The Downstroke
Johnny Ramone played every song with downstrokes only. He locked his right wrist and attacked all six strings on every barre chord at tempos exceeding 170 beats per minute, a technique derived from obsessive repetition of Jimmy Page’s riff on Communication Breakdown. He used a Mosrite through two Marshall 100-watt heads with 4x12 cabinets, no pedals, volume high enough for the natural overdrive to produce a buzzing wall of sound. His chord vocabulary: two barre chord shapes moved up and down the neck. The Ramones’ debut, recorded at Plaza Sound in New York in January 1976, cost $6,400. Producer Craig Leon tracked it in seven days. Fourteen songs in 29 minutes, every track following the same architecture: count in, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, done. No bridges, no solos, no dynamic shifts.
The Wall at Wessex
If the Ramones proved punk rock could be skeletal, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols proved it could be enormous. Steve Jones played a 1974 white Les Paul Custom and a 1954 Black Beauty with P-90s through a Fender Twin fitted with Gauss speakers that pushed the midrange. Producer Chris Thomas layered Jones’s rhythm guitar in pairs, then added overdubs to emphasize rhythmic accents or fill gaps with feedback. On Anarchy in the U.K. alone, there were roughly 16 guitar tracks. An MXR Phase 90, run slightly out of sync on paired rhythm tracks, gave the guitars a churning texture. On some songs, Jones tuned the Les Paul down an octave and played the bass parts himself, meaning there is no actual bass guitar on portions of the record. The sessions stretched from October 1976 through June 1977 at Wessex Sound Studios in Highbury, London. The album credit reads “Produced by Chris Thomas or Bill Price,” a deliberate ambiguity. The result sounds like a single furious guitarist but is one of the most meticulously constructed rock records of the 1970s.
The Clash and the Refusal to Stand Still
London Calling, recorded at Wessex Studios in August 1979 with producer Guy Stevens, absorbed rockabilly, reggae, jazz balladry, and full-throttle rock into a double album that treated punk’s energy as a starting point. Stevens had unorthodox methods: he swung a ladder around the studio and poured wine over Strummer’s piano. The band recorded in 18-hour sessions, most songs captured in one or two takes, the album finished in five weeks. CBS wanted a single LP. The Clash insisted on a double sold at single-album price, accepting reduced royalties. Strummer called it “our first real victory over CBS.” Jones composed the music; Strummer wrote the lyrics. The result proved punk rock musicians could play anything if they chose to.
Hardcore and the Speed Wars
Bad Brains formed in Washington, D.C., in 1977 as a jazz fusion band called Mind Power. After discovering punk, they changed their name (from the Ramones song Bad Brain) and accelerated everything. Vocalist H.R. shifted from hardcore screaming to reggae crooning within a single set. Guitarist Dr. Know played riffs at speeds that surpassed anything the punk world had heard. Their self-titled debut, released on the cassette-only label ROIR on 5 February 1982, interspersed blistering tracks like Pay to Cum with reggae songs like Jah Calling. Fans called it “The Yellow Tape.” The band’s Rastafarianism and PMA (positive mental attitude, from Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich) coexisted with the most violent music in American punk.
In the same city, Minor Threat’s Ian MacKaye wrote songs rarely exceeding 90 seconds. Straight Edge named a drug-free philosophy that spread through hardcore nationwide. Out of Step, recorded in three days at Inner Ear Studios in January 1983, was tracked live: MacKaye sang in the hallway under a staircase next to the washer and dryer while the band played in the rec room.
SST and the Machinery of Independence
Greg Ginn had run a mail-order electronics firm called Solid State Transmitters from Hermosa Beach since age 12. When no label would release Black Flag’s music, he repurposed the acronym and the shipping infrastructure. SST Records’ first release was the Nervous Breakdown EP in 1978. Ginn played an Ampeg Dan Armstrong Lucite guitar with homemade overwound humbuckers, plugged directly into a Peavey PA head pushed to natural distortion. No pedals. The guitar eventually absorbed so much sweat from touring that it began short-circuiting; Ginn soldered the knobs in place and installed a waterproof switch.
Damaged, recorded at Unicorn Studios in October 1981 with producer Spot, was pressed with an MCA distribution logo before MCA president Al Bergamo declared it “anti-parent” and refused to distribute 25,000 copies. Black Flag applied stickers quoting Bergamo over the MCA logo. Unicorn sued SST, and a court injunction prevented Black Flag from releasing records for nearly two years. SST went on to release over 200 titles, including records by Husker Du, the Minutemen, Meat Puppets, and Sonic Youth. The label proved punk rock could sustain a distribution system without corporate involvement, though it developed a reputation for failing to pay royalties.
Labels as Philosophy
MacKaye cofounded Dischord Records in 1980 with Jeff Nelson. Sleeves were assembled by hand in a bungalow kitchen in Arlington, Virginia. Records sold at discount prices. Dischord released over 160 albums, including those by Fugazi, who maintained all-ages shows, five-dollar tickets, and complete self-management: anti-capitalism as accounting practice, not slogan.
Brett Gurewitz founded Epitaph Records in 1981 with $1,000 borrowed from his father, naming it after a King Crimson lyric. In 1987, he opened Westbeach Recorders in a closet behind a larger Hollywood studio. Bad Religion’s Suffer, recorded there in April 1988, cost nearly nothing because Gurewitz owned the room and played in the band. Fifteen tracks of melodic punk rock with vocal harmonies and lyrics drawn from political science. Suffer revived the Southern California scene. Gurewitz signed NOFX, Rancid, and the Offspring, and by the mid-1990s Epitaph was one of the largest independents in the world.
Melody, Politics, and Ambition
The Descendents introduced tunefulness to hardcore. Milo Goes to College, released on New Alliance Records in September 1982, packed fast tempos with pop hooks and lyrics about coffee, girls, and food. The title referred to vocalist Milo Aukerman leaving for UC San Diego to study biochemistry. Every pop-punk band that followed operated in the space the Descendents opened.
Dead Kennedys used punk rock as political satire. East Bay Ray’s guitar drew from surf rock and spaghetti western scores, run through heavy echo, while Jello Biafra’s lyrics targeted governors, foreign policy, and suburban complacency. They cofounded Alternative Tentacles to release their own music. Husker Du’s Zen Arcade, released on SST in 1984, pushed further: a double-album concept record recorded for $3,200 at Total Access in Redondo Beach, almost every song a first take, 85 hours of total production. Punk rock that treated ambition as compatible with speed.
Essential Listening
- Ramones – Rocket to Russia (1977)
- Sex Pistols – Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols (1977)
- The Clash – London Calling (1979)
- Bad Brains – Bad Brains (1982)
- Black Flag – Damaged (1981)
- Minor Threat – Complete Discography (1989)
- Dead Kennedys – Plastic Surgery Disasters (1982)
- Descendents – Milo Goes to College (1982)
- Husker Du – Zen Arcade (1984)
- Bad Religion – Suffer (1988)
- Fugazi – Repeater (1990)
- The Stooges – Fun House (1970)