The pic­ture of punk as the domain of boor­ish nihilists who can’t play their instru­ments has been as much a cre­ation of mar­ket­ing (via Mal­colm McLaren) as it has been a virtue-of-neces­si­ty min­i­mal­ist pose and a form of avant garde DIY exper­i­men­tal­ism. But there have always been, since the coin­ing of the term “punk” as a musi­cal genre, stel­lar musi­cians and thought­ful, poet­ic lyri­cists shap­ing the scene. Of the for­mer, we must men­tion Tele­vi­sion, with their mag­nif­i­cent gui­tar inter­play between leader Tom Ver­laine and Richard Lloyd. And, of the lat­ter, we need look no fur­ther than the god­moth­er of punk her­self, Pat­ti Smith, who has always com­mand­ed stage and stu­dio with her smart, arrest­ing lyri­cism and pow­er­ful set of pipes.

Years before the Sex Pis­tols invad­ed the States, these two bands played reg­u­lar­ly at CBG­Bs (Tele­vi­sion was, in fact, the very first band to play there) with a loose col­lec­tion of mis­fits who re-invent­ed rock and roll. In Decem­ber, 1975, Smith released her first album, Hors­es, a hybrid of punk and spo­ken word pro­duced by the Vel­vet Underground’s John Cale.

But before that record made her famous—in April of that year—the Pat­ti Smith Group took the stage with Tele­vi­sion, and two teenage fans were there to record both sets from both bands. First appear­ing as a boot­leg CD gener­i­cal­ly titled “Ear­ly Gig ’75,” the disc has since been reis­sued as We Can’t Do Any­more… Cause I’m Just Too Tired!, with anoth­er set of Smith cov­ers tacked on from a ’78 con­cert in San­ta Mon­i­ca.

We get clas­sic tracks from both bands, such as Television’s “Mar­quee Moon” and “Lit­tle John­ny Jew­ell” and Smith’s cov­er of “Hey Joe” and Van Morrison’s “Glo­ria” as well as her own “Hors­es” and “Piss Fac­to­ry.” At the top of the post, you can hear her do six songs from that night in 1975, the last three with Tele­vi­sion join­ing her onstage: “We’re Going to Have a Real Good Time Togeth­er” (Vel­vet Under­ground cov­er), “Redon­do Beach,” “Bird­land,” “Space Mon­key,” “Dis­tant Fin­gers,” and “Glo­ria.” You’ll also hear the two young tapers chat­ting it up in the first few min­utes of the tape.

Smith’s band, writes boot­leg blog Doom & Gloom From the Tomb, “was tran­si­tion­ing from a cabaret-lean­ing trio to a ful­ly-fledged rock band sound,” and the ram­shackle per­for­mances show us a tal­ent­ed bunch of musi­cians still find­ing their foot­ing as a group. The fol­low­ing year, Smith and band would appear in Stock­holm after the release of Hors­es. As you can see and hear above (after a brief inter­view) they’d become a tighter, and some­what more con­ven­tion­al, rock and roll machine, but the ear­ly per­for­mances at the top—for all the lo-fi murk­i­ness and intru­sive crowd noise—have a raw appeal only height­ened by the fact that they are now impor­tant doc­u­ments of a now-leg­endary musi­cal era. See this review of the boot­leg CD reis­sue for a blow-by-blow descrip­tion of this his­toric ’75 con­cert from two sem­i­nal, and phe­nom­e­nal­ly tal­ent­ed, punk bands.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Talk­ing Heads Play CBGB, the New York Club that Shaped Their Sound (1975)

The Ramones, a New Punk Band, Play One of Their Very First Shows at CBGB (1974)

Blondie Plays CBGB in the Mid-70s in Two Vin­tage Clips

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Despite break­ing his leg dur­ing a gig ear­li­er this sum­mer, Dave Grohl and the Foo Fight­ers have blitzed their way through Europe and Amer­i­ca, play­ing some­times 5–6 shows per week, in cities often large, but some­times small.

On Sep­tem­ber 16th, the band will make a pit­stop in my home­town, Moun­tain View, CA (pop­u­la­tion 75,000). So it does­n’t seem implau­si­ble for the res­i­dents of Cese­na, Italy (pop­u­la­tion 100,000) to ask the Foo Fight­ers to play a show in their small city, which sits right near the Adri­at­ic Sea.

And boy did they make the request in style. I get chills when I watch this, every time.

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If you fol­low music news, you’ll have read of late more than a cou­ple sto­ries about two for­mer mem­bers of two high­ly influ­en­tial bands—Jack­ie Fox of the Run­aways and Kim Gor­don of Son­ic Youth. Fox’s sto­ry of exploita­tion and sex­u­al assault as a six­teen year-old rock star comes with all the usu­al pub­lic doubts about her cred­i­bil­i­ty, and sad­ly rep­re­sents the expe­ri­ence of so many women in the music busi­ness. Gordon’s numer­ous sto­ries in her mem­oir Girl in a Band doc­u­ment her own strug­gles in punk and alt rock scenes that fos­tered hos­til­i­ty to women, in the band or no. The dis­cus­sion of these two musi­cians’ per­son­al nar­ra­tives is com­pelling and nec­es­sary, but we should not lose sight of their sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions as musi­cians, play­ing per­haps the least appre­ci­at­ed instru­ment in the rock and roll arsenal—the bass.

Mem­bers of bands that rou­tine­ly become the sub­ject of peti­tions to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Fox and Gor­don rep­re­sent just two of hun­dreds of women bass play­ers, many thump­ing away in obscu­ri­ty and no small num­ber achiev­ing suc­cess in indie, punk, met­al, and jazz bands, as solo artists, or as ses­sions musi­cians. Gordon’s low end helped dri­ve the sound of nineties alt-rock (see her with Son­ic Youth at the top), and Fox’s basslines under­scored sev­en­ties hard rock (with the Run­aways above).

Before either of them picked up the instru­ment, anoth­er huge­ly influ­en­tial bassist, Car­ol Kaye, played on thou­sands of hits as a mem­ber of L.A.’s top flight ses­sion musi­cians, the Wreck­ing Crew. A trained jazz gui­tarist, Kaye’s discog­ra­phy includes Nan­cy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made for Walk­ing,” the Beach Boy’s “Cal­i­for­nia Girls,” the Mon­kees “I’m a Believ­er,” Joe Cocker’s “Feel­in’ Alright”… and that’s just a tiny sam­pling. (See Kaye give Kiss’s Gene Sim­mons a bass les­son, above, and don’t miss a lengthy inter­view with her here.)

Kaye could, and did, play almost any­thing; she is an exceptional—and excep­tion­al­ly gracious—musician. And while few bass play­ers can match her when it comes to musi­cal range and abil­i­ty, many share her tal­ent for writ­ing sim­ple, yet unfor­get­table basslines that define gen­res and eras. Along­side Kim Gordon’s aggres­sive­ly melod­ic bass play­ing in Son­ic Youth, Kim Deal of the Pix­ies gave us mas­sive 90s alt-rock hooks and, like Gor­don, shared or took over vocal duties on some of the band’s biggest songs. (See them do “Gigan­tic” live in 1988 above.) Although they may not seem to have much in com­mon, both Deal and Kaye mas­tered the art of sim­plic­i­ty, par­ing down what could have been over­ly busy basslines to only the most essen­tial notes and rhyth­mic accents. (Deal dis­cuss­es her approach in an inter­view here.)

Like Kim Deal’s play­ing in the Pix­ies, Tina Weymouth’s bass in Talk­ing Heads worked as both a rhyth­mic anchor and a propul­sive engine beneath the band’s angu­lar gui­tars and synths. (See her awe­some inter­play above with the band and guest gui­tarist Adri­an Belew dur­ing the Remain in Light tour in Rome.) Wey­mouth not only com­prised one half of the funki­est art rock rhythm sec­tion in exis­tence, but she wrote what is per­haps the funki­est bassline in rock his­to­ry with her own project Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love.” It’s almost impos­si­ble to imag­ine what the 80s would have sound­ed like with­out Weymouth’s bass play­ing (though we could have lived with­out her danc­ing).

No list of clas­sic female bass play­ers will ever be complete—there’s always one more name to add, one more bass riff to savor, one more argu­ment to be had over who is over- and under­rat­ed. But it should pro­voke no argu­ment what­so­ev­er to point toward Meshell Nde­geo­cel­lo as not only one of the most tal­ent­ed bass play­ers, but one of the most tal­ent­ed musi­cians peri­od of her gen­er­a­tion. See her and band above play “Dead End” live on KCRW. Unlike most of the play­ers above (except per­haps Car­ol Kaye), Nde­geo­cel­lo is a high­ly tech­ni­cal play­er, but also a very taste­ful one. Much of her music flies under the radar, but most peo­ple will be famil­iar with her cov­er of Van Morrison’s “Wild Nights” with John Cougar Mel­len­camp and her neosoul hit “If That’s Your Boyfriend.”

Again, this is only the briefest, small­est sam­pling of excel­lent female bass players—in rock, jazz, soul, etc. An expand­ed list would include play­ers like Melis­sa Auf der Maur, Esper­an­za Spald­ing, and many more names you may or may not have heard before. One you prob­a­bly haven’t, but should, is the name Tal Wilken­feld, an Aus­tralian prodi­gy who has played with Her­bie Han­cock, Chick Corea, the All­man Broth­ers, and Jeff Beck. (See her absolute­ly kill it in a per­for­mance with Beck above from 2007.) Like Car­ol Kaye many decades before her, Wilken­feld made her name at a very young age, play­ing gui­tar in jazz clubs, and quick­ly became a high­ly in-demand play­er called—at age 21—“the future of bass.” Are there any oth­er women play­ers out there deserv­ing of the title, or of inclu­sion in a bass play­ing Hall of Fame? Let us know in the com­ments, and include a link to your favorite live per­for­mance.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Meet Car­ol Kaye, the Unsung Bassist Behind Your Favorite 60s Hits

Four Female Punk Bands That Changed Women’s Role in Rock

Hear Iso­lat­ed Tracks From Five Great Rock Bassists: McCart­ney, Sting, Dea­con, Jones & Lee

The Sto­ry of the Bass: New Video Gives Us 500 Years of Music His­to­ry in 8 Min­utes

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness