Ongoing History Daily: Who was the first punk band?

Punk rock exploded into the world in 1976, but that attitude had been gestating for a while. Is it possible to trace the origins of punk back to one specific band that came earlier?

There’s an argument that Iggy Pop and the Stooges embodied the spirit of punk as early as 1967. Their music was raw and noisy, a reaction to how rock was starting to become very slick and professional. They were also dangerous and unpredictable.

But before them came The MC5, another band from Detroit. They were not just angry but threatening. They were political, anti-establishment, and at the apex of left-wing 60s counterculture. They were formed in 1963. Neither band was around when the term “punk rock” was invented—that didn’t come along until about 1974 and 1975—so both The Stooges and The MC5 are referred to as “proto-punk.”

Labels aside, though, those two bands did more to set the table for punk rock than any others.