punk Mug

A loud, aggressive style of music that began around Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the mid 1960s, and, at the same time, in NYC. The earliest proponents of punk rock were all Americans: Iggy and the Stooges; the MC5 and the Velvet Underground. Around 1970 or so British bands like the Kinks, Slade, David Bowie and T-Rex began experimenting with glam and androgyny and mixing it with aggressive, hard rock. In 1971, NYC produced the most extreme glam punk band ever, the New York Dolls. The Dolls inspired everyone from Aerosmith and KISS in the hard rock scene to the Dead Boys, Richard Hell, Television, Blondie, the Ramones, the Dictators, Patti Smith and the nascent, NYC punks. The manager of the Dolls was Malcolm McLauren, who later managed the Sex Pistols, the London based punks that first started "dressing punk" in late 1975. Guitarist, Johnny Thunders of the Dolls, directly inspired Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, who copped Thunders' riffs and solos almost note for note. By the beginning of 1976, punk began to enter the mainstream of British life. The Sex Pistols had several chart toppers on "Top of the Pops" and Malcolm McLauren and Vivian Westwood opened a trendy boutique in London called "Sex," which sold rediculously expensive bondage pants, BDSM fetish wear and torn jackets with safety pins in them. Suddenly teenyboppers began to "go punk."