Few genres have had the lasting impact of punk. 1976 is one of those seismic dividing lines in popular music. A history destroying year zero. The point after which everything changed. It was the year that The Ramones debut was released, the year that the first singles from the UK Punk scene were set loose upon a unprepared public. And while the punks wanted to remove themselves from the past, burn all that had come before, nothing happens within a vacuum. These bands didn’t appear out of nowhere with the key principles of the genre locked in place. This innovative minimalist, three-chords and the truth, turbo-powered music had to have precedent. There were other artists that lead up to this era-defining moment in music that are either forgotten, ignored or not given credit. This is how Punk became punk.

This video delves in everything from “Louie Louie”, “Rumble” and “Surfin Bird”, through The Sonics “Psycho”, “Sister Ray” by Velvet Underground, “Kick Out The Jams” by The MC5, “I Wanna Be Your Dog” by The Stooges onto the what became the standard for punk rock: “Gloria” by Patti Smith, “Blitzkrieg Bop” by the Ramones and “Anarchy in the UK” by Sex Pistols.

Few today are making movies with the scope and ambition of “Silence” – a fact, he grants, that makes him feel like one of the last of a dying breed in today’s film industry.

“Cinema is gone,” Scorsese says. “The cinema I grew up with and that I’m making, it’s gone.”

“The theater will always be there for that communal experience, there’s no doubt. But what kind of experience is it going to be?” he continues. “Is it always going to be a theme-park movie? I sound like an old man, which I am. The big screen for us in the ’50s, you go from Westerns to ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ to the special experience of ‘2001’ in 1968. The experience of seeing ‘Vertigo’ and ‘The Searchers’ in VistaVision.”

Scorsese points to the proliferation of images and the overreliance on superficial techniques as trends that have diminished the power of cinema to younger audiences. “It should matter to your life,” he says. “Unfortunately the latest generations don’t know that it mattered so much.”

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I was eaten by a grue, how about you?

Leonard Nimoy, who played Mr. Spock on “Star Trek,” has died.

He was 83.

The actor died Friday morning at his home in Bel Air, California, his wife, Susan Bay Nimoy, confirmed to the New York Times. The cause of death was end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

For five decades, Bleecker Bob's was one of the last reminders of the Village's musical roots. It survived the introduction of cassettes and CDs, outlasted nearby punk venue CBGBs, and managed to stay open when Bob had a major stroke and had to entrust the running of the store to his friends.

But the stars are long gone. When the landlord decided to put up the rent in line with other properties in the area, Bleecker Bob's couldn't pay. The store closed on April 13, 2013. Its legacy will live on, especially for those who gave up their lives for the records.

Produced by Emily Judem and Hazel Sheffield.

Music: When it Was Our Time by Richard X. Heyman; Businessman by Tuff Darts.

The twentieth anniversary of the death of Eric Hoffer, in May 1983, passed with very little notice of one of the most incisive thinkers of his time — a man whose writings continue to have great relevance to our times.

How many people today even know of this remarkable man with no formal schooling, who spent his life in manual labor — most of it as a longshoreman — and who wrote some of the most insightful commentary on our society and trends in the world?

You need only read one of his classics like The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements to realize that you are seeing the work of an intellectual giant.

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Q: Have any rap artists ever approached you to work on projects together?

BDP: The only thing that’s happened is that Universal has continually wanted to put a rap score on Scarface and re-release it and I haven’t allowed them to do it.

Q: Well, Giorgio Moroder’s score is already perfect.

BDP: Thank you. That’s what I think, too. So, they’re very unhappy with me, because they could obviously make a tremendous amount of money, but I said, “That score’s not being changed.”

Q: I guess you have final cut?

BDP: Yeah.

Read The Full Interview…

When asked if Return of the Archons was in fact an inspiration for The Purge, writer/director James DeMonaco smiled and told me, “That’s what my dad brought up when I told him the idea. My dad forced me to watch [the original Star Trek] over and over.”

In Return of the Archons Kirk and company beam down to a planet whose populace is tightly controlled by a computer called Landru. At 6pm everybody goes mad, killing and raping, as a way of letting off steam in the few hours that Landru isn't all up in their shit. That event is known as Red Hour, which is where hardcore Trekkie Ben Stiller got the name for his production company. This episode is also the first time the Prime Directive is ever mentioned (Kirk breaks it).

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