Top 10 Influential Proto-Punk Bands (Part 2)

5. T. Rex

Along with Bowie, T. Rex front man Marc Bolan was Glam Rock's chief pioneer, single-handedly giving birth to the genre's visual and musical trademarks. Bolan merged a trashy, groovy take on early Rock & Roll with mystical lyricism that bordered on pretentious if not for a kitschy sense of humor. In many ways, Bolan was the definitive Rock star, effortlessly commanding the stage with a vibrant swagger and a love for the limelight. Like Bowie and Slade, T. Rex enjoyed a short-lived but enormous sweep of popularity among youths in the U.K. known as "T-Rextasy". In the U.S., their most well-known songs are the sleazy "Bang a Gong (Get it On)" and the roaring "20th Century Boy", the latter of which was featured in a Levi's commercial in the '90s.

Beginning as a folk-oriented duo featuring Mickey Finn on hand percussion, T. Rex later upgraded to a full lineup featuring bass and drums on their magnum opus Electric Warrior. Driven by Finn's almost tribal percussion and Bolan's fat, reverb-drenched guitar, T. Rex balanced their catchy dance-able rockers with mock-epic ballads often augmented by a string section. While Bolan's lyrics and Rock star exuberance would seem to put him at odds with Punk, his joyously pure sound and tongue-in-cheek sense of humor endeared him with the street kids. Indeed, Bolan was one of the few old guard rockers who fully embraced the Punk movement, inviting the Damned as a support act for his late '70s comeback tour.

T. Rex's influence stretched far beyond Punk, inspiring a legion of Hard Rock, Heavy Metal and Alternative Rock artists to follow. Like many of the artists on this list, T. Rex had a a strong crossover appeal, serving as an inspiration for both out-there Punk bands and mainstream Hard Rock bands. The Black Keys continue to carry his legacy into the modern era with Bolan-inspired songs like "Lonely Boy", and even Pop wunderkind Prince wrote his own take on T.Rex's sound with the No. 1 hit "Cream" in 1991.

Recommended songs: "Bang a Gong (Get it On)", "20th Century Boy", "Jeepster", "Telegram Sam", "Ride a White Swan".

4. New York Dolls

Though the Ramones or Patti Smith may have officially kicked off the late '70s New York movement at CBGB's, the New York Dolls may have been the first true Punk band in sound and spirit. Often classified as a Glam Rock band due to their androgynous, flashy sense of fashion, their sound was anything but glamorous. Mixing their back-to-basics Rock & Roll with Lou Reed-esque tales of urban decay, the Dolls stood in direct contrast to the excess of early '70s mainstream Rock with their ugly, noisy take on pure Rock & Roll. Thanks to front man David Johansen's dead-on Mick Jagger impression and guitarist Johnny Thunders' reputation for substance abuse worthy of Keith Richards, the Dolls were often maligned as a poor man's Rolling Stones.

Though they only released two classic albums in their early '70s heyday, both were massively influential for capturing the harrowing, irreverent and bizarre spirit of New York "street" music before it officially found a home at CBGB's just a few years later. The Dolls' nasty grind and completely off-the-wall fashion made them enormously influential on subsequent bands in all forms of Rock, most notably on both Punk bands who adopted their primitive sound and even Hair Metal bands, all of whom owe something to the Dolls' kinky dress sense.

Unlike once-edgy Rock bands from the Rolling Stones to Guns 'N Roses, the New York Dolls' sound remains too dangerous and bizarre to ever truly permeate the mainstream. While their bitchy "Looking For a Kiss" made a cameo appearance in 2009's Adventureland, you're not likely to hear one of their songs at a football game or a car commercial anytime soon. The Dolls will always be too edgy, regardless of how culture changes.

Recommended songs: "Personality Crisis", "Looking For a Kiss", "Trash", "Jet Boy", "Human Being".

3. David Bowie (Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders From Mars)

Though it seemingly bordered on cheating to add a solo artist, David Bowie's influence on Punk Rock (and popular music in general) cannot be overstated. Oddly enough, only a handful of Bowie's songs truly sound like Punk, but he was the definitive Rock star for musicians who came of age during his early '70s commercial heyday. An early adopter of shifting musical conventions and a champion of the bizarre, Bowie's string of albums throughout the '70s showed constant musical growth and have influenced hundreds of artists across all genres. Few artists have shared a stage with artists as diverse as Bing Crosby, John Lennon, Sonic Youth and Trent Reznor.

Bowie was arguably most influential on Punk Rock bands during his time as "Ziggy Stardust", a fictional stage persona created by Bowie and backed by his real-life touring and recording group at the time, the Spiders From Mars. Bowie's fearless swagger and Mick Ronson's brash, roaring guitar tone elevated Bowie's songs to epic proportions. Along with friend and professional rival Marc Bolan, Bowie was one of the few artists from the Glam Rock movement to truly create a massive public hysteria, captivating youths and frightening elders.

Not only did Bowie influence every three-chord driven Punk band with bitchy rockers like "Suffragette City" and "Hang on To Yourself", he also acted as the chief inspiration behind many Punk-associated genres with his late '70s albums referred to as his "Berlin Trilogy". Their experimental, electronic nature presaged gloomy Post-Punk artists like Joy Division and New Wave bands like Duran Duran. It would be easier to find artists who haven't been influenced by Bowie in one way or another, especially in the Punk world.

Recommended songs: "Hang on to Yourself", "Suffragette City", "Rebel Rebel", "Queen Bitch", "The Jean Genie".

2. The Stooges

Rock rebel Iggy Pop is often dubbed as the "Godfather of Punk" thanks in part to wild, shocking antics that continue on till this day but also due to his tenure fronting Detroit's the Stooges, one of the wildest and most confrontational Rock & Roll bands in history. Releasing their debut in 1969, the Stooges stood in wild contrast with the hippies with their rough, streetwise swagger and anarchic sound. Few Rock bands can be described as truly chaotic compared to the Stooges. Pop and his band were among the first Rock bands to take an axe to Rock conventions, frequently employing heavy machinery and vacuum cleaners as instruments, creating a metallic blast reflective of their Motor-City upbringing. Only the Velvet Underground presaged their use of dissonant noise in music. The Stooges took it to another level, playing blisteringly intense Rock which was then considered too menacing to be classified as Garage Rock and too primitive to be Heavy Metal.

Like Mott the Hoople, the Stooges were all but disbanded in 1973 before David Bowie took it upon himself to bring Pop and the band to England, rejuvenating them for what turned out to be the aptly-titled Raw Power. Though the band was always loud, menacing and aggressive, the album took that intensity to new heights. Little to no Rock music was as confrontational as Raw Power in 1973, which was classified as the "loudest album ever recorded" in a late 1990's reissue. With rampaging songs like "Search & Destroy" and the Chuck Berry-on-steroids title track, the Stooges essentially wrote the blueprint for Punk Rock.

Like many of the bands on this list, the Stooges were equally influential on Hard Rock and Heavy Metal as they were on Punk and Alternative artists. Virtually every major band from either side of the equation has cited the Stooges' wild, unhinged sound as vital to their sound. Guns 'N Roses included their own version of "Raw Power" on their covers album The Spaghetti Incident, and the album itself has been touted as a favorite of both Kurt Cobain and Cee Lo Green. There have been bands who have outdone the Stooges in terms of volume, speed and heaviness, but few have matched the "raw power" of Pop and his band in their heyday.

Recommended songs: "I Wanna Be Your Dog", "No Fun", "Loose", "Gimme Danger", "Cock in My Pocket".

1. The Velvet Underground

An obvious choice for top pick, the Velvet Underground is undoubtedly the most iconic and renown cult band in Rock history. Few other groups can claim such a massively widespread influence, spanning virtually every off-beat musical movement to spring in their wake. Forming in mid 1960's New York, the Velvets stood in stark opposition to the flower power movement with their bleak, harrowing tales of sadomasochism, drug addiction and urban horror. Led by one of Rock's most treasured poets Lou Reed, the Velvets instead fell in with Andy Warhol and his troupe of "superstars"- a collection of poets, visual artists and drag queens.

The Velvets were the original "Alternative" Rock band before the phrase even existed. Their edgy, avant-garde informed sound appealed to artistic outsiders and their primitive approach inspired young musicians who realized that they too could play guitar. On their first two records, the Velvets pushed rock beyond conventional boundaries into dissonant, noisy and often ethereal territory on the two-chord ode "Heroin" or "Sister Ray, a grisly seventeen minute jam ruminating on drag queens and murder. On their last two records however, the group began to explore more palatable territory beginning with hushed electric folk on The Velvet Underground and conventional Pop / Rock on Loaded.

A common colloquialism attributed to the group is that they sold very few records in their heyday, but everyone who bought one subsequently started a well-known band. They were the first band in popular music to become well known more through word of mouth than record sales or radio play. To this day, the Velvet Underground continues to influence bands with Reed's left-of-center take on Pop, Rock and Folk. When Lou Reed died in 2013, he was honored by a diverse set of stars from Martin Scorcese and David Bowie to Samuel L. Jackson and Metallica - a testament to the Velvet Underground's silent but monumental impact not only on Punk, but on the art world as a whole.

Recommended songs: "I'm Waiting For the Man", "Heroin", "White Light / White Heat", "Pale Blue Eyes", "Sweet Jane".

Afterward

While I tried to focus on relatively lesser-known artists, there's no denying that Punk Rock was also indebted to plenty of mainstream music. The seeds of Punk were sown as early as the 1950's with Chuck Berry's three chord teen mischief anthems and in the mid 1960's, when bands like the Kinks and the Who played songs that would have been considered Punk if released a decade later. One must also recognize the importance 1960's Garage Rock, as many of the groundbreaking singles on the Nuggets Garage compilation undoubtedly informed the earliest Punk bands.