Scenes: the rooms where it happened
Punk was local before it was global. A scene needed a room that would book unknown bands, a few dozen people who cared, and rent cheap enough that nobody had to be sensible. This section goes to those places.
In New York the room was CBGB at 315 Bowery, opened by Hilly Kristal in December 1973. Television talked their way onto its stage in spring 1974, the Ramones followed that August, and within two years Patti Smith, Blondie and Talking Heads had all come through the same narrow club. Lower Manhattan was run down and cheap, which is a large part of why it could happen there.
London moved faster and louder. The Sex Pistols played their first gig in November 1975, the 100 Club held its punk festival in September 1976, and by December a television interview had put the band on the front pages. Clothes shops, pub back rooms and photocopied fanzines did the work that a single club did in New York.
Scene pieces here are about geography and timing: who played where, who was in the room, and what changed afterwards. Places that matter but have no page of their own yet, such as Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall, appear on the timeline.
In this section
3 pages
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CBGB history: the Bowery club that launched punk
CBGB history from opening night in December 1973 to the last show in October 2006: Hilly Kristal, 315 Bowery, Television, the Ramones, Blondie and the rules that made it.
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London punk 1976: the year punk arrived, month by month
London punk in 1976 month by month: the Sex Pistols, the 100 Club Punk Special, The Clash, The Damned's New Rose and the Bill Grundy interview that made punk a scandal.
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New York punk, 1974 to 1978: bands, clubs, records
New York punk explained: the clubs CBGB and Max's Kansas City, the bands from Television and the Ramones to Blondie and Suicide, the key records and what came after.
Other sections
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Genres
Punk, new wave, post-punk, no wave and Neue Deutsche Welle explained: where each style began, which records define it and where the boundaries blur.
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Lists
The best punk albums, new wave songs, and the punk, post-punk and new wave bands that matter, each entry with year, place and a reason.
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Songs
The stories behind punk and new wave songs: recording, line-up, chart history and meaning, told in our own words and without printing any lyrics.
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Bands
Independent band profiles from punk and new wave, starting with Blondie: line-ups, key records and where each band fits in the story.
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Press
How NME, Sounds, Creem, Punk magazine and Sniffin' Glue covered and shaped punk and new wave, from weekly music papers to photocopied fanzines.
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Vinyl
Practical guides to collecting punk records, identifying first pressings and choosing a turntable, with clear criteria and no made-up test results.