Wikipedia needs a cow punk entry; this is one I started before I realized there's NO WAY I have time to write this!

Cow punk differs from psychobilly, however, in that it is more directly associated with guitar-heavy proto-roots rock / heavy metal (Vanilla Fudge, ____, and ____) than psychobilly is, and not associated with goth. Cow punk is thus perhaps more separate from Country Music proper than psychobilly.

Rank n'File and other Frontier recording artists ___, ___, and ___ are classic cow punk bands, but at the peak of cow punk's popularity in the early 1980's, many American punk bands experimented with the genre. Exene Cervenka and John Doe of X formed The Knitters; The Minutemen recorded cover versions of Creedence Clearwater Revival songs, and Mission of Burma released "All World cowboy Romance"

More mainstream even than the big American punk bands were bands such as Guadalcanal Diary, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and novelty-song writers The Beat Farmers. Nevertheless, there remainded a difference -- often in musicianship and influence, between cow punk and more mainstream pop bands such as The Alarm, who were haircut / costume 80s bands with a western theme rather than punk rock bands with slide n' twang.

Some Southern California bands crossing Mexican – American country music, Punk

Comments

Anonymous said…
I'm guesssing you want to define cow punk because you listen to it, but I'm not sure. Are you familiar with The Gibson Bros? They're from my hometown (Columbus, Oh) and are definately seminal country/punk cross-pollinaters. Not sure if it's cow punk, though. Some members evolved into the Workdogs (with young and impressionable Jon Spencer sitting in and taking notes)and eventually down the road apiece in memphis formed '68 Comeback.

More recent great cow-punkers are Los Angeles' own Geraldine Fibbers. ---Allyssa Wolf

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