By: Cecilia Zhang

In 1977 the first generation of New York City punk moved to larger groups. They spent their days at Stuyvesant High School. They were dropouts and runaways; some of them were under 18. They spent there teen years creating a new rock scene playing pop and punk music. Punk music is a short song forms, fast tempos, anti-establishment lyrics, and simple melodies and harmonies.

Eric Hofferct who did four hours of homework on weekdays then practiced his guitar for hours. Arthur Brennan, a 16 year-old from Groton, Conn hitchhike’s 20 miles everyday. He renamed himself Darvon Staggard and ran away to New York City to join the band. Kate Schellenbach a ninth grader, heard a rumor that bands her age were playing famous music clubs just blocks where she lived.

In September 1979 Schellenbach turned 13 and was starting high school in a outfit expressing her music, overdyed pants, white botts a bowling shirt, and an Elvis Costello pin. “I remember going into the girls’ bathroom,” she said cheerfully, speaking via video chat, “and this girl, Nancy Hall, who was the coolest, was sitting on the sink.” Nancy suggested Kate should go see a band playing CBGB called Student Teachers.

“If I hadn’t seen the Student Teachers that fateful night, I might never have been a drummer,” said Schellenbach, who helped found the Beastie Boys in 1981 and went on to form Luscious Jackson. “Seeing Laura Davis play drums, seeing Lori Reese play bass and how exciting the whole scene was, everything about it made me think, ‘Oh, maybe this is something I can do,’” she added. “These people were still in high school — it seemed attainable.”

Laura Albert, who was on the scene from age 13, also achieved fame. “Access still came with a price, especially for girls and queer boys,” she wrote in an as-yet-unpublished memoir. “That said, there was a sense of possibility, age was not a barrier, I was a teen in foster care but I still had access to the musicians I admired, calling them on pay phones and interviewing them for fanzines.”