This just kinda came out of me a little while back. I hope this amuses somebody out there.
Or leads to some heavy philosophical discussions or something:
Who's More Punk - The 3 Stooges or the Marx Bros?Here's a few facts, taken largely from common knowledge but also
peppered with bits of info found on the Web or in various reference
materials. I'll present the evidence, and you can take it upon
yourselves to review it and decide - Who's more "punk", the
Marx Brothers or the
Three Stooges:
1)
Iggy Pop's first successful band, who are considered by many to be
the godfathers of punk rock, were named
The Stooges. Band member
Ron
Asheton regularly visited
Larry Fine in the retirement home where the
"middle
Stooge" lived out his last days following a disabling
stroke. Also, the band only made a trio of albums in their lifetime,
meaning that hardcore fans must refer to their record collection as
containing "three
Stooges LPs". Finally, novelty label Rhino
Records once issued a version of the Ig's signature anthem "I Wanna
Be Your Dog" released under the group name
The Seven Stooges, with
Pop and his band's original recording supplemented with slapstick noises
and imitation Stooge voices.
2)Current LA band
Los Villains was recently described in the press as
"a squadron of Irish-Italian-Mexican-American punk rock
Marx
Brothers."
3)
Jonathan Richman's seminal early 1970s band the
Modern Lovers were
not punk rockers per se but are considered to be among punk's most
important influences. The waif-ish Richman looks like, and often acts
like, a ringer for
Harpo Marx.*
4)
The Ramones' haircuts resembled
Moe Howard's bowl job in front,
paired with youthful revolt's length in back. Journalists sometimes
referred to the band as a pack of "Neanderthals" early on, bringing
to mind the anthropologists in
Hollywood Party and elsewhere who described
Curly Howard as an evolutionary throwback. And finally, the art/entertainment
periodical
MetroActive says, in discussing the Ramones,
"The Three
Stooges come to mind probably because, like the Stooges, the Ramones
were all about the grind of showbiz."
5)
The Damned, who were the first British punk band to release an album
and tour the USA, are fans of classic comedy. They issued a Christmas
single at the height of their popularity entitled "There Ain't No
Sanity Claus" - a direct
Marxist reference from the brothers'
highly-regarded motion picture
A Night At the Opera.
6)
The Dickies, who were the first (and almost only) 1970s US punk band
signed to a major label, scored a hit with "The Tra La La Song" aka
the theme from Saturday morning kiddie show
The Banana Splits. The
Splits in turn were something of a mishmash of the the
Monkees, the
Marxes,
and the
Stooges (albeit clothed in humongous animal costumes).
7)Respected UK music tabloid
NME says this of
Green Day, the band who
elevated punk from a cult thing to a mass audience mega-moneymaking
proposition: "They're like a punk-rock
Marx Brothers, goofing together and
with the audience, dribbling an infectious, agreeable mischief."
Malcolm McLaren, the Svengali manager of the
Sex Pistols, later
performed as a solo act and scored a major UK dance club hit with
"Bickie-Bye", better known as the
Howard, Fine and Howard classic
"The Alphabet Song" ("Bee, Ay, Bay! Bee, Ee, Bee! Bee, I...") which
debuted in the 1938 Stooge short
Violent Is the Word For Curly.
[2012 CORRECTION: The above paragraph is in error - it was Oingo Boingo's Danny Elfman who performed an updated rendition of this Stooges tune in the cult film "The Forbidden Zone". McLaren scored his big hit with the oldie "Buffalo Gals".I have absolutely no idea how I had this mixed up for so many years!]9)The bizarre on-stage, way-off-Broadway concoction
WolfTales,
described on its web page as an "audience participation rock and roll
musical" features a porcine punk rock trio whose members go by the
names
Moe Pig,
Larry Pig, and
Curly Pig.
10)At a recent show headlined by the
Offspring, old guard punks the
Vandals drew the following review: "...the Vandals - they're old, too,
like, 30 or something - [and they] came across like the punk
Marx
Brothers."
11)The publisher of the legendary punk magazine
Punk Magazine described his editorial vision thusly: "I thought the magazine should
be for other f***-ups like us. Kids who grew up believing only in the
Three Stooges."
12)A press release regarding the 2004 edition of the hard-rocking
multi-band Warped Tour says of the act
El Nada that at the tour's
Chicago stop, a pair of band members "took the lead to handle their
biz [...] two by two, trying to get through the doorway of production at
the same time, recreating a scene reminiscent of something out of the
Three Stooges."
13)UK paper the
Guardian calls the
Marxes' film
Monkey Business"full of aimless chaos - the sense of pointless rebellion throughout
is as modern and anarchic as, say, punk rock."
14)Jason Willis of current punk band the
Knockout Pills from Tuscon
AZ, recently was quoted as saying "Punk Rock is the best thing that
ever came along for me. It kisses my furrowed brow as a I drop off to
sleep and it holds my hand when I cross the street. It's everything
from the Fluxus art movement to the
Three Stooges, you know?"
15)The
Alice Cooper Group began their career dressing in drag like
proto-punks the
New York Dolls and were a major influence on the Sex
Pistols. In the liner notes of the anthology box set
The Life &
Crimes of Alice Cooper, A.C. annotates the band's early number
"Nobody Likes Me" with the proud declaration that "
Groucho Marxloved this song!"
Feel free to follow up with further facts, figures, and fancies!
- mnw
