Oct 032011
 

NPR’s All Songs Considered posted this image on FB, a mural in Asbury Park, going up near Asbury Lanes. They asked posters to identify the faces in the photo, a task which every Townsperson could probably tackle while threading a needle and riding a unicycle, blindfolded. But what I found interesting was one poster’s comment that it was the “Mt. Rushmore of Punk.” If that is to be true, the first thing to do is eliminate two faces.

To me, it seems like there are three people here who are givens and three whose presence is arguably dubious. Which four faces go up on your Mt. Rushmore of Punk?

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  77 Responses to “The Mt. Rushmore of Punk”

  1. Johnny Lydon
    Joe Strummer
    Joey Ramone
    Pete Shelley

  2. Iggy
    Johnny Thunders
    Joey
    Richard Hell

    Mount Rushmore doesn’t have any Brits on it, why should its punk rock equivalent?

  3. Pete Shelley? That’s kind of like putting Eric Clapton on the Mt Rushmore of the Blues.

  4. Happiness Stan

    John Lydon
    Joe Strummer
    Joey Ramone
    Patti Smith

  5. Happiness Stan

    Which latter point begs the slightly mischievous question that if Clapton hadn’t popularised the blues in the UK with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and the Yardbirds in the early/mid 60s, enabling classic blues artists who were in danger of languishing in poverty and obscurity at the time to tour the UK and reach a larger audience (and make some money selling records) whether the Mount Rushmore of the blues would look the same today? (Which is not to say that, of course, that Clapton should be on it…)

  6. Happiness Stan

    Fair point Bob, perhaps we Brits could use the statuary in Trafalgar Square as our equivalent.

  7. Huh? How do you equate Shelley with Clapton’s role in the popularity of the blues? Along with founding the Buzzcocks, an original-class of punk rock band, didn’t Shelley promote some legendary Sex Pistols show in Manchester? The guy’s got Rushmore goods, if you ask me. I’m not sure if he’s “punk” enough for this monument, but if so that’s a blight on us, not him.

  8. Lydon (as “Rotten”), Strummer, and Joey Ramone (as much as I am not that interested in the Ramones) are givens. The fourth spot is a tough call!

    There have been some good suggestions, but I’d say Iggy’s not punk. He may be a “godfather of…” but putting him on Rushmore would be a bit like putting Ben Franklin on the real Mt. Rushmore.

    Shelley’s one of my favorites from that period, but I don’t know if he carries enough of the “punk” legacy. Again, “my bad,” for copping to that.

    It would only be fitting to add another New York-based punk for balance with the two Brit icons. Patti Smith may fit the bill, but at the risk of sounding like my man tonyola, is she enough of a “musician” to qualify? She’s such a PRESENCE, something less and more than a musician. In that light, maybe she is the fitting fourth member of the Mt Rushmore of Punk? Isn’t that part of what punk offered us? I’m not ready to chisel her face just yet, but for the sake of argument, I’m leaning that way.

  9. cliff sovinsanity

    If it was my choice the 4 would be

    Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, and Tommy

    Btw, I must be having an off day because I only recognize 4 out the 6. I have Joey, Rotten, Strummer, –,– and Rollins (?)

  10. Lydon, Strummer, Jello Biafra. I’ll go with Joey Ramone as a fourth because I don’t have a better choice, although I don’t feel like he’s a particularly inspired choice. More of a “If I have to” kind of pick.

  11. Iggy, Thunders, Patti Smith, Richard Hell: none of them seem exactly punk to me. You start broadening things that way, and soon we’ll be adding other 60s precursors as well.

  12. misterioso

    The Clash. Period.

  13. sammymaudlin

    Rotten, Strummer and Joey are on for me. I may not get much support for this but my other pick is Exene Cervenka. You east coasters can take a hike.

  14. sammymaudlin

    Biafra was was on my potentials list.

  15. By which I don’t mean to say that the names above are all 60s precursors, just that the suggestions could get increasingly broad. Next thing you know, somebody will suggest Robert Johnson.

  16. I thought about her too. Wondered if X counted as punk enough (and I’d say so, but barely) and if she really stands out that much relative to the rest of the band.

  17. But I wouldn’t find that hard against her nomination.

  18. BigSteve

    Kill yr idols, man!

  19. Fight that hard, I mean.

  20. Agreed, on your general point. Considering that Thunders, Smith, and Hell were at the birth of punk, however, I don’t know that they should be excluded from consideration. Maybe Thunders…

  21. I like the Buzzcocks but are we talking about punk or Punk? If we’re talking about the latter, Malcolm McLaren copped a big chunk of the codified version of punk from Richard Hell so he should be up there.

    If we’re not talking about the officially authorized version of Punk(tm), then Verlaine or Lloyd should be up there with other members of the first CBGB class because they were just a bunch of oddball acts with very little in common except for the fact that they didn’t fit in anywhere else so they had to just DIY.

  22. trigmogigmo

    My gut says Rotten, Ramone, and Strummer. I like the Exene choice for #4.

    However, there could be more to it than this, if you want to mirror some of the Mt. Rushmore aspects other than just having four icons, the controversial aspects. For example, the monument might at least need to be built somewhere that the locals aren’t happy with, and where the locals aren’t exactly fans of the punks. I’m thinking the punk rock monument could be built on the grounds of the Grand Ole Opry, or Studio 54.

  23. ladymisskirroyale

    How about keeping it simple? Rotten, Vicious, Jones, Cook.

  24. Good question. I say the latter, otherwise just put Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, and Billy Joe Armstrong up thete. The problem with the TV dudes is that theyre not iconic. Patti represents that scene and will satisfy tourists.

  25. Joey, Strummer, and Rotten. My 4th is disappointing, but it has to be Sid. Is anyone more iconic of the punk aesthetic than him? Everyone else mentioned seems to be a “pre” or “post” figure. I don’t want two Pistols up there, but they both belong.

  26. Interesting that Joey seems to getting the most Ramones love. Johnny was probably more of the leader, and Dee Dee seemed a lot more punk. Does Joey get extra punk points for being so damn ugly?

  27. machinery

    I’m going to make the argument that no Mt Rushmore of Punk (capital P) can be complete without Henry Rollins.

    I say this analytically. I myself kinda hate his whole schtick. But Black Flag really is the god-head of that angry, west-coast punk, and Rollins (like Biafra) were the face. Biafra was more the geeky-side, but if you’re looking at the mosh-pitting, hard-ass punk movement that spawned a million bands (including minor threat) you gotta include Henry, bad poetry and all.

    I don’t think Punk when I think Patti Smith, Television, Richard Hell, etc. They were punky kids, smart and amazing. But not Punk to me.

    So my four:

    Rotten
    Rollins
    Strummer
    Joey

    I agree with Chicken Frank that Sid could go up there as the poster child. But then again, so could Wendy O Williams.

  28. machinery

    Ian McKaye (minor threat) is one. Can’t make out the dude in profile.

  29. Your reasons for choosing Rollins are decent ones but they’re also why I thought Biafra was the better choice. Rollins is definitely a key figure for pointing out why punk become narrow and (eventually) bigoted. I don’t say that because I dislike him, but still. Biafra defines a higher standard for what punk could be; he’s a leader that one could aspire to being. I guess we could say the difference is also between politicized Bay Area punk and bored in the parking lot of paradise L.A. punk, but that’s a discussion for another time, I would guess.

  30. As much as I appreciate the music of any forefathers, I don’t think going back too far is good. They didn’t put any of the pilgrims on the real Rushmore, after all.

    Joey Ramone
    Darby Crash
    Joe Strummer
    and Ian MacKaye as “Teddy Roosevelt”

    I think Sid doesn’t make the cut because Joey already has him covered for the “Prognosis: Fry Cook” category, and Darby covers the self-destruction/drug angle. I was going to put Keith Morris in the Strummer slot, but I though Morris maybe too obscure and heck, if a Brit is gonna be included, it should be Strummer. Rollins is pushed out by the poetry of Darby and the DC hardcore palmares of MacKaye, who is more punk than Henry (sorry). Biafra missed the cut because he’s like Darby minus drugs.

    Is that Danzig in the photo? Driving a seriously hard bargain there.

  31. I’m gonna go with a list that tries to incorporate one person per key punk geographical area.

    Joey Ramone
    Johnny Rotten
    Exene Cervenka
    Ian Mackaye

  32. You can debate Sid out of the lineup, but it’s hard to argue Darby Crash before you would have Johnny Rotten.

  33. cherguevara

    Wow, this thread took off… I believe the 4th face on on the mural is Glenn Danzig.

    I’d vote for:
    Joey Ramone, Johnny Rotten, Strummer and Biafra.

  34. Happiness Stan

    Shelley would be a tricky one for me, and I speak as one who bought the original New Hormones Spiral Scratch when it was released, and the Time’s Up bootleg, so yield to no-one in my love of all things Buzzcocks – but would posit the suggestion that the Devoto/Shelley line-up were Punk with a great big P, but once Devoto had gone they turned very quickly to the pop-side – and even though beloved of punks, they separated themselves quite sharply from the ‘movement’ in a way that the Jam did, but the Pistols/Clash/Damned/X-Ray Spex, even Siouxsie and the Banshees did not.

    In fact, I think I might even reconsider replacing Patti Smith from my first four with Siouxsie, it all depends on how one is defining Punk, and what is considered to be year zero.

  35. Happiness Stan

    It’s pretty tricky to argue Strummer before Rotten come to that – Strummer had playing a rather dull brand of pub rock with the 101-ers until he saw the Pistols and ‘converted’, Lydon came from nowhere and hasn’t budged an inch in the three and a half decades since. Met Strummer briefly in December 77, thoroughly decent really nice bloke, just like you always hoped he would be.

  36. tonyola

    Putting Sid Vicious on Mt. Punkmore would be like putting Warren G. Harding on Mt. Rushmore. Both men were no-talent fuckups who looked their part but did more harm than good to the overall image.

    I can’t argue with Johnny Rotten, Joe Strummer, or Joey Ramone. As for the fourth, how about Stiv Bators?

  37. BigSteve

    I think the whole idea of figureheads is antithetical to Punk. Strummer without Jones? I don’t see how you can single out Joey.either. And anyway, where’s Mt. Punkmore going to be, on an island in the middle of the Atlantic? I say Dee Dee, Joey, Johnny, and Tommy are collectively the sine qua non.

  38. I can buy your Rollins argument. As for Wendy O, she is going on the Grand Retina if Rock.

    Sorry.

  39. plasticsun

    Are we simply talking icons? I’ve got no problems with Joey, Rotten and Strummer, but as a guitarist I notice the distinct lack of instrumentalists (guitarists really). Or are the vocalists like the Presidents – given all the credit as well as the blame.

  40. The first three were easy. The last one was a toss-up. I think the Buzzcock’s were a first-wave punk band and I really like them, so I picked Shelley. But I don’t really have a strong argument.

    I guess I could have picked Patti Smith or Richard Hell to even out the USA/UK thing. (I don’t think of X as a “punk” band.)

  41. machinery

    You can’t discount the whole Black Flag thing, especially as it relates to SST and Greg Ginn, who could be up there as the “LA Malcolm Mclarin” for his influence on American Punk and hardcore. Since Rollins was the face of that, I’d vote him over Biafra, though I agree to disagree.

  42. bostonhistorian

    I don’t care that I only get four faces. I’m putting up the The Sonics, all five of them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7Nffq0bOgE

  43. cherguevara

    Mt. Punkmore. That’s got a good ring to it.

  44. Excellent point about Warren G Vicious. But what’s the difference between Sid and Stiv?

  45. I’m going with Joey, Strummer, Rotten and Hell. They all made important contributions that shaped the music, attitude and, most importantly, the Look of Punk.

  46. tonyola

    1. Stiv was early in the punk game with the Dead Boys in 1976.
    2. Unlike Sid, Stiv had a modicum of talent. He cut a solo punk-pop record called Disconnected that was actually fairly decent.
    3. Stiv had a significant role in the John Waters Polyester movie. That’s a big point for coolness.
    4. Stiv had all the snotty punk attitude but he didn’t destroy himself with drugs and he didn’t murder anyone.

  47. misterioso

    Especially if Henry Rollins is one of them. It’s a damning assessment of this whole undertaking that he is in the discussion.

  48. Oh, I see now that he was hit by a taxi. That’s a shame, but I feel that the Dead Boys were possibly the worst punk band to have gained some credibility. Totally mediocre, in my opinion. They’re the US equivalent of punk mediocrity that was Stiff Little Fingers in the UK, without the 3 or 4 great songs from Inflammable Material.

  49. Stiff Little Fingers: great punk band, period. Couldn’t suggest anyone from the group because they’re more in line with Steve’s ideas about Kill Yr Idols; no one person really stands out.

    Fascinating how many of the punk bands did rely on the sheer charisma of a single individual. Despite the Kill Yr Idols concept (I know that’s from later, but still, the idea was there), punk created at least as many legends as it did actual musical legacies.

  50. misterioso

    And the headline read: “Stiv Bators, Dead Boy, Dead.”

  51. I don’t buy the “year zero” of Punk argument. That would be like leaving Lincoln off of Mt. Rushmore.

  52. While I, too, wouldn’t fight an Exene nomination, we do need to take into account the biases present in the original Mt. Rushmore, that being all white dudes. If one is constructing a Mt. Rushmore of any kind, does one need to replicate the biases? And if not, then is it really a Mt. Rushmore? The whole thing is very slippery.

    Still, the Richard Hell nomination has some merit.

  53. tonyola

    What bias? Mt. Rushmore commemorates US presidents and up until 2008 they had all been white. I suppose you could make a case for overall societal discrimination which was undoubtedly present, but there was no ethnic bias in creating Mt. Rushmore.

  54. jeangray

    Have you heard any of the later P.I.L. albums???

  55. jeangray

    Hear! Hear!

  56. jeangray

    No one’s going to stand up for Glen Danzig??? Are you guys not aware of how huge the whole Misfits thang is???

  57. pudman13

    Here’s my 4:
    Joey Ramone
    Johnny Ramone
    Dee Dee Ramone
    Johnny Rotten

    And, to be honest, I’d be tempted to put Glen Matlock on it…

  58. pudman13

    Amen! Sid Vicious is responsible for everything anti-punks hate about punk. And everything I hate about it too.

  59. I dunno, it just seems to me that if you’re going to include Rotten then you have to include Strummer too, and that throws the whole thing off. I think maybe Joey covers Rotten’s “image” contribution to punk, which constitutes most of his legacy anyway.

  60. Iggy – Debbie – Joey – Strummer

  61. He goes in the same box that holds The Damned: good, strong, legacy act whose strengths are only partially due to punk.

  62. The faces on Mt Rushmore span 130 some years. Can’t pick all founders.
    Founders: Joey Ramone and Johnny Rotten,
    Kept it going when the initial thrill had worn off: Strummer
    Active participant: Billy Joe Armstrong?

  63. On 2nd thought, screw Green Day.
    Ted Leo.

  64. And I didn’t mean that as a xenophobic statement, either, as I fully appreciate Lydon’s & Strummer’s contributions (as well as many others from the U.K.). This thing is an awkward analogy, at best, but if we’re going to say it’s the equivalent of a U.S. monument commemorating significant presidents, then……

    Anyway, the whole idea of lionizing these people with a monument really does go against the punk aesthetic, no matter which side of the pond you’re on.

  65. Johnny Thunders
    Johnny Ramone
    Steve Diggle
    Greg Ginn

  66. mockcarr

    There should be eight cheeks up there, and we get to argue about whose asses they are.

  67. Happiness Stan

    Trafalgar Square has four plinths, three of them have permanent war criminals on top of them, no-one can agree who should be put on the fourth, so there is a steady rotation off very large art works on that one. Seeing as the majority here can agree on the big three, the fourth could well see Siouxsie, Poly, Pete Shelley, Jimmy Pursey, Bob Geldof, Gene October, the bloke from The Lurkers, Malcolm McLaren, Ari Up, etc. all taking turns.

  68. Happiness Stan

    He was also responsible for a lot of things punks grew to dislike about punk: attacking Nick Kent with a bike chain, gouging lumps out of himself, using his bass as a weapon during gigs rather than playing the thing, the black cloud of violence which followed him around in his stoned haze – and murder isn’t particularly cool either… He was exactly the right figurehead to encourage bikers and skinheads to chase the likes of me down the street and give us a good kicking.

  69. hrrundivbakshi

    This is fun, but irrelevant. Everybody knows that whoever’s faces go up there, all their eyes will be covered by those big black “anonymizer” rectangles anyhow.

    For the record, all the members of FEAR should be up there.

  70. jeangray

    Oh, I gots to disagree, Lydon covers Joey’s “vocal” contribution to Punk. The Ramones never sounded that un-hinged.

  71. jeangray

    Hell did not have as big of an influence as the other three.

  72. Maybe not to general public but he had a huge influence on the scene itself. And Malcolm McLaren stole his whole act and brought it to England so Strummer and definitely Rotten were directly influenced by him.

  73. That said, I’d be willing to swap Hell out for Malcolm McLaren

  74. At least we can all agree that the Mount Rushmore of the Blues is Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, and Elmore James, and the Mount Rushmore of Country is Hank Williams, George Jones, Bob Wills and Patsy Cline, right? Right?

  75. If SRV’s not on the Mt. Rushmore of the Blues the whole exercise is bogus!

  76. Okay, I know you did it on purpose, but add me to the list of people who are pissed off at you.

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