Folk punk: Difference between revisions
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'''Folk punk''' (known in its early days as '''rogue folk'''),<ref>P. Humphries, ''Meet on the Ledge, a History of Fairport Convention'' (London: Virgin Publishing Ltd, 2nd edn 1997), pp. 149-50.</ref> is a fusion of [[folk music]] and [[punk rock]]. It was popularized in the early 1980s by [[The Pogues]] in Britain and [[The |
'''Folk punk''' (known in its early days as '''rogue folk'''),<ref>P. Humphries, ''Meet on the Ledge, a History of Fairport Convention'' (London: Virgin Publishing Ltd, 2nd edn 1997), pp. 149-50.</ref> is a fusion of [[folk music]] and [[punk rock]]. It was popularized in the early 1980s by [[The Pogues]] in Britain and [[The Raspberries]] in America. Folk punk achieved some mainstream success in that decade. In more recent years, its subgenres [[Celtic punk]] and [[Gypsy punk]] have experienced some commercial success. |
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==Characteristics== |
==Characteristics== |
Revision as of 22:49, 7 August 2012
Folk punk | |
---|---|
Stylistic origins | Punk rock, electric folk, Celtic rock |
Cultural origins | mid-1980s United Kingdom |
Typical instruments | Electric guitar - Acoustic guitar - Vocals - Banjo - Drums - Violin - Mandolin - Accordion - |
Derivative forms | Celtic punk Gypsy punk Anti-folk Indie folk |
Other topics | |
List of folk rock artists |
Folk punk (known in its early days as rogue folk),[1] is a fusion of folk music and punk rock. It was popularized in the early 1980s by The Pogues in Britain and The Raspberries in America. Folk punk achieved some mainstream success in that decade. In more recent years, its subgenres Celtic punk and Gypsy punk have experienced some commercial success.
Characteristics
Unlike Celtic rock and electric folk, folk punk tends to include relatively little traditional music in its repertoire. Most folk punk musicians perform their own compositions, in the style of punk rock, but using additional folk instruments, such as mandolins, accordions, banjos or violins.[2] Nevertheless, some folk punk bands have adopted traditional forms of folk music, including sea shanties and eastern European Gypsy music.
History
1970s
Perhaps the earliest known folk punk artist is London born Patrik Fitzgerald. After being turned down for membership in 1976 for Mick Jones' London SS Patrik began recording his own music in 1977. His early songs were generally short, sarcastic efforts, recorded with just an acoustic guitar and occasional studio effects, with lyrics containing a large amount of social comment. Fitzgerald was soon regarded as an original of his genre, somewhere between a punk-poet and an urban folksinger.[3]
1980s
Formed in Milwaukee in 1980 The Violent Femmes were one of the first and most commercially successful bands to fuse punk and folk, though their influence probably came more from early art rocks acts like The Velvet Underground.[4] In more underground musical communities, some American punk and hardcore bands throughout the 80s would pepper their albums with acoustic tracks or folkier sounds, notably The Dead Milkmen, Hüsker Dü, and Articles of Faith. An album's worth of influential punk inflected folk/country came in 1984 when psychedelic hardcore band The Meat Puppets switched their style to a punk/country crossover for their seminal release Meat Puppets II.[5]
In the UK, the fusion of folk and punk was pioneered by the London-based Irish band The Pogues, formed in 1982, whose mixture of original songs and covers of established folk singers, many performed with a punk sensibility, led to three top ten albums in the UK, and a number two single in "Fairytale of New York" (1987) with Kirsty McColl, plus a string of top ten singles and albums in Ireland.[6] Pogues' lead singer Shane McGowan had played in London punk outfit The Nips.
The pioneers of a more distinctively English brand of folk punk were The Men They Couldn't Hang, founded in 1984. Also important were the Oysterband, who developed from playing English Céilidh music to an often fast and harder rock sound from about 1986.[2] The Levellers, founded in 1988, making less use of traditional melodies, but greater employment of acoustic instruments, including guitars.[2] Several other prominent members of the English punk scene in the early 80s were also experimenting with folk influences. Early demos by Chumbawamba feature the accordion and the trumpet, though it would take them over 20 years to actually transition into a full fledged folk act. Attila The Stockbroker began entertaining punk audiences accompanied by mandola in 1986, and is still gigging. Probably the most successful figure associated with English 1980s folk punk is singer-songwriter Billy Bragg, who enjoyed a series of hits in the 1980s, and became a distinct influence on later folk punk acts.[7]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a7/Danbert2.jpg/220px-Danbert2.jpg)
1990s
Though the early nineties saw a general lull of interest in folk influenced punk, there were a few acts touring around. Formed in 1990, Austin based experimental bluegrass band The Bad Livers are one example, though they used punk as more of a cultural reference point than a musical one, often appearing wearing Misfits shirts or occasionally covering Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life".[8]
1994 saw the creation of Plan-It-X Records.[9] which would later go on to release some of the most quintessential folk punk acts of the late 90s/early 2000s.[10]
Formed in 1995 The World/Inferno Friendship Society is a large ensemble that came to be influential on the later New York Gypsy Punk scene. They combine elements of Cabaret, Punk, and Klezmer into their grandiose and theatrical performances.[11]
At the close of the 90s Celtic punk had a revival as bands like Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly started to experience wider commercial notice. This wave of bands, who often mixed Pogues-derived sounds with those of street punk bands like Cockney Rejects, spawned imitators world-wide.[12]
2000s
In the early 00s a Plan-It-X Records sound, heavily influenced by underground 90s pop punk and classic DIY ethic began to take shape. For many in the punk community the record label has become almost synonymous with folk punk, though they have released a lot of electric acts with little or no folk influence.[9] The most notable bands of this period would be Defiance, Ohio, a cello driven pop punk band, This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb, a pacifist country/punk band and Against Me! At the same time in New York a Gypsy Punk sound began to coalesce around Gogol Bordello, Golem, and other groups. These bands took eastern European instrumentation and fused it with the rhythms of punk, ska and rock. Many of these bands adopted a very recognizable aesthetic influenced by campy references to Soviet art, burlesque aesthetics, and classic punk style via The Clash. Gogol Bordello in particular has achieved a degree of mainstream success.[13]
In the Northeast yet another community was emerging, partially surrounding the band Mischief Brew and Fistolo Records.[14] These acts merged the DIY punk underground with 60s radical folk in the vein of Phil Ochs and contemporary anarchist folk musicians like David Rovics. Notable artists from the Northeast at this time would be punk/appalachian hybrids The Can Kickers, and sarcastic singer/songwriter Johnny Hobo and the Freight Trains.[15]
In the mid 2000s (decade) the west coast began to produce its own DIY scene of folk punk artists with a different sound, mostly connected Santa Cruz's Blackbird Raum who feature a completely acoustic lineup based entirely around traditional instruments, but with fast punk rhythms and bleak, political lyrics more influenced by crust punk. They are closely associated with all-acoustic hardcore band Hail Seizures and the Northwest Folklife festival folk-punk stage.[16] These west coast bands almost all play entirely acoustically, partially so that they can busk.[17]
Celtic punk
The Pogues' style of punked-up Irish music spawned and influenced a number of Celtic punk bands, including Nyah Fearties from Scotland, and Australia's Roaring Jack.[18] It has been particularly popular in the USA and Canada, where there are large communities descended from Irish and Scottish immigrants. From the USA this includes the Irish bands Flogging Molly, The Tossers, Dropkick Murphys, Street Dogs, The Young Dubliners, Black 47, The Killdares, And Jackdaw and for Scottish bands such as Seven Nations. From Canada are The Real McKenzies, Flatfoot 56 from Chicago Illinois, and The Mahones, from Australia, Roaring Jack and Mutiny, from the UK Neck (featuring a former member of Shane MacGowan's post-Pogues band, The Popes), from the Czech Republic, Pipes And Pints and from Norway, Greenland Whalefishers. These groups were also influenced by American forms of music, and sometimes contained some members with no Celtic ancestry and commonly singing in English.[19]
See also
References
- ^ P. Humphries, Meet on the Ledge, a History of Fairport Convention (London: Virgin Publishing Ltd, 2nd edn 1997), pp. 149-50.
- ^ a b c B. Sweers, Electric Folk: The Changing Face of English Traditional Music (Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 197-8.
- ^ http://www.allmusic.com/artist/fitzgerald-p17543
- ^ http://www.allmusic.com/artist/violent-femmes-p5767
- ^ http://www.allmusic.com/artist/meat-puppets-p4883
- ^ P. Buckley, The Rough Guide to Rock (London: Rough Guides, 2003), p. 798.
- ^ I. Peddie, The Resisting Muse: Popular Music and Social Protest (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 39-46.
- ^ http://www.allmusic.com/artist/bad-livers-p31180
- ^ a b http://www.punknews.org/labels/planitx
- ^ http://www.songfacts.com/blog/writing/diy_punk_with_chris_clavin_of_plan-it-x/
- ^ "The World / Inferno Friendship Society". BandToBand.com. Retrieved 2011-11-04.
- ^ P. Buckley, The Rough Guide to Rock (London: Rough Guides, 2003), p. 798.
- ^ "Gogol Bordello: Music from 'Gypsy Punks'". In Performance. 2006-04-29.
- ^ http://www.razorcake.org/site/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=14383
- ^ http://www.punknews.org/review/10029
- ^ Trujillo, Joshua (2007-05-29). "Folklife Outtakes". Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
- ^ "Who Is Blackbird Raum?". The Cournalist. Couranttimes.com. Retrieved 2009-02-08.
- ^ G. Smith, Singing Australian: a History of Folk and Country Music (Pluto Press Australia, 2005), pp. 176-7.
- ^ J. Herman, ‘British Folk-Rock; Celtic Rock’, The Journal of American Folklore, 107, (425), (1994) pp. 54-8.