A dear friend was in town this week and seemingly out of nowhere asked "Is the Up single something you'd consider pre-punk?"

I hemmed and hawed for a second, and as if struck by lightning, I grabbed a box within arms reach and said "Let's listen together"

It's a novel thing, listening to music with your friends. Used to be that ALL music was only ever listened to in groups. And by used to, I mean like cavemen. Aborigines even. But only with the advent of recorded music within the past 130 years did the act of listening become an action that could even be considered solitary. 

We both seemed to come to the conclusion at the same moment, both curiously shaking our heads "no" simultaneously, that despite their immediate proximity to both the Stooges and the MC5, the Up were not pre-punk. Little too riffy and not as much attitude for my interpretation. But no less a wildly exciting single, overlooked largely because it was seemingly never widely available, self-released in a pic sleeve (still fairly novel in 1970) on red vinyl (absolutely novel in 1970).

I luckily snagged this copy back when I was 21 years old and the the wise sage running the record store at the time said "I've had a guy who's been asking me for 20 years to hold this single for him if it ever came in. But I'd rather sell it to you."

So happy he did. This thing cooks. And pre-punk is just an invention of record collectors anyway. Music, when you boil it down, is all that matters beyond any sort of stylistic or genre-based designation.