Why don't you share some information on it..?

the real pioneers where offcourse the bands that started this music in the seventisch
( being old is not that bad, i witnessed it all *lol* )

Iggy Pop & The Stooges, Velvet Underground, Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers.
Velvut underground etc,etc

The big explosion was offcoure The Sex Pistols in 1976
because of The Sex Pistols, the bands where they learned it from sutch as
The New York Dolls and The Stooges became popular as well.

The Ramones helpt a lot in getting it famous
( in europe, dont know how it was on other continents )

Now Punk is more an american thing, most bands are located there.
My personal fav. Dropkick Murphies and The Misfits.

Yeah Sound Circel got it pretty much on the nose. The reason they were pioneers is because every other artist at the time were writing these long belabored songs that were loosing sight of what rock was (Can comes to mind. I love them, but they wrote the longest weirdest "rock" songs ever). These punk artists decided to take rock back to its roots, like it was in the 50s and early to mid 60s, except they sped the music up. A lot. Then it eventually got angrier and angrier until we got to hardcore. Then, in the late 90s they commercialized it with a bunch of pop punk (not a huge fan), but real punk still exists (like Jay Reatard, the Thermals, etc)