2000s
White Stripes
The blues influences on Detroit's White Stripes can be heard in their electric cover versions of Son House's "Death Letter Blues", McTells' "Your Southern Can Belongs To Me", and Blind Willie Johnson's "John the Revelator". Jack White plays guitar, while Meg White plays the drum kit. A 2000 review stated that the band's "...noisy, wicked electric-slide blues songs...sound like the Reverend Horton Heat...[and] Robert Johnson". In addition, the review states that the band is "...the Blues, as authentic and honest and real as it gets." [6]
References
- ^ http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=77:13419
- ^ http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=77:13419
- ^ http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll, under the article title "Gun Club"
- ^ http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll, under the article title "Gun Club"
- ^ http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/3362
- ^ The White Stripes Do Four Dates In NZ - http://www.blues.co.nz/news/article.php?id=373
See also
- List of Punk blues musicians and bands
- Cowpunk
- Garage punk
- Psychobilly
- Punkabilly
- Post-punk
- Garage rock
- Indie rock
- Folk punk
- Swing revival
- Dark Cabaret
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2 Tone - Anarcho-punk - Avant-punk - Celtic punk - Christian punk - Cowpunk - Crust punk - Dance-punk - Emo - Folk punk - Garage punk - Gaelic punk - Glam punk - Gothabilly - Gypsy punk - Hardcore punk - Post-hardcore - Horror punk - Nazi punk - New Wave - No Wave - Noise rock - Oi! - Pop punk - Post-punk - Psychobilly - Punk blues - Punk metal - Punk Pathetique - Queercore - Ska punk - Skate punk - Synthpunk - Taqwacore | |
Other topics | Afro-punk- Protopunk - DIY ethic - First wave punk musicians - Second wave punk musicians - List of punk bands - Punk subculture - Punk movies - Punk fashion - Punk ideologies - Punk visual art - Punk dance - Punk literature - Punk zine - Rock Against Communism - Straight edge |