Time Warp Tuesday: Synthpunk

Punk rock is simple music.  It's the essence of rock 'n roll, its rebel spirit stripped down to only its bare essentials; a guitar and some anger.  You don't even have to know how to play the guitar.  You just need a drive to create.  Some of punk rock's first icons weren't terribly skilled musicians, just men who wanted to rawk.

This simplicity, unfortunately, is also one of punk's biggest limitations.  Punk bands that eventually seek to expand beyond the guitar, drums, bass, vocals format tend to get labeled pretentious. God forbid you ever consider experimenting with a synthesizer!  So by the time most punk bands realize there's more to music then simply a loud roar of the guitar it's already too late.  Such was the case for a number of adventurous freaks in the late '70s and early '80s.

Although, there is no established "birth" or "father" for the sound that would later come to be defined as synthpunk, the two artists generally seen as being at the beginning are New York's Suicide and Los Angeles' The Screamers.  Both bands created sounds reliant on electronics over traditional guitars, positioning them on the fringe of what was already a fringe scene in punk rock.  Despite this, they were able to utilize their synthesizers and drum machines to create music as abrasive as any short blast of punk.

Suicide "Frankie Teardrop"

Few if any of the artists associated with the short synthpunk movement ever went on to find the universal acclaim of their guitar-shredding peers.  Most eventually sunk into production roles for those better known bands, such as with California weirdo GEZA X who was responsible for producing the Dead Kennedy's classic "Holiday in Cambodia", or simply disappeared into the ether from which they came.  It is only within the last ten or so years that most of these bands have been rediscovered as the world of independent music turned back to once again cannibalize its past in the form of electroclash and the post-punk revival.  These new bands took bits and pieces from the era, attempting to imitate its naive swagger, but few truly committed the overall aesthetic of the sound.  Those that did, such as Los Angeles' Bubonic Plague and Brooklyn's Blank Dogs, have created interesting pieces that feel almost like time capsules that could rest comfortably next to those earlier bands without clinging to the detached nonchalance their contemporaries strive for.

The Screamers - "Eva Braun"
GEZA X - "Rio Grande Hotel"
Blank Dogs - "Leaving the Light On"
Bubonic Plague - "Gray Wave City"