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Topic spans: 1977 - 1980
Punk Rock Comes to Canada
In 1977, a new form of underground music emerged from Canadian basements and garages. Journalists called it punk rock. It was kids with boot polish in their hair, playing out-of-tune guitars and questioning anything established — parents, government, The Beatles. Decades later, critics praised the once-criticized scene for starting a tradition of do-it-yourself indie rebel music.
6 television clips
6 radio clips
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
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12 clips in this topic . page
Television
1:31
Oct. 24, 1977
Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards pleads guilty to heroin possession in a Toronto courtroom full of young fans.
Television
1:56
Dec. 8, 1978
Disco movers and shakers strut their stuff at the Canadian National Disco Dance Championships.
Topic from Radio-Canada
Canadian Culture Online Program partner sites
External sites
punk · rock · sex pistols · new wave
Canadian punk rock.
The CBC Digital Archives Website.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Last updated: Aug. 3, 2003.
[Page consulted on Nov. 21, 2009.]