Punk Era- The style

The Style:

The style of the punk genre has changed throughout the years and varies throughout the different cultures.

America:
The typical american punk look consisted of a t shirt, motorcycle jacket and jeans, these were usually worn by american greasers in the 1950's although this is sometimes associated with american rockers. This look made its debut in Britain in 1960's

Britain:

Richard Hell is known as the an innovator of the British punk scene including music and fashion. He was one of the first wear his hair, wear torn and ripped tops with drawings on and they were sometimes held together with safety pins. Malcolm McLaren, the manager of the Sex Pistols credited Hell as the inspiration for the bands look.

Vivienne Westwood's clothing collections are heavily based around the punk genre and during the era she credited Johnny Rotten for being the first to wear the ripped T-shirt look and the sex pistols bassist, Sid Vicious as the first to use safety pins.

The early female punk style resembled Siouxsie Sioux's bondage clothing to Patti Smith scruffy style.

Siouxise Sioux

Patti Smith

Gradually the introduction of tattoos, piercings and metal studded/ spiked accessories became apparent and furthered the typical punk look.
The male hairstyle began as short and choppy but as styles changed the mohawk and even the skinhead  we worn by typically more hardcore scenes.  

When male bands and artist tend to perform they didn't stray from the typical "macho male" persona that was adopted by the rock genre.

However females tend to break away from the earlier conventions of the a punk woman and became a lot more tough and unladylike and borrowed some of the "macho swagger" of the 60's garage bands.

Gaye Advert (Gaye Black)- Bass guitar player for The Adverts.

The Runaways

Punk Era- Dance Style

Dance Style:

The dance styles of the Punk era was not set in stone and this cause many deviant forms of dance to be produced. One of the most famous is the "pogo" originally  initiated by Sid Vicious, the dance consisted of either keeping their torso rigid or thrashing it about, holding their arms stiffly or flailing them, keep the legs together or kick them about and jumping up and down or jumping about. 

Moshing developed from pogoing, it is much more aggressive and involves at lot pushing and shoving. There are two different types of moshing; Circle pits and wall of death. 

Circle Pits:

Circle pits happen usually when the band signals with a circular finger motion, the participants then run around around in a circle, pushing and shoving isn't necessary but tends to happen. Trampling also isn't an issue as their is an unspoken rule where if some falls down then you help them back up.

Wall of Death:

Wall of death occurs when the fans split up in to two separate groups and stand on opposite sides of the arena or concert space then when given a signal by either the band or themselves they then run at each other and collide in the middle. During the Wall of death trampling is much more common has the smaller space makes it harder to reach people.

Punk Era- The music

The Punk Era began as a way to distance its self from the sentimentality of the 70's rock. Critic Robert Christgau spoke about the Punk genre saying "It was also a subculture that scornfully rejected the political idealism and Californian flower-power silliness of hippie myth." Although Patti Smith, known as the "godmother of punk" suggested that "the hippies and the punk rockers were linked by a common anti-etsablishment mentality". 

The Music.
Punk music often consisted of the bare musical structures of 1960's garage rock. Typical a punk band consists of 1/2 electric guitars, bass guitar, drums as well as vocals. , majority of punk songs a quite short sometimes under 2 minutes long and followed the conventions of the traditional rock 'n' roll verse-chorus form and 4/4 time signature. The vocals of a punk song sometimes sound quite nasally and are usually shouted instead of the traditional singing. The vocals lack the conventional shift in pitch, volume or intonation style. Complex Guitar solos are deemed unnecessary but basic guitar breaks are very frequent, guitar parts include distorted versions of power chords or barre chords this creates the characteristic sound which is known to some critics as 'buzzsaw drone'. Bass guitar sequences are relatively uncomplicated and quite quintessentially a relentless, repetitive, "forced" rhythm. Drum sounds in the punk genre are usually heavy and dry and have a minimal set up. The production of the tracks themselves tend to be minimalistic and sometimes were laid down on home tape recorders, this reaches the goal of the track sounding un-manipulated and "real", also it reflects the authenticity of a live performance. The lyrics tend to be frank and confrontational and in the early punk the lyrics they frequently commented on social and political issues. In early British punk the goal was to shock and outrage the nation.