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Other Mixes By Dead Man

Artist	Song	Buy
New York Dolls (buzz)	Trash
Sonic's Rendezvous (buzz)	Heaven
Flamin' Groovies (buzz)	Shake Some Action
Velvet Underground (buzz)	The Black Angel's Death Song
Randy Alvey & the Green Fuz (buzz)	Green Fuz
Big Star (buzz)	Mod Lang
Destroy All Monsters (buzz)	Nobody Knows
Patti Smith (buzz)	Break It Up
Stoics (buzz)	Hate
Rocket from the Tombs (buzz)	Amphetamine
Modern Lovers (buzz)	Dignified and Old
Sonics (buzz)	He's Waitin'
13th Floor Elevators (buzz)	She Lives (in a Time of Her Own)
Iggy & the Stooges (buzz)	Open Up and Bleed
The Cave Men (buzz)	It's Trash
The Seeds (buzz)	A Thousand Shadows
The Alarm Clocks (buzz)	No Reason to Complain
Heartbreakers (buzz)	Chinese Rocks
Mott the Hoople (buzz)	Crash Street Kidds
Rocky & the Riddlers (buzz)	Flash and Crash
MC5 (buzz)	Come Together
Final Solution (buzz)	So Long Goodbye
Johnny Thunders (buzz)	You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory

Comment:

This mix isn't really a punk mix, but the music that inspired punk rock.

In the late-1970s punk rock was a reaction against the excesses of rock stardom and the music that went along with it. It's easy to point to what punks were against, but a little more difficult to identify the artists that punks were following. In terms of music, punks were perhaps most similar to the garage bands in the mid- to late-sixties that played raw, riff-driven music. The Sonics, Rocky & the Riddlers, the Green Fuz, the Stoics, the Cavemen, the Seeds, the Alarm Clocks amd the Final Solution fall into this category. What these bands lacked in terms of technical skills they made up for in enthusiasm (and volume!). The MC5 and the Stooges were among the most influential proto-punks. After they broke up their members often played in each other's bands, most notably in Sonic's Rendezvous and Destroy All Monsters. Another major influence on punk rock was the New York Dolls, especially Johnny Thunders and his post-Dolls band the Heartbreakers.

Punks also drew inspiration from some bands that had maintained their distance from the mainstream during the late 1960s and early 1970s. And while we wouldn't necessarily think of the music of the Velvet Underground, Big Star, the Modern Lovers, Mott the Hoople, or the Flamin' Groovies as being punk rock, punks drew inspiration from their attitude and their independence. What's most interesting is that some of the artists who had the strongest influence on punk rock, such as Patti Smith and the Velvet Underground, had arty ambitions. It was their minimalism, however, that punks picked up on.

After the fact, these bands were labeled "proto-punk". This label creates a little bit of difficulty because some artists kept playing proto-punk even after punk rock had clearly been established, but that's the problem with trying to identify a genre by what it inspired.

For the title I took some liberties with Clint Eastwood's line. For you Dirty Harry purists, his actual line was: "I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?"

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