Punk in Suomi-Finland
Punk arrived a couple of years late to the peripheries of Europe. Finland is one such periphery...
The fact that punk became more of a mass youth movement in Finland than in many other countries can probably be attributed to unique geographic and geopolitical factors.
In the 1970s, Finland was an exception to many a rule; a capitalist nation butting up against the Soviet Union and led by a more or less despotic President Urho Kekkonen. The country as it existed during this era is now jokingly referred to as “Kekkoslovakia”.
There were two national TV and radio channels, no nightlife to speak of, what with the bars closing at midnight, and the weather was demanding. No wonder the new winds blowing through music found a very receptive audience by the time they made it this far.
Briard was the first Finnish band to record a punk song. It was a pastiche of foreign influnces called I Really Hate Ya and featured Andy McCoy, later of Hanoi Rocks fame, on guitar. This first recorded evidence may have been derivative, but it didn’t take long for punk in Finland to start taking on national characteristics. The most important thing was that bands started singing in Finnish.
The new wave of bands was led by groups like Pelle Miljoona and Eppu Normaali. They were very popular in Finland, but had zero export potential. A few attempts were made.
A huge mass of bands that turned punk into a popular mass movement grew behind this vanguard. Many bands from the first wave are still active in music today.
Punk’s success among the youth was not universal. Concurrent to the punk movement, there was a 50s rock boom going on. The supporters of these two subcultures clashed violently – generally instigated by the “teddyboys” – on the streets and at shows.
1979 and 1980 were the most active punk years in Finland. After that, the New Romantics, synthesizer pop and other 80s phenomena started eating into punk’s impact and led many bands, such as Ratsia and Pelle Miljoona, to try their hand at new styles. Generally, they met with little success, musically or commercially.
Young heroes who still had their piece to say were growing up in basements around the country. Lama, a street punk band from Helsinki, became the first one to play abroad at international punk festivals.
The Oi-movement often attached to street punk, never got a lot of traction in Finland, but hardcore, which had been nascent in the scene since 1980, became a cult favorite around the globe.
Hard music combined with the exotic Finnish language, which many considered very suitable for punk, made Terveet Kädet, Riistetyt, Bastard and many others heroes of their subcultures. Their original releases are sought-after collectors’ items now.
After a few years, hardcore drifted into a musical cul-de-sac.
The degeneration of the scene was helped along by the fact that many hardcore punks were not content to fuck around on stage. They lived and drank hard off it, too.
After 1983, most hardcore bands quit or drifted into other genres, primarily metal.
Towards the end f its decade run, punk left the limelight and stepped back into the margins, where it was kept alive with a strong DIY spirit.
What goes around comes around. This cycle provided natural time parameters for this compilation.
Joose Berglund