Punk hit's 30 years old?

I recently went in to a store called "Hot Topic" to buy a new Ramones T-shirt. On the bag it said they were celebrating 30 years of Punk Rock. I'm not quite sure if they were refering to the Ramones coming, the Sex Pistols or what.

To me the original punk band was The Who. They were "the first band to vomit in the bar, and find the distance to the stage to far". An earlier Who show was total anarchy. Pete Townshend smashing his guitar, Roger Daltrey swinging his mic hitting people in the audience, Keith Moon reducing his drum kit to kindling, and John Entwhistle moving out of the way.

The songs were charged with anger (My Generation), drugs (Magic Bus), and violence (Happy Jack). As they grew up, they turned this rage and anger in to art. Tommy and Quadrophenia inspired so many other bands to go past their limitations.

In 2002, Billy Joe Arstrong and Mike Dirnt we talking about disbanding Green Day, but they didn't. They created the best rock album in the last 20 years, American Idiot. In an interview with Guitar World magazine Billie Joe said he got the idea for a punk rock opera from Quadropehnia.

The Who also inspired bands such as the Clash and Pearl Jam (although not punk, grunge is a cousin).

So while I was looking at the bag looking at this bag and reading the writing on it, I became a little disgusted, thinking they just don't get it. When all of a sudden I heard an unmistakable voice saying "People try to put us d-d-d-down!" over the speakers in the store.

I walked out of there thinking some people do know their roots. So some people think that the Sex Pistols invented punk. That's ok. It's my opinion. It's my site. It's only teenage wasteland!