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Calling New Wave Experts

Aethelist said:
October 1977 cover of Trouser Press.

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American perspective? I think the UK and USA views differ, at least where I was as a kid in 77 - Leeds - New Wave wasn't being spoken about it was Punk, New Wave and New Romantics came after.
 
Amber Audio said:
American perspective? I think the UK and USA views differ, at least where I was as a kid in 77 - Leeds - New Wave wasn't being spoken about it was Punk, New Wave and New Romantics came after.
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This is my perspective. I was too young for punk, I never got to any gigs etc as I was only 14 in 1977. I bought the Sex Pistols, Stranglers etc, but I never fully understood the culture. My time actually being a part of anything came from 1979-80 onwards and I always thought of what I was seeing and buying as being new-wave. I knew it wasn’t punk, as that was very clearly over by then, and this stuff sounded totally different anyway.

I suspect you can blur the terms post-punk and new-wave very easily, but the other terms for sub-genres (goth, new-romantic, synth-wave etc) just hadn’t been coined at that point. You’d file say Joy Division, Gang Of Four, OMD (debut), Echo & The Bunnymen, Cure, U2 (Boy only!), Human League (pre-Dare), Throbbing Gristle, Devo, Patti Smith, PIL, Television, B52s, Talking Heads, Young Marble Giants, Durutti Column, ACR etc in the same tubs in any record shop. Maybe in hindsight this wasn’t wise, but as someone who bought this stuff as it came out this is certainly how I remember it.

I don’t remember hearing the term ‘synth pop’ prior to Human League Dare, Heaven 17 Penthouse & Pavement, OMD’s Architecture And Morality (their third album!) etc, or the term ‘new romantic’ prior to Duran Duran or Spandau Ballet (i.e. 1981 and beyond). Japan obviously existed years before this and pre-dated the category (one they were way, way too good for anyway!). ‘Goth’ came along as a category even later and post-revised/adopted Bauhaus, The Cure etc.
 
I think Tony L is spot on.
Like Tony L, when "God Save the Queen" came out, I wasn't ready, but the year after I discovered The Stranglers' "Nice'N'Sleazy" played on Swedish Radio and was sold. I am not sure what the genre was called then, but at the time I did not associate the Stranglers and others with "punk" although they may well have been called that. I think I came to call it new wave - XTC, The Jam, The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers and then later I heard the terms "New Romantics", Synth Pop, and whatever term applied to new bands that appeared.

I soon saw The Knack as an attempt to capitalize on the new wave genre and remember the hype that came along with them as "the new Beatles" . I duly bought the record but I was very disappointed.
 
Tony L said:
I suspect you can blur the terms post-punk and new-wave very easily, but the other terms for sub-genres (goth, new-romantic, synth-wave etc) just hadn’t been coined at that point. You’d file say Joy Division, Gang Of Four, OMD (debut), Echo & The Bunnymen, Cure, U2 (Boy only!), Human League (pre-Dare), Throbbing Gristle, Devo, Patti Smith, PIL, Television, B52s, Talking Heads, Young Marble Giants, Durutti Column, ACR etc in the same tubs in any record shop. Maybe in hindsight this wasn’t wise, but as someone who bought this stuff as it came out this is certainly how I remember it.
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It's certainly how I remember it, I reckon I'm a couple of years younger than you (54) it was my school mates elder brother who first got us listening to something a bit different, I'd be 11-12 years of age (1st year senior as it was known then) and said brother was a Punk who had a pretty decent record collection, that was probably my "year zero" moment as the only records I had prior to that was stuff from the 60's that my grandparents had given me from there collection, most of it was crap to be fair but I enjoyed having a record player and a few singles to play.

The stuff we'd hear at my mates changed everything forever in my little world
 
Yes, I’m three years older and started out with T. Rex, Slade etc, and swiftly moved onto prog etc via a friend’s big sister’s record collection. By the time punk happened I’d have been 13-14 and I was trying to juggle it with Yes, Genesis, Hawkwind, Kraftwerk etc. I’ve always been an outsider socially so I didn’t understand the social/rebellion aspects at all, I just approached music as music. I bought Pretty Vacant, God Save The Queen, Clash Complete Control and Rattus Norvegicus, plus a wonderful splatter-vinyl import copy of the first Devo album plus the Stiff singles (still got them!), and that was pretty much punk done for me. Not that Devo were punk. I went back to Hawkwind, Tangerine Dream, Steve Hillage etc until new wave/post-punk or whatever we are going to call it happened. At that point I was old enough to get into proper clubs, so I got to see a lot of it as well as just buying the records. I guess 1980 was my ‘year zero’. That is the year I got a bass too. I was certainly of the age where punk & new-wave opened the door for folk like me who were not musically trained. The underlying message was that we could have a go too!
 
Tony L said:
Yes, I’m three years older and started out with T. Rex, Slade etc, and swiftly moved onto prog etc via a friend’s big sister’s record collection. By the time punk happened I’d have been 13-14 and I was trying to juggle it with Yes, Genesis, Hawkwind, Kraftwerk etc. I’ve always been an outsider socially so I didn’t understand the social/rebellion aspects at all, I just approached music as music. I bought Pretty Vacant, God Save The Queen, Clash Complete Control and Rattus Norvegicus, plus a wonderful splatter-vinyl import copy of the first Devo album plus the Stiff singles (still got them!), and that was pretty much punk done for me. Not that Devo were punk. I went back to Hawkwind, Tangerine Dream, Steve Hillage etc until new wave/post-punk or whatever we are going to call it happened. At that point I was old enough to get into proper clubs, so I got to see a lot of it as well as just buying the records. I guess 1980 was my ‘year zero’. That is the year I got a bass too. I was certainly of the age where punk & new-wave opened the door for folk like me who were not musically trained. The underlying message was that we could have a go too!
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I too was a big Hawkwind fan (still am for that matter) I was a bit late with them though wasn't until the early 80's when I proper got into them.
Loved Devo as well, a mate of mine had the splatter vinyl first album (murky dark green / brown IIRC, not long after that I was round my mates and heard Sonic Youth - Bad Moon Rising for the first time and that opened a lot more musical doors
 
Have to say, somee great replies. Thanks guys :0)

Amber Audio said:
Confession time - big Duran fan back then...and Visage etc.
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Same. Duran Duran were a very good band who were not taken seriously because of their image.

Joe Hutch said:
I'd strongly disagree with some categories mentioned up-thread; for me, groups like The Stranglers, The Ramones and The Clash were solid punk and not New Wave at all.
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To this day The Stranglers have always puzzled me. Punk? Imagine you didn't know what they looked like, or they dressed differently. You'd never put them in the punk box. I think their influence goes back to sixties pop, they just added a darker edge.

Joe Hutch said:
Then there are the unclassifiable Fall...
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I suppose three pages before The Fall get mentioned is not bad ;0) Wasn't a fan at the time. The Fall was what you had to put up with in order to hear the good stuff John Peel was playing but with hindsight I understand how important and unique they were. If if you didn't like them, they still connected with you. The Fall was like an out of body experience.
 
The Stranglers are one of my fave bands and agree with @Mr Pig in so much that they’re not a Punk band in the true sense, they were part of the “Pub Rock” scene but then 3-4 albums in developed into to something completely different and in my mind streets ahead of their contemporaries
 
fegs said:
The Stranglers are one of my fave bands and agree with @Mr Pig in so much that they’re not a Punk band in the true sense, they were part of the “Pub Rock” scene but then 3-4 albums in developed into to something completely different and in my mind streets ahead of their contemporaries
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My 15 year old mate was a massive Stranglers fan, he painted a huge f**k off black raven on his bedroom wall, his mum was not best pleased to say the least
 
Don't think the Raincoats have been mentioned but they are an interesting perspective for you daughter to take. Kurt Cobain was a fan and they created a sound that, for me, resonates through a far higher proportion of subsequent "indie" music than they are given credit for.

The music is still very listenable too, which is more than can be said of most of my favourites from around that time.
 
Amber Audio said:
My 15 year old mate was a massive Stranglers fan, he painted a huge f**k off black raven on his bedroom wall..
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A friend of mine wanted me to paint a big head of satan on his wall, I was quite arty. Basically copy it off the cover of an album he had. I drew it in pencil first but never got round to filling it in. I remember sitting in his room listening to music in the dark, you used to do that back then, and this faint satan would drift in and out of view. It was properly creepy.

The guy was unhinged. A few years later he shot a friend with a shotgun then blew his own head off. I was glad I hadn't been hanging around with him at that time!
 
gavreid said:
I like the pithy comment "In 2006, it was also subject to criticism by writer Clinton Heylin in a book on a similar subject: "Here [is] post-punk - at least before Simon Reynolds decided it was All The Music That I Liked When I Was Young, a somewhat broad not to say solipsistic, view of pop." "
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Never heard of him . Sounds like sour grapes
 
Lots of mentions i'd agrees were New Wave: Cars, Blondie, THeads, Early Joe, 52's, Devo, Gary Numan. I would have thought that Police fit in there as well.
 
Thanks guys for mentioning Pub Rock, the most forgotten and overlooked era in rock. Ok, it's mostly a naming game. But to me:

Pub Rock -> Punk -> New Wave. More or less the same thing. Has Garage been mentioned, like Troggs?
 
RJohan said:
Thanks guys for mentioning Pub Rock, the most forgotten and overlooked era in rock. Ok, it's mostly a naming game. But to me:

Pub Rock -> Punk -> New Wave. More or less the same thing. Has Garage been mentioned, like Troggs?
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A lot of things fed into punk such as glam, art rock and even Hawkwind, Edgar Broughton and Mott the Hoople. They were probably more influential in punk than The Pirates, Dr Feelgood, Ducks Deluxe, Brinsley Schwarz or Chilli Willi And The Red Hot Peppers did for no other reason than they had more exposure (for starters when did you ever see Nick Lowe on TOTP before 1978). Also there's a whole host of bands like Mott the Hoople, anything Jessie Hector did (Crushed Butler and then The (Hammersmith) Gorillas), The Jook or Third World War III that are not classified as pub rock but had more in shaping the sound of UK punk than Kilburn and the High Roads.
 
Seeker_UK said:
and even Hawkwind
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I think early Hawkwind along with the Krautrock/space-rock scene was highly significant as it was something entirely different structurally not being based on conventional pop/blues structures, consciously avoiding flamboyant solos etc. To my mind ‘new wave’ threw away the tired old blues/pop 12 bar or intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle 8, chorus to fade formula. The better stuff did anyway.
 
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