There’s a lot of punk in this book. BBC 6 Music is a bulwark of independent-spirited sounds – and without punk, so much of the best music of the last 35 years wouldn’t have been made, much less had the commercial success that it continues to enjoy. Everything from indie rock to grime and hip hop have been influenced by this fleeting musical moment, as influential now as it’s ever been. Here are 15 questions on the bands that ushered in the first flowering of punk rock, followed by a quickfire round to whet your appetite for the next one . . .
Answers: here
1 Who boasted that he belonged to the ‘Blank Generation’? Of which innovative new wave band had he previously been a member?
2 ‘Do Anything You Wanna Do’ was the first and only UK Top 10 single from which rousing pub rock band? Which guitarist joined the band after Teenage Depression, their first album?
3 ‘Shake Some Action’ is the title of a 1976 single and album by which band, considered a major influence on the US punk scene? Which British guitar player took time off from Rockpile to co-produce the album?
4 Whose 1975 album Go Girl Crazy! was one of the first American punk rock albums to hit the record stores? Which 1961 surf song did the band cover on the album, a song also later covered by the Ramones on Leave Home?
5 ‘Personality Crisis’ is the opening track on which 1973 album, a key release in the pre-history of punk and new wave? Who was the band’s glam lead singer, who has since released four albums under the moniker Buster Poindexter?
6 Which two movers and shakers of the new wave era were the singers in the 101ers and Kilburn & the High Roads?
7 Ricky Gardiner wrote the distinctive riff for which classic Iggy Pop song? Which band covered it on their 1987 covers album Through the Looking Glass?
8 Who managed the seventies all-female rock band the Runaways? Their debut single was co-written by Joan Jett – what was it called?
9 Which band did Johnny Thunders form, along with Jerry Nolan, when they left the New York Dolls? Who was the third original member of the band?
10 Which pub rocker had a minor hit with a cover of the Trammps’ hit ‘Hold Back the Night’ in 1976? What was their third album, released a year later and their first to hit the UK Top 20?
11 Down by the Jetty is the 1975 debut album by which Canvey Island R&B band? Who was their singer and harmonica player?
12 It starts with clapping from the audience, then a rant from the MC: ‘I wanna see a sea of hands out there . . . Five seconds of decision . . . It’s time to move – time to get down with it, brother. It’s time to testify – are you ready to testify? Are you ready?’ Which band are about to play ‘Ramblin’ Rose’? And on which 1968 album, a punk progenitor?
13 If ‘Sheena is a punk rocker’, what are Judy and Suzy?
14 Whose 1976 live album Stupidity briefly topped the UK album chart? Which Chuck Berry cover closed the album?
15 Raw Power was a prototype punk album by which American band? What was its opening track, which later gave its name to a hugely influential American punk magazine?
Punk was all about the fast blast, so here are 15 questions for which the answer is simply a song or album title plus the name of the band. You have two minutes and 28 seconds, the length of the Undertones’ ‘Teenage Kicks’ . . .
16 A convicted brothel keeper was the subject of the opening song on which band’s first album?
17 ‘I’m lying in the hospital, I’m pinned against the bed.’ Which macabre punk song begins with these lines?
18 ‘Alarmed by the seduction, I wish that it would stop.’ What’s going on?
19 ‘Everybody’s doing just what they’re told to, because nobody want to go to jail.’ So what’s the answer?
20 ‘When I done them things, I done them just for you. And now I’m getting out, I’m coming back for you.’ What statement comes next?
21 ‘Up on the roof, out in the street, down in the playground, the hot concrete.’ But where can you hitch a ride to and escape?
22 Leon Trotsky, Lenny Bruce, Shakespeare and Sancho Panza are all referenced in which Top 10 hit?
23 ‘They just want money, we can take it or leave it, what we need. . . .’ Was what?
24 ‘Don’t ask us to attend ’cos we’re not all there.’ What were we?
25 ‘I am Governor Jerry Brown, my aura smiles and never frowns, soon I will be President . . .’ Who made this scathing attack on the Governor of California?
26 ‘I’m in distress, I need a caress . . . I’m not on the make, I just need a break . . .’ And?
27 Who waited for her mum to put out the light before putting on her make-up and her skin-tight jeans and heading to the Pillar Bar?
28 Which classic punk single begins with the spoken words ‘Is she really going out with him?’
29 ‘Oh, you know her, won’t you look at that hair? Yeah, you know her, check out those shoes.’ Which early single by which New York band?
30 ‘He always beat me at Subbuteo, ’cos he flicked to kick and I didn’t know.’ A genius couplet from which 1980 pop-punk single?