A dive into Canada’s pivotal contributions to the punk scene

By Zanoah Plummer

Punk rock is a music genre defined by its mess and lack of order. Whirlwind-like guitars and the rumble of raging drums make up its shoddily-crafted sound. While its origins trace back to the underground music scenes of London and New York in the early 1970s, its impact has been felt everywhere — from places as far as Botswana to New Zealand. With Canada being the United States’ northern neighbour, it only makes sense that our nation picked up its own punk scene.

Canada’s punk scene, historically and presently, is scattered — with its highest concentrations amongst its most populous cities. Toronto and Vancouver are often in the spotlight in discussions of the subculture, which had a massive explosion in the late ‘70s, going with the tide surging south of the border. 

Of the first wave of Canadian punk bands, Toronto band, The Diodes, are one of the most popular. Their noise is reminiscent of other popular punk bands of the time, such as Ramones and Iggy Pop. The St. John’s band, Da Slyme were one of the first punk bands to exist in Newfoundland. Officially formed in 1977, they brought an Atlantic Canadian kick to the world of punk rock which caught the attention of punk-heads across the globe. 

Other bands such as D.O.A. and The Subhumans (not to be confused with the namesake British band) also came to rise and found both success and respect within the scene.

In the ‘80s came the rise of a more hardcore punk sound. Canadian influence cannot be divorced from its creation, as D.O.A. is often credited as being one of the founders of hardcore and has inspired countless other bands in their sound. Their 1981 album, Hardcore ‘81, is attributed as being the inspiration behind the subgenre’s name.

Taking off with its emergence, Nomeansno of Victoria and SNFU of Edmonton. are both early Canadian hardcore bands that are deeply revered. SNFU was an important part of the Canadian hardcore scene, with D.O.A, Propagandhi and even the American band, NOFX, having all paid tribute to the band in more recent years. To this day, SNFU is often regarded as being one of the best hardcore bands to ever exist.

At its core, the Canadian punk scene has always prioritized being locally critical. Some of Propagandhi’s recorded songs tell tales of political issues directly relevant to Canada. In the track “Call Before You Dig,” the Winnipeg punk band commentates on the dystopia of so-called Canadian cities being built on top of Indigenous land. The band points out all the history and artifacts that have now been paved over to make way for a sewage line.

Propagandhi was also influential in the Vancouver scene during the ‘90s, as they hosted basement shows with fellow Winnipeg band, Red Fisher, which helped smaller bands in the scene take off. 

Vancouver’s early punk atmosphere is regarded as one of the most political in North America, due to its direct proximity to activists and the political group, the Youth International Party. Members of the party, often called “yippies,” were also members of local bands and would spread the messages of their party through music and collectivist efforts.

In a male-dominated genre, Canadian women were also instrumental in their respective scenes from its creation. Not only did women and teen girls attend shows but they formed their own bands and influenced other bands, both female-fronted or otherwise, in their sound.

The Toronto band, The ‘B’ Girls, were an all-female band in the late ‘70s, one of very few in its time. They paved the way for future female punk musicians looking to start their own bands in a scene once known for its prevalent chauvinism and misogynistic attitudes toward women. They toured with punk legends The Clash and had opened for both Iggy Pop and Blondie. 

All-female bands like the Winnipegian Ruggedy Annes also brought women in the scene forward, as they are credited as being the second Winnpegian punk band composed entirely of women. The band had later adopted Debbie Wall of Winnipeg’s first all-female band, The Wurst. 

Most notably, Canadian women’s punk influences transcended borders, as the female-fronted Vancouver duo, Mecca Normal, inspired Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill to continue on her trajectory of feminist songwriting, which later led to the creation of the Riot grrrl movement. 

On the feminist-punk side of things, Toronto’s own Fifth Column inspired a lot of first-wave Riot grrrl bands in their sound – they were another point of inspiration for Bikini Kill frontwoman Kathleen Hanna. Fifth Column’s gritty noise and grungy vocals came to make up the defiant sound Riot grrrls came to know and still love to this day. Their vocalist G.B. Jones is credited with coining the term “queercore,” a subgenre of punk rock created by queer people to critique heterosexism and cissexism in society, as well as within the scene.

Present-day bands like PUP dominate the conversation around Canada’s impact and they attest to the fact that the Toronto scene is one of the liveliest in the country due to its ample venues able to host shows. Smaller bands such as The OBGMs and DoFlame, alongside countless other tinier bands from all over the nation, breathe life into the genre.

These current artists most often have to tackle the issue of finding spaces to host shows, as well as a greater demon encroaching on the punk subculture — corporatization. The corporatization of punk rock is nothing new, it was an issue from its start. Vivienne Westwood’s store, SEX, was among the first to turn punk fashion into something that can be bought off the luxury rack. Instead of wearing clothes that were patched up from being well-worn, or a jacket that had been customized over the years, you could now purchase the perfect uniform to look counterculture without having to do any of the work.

Presently, this phenomenon presents itself in “punk” outfits bought straight from SHEIN and premade battle jackets from Etsy. From its advent, people were more concerned with looking the part instead of embodying punk attitudes and politics.

Nonetheless, not all punk bands made political songs, even in the past, but it’s foolish to pretend that punk is completely apolitical. Its fashion and noise were made to shock. In a time when people would not step out of the house without being dressed to the nines, the spikey, rugged look of punk was jarring. Its founders were mostly, if not all, working-class individuals who had a lot to say about the world. Commentary about the classism, racism and elitism punks faced from other people made up the sound of the genre in not just Canada, but worldwide. It was a genre birthed by anger from all the injustice carried out by institutions that ostracized marginalized people. Punks were always stereotyped as being destitute addicts who brought nothing to society and that, at its very core, is inherently political. 

Punk going from a label placed upon people who had little and made the best of what they had, to a list of items you could buy on Amazon has had detrimental effects on the subculture. Real working-class punks, who have no choice but to patch up their worn & torn clothing, are looked down upon once again. Unwonted punk looks that aren’t what you’d find on a conventional TikTok ‘For You Page’ are often deemed “too extreme” by others in a negative connotation. However, this was the entire point of the look in the first place; it was always meant to draw attention.

This change in attitude is reflected in the music as well. Punk took on a cleaner, much more produced sound, straying far away from its origins. Lyrics were stripped of politics, or even discussions of drinking, sex and benders that apolitical punk bands provocatively lyricized. Somehow, a subculture whose entire ethos was to Do-It-Yourself (DIY) had fallen prey to the corporate overproduction it was meant to combat.

Low-quality, obscure studio recording is a staple in the grittier subgenres of punk rock and it’s meant to sound much better when performed live. The sanitized production that defines modern songs in the genre is contradictory in the sense that it seeks the apparent edginess of hardcore music, but doesn’t want to retain the messy recording process of the sound which is most authentic to the subgenre.

To compensate for this failure in the subculture, many scenes took to becoming hostile to newer punks and those who were just finding their footing in the punk world. While some degree of gatekeeping is necessary to keep any movement true to its cause, too much of it will and has stomped out genuine, well-meaning people from getting involved with the subculture.

For punk to rise from its ashes in Canada and in other parts of the world, there needs to be an emphasis on the creative aspects of the subculture. From crafting their own clothes to producing music without knowing how to play an instrument, early punks have made it clear that the bar to entry was low. All you needed to do was try. The punks of today have lost this ethos in the wave of commercialization. 

Fighting back against the rampant mischaracterization of the movement won’t happen overnight. The entire subculture was not created in one moon. To begin to unravel what has really happened to the subculture, punks must ask themselves: Whatever happened to “DIY-or-DIE?”