If follow Croz on Twitter, but missed this........................



I'm deeply hurt . Patti Smith gets her own single dislike. I still like him, and he's entitled to his opinion (even if it's wrong ). I wonder what he thinks of the Sonics, Seeds, Standells, and other Garage rock..

That's ok, I can't imagine a lot of Punk fans are into him either.

I like the Heads & The Velvets; but I largely agree with DC on the punk genre. There are some acts I like; but not that many.

crosby from his song "anything at all":


Anything you want to know just ask me
I'm the world's most opinionated man
I'll give you an answer if I can (Answer)
Catch one passing through (Passing through)

and he certainly is and he certainly will!

Guys like Crosby are why Punk exists.

care to explain.......

because i really don't think david crosby is any way, shape or form part of the establishment, and anti-establishment is why punk exists...if i recall my history correctly.

Punk is anti-establishment, but it's also a bit of a reaction to music snobs (such as Crosby) that look down their noses at music that they don't enjoy. You'd think a musician would be a little more understanding of the fact that not all music appeals to all people.

My first exposure to what I consider punk (I do not consider either Talking Heads or the Velvet Underground punk) was a Ramones show I was given free tickets to when I was 18 or 19.

Set 2 was set 1 played in reverse (seriously), & I thought every song sounded alike & sucked. (Well Beat On The Brat was funny).

For me I'm just criticizing the pretty hard core stuff, (Ramones, Sex Pistols, etc). Much of the crossover was listenable for me. As an example, I love Bow Wow Wow, unlike the 2 I just mentioned, they were incredible musicians.

I do feel that American marketing tends to unfortunately be towards lowest common denominator mentality in almost all fields. If that belief makes me elitist, oh well. Can't really go much further without getting into politics (which would be very easy to do in 2017!).

Neither of those bands is hard core punk, and bands like Bow Wow Wow are new wave, not punk.

When you're a musician, you listen to NOTES. - Jesse "The Body" Ventura

At the time they came out, they were considered hard core!

What we call hard core today (both punk & metal) is very different than the original artists of the genres.

It could easily be argued that Crosby is part of the music industry establishment (if not the 'establishment' in the sense that his generation would've used the term) - and punk was, in part, a reaction against the idea of musicianship itself. It was an ethos that said 'anyone can do this', and a reaction against the perceived elitism of mainstream rock musicians and the critics who had become their sycophants. Punk had no guitar heroes, or three-part harmonies, or versatile multi-instrumentalists. It had anti-heroes and it had monsters. Punk's nihilism is the polar opposite of the 'sunshine and good vibes' philosophy of the hippy movement.

The part that always amuses me, when one of the guys from that era negatively critiques later music, is that they invariably end up sounding just like the people who routinely insulted and criticised them back in the 1960's. They seem not to see it, but it always amuses me. Keith Richards has said similar things about modern music, especially Hip Hop, that have made him sound like the guys who were so critical of the Stones back when they were young and perceived by the established powers-that-be to be playing music that was worthless, etc.

Now, I'm no fan of Hip Hop, but I can accept that I'm not one of the target audience for it and that someone who does like it won't care whether I like or not. Just because these guys sold millions of records a long time ago doesn't mean they're always going to be in touch with what someone decades younger than they are likes or wants. The world changes and leaves us all behind in terms of tastes, fashions, etc. Calling things he doesn't understand or dislikes 'dumb' only makes him sound antiquated.

Crosby's comments remind me of stuff like this from the previous generation....

I own albums by some of these bands. I've never even considered buying a David Crosby solo album. 'Nuff said.

Except they weren't, even for the time. Bad Brains, The Misfits, Black Flag, and The Dead Kennedy's would be the 1970s equivalents of hard core later. The Pistols were around before them, but only a year before. As compared to mainstream rock, yes, they would be hard core, but not in the Punk scene.

Never thought of the Talking Heads as "punk." "New wave" perhaps, or alternative, but not punk.

Besides, consider that when Cros said this, he was probably freebasing.

you need to run, not walk, to get yourself a copy of 'if i could only remember my name' from back before crosby was part of the establishment.

he quit that long long ago.

he is just a crotchety old man now....like me!

I'll try to avoid the debate who is or isn't punk in this particular thread. I tend to think of most of the early punk acts as throwbacks to 1950's rock and roll. Whether it's the Damned's New Rose, the Buzzcocks with Have You Ever fall in Love? or something from the Ramones like Rockaway Beach or Sheena is a Punk Rocker. They're right there with Del Shannon or Chuck Berry's jumps. They are 3 minute pop songs with distortion. Lydon was always a provacateur, so the Pistols were a bit different. And the Clash became one of the greatest rock bands of all time. The Anger of Hardcore didn't really take hold in the US until the 80s.

David Crosby is allowed to say he doesn't like punk, and he can say he doesn't like the NY Art Rock scene of the 70's. Because everyone is allowed to say they don't like something. And what David did as a musician (as it reflects his views on what music is) shows he at least has some basis for his belief that punk isn't what he thinks of as music.

I will say I saw this first on the Riotfest.org site, since I keep an eye on it. And When the Riotfest board re-tweeted Crosby's comments by saying "Does that mean you don't want to play our festival?", Crosby confirmed that "yep, that's what that means". So he's still got some sense of humor about this

There's a certain group of people - I'm guilty of it as well - who think that if you got famous from CBGB's, you were a punk. Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, The Ramones, Blondie, Even the Pretenders in the beginning. All Punks.

Probably not true, but there isn't really a convenient shorthand other than Punk to describe the NY non-disco scene of the late 70s.

At the time I was in the music industry (retail manager). We did think of all of those bands (other than possibly Costello & the Talking Heads as punk) Ramones are the only one I would call punk today from your list. I tend to agree with most of CBGB's bands being considered punk in their heyday.

A classic album!