[Photos via YouTube]
When the ball dropped in New York City’s Times Square at the stroke of midnight Dec. 31, 2009, punk rock had been around 35 years. (Or 33, depending on if you date the subculture from when the
Ramones began playing gigs or from the mythic Punk Year Zero of 1977.) It was well into its third decade as the 21st century entered its second. There was now plenty of history from which new bands could draw inspiration not just punk history. It no longer had to come from the Ramones or the
Sex Pistols. In the case of the Jim Jones Revue, it could originate in the 1950s. In that of the Strypes, it would be the ‘60s.