Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Punk might not be dead but it is about to be cremated
Futile Gesture of the Week award goes to Malcolm Mclaren and Vivienne Westwood’s son, who has announced plans to burn his £5 million collection of punk memorabilia.
Joe Corre’s juvenile – some would say criminally wasteful – stunt is a protest at ‘mainstream’ events being held later this year to commemorate the 40th anniversary of punk, following the award of a £99,000 Lottery grant.
“When the Queen gives a ****ing nod to punk’s 40th anniversary year, you know something has gone seriously wrong,” says Corre.
Note the ‘punk’ swearing, in case we were in any doubt over his strength of feeling.
He adds: “Punk has become like a museum piece or a tribute act.”
There was some bad language in that sentence as well, but there are only so many asterisks you can take in one article.
Corre is probably trying to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted. Punk descended into self-parody years ago and the leading lights of the movement haven’t exactly shied away from the endless nostalgia fest.
You can barely escape these people on music documentaries, banging on and on about how they put the wind up ‘the establishment’.
If Corre could arrange for them all to finally shut up, that would perhaps be a more fitting way to mark the anniversary.
And who needs tribute acts when most of the original artists are still plodding around the live circuit, remembering the good old days of being showered with phlegm by an adoring audience?
Surely some rich kid burning £5 million in a tantrum is the kind of bloated, grandiose gesture punk was supposedly railing against.
Corre urges others to join him in destroying their memorabilia when he holds his bonfire in November, although you shouldn’t show up unless your collection has been valued by Christie’s first.