The Punk Ethos

Punk does not just pertain to music. According to authors Chris Sullivan and Stephen Colegrave, it is having a do-it-your attitude, being creative, and rejecting authority.

So Andy Warhol is a prime example, bringing consumer culture to galleries and directing a five-hour film of his sleeping boyfriend. 

Colegrave and Sullivan's Punk-The-Last-Word (their precursor being Punk: A Life Apart in 2001, for which they interviewed musicians, managers, promoters, designers, and others) also says Warhol was a visionary. He foresaw artists like Banksy, selling the same picture in different colors, and perhaps even Instagram and TikTok with all of their selfies. 

Even one of Andy's 'superstars' influenced punk's early look, with her close-cut hairdo, all-black attire, and dark eyeliner. Besides that, Edie Sedgwick had a unique way of dancing. It was kind of Egyptian with her head tilting in just the right way, according to Warhol himself.

There was dancing--with whips--during the artist's Uptight events, starring the Velvet Underground. Nils Stevenson, who organized one of punk's first superbills, admitted he was inspired by Uptight. His all-nighter, held in London, featured the Sex Pistols, The Clash, and Buzzcocks.

But of course punk's anti-authoritarian stance emerged far earlier, with names ranging from Marcel Duchamp to Little Richard. Another is Keith Richards, who continues to be ''100 percent his own man.''