Evolution

In Nature, Evolution occurs as tiny changes that accumulate over great periods of time. Such changes seldom affect only a single charactersitic of any species. Various traits of many species will be affected, and populations in different geographic locations will be affected differently. Language also evolves, but follows additional patterns, including word borrowing (inter-breeding?) from neighboring languages. This becomes self-evident from only a cursory survey of dialects, accents, slangs, and jargon within a single language.

Music evolves faster than any other cultural hallmark that I am aware of. This happens for a large number of reasons; large differences of musical vision, the free global exchange of ideas (no borders), rampant (and shameless) borrowing, culture clash, culture shock, commercialization....
If I were to forget what I was writing about, I might think I was writing a list of band names. My point is that it is extremely difficult to point out all the inspirations and forebears of Punk Rock, and dutifully honor all of them. Similarly, its impossible to track everything that was influenced by it. Musical genre names become more and more meaningless to me, especially with respect to Punk. I understand what "punk revivalist" is, but I'm still not clear on what "post-punk" is. Even more difficult for me is being open-minded about potential bands to keep as "proto-punk" groups.

If you happened to select Pandora's generic punk station, I can tell you exactly what you're listening to. The Ramones, the Clash, Iggy Pop, the Clash,  the Buzzcocks, the Clash, the Damned,  the Jam, Rancid, Fugazi, and a little from the Clash. The Jam??? It still mystifies me that anyone thinks that the Jam is a Punk Rock band. I suppose the same could be said of the Buzzcocks. Personally, I have to lump the Clash in the same category. They were a major reason that I started this station from scratch, I just could not control the airplay. "The Clash are Punk!" argues my buddy Jim. I think that London Calling was an important album for Punk Rock. What bugs me is that for every song like "Death or Glory" or "Brand New Cadillac", theres a song like "Lost in the Supermarket" or "Ghetto Defendant" - and Pandora doesn't do much to distinguish one from the other for seeded artists. Very anti-climactic. I'll give 'Brand New Cadillac' a *trial* thumbs up and see what happens.

Thats how I'm treating the Detroit Cobras right now. Its not hard to map their sound as pre-Punk, despite their playing all covers of previously recorded primitive rock and roll hits. I'm actually pretty happy with how they fit in, expect them to be seeded soon. Fake Fictions, Magenta Lane, and Manda and the Marbles are other bands that will probably be seeded in the near future.

I've recently realised that Black Sabbath's 'Paranoid' was released in 1971. Holy Cow! The Stooges' first release was in 1969 (and to be fair, Led Zeppelin issued I and II the same year). It floors my modern perspective to realize that anyone was grindingly heavy like Sabbath that early. I like Black Sabbath, and I can hardly say they had NO impact on Punk, so I'll not give them a thumbs down if Pandora plays them. Pandora has played Black Sabbath and Motorhead on rare occasions, I'm just uncertain how much I want to encourage their appearance on the playlist. I definitely want to see more Motorhead.

I'm still agonizing about hardcore bands. I worry a little that I'm giving short shrift to some important bands. I'm sure there hardcore stations out there, so I'm not consigning anyone to oblivion. At the same time I know that the world of Hardcore Punk is very much greater than just Agnostic Front, the Cro-Mags and GBH. I worry about balance *way* too much, huh?

Added 4 Skins, the Adicts, City Mouse, Clit 45, Crass, Conflict, the Dicks, the Diodes, the Messengers, Television, Virus, and I think I forgot to mention the addition of X-Ray Spex previously. Some of these were thumbed up before and are graduating to being seeded. Clit 45, 4 Skins, Conflict and the Diodes are getting seeded so I can try to get Pandora to play more than one song. Call it probation, but I havent heard enough of their stuff yet to make a sound decision.

I thumbed-down a Pennywise song. I really do like them. They have one hit song thats tantamount to a cover of Bad Religion's ...  crap, I forget the song now, but "the anchorman can't stop lying" is a musical and lyrical lift of "and the lamppost can't stop crying"... but I'll chalk that up to flattery. (By the way, Bad Religion FUCKING rules and they get less play than Stiff Little Fingers - something very wrong with that) Uh. Anyway, I like Pennywise but I don't want Pandora leaning so heavily in their direction.