proto-punk

The New York Dolls are a rock and roll group formed in New York City in 1971. They found little success during their initial run, but the New York Dolls prefigured much of what was to come in the punk rock era and even later; the Dolls' over-the-top crossdressing influenced the look of many glam metal groups, especially that of early Mötley Crüe, and their shambling, sloppy but highly energetic playing style set the tone for many later rock and roll bands.

Destroy All Monsters (sometimes rendered DAM) is an Ann Arbor, Michigan musical group formed by four artist friends in 1973. Their music touched on elements of punk rock, psychedelic, heavy metal music and noise rock with a heavy dose of performance art. Their name has sometimes thought to have came from a Godzilla movie, but it could also have come from a comic book with the same title. They described their music as "anti-rock." Destroy All Monsters never found mainstream success, but earned some notoriety due to members of notable rock groups The Stooges and MC5 who joined the group.

Jonathan Richman was born May 15th 1951 to a Jewish family in Natick, Massachusetts. He began playing music and writing his own songs in the mid-1960s. In 1969 he moved to New York City, where he spent time living on the couch of The Velvet Underground's manager and working odd jobs while trying to break in as a professional musician. Failing at this, he returned to Boston. Having moved back, he formed The Modern Lovers, a proto-punk garage rock band.