There can be no proper figuring of what punk actually is little lone when and where it began. Some useful markers crop up over time – like the Velvet Underground, the Dolls and the Seeds. But that doesn’t really mean anything at all. Some obvious groups have been checked as being the first proper proponents of the genre in the States. It’s all debatable and there isn’t anyway to include every (semi) important group into a single list, but what follows are some folks that pretty much everyone would or should consider historically important for one reason or another.

I realize that the West Coast isn’t represented here at all, but the scene over there could arguably be construed as a resultant effect of what was occurring in Indiana and all points East.

The Ramones
Everyone and their mother knows this group. And if somehow that’s not the case, go throw down some hard earned cash to find out. Comprised of some Jews and an army brat with a predilection for collecting Nazi ephemera and huffing glue, the Ramones were the progenitors of what would become pop-punk or punk-pop or just plain punk. The sounds that the group wrenched outta their dime store instruments was as influenced by popular dance tunes from the ‘60s as some of the decades love songs to drug abuse. It wasn’t really writerly in a traditional sense, but there was a writing style inherent in Joey Ramone’s lyrics that were at once song-craft and loser love poems.

The Dead Boys
Playing in and around Cleveland for a while after forming subsequent to Rocket from the Tombs calling it a day, the Dead Boys weren’t necessarily the scene’s most representative act. But for whatever reason, they moved on up to New York and made a decent sized impact on not just that cohort of bands, but subsequent generations. Lead singer Stiv messed around in some films and got hit by a car in France, but before his death, he was something of a Sid Vicious proto-type. The group’s second disc – We’ve Come for Your Children – is much more difficult to track down then the group’s first release, but worth the search.

The Gizmos
Indiana seems like an unlikely place for punk to germinate, but in the seemingly endless vacuum of culture, some groups approached rock music in a unique manner. Yeah, there was some noisy keyboard based stuff going on as evidenced by the comps that Gulcher Records released during the ‘70s, but the Gizmos were the Midwest’s answer to the Ramones. The band wasn’t ever as tight as its New York counter parts, but writing catchy songs about girls goes a long way.

The Heartbreakers
Two NY Dolls formed the Heartbreakers after a brief hiatus. Johnny Thunders and company are frequently credited as helping to begin the UK punk thing as a result of its tour there in ’76. And while that may not be an untruth, more importantly, the music that the group cranked out was a step nastier and focused than what the Dolls ever were able to accomplish.