Punk starts here... perhaps

Ask a dozen music fans to name the start of PUNK and you will likely receive a dozen different answers.
Count Five's "Psychotic Reaction!" Iggy and the Stooges! New York Dolls! The Ramones! Sex Pistols! Dead Kennedys! Avril Lavigne!
Hah! I was just kidding with that last one.
To conclude Route 1's PUNK WEEK, a celebration of all things PUNK, I have been playing an iPod playlist devoted to the first bands to take up the punk ethos -- that anyone could grab an instrument and make music.
In my opinion, this proto-punk movement began when kids in American (mostly suburban) garages picked up guitars and decided to make their own form of rock-n-roll.
The first song on my (admittedly ever-evolving) playlist is "Jungle Fever," a thrashy instrumental released by The Playboys in 1959. I followed that with Link Wray's "Jack the Ripper" and Dick Dale's "Misrlou."
The fourth song really sums up the notion of "punk" for me, although most musicologists would also rightly call it "surf."
The Bel Airs released the instrumental "Mr. Moto" in 1962. There aren't many chords and a really ragged saxophone battles with a plonking piano. That's what passes for virtuosity on this track. Is it a leap to go from "Mr. Moto" to "Anarchy in the UK?"
I don't think so. The underlying mindset seems to be the same: Damn the convention, because anyone can make their own music.
The next song on the playlist? The Pygmies' 1963 instrumental holler-fest "Don't Monkey With Tarzan." You don't get much more PUNK than that one.