Steppingstones (Garage Rock Meets Punk)

A fine English gentleman asked me to repost my Steppingstones compilation, which featured cover versions by first wave UK punk bands of garage rock songs originally released between 1964 and 1967.  

I had long intended to follow it up with a second set of Steppingstones, which would continue from the psychedelia of 1967 through early 70's glam.  I also found some songs that should have made the original compilation, so I've made some adjustments to the tracklist of the first Steppingstones.  Vol 1.1 contains the original garage rock songs, and 1.2 compiles the punk and pub rock covers of the same 29 songs in the same running order.   Same for Steppingstones 2.1 and 2.2 -- 26 songs from 1967 to 1974 on Vol. 2.1, with the corresponding punk covers on 2.2.

The point of the whole thing (aside from refuting John Lydon's ridiculous claim that the Sex Pistols didn't do cover songs) was to highlight the influence of garage rock, psych and glam on punk rock.  This isn't an original observation -- Lenny Kaye knew it when he compiled Nuggets.  And despite what has been said about "Year Zero", punk didn't make a complete break from the music that preceded it.  

Not all of the punk versions are great, but most or all of them are performed with sincere affection for the originals, rather than those punk parodies that simply sped up old songs (which The Dickies did brilliantly) or spat them out with exaggerated disdain (e.g., Sid Vicious' "My Way").

Thanks, Nobby!

Part of the appeal of garage rock and glam was of course that anyone could do it.  It was worlds away from prog rock.  Garage rock was appealingly simple (and aggressive) but it wasn't "style over substance".  Psychedelia required a bit more musical skill.  As far as glam, maybe its style was its substance.