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Canadian punk rock

Broadcast Date: Sept. 27, 1977

The influence of punk rock's anarchists with their out-of-tune guitars and safety-pinned lips makes its way to Canada. It has been over a year since punk's founding bands, like New York's the Ramones and Britain's the Sex Pistols, started playing gigs. During that time, critics popularized punk while parents spurned it. On Sept. 27, 1977 Canadian basement bands the Poles, Teenage Head and the Viletones play a five-hour show.

Seventeen-year-old girls in their punkish garb come out to watch the gig. They say they're bored with life and show off scars from "slashing" themselves. CBC reporter Hana Gartner takes a look at what's behind punk's hostility, defiance and self-mutilation.

Canadian punk rock

• A group of Hamilton high school friends formed Teenage Head. In 1979 their first, eponymous album achieved gold-record status in Canada. The band's recent release, Head Disorder, came out in 1998.
• British punk rock fans invented the ritual "gobbing" — spitting at the performers. The Clash's Joe Strummer said a fan's saliva infected him with hepatitis.

• The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines punk as: "a young man or boy regarded as contemptible or insignificant, especially because of rude or violent behaviour" and also as: "a loud, fast-moving form of angry and aggressive rock music."

Canadian punk rock

Medium: Television

Program: Take 30

Broadcast Date: Sept. 27, 1977

Guest(s): Michael Jordana, Steve Leckie, Frankie Venom

Reporter: Hana Gartner

Duration: 7:00

Last updated:
Aug. 3, 2003