UKC

I was a young teenager when I got into British punk music in the 70's. Subsequent exploration revealed the earlier American music of the Stooges MC5 Velvets etc. Further to this the earlier 60's garage band protopunk stuff. But as far as I knew the term punk rock was 1st used around '75.
Today on R2 ( I know ), there was a show about Paul Gambaccini's radio career. In a clip from one if his early shows he was talking about what was popular on American radio at the time. He said something roughly like - not soul, not this nor that, not punk rock, not... etc.
This was a recording from 1973. Was he the 1st to use the term on radio and what bands was he talking about?

In reply to aln:

I don't know about "on radio". Here is an interesting history (with the usual disclaimers)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk_rock#Etymology

In reply to Blue Straggler:

That said, it is doubtful that it took at least 18 months for the phrase to migrate from printed word to being spoken on the radio

In reply to Blue Straggler: Interesting link that I've read before. You say it took 18 months for the phrase to migrate to radio. I don't see anything in your link saying it was in print in '71?

In reply to aln:

Then you need to learn to read more carefully. It is pretty clear in the text to which I linked.

Dave Marsh was the first music critic to employ the term punk rock: In the May 1971 issue of Creem, he described ? and the Mysterians, one of the most popular 1960s garage rock acts, as giving a "landmark exposition of punk rock"

No need to thank me though.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Sorry Mr. Straggler, 1971 was it? I'm really sorry I didnae read it properly.

In reply to aln:

theres an interview with iggy pop that (like every interview he does) asks about just this.

hes an articulate guy, and in the interview he says the teerm 'punk' goes back to old 40s gangster movies like the Maltese Falcon, meaning some upstart with more verve than ability. then apparently, 'punk' got applied to young rockers in the 50s as a description of their attitude, not as a label - 'a punk rocker' meant a rocker who had more enthusiasm and bravado than talent (apparently there were non-punk rockers who had the reverse).

by the time the stooges, MC5 etc appeared in the late 60s they were being called 'punk' to describe their attitude and aggression without refined talents.
no doubt like 'hippy', 'freak' and 'rapper' it was then taken up by the music journo crowd to lable something they felt needed packaging, which lydon/mclaren et al then both milked and took the piss out of ever since, with wankers like U2 and matchbox25 claiming a piece of it.
by the time the media got onto it im sure the real players had been throwing the term about for ages.

In reply to ice.solo:

With respect, aln was asking quite specifically who was the first person to speak the phrase "punk rock" on the radio.

I've read your potted history of the word "punk" on here before - it is a handy précis for sure, and I like it....but....do you have it saved as a text file ready for a handy copy-and-paste?

In reply to Blue Straggler:

ah yes, i missed that bit....

radio? not sure. on tv it may go back to the cincinatti stooges show in 1970, which has a guy commentating and being filmed, which may be a radio broadcast. not sure. theres a lot of footage.
if so, its the stooges being referred to (not sure the V.underground were referred to as punk - they were very talented and cultivated as it were).

only version i know of the punk as a label story is the pop interview, so unless its transcribed somewhere...probably is as people get quite obsessive over this stuff.

In reply to ice.solo:

Cheers, that makes sense.

Back to the OP - it is an interesting question. But if Gambacinni said "not punk rock" one might assume that "punk rock" already existed as a radio term.

In reply to Blue Straggler:
But if Gambacinni said "not punk rock" one might assume that "punk rock" already existed as a radio term.

He wasn't dismissing punk rock as such. It was something along the lines of - not Country, not reggae, not punk rock, not soul. It was the way he used the term casually which surprised me.

In reply to aln:

I did not imply that he was dismissing it. I was making the same point that you just did.

In reply to Blue Straggler: I remember reading references to 1960s punk rock in books around 1976. The books were published some years before and I was rather interested to see references to an earlier incarnation.

In reply to ice.solo:

The term's origins lie much earlier and is prison slang for a male prostitute, hence the knees torn out of one's jeans. So when the Ramones said we are punks it had a real meaning and appeared transgressive to American ears and thus far greater impact in the US than whiney Johnny R ever might have had in Britain.

I first came across it in Edward Bunker's novels set in, I think, the 1930s but, apparently, its first use was around the turn of that century.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Aye OK. Thanks for your input. When I was posting I thought you might come along with some knowledge of the subject.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

While agreeing in general with that wiki article. The Bay City Rollers! Punk! Only in the wildest imagination of someone who did not understand music methinks.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

I think that was the point.
"By 1975, punk was being used to describe acts as diverse as the Patti Smith Group, the Bay City Rollers, and Bruce Springsteen."

Springsteen is no more punk than BCR. You should really be decrying the Wikipedia article's lack of acknowledging that The Sex Pistols were a boy band

In reply to Blue Straggler:
As one who was very much into the music scene of 1975 I can assure folk that the BCR were NOT regarded as punk in anyway shape or form. They were of that much reviled breed a teen band. Interestingly I see no mention of Peter Hammill who's 1975 albumn Nadir's Big Chance was a big influence on the Pistols. First Punk record I bought was The Damned's New Rose followed by the Pistols Anarchy Virgin release (alas I had declined an earlier offer to buy the EMI release

In reply to Mike Highbury:

Thats good (tho seedy) info. I think the pre-music use of the term is more interesting really. Seems by the time bands got hold of it it had already been a volatile term.
I think it maybe still applied to mc5 and iggy, who were messed up agitators regardless of the music.
But yeah, most who came after were just acting to a script.