Etymology
From the late 16th through the 18th century, punk was a common, coarse synonym for prostitute; William Shakespeare used it with that meaning in The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602) and Measure for Measure (1623).[70] The term eventually came to describe "a young male hustler, a gangster, a hoodlum, or a ruffian".[71] As Legs McNeil explains, "On TV, if you watched cop shows, Kojak, Baretta, when the cops finally catch the mass murderer, they'd say, 'you dirty Punk.' It was what your teachers would call you. It meant that you were the lowest."[72] The first known use of the phrase punk rock appeared in the Chicago Tribune on March 22, 1970, attributed to Ed Sanders, cofounder of New York's anarcho-prankster band The Fugs. Sanders was quoted describing a solo album of his as "punk rock—redneck sentimentality".[73] In the December 1970 issue of Creem, Lester Bangs, mocking more mainstream rock musicians, ironically referred to Iggy Pop as "that Stooge punk".[74] Suicide's Alan Vega credits this usage with inspiring his duo to bill its gigs as a "punk mass" for the next couple of years.[75]
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".[76] Later in 1971, in his fanzine Who Put the Bomp, Greg Shaw wrote about "what I have chosen to call 'punk rock' bands—white teenage hard rock of '64-66 (Standells, Kingsmen, Shadows of Knight, etc.)".[77] Lenny Kaye used the term "classic garage-punk," in reference to a song recorded in 1966 by The Shadows of Knight, in the liner notes of the anthology album Nuggets, released in 1972.[78] In June 1972, the fanzine Flash included a "Punk Top Ten" of 1960s albums.[79] By that December, the term was in circulation to the extent that The New Yorker's Ellen Willis, contrasting her own tastes with those of Flash and fellow critic Nick Tosches, wrote, "Punk-rock has become the favored term of endearment."[80] In February 1973, Terry Atkinson of the Los Angeles Times, reviewing the debut album by a hard rock band, Aerosmith, declared that it "achieves all that punk-rock bands strive for but most miss."[81] Three months later, Billy Altman launched the short-lived punk magazine.[82]
In May 1974, Los Angeles Times critic Robert Hilburn reviewed the second New York Dolls album, Too Much Too Soon. "I told ya the New York Dolls were the real thing", he wrote, describing the album as "perhaps the best example of raw, thumb-your-nose-at-the-world, punk rock since the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street.'"[83] Bassist Jeff Jensen of Boston's Real Kids reports of a show that year, "A reviewer for one of the free entertainment magazines of the time caught the act and gave us a great review, calling us a 'punk band.' ... [W]e all sort of looked at each other and said, 'What's punk?'"[84]
By 1975, punk was being used to describe acts as diverse as the Patti Smith Group, the Bay City Rollers, and Bruce Springsteen.[85] As the scene at New York's CBGB club attracted notice, a name was sought for the developing sound. Club owner Hilly Kristal called the movement "street rock"; John Holmstrom credits Aquarian magazine with using punk "to describe what was going on at CBGBs".[86] Holmstrom, McNeil, and Ged Dunn's magazine Punk, which debuted at the end of 1975, was crucial in codifying the term.[87] "It was pretty obvious that the word was getting very popular", Holmstrom later remarked. "We figured we'd take the name before anyone else claimed it. We wanted to get rid of the bullshit, strip it down to rock 'n' roll. We wanted the fun and liveliness back."[85]
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