Post #181153 by donhonyc on Mon, Aug 22, 2005 10:30 AM

It suddenly occured to me that since the Stooges and The MC5 were discovered in Detroit the same weekend in 1968 by then Elektra Records A&R man Danny Fields, that this can perhaps be called the true birth of Punk?

Just about every Punk band that came out in the 70s and 80s credits The Stooges and/or The MC5 as their inspriration. In the press both bands are always defined as "Proto-Punk". And just recently I saw a documentary where (I think it was) Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys saying that 'if you were the only one on your block with a Stooges or MC5 record, you met the other misfits that were also into those bands and formed your own band' ...or something like that.

So is it a misconception that New York, London, and L.A. were the places Punk originated? That it was in fact Detroit with The Stooges and MC5 as the godfathers of what was to come after them?

Anybody got any thoughts on that?

[ Edited by: donhonyc 2005-08-22 10:31 ]