GLASGOW’S SPITTING IMAGES
THE REBELLIOUS AND ENERGETIC SPIRIT OF PUNK SPREAD EXCITEMENT AND A SENSE OF ANARCHY ACROSS THE UK
THE gigs took place 40 years ago – but Ian Adie has never forgotten them.
The two shows – one in Glasgow, the other in Edinburgh – came as Scotland was discovering for itself the phenomenon of punk music.
Fans flocked to see high-profile bands such as The Sex Pistols and The Clash when they ventured north.
But cities and major towns up here all had their own punk scenes. Bands formed and multiplied, and enthusiastic fans put together their own, homemade punk fanzines.
One short-lived Glasgow act, Johnny and the Self-Abusers, made its public debut at the Doune Castle in 1977, and later supported Generation X in Edinburgh. In November the band released its one and only single, Saints and Sinners, and split up. One half went on to form Simple Minds; the other half, the Cuban Heels. Craig Tannock, one of the best-known figures on Glasgow’s music scene, when asked about his experiences, remembers: “The closest I ever got to being at a punk gig would be when my band supported the Cuban Heels at a gig at Greenock Academy. I remember their song Mary Millington and they did a great cover of Downtown.” Of his own band, the Viking Raiders, there is alas little trace.
Ian, a well-known Glasgow businessman, said: “It all started with a pair of my mum’s clip-on earrings and my dad’s electric razor.
“My pals and I were heading to I see the Damned in Edinburgh, in 1977, at the Clouds venue.
“They had embraced punk fully and were all zips and piercings. I was a scaffolding sales rep and was less inclined, but they insisted I get rid of the ‘Dapper Dan’ moustache and straight clothes.
“The message was ‘Get punked up’ or your no gaun'.
“Hours later, I’m sitting on the train to Edinburgh with mascara , around my eyes, my hair spiked up – thanks to Bel-Air lacquer –
and I was wearing my best black T-shirt, which they ripped to bits, and a big, sparkly pair of ma’s clip-on earrings’. Bear in mind I was just 22 at the time.
“The Damned came on to a low stage with no barriers and not a bouncer to be seen,” Ian adds. “They were nose-to-nose with a wild crowd of punks facing them.
“The music was fantastic, deafening and immediate. The band, which included Dave Vanian, Captain Sensible and Rat Scabies, poured sweat, and gave the mad mob as good as they got.
“I couldn’t quite remove the mascara, I got a few funny looks on building sites that week.”
The following year came another unforgettable show – this time in Glasgow.
“During the punk era, I was spoiled,” says Ian. “My older brother, Billy, was the stage manager at the Glasgow Apollo and I had a VIP pass for the balcony.
“This meant I got to see everybody who played there – I mean everybody. We lived in the place. Among many concerts, my most memorable Apollo highlight was definitely the Clash in 1978. My pals and I packed into the balcony and as you looked down on the crowd below, it was astounding – a human whirlpool of noise and movement.
“The atmosphere was truly electric, and when the band strolled on stage, the hall erupted. Everybody, even the band, was dressed in black, the lighting was stark and the music full of anger and meaning, what a gig!
The Sex Pistols had had a tour – the Anarchy tour – lined up for late 1976 but in early December that year they appeared on a Thames Television show called Today,
Its host, Bill Grundy, out to prove that his guests were a “foul-mouthed set of yobs”, invited them to “say something outrageous”.
Guitarist Steve Jones responded with two uses of a word that had only ever been heard twice before on British TV. He’s already said it once during the interview.
The next day, the tabloid newspapers had a field day with the story. One headline, The Filth and the Fury!, became famous. Many dates on the Pistols’ tour were cancelled as a result of the storm, including a date at the Apollo scheduled for December 15. One Glasgow councillor said: We have enough problems in Glasgow without creating trouble by yobbos.”
Tony Drayton, like Ian Adie, has never forgotten the impact that punk music had on him.
“It was electrifying, an absolute jolt,” he recalls. “I’d been reading about the London scene in the music papers so first it was more a visual and theoretical thing but the music was better than I could possibly have hoped for.
“I’d been buying and enjoying new American stuff like Patti Smith, the Ramones and Jonathan Richman and I was already a big Velvet Underground/Lou Reed fan; but hearing New Rose by the Damned for the first time blew all that away. This is what I’d been waiting for all my life.”
Tony quickly got into the habit of spending weekends in London, sampling the vivid punk scene there. Glasgow came to seem like an alien landscape when he returned on Monday mornings.
“Glasgow was grim, and I lived in Cumbernauld, which was even grimmer. There was a disco in the town centre that we used to go to of a Saturday night.
“When I say Steve Miller and Peter Frampton were the musical highlights of the evenings, it gives you some idea.
“When I progressed to getting the Friday night bus to London, walking down the Kings Road and Portobello Road, seeing bands, then coming back on the Sundaynight bus for work in Glasgow on Monday morning – it felt like my home was in London and I was only visiting Glasgow.
“Coming back to Glasgow was like going to the moon; it was only doing Ripped & Torn that kept me up there – as it helped me meet other alienated people.”
Ripped & Torn was the influential fanzine that Tony launched,
He remembers those punk years with affection more than nostalgia.
“Nostalgia is for things that have gone,” he says. “But I carried on doing punk stuff, from fanzines and the Puppy Collective to being part of the Archaos punk circus movement and then starting the killyourpetpuppy.co.uk site to explore and celebrate the forgotten world of anarcho punk.”
rippedandtorn.co.uk