29 April: memories of punk and the ANL (not mine)

Not my account this time, but a friend Bernie who helped to organised the Manchester Carnival has just sent me the following: 'In terms of music and racism [Lewisham] was one of the most significant events of the whole period in that the NME gave it a 2 page centre spread in a piece written by Tony Parsons and Julie Birchill. That was the first significant piece in any music paper regarding anything political. Look back in the archives and see what the NME or Melody maker wrote about Woodstock. From that point onwards, it was cool to link music / anti-racism / politics and Parsons and Birchill kept it up until late 1978.' More here. My own account of anti-fascism in the NW here.

29 April: Cheadle will never be the same again

Thanks to the organisers of Strummercamp for sending me a link to their event in May. I've written about Joe before. I think he'd be laughing at the thought of the Manchester punks taking over the Rugby Club in (of all places) Cheadle Hulme.   

26 April: more punk trivia

Who said each of the following? 'The Ramones are the latest bumptious band of degenerate no-talents who ... have been greeted with instant adulation by an army of duped fans. Musically, they do not deal in subtlety or variations of any kind, their rule is to be as incompetent as possible'. 

(answer: Morrissey, 21 July 1976)

(answer: Ian Stuart [Donaldson], Skrewdriver, 19 March 1978)  

19 April: more punk etymology

'The word "punk" originally meant a prostitute, moldy wood or fungus. By [January 1976, when New York-based] Punk magazine took its name, it had gone on to mean a person who takes it up the ass in prison, a loser or a form of Sixties garage rock'n'roll' (John Robb, Punk Rock: An Oral History, London: Ebury Press, 2006, p. 150).

12 April: how punk are you? (cont./d) 

Thank to Evan Smith for sending me Dave Laing's article, 'Interpreting Punk Rock', from Marxism Today, April 1978. The piece is so serious, so studied, it's painful. But at least everyone reading this will discover what a punk is and a fanzine.

Just a few extracts: 'Punk was a negation of those dominant trends in public music. It contained attitudes, approaches and subject-matter that had previously been excluded from the practice of popular music, which by the mid-1970s was more than ever dominated by a small group of multi-national conglomerates and their control of the manufacture and distribution of records.'

'In analysing punk from a Marxist viewpoint it is important to avoid the temptation simply to be for it (because it's rebellious) or against it (because it's decadent or sexist). Frequently both progressive and reactionary elements appear in the work of the same musician, sometimes in the same song.'

'The word "punk" was an American slang term describing certain groups of youths at the bottom of the social scale, such as hoboes and black convicts. It gradually took on a more general derisive meaning, which was softened through time. A British equivalent might be the word "bugger".'

Before punk there was prog rock, 'Groups spend months perfecting the minutiae of recorded sound, and then invest in expensive sound reproduction equipment to enable to present a note-perfect copy of the recording in live concerts, which increasingly have the sole function of advertising the disk itself.'

'Punk records initially marked a sharp break with this whole trend. Typically, they were made quickly and cheaply in a small recording studio, often in the group's home city rather than in London. They were manufactured and distributed locally through a company set up by a manager or local entrepreneur, such as a record shop owner.'

'A further aspect of this "do-it-yourself" element in punk rock has been the proliferation of "fanzines" devoted to the music. These duplicated magazines are produced by small groups of listeners to express their own response to punk and to criticise the accounts of it provided by the commercial music press. These journals are very uneven in character.'

'There is an apparently artless "natural" vocal style, which on closer inspection, turns out to have its roots in the cockney novelty singing of Anthony Newley and David Bowie, but also, via Slade, in the chanting of football fans.'

'If vocally, punk represents an advance within the musical field, its instrumental ethos is more doubtful.'

'Some recent events the imminent collapse of punk as a unified phenomenon, although many punk groups will undoubtedly continue in existence, in different parts of the popular music spectrum.'

'Punk rock represented the first important cultural development in the moment of transition between the period of increasing consumption and one where the expectations of that phase have been frustrated.'

'Unlike earlier musics, punk rock has not been integrated into a restructured music industry, so much as fractured along the lines of its own internal contradictions.'

10 April: how punk are you? (cont./d) 

More from Ian Birchall, who has kindly sent me the lyrics of 'Part-time Punks' by The Television Personalities: 'Walking down the Kings Road / I see so many faces / They come from many places /They come down for the day.'
'They walk around together / And try and look trendy / I think it's a shame / That they all look the same'
'Here they come / La la la la laaa la / La la la la laaa la / The part time punks (repeat)'
'Then they go to Rough Trade / To buy Siouxsie & the Banshees / They heard John Peel play it / Just the other night'
'They like to buy the O Level single / Or "Read About Seymour" / But they're not pressed in red / So they buy the Lurkers instead.'
'They play their records very loud / They pogo in the bedroom / In front of the mirror / But only when their mum's gone out'
'They pay five pence on the buses / And they never use toothpaste / But they got two fifty / To go and see the Clash tonight'
'The Part-Time Punks / The Part-Time Punks / The Part-Time Punks / Woooooo'

8 April: how punk are you? (cont./d) 

5 April: how punk are you? (cont./d) 

A chastening email from my friend Ian Birchall, historian of Sartre, Babeuf and the British left. He scored eight out of ten in the punk-o-meter described below. He also asks to be credited as a member of Enfield Pensioners Action Group.

2 April: how punk are you?

The BBC has launched one of its typical interactive surveys, with ten questions on the history of punk. I scored a lamentable 7 - has anyone yet got 10 out of 10?