Pop/Rock » Punk/New Wave » L.A. Punk

The Los Angeles punk scene was the last of punk's Big Three (the others being New York and London) to develop, and was neither as musically diverse nor as adventurous. However, L.A.'s scene has also proven to be the longest-lasting; as punk mutated into hardcore, then alternative rock, then back to a revivalist punk-pop sound during the '90s, it continued to thrive in the L.A./Orange County area in some form or another. For these purposes, though, L.A. punk refers to the original, pre-hardcore punks, who played a generally lean and mean brand of punk already. Most L.A. punk was fast and thrashy, with an overall tougher vibe than the often arty New York scene or the young and impassioned amateurs in London. The major exception was X, whose off-kilter male/female harmony vocals, rockabilly rhythms, and ambitiously literate lyrics would have been a perfect fit with the CBGB's regulars. Other major contributors to the L.A. sound included the angry socialist politics of the Dils, the amateurish proto-hardcore and angst-ridden poetry of the Germs, and the gonzo humor of the Weirdos and the Dickies. With its natural inclination toward more aggressive punk, L.A. became the center for the music's shift into hardcore, with Black Flag (and, later, its seminal SST label) leading the new direction by the beginning of the '80s.