New Wave/Punk Musicians who were serious players

rpr

Television-whole band

Robert Quinn- Voidoids

Keith Levene- worshiped Steve Howe

I'd stick Captain Sensible in there as well.

Dead Kennedys

I think a lot of those bands could play better than they let on, Some of them were gigging pub bands, who got haircuts and safety pins to jump on to the bandwagon. I had a couple of pictures of the Dead Boys playing CBGBs -1975-Long hair and flairs, 1976-Short hair skinny jeans-(except for the bass player IIRC who just looked the same).

EricTheWeary

Dead Kennedys quite amazed me the different styles they could bring in and as tight as anything.
The Clash emerged from existing pub rock bands; probably very few successful punk bands who had all started from scratch, even if their publicity at the time suggested they had.

Sassafras

Robert Quine for me too. He did great work with Lou Reed on Live in Milan.

ICBM

Sassafras said:

Robert Quine for me too. He did great work with Lou Reed on Live in Milan.

And some great stuff in the 90s with Lloyd Cole too. Plus a Marianne Faithfull album and a Tom Waits one among others...

stonevibe

John McGeoch is my favourite of them all.

A beautiful player and not a follower of trends.

So was a very gifted player with a unique voice.

sticker

Graham Maby - Joe Jackson's bassist is a great player

 David Byrne and Talking Heads

Neil Finn (Split Enz era) 

ICBM

Bruce Foxton

paulads

ICBM said:

Bruce Foxton

Agreed...but i saw Foxton with SLF a few times...i was really surprised as he wasn't a patch on Ali McMordie...and he played "doesn't make it alright" really badly...

i love his Jam basslines, though...not particularly difficult...just very good basslines played very well...

a great second vocalist too - the importance of which shouldn't be overlooked

Philly_Q

I was going to mention Richard Lloyd, Tom Verlaine and Robert Quine.  You beat me to it.

My vote goes to the mighty Bob Mould.  You could argue he's primarily a great songwriter, but I love his playing too.

EricTheWeary

paulads said:

ICBM said:

Bruce Foxton

Agreed...but i saw Foxton with SLF a few times...i was really surprised as he wasn't a patch on Ali McMordie...and he played "doesn't make it alright" really badly...

i love his Jam basslines, though...not particularly difficult...just very good basslines played very well...

a great second vocalist too - the importance of which shouldn't be overlooked

IIRC he wrote Smithers Jones, my favourite song by The Jam.

paulads

and "news of the world" ...a nice little earner for him...

DesVegas

Hell yeah for Porl. His work on Wish is amazing as is the solo to Catch.

EricTheWeary

paulads said:

and "news of the world" ...a nice little earner for him...

ahhh. Dont think I knew that.

JohnPerry

Gassage said:

John Perry - the Only Ones. 

this

RobDavies

I love Clive Timberley's playing on "I'm in Love with a German Film Star" by The Passions.

Does that count?

TTony

I can't add anything to the nominations above.  

Except ...

John Cooper Clarke.

Best lyricist / vocalist and if you saw him today, you'd know he was (and still is) a "punk".

RobDavies

Oh, and some of the live sounds that Lu Edmonds makes for PIL are absolutely outstanding.

DesVegas

^Jah Wobble too

axisus

paulads said:

pearl's a minger

Laughed out loud!

axisus

Good call on Dave Gregory. He plays in a couple of Prog bands now, and you have to be pretty good for that style of music