The legend lives on
Martin salutes Paisley’s punk roots
Kirsty McKenzie
Punk is like meeting the lassie of your dreams across a stinky, smoky, beer swilling, pub where the amps are bust and the music is too loud – that’s the opinion of music historian and writer Martin Kielty.
He adds: “You’re not quite sure if you really want to be there but she makes you decide this is now your local, and you are going to drink there for the rest of your life. Punk is that lassie.”
And Paisley has stuck by that lassie’s side for over 40 years – ever since she arrived in town after being famously booted out Glasgow following a rowdy Stranglers gig at the City Halls in 1977.
“At the time punk was new and exciting for all the kids and terrifying for the establishment,” explains Martin, who recently retold the story of Glasgow’s punk ban for an STV special.
Martin believes the councillors felt threatened by the young people with their new hair styles, their angry songs and their clothes festooned with safety pins and razor blades.
He added: “The Stranglers gig was tumultuous but noone thought of it as being any worse than what was going on in every ballroom every night in Glasgow for the last 30 years.
“But to outsiders the punks looked scary. They looked aggressive and the authorities wanted to shut it down.”
Glasgow pub owners soon began to understand that if they let punk bands play at their venue, their licence would be revoked.
“It was an under-the-table threat but the people that ran pubs needed music for their livelihood and so took they took it very seriously. It was punk or their pub,” explains Martin.
Luckily, a Paisley promoter who went by the name of Disco Harry saw the new ban as an opportunity to bring punk to Paisley.
The town was just outside the Glasgow ban, but close enough for punk fans to make the bus ride from the city to venues that included The Bungalow and the Silver Thread Hotel.
Matin says: “By the late seventies people were looking for a change in music - and once Paisley got it, they held on to it.
“They built a new layer of community around the punk scene. It just spoke to the people of Paisley and the musicians of the era – many of whom are still playing, and that is really rare. There are so many of the guys who were back there at the beginning of the era who are still playing today.
“You can still go to the Bungalow bar now and the chances are you’ll still see the guys with the Mohicans, the safety pins and the attitude.”
From The Rezillos to The Pencils, The Mod Cons to Mentol Error, you’d be hard-pressed to find a punk band without a Paisley connection under their studded belt and local bands flourished under the guidance of old pros. The town was even one of the first to launch a exclusively punk record company, following the birth of Groucho Marxist records in 1981.
Martin said: “What people loved about punk is that they felt they could do it. They didn’t feel like they needed to spend six years at music college, they didn’t have to buy expensive equipment - they just needed a cheap wee guitar.
“It wasn’t technically brilliant but it felt good. It expresses heart, it expresses emotion - and you could buy a fivepound guitar and do it too.
“Because of that feeling, Paisley really explored the genre in a way that other places didn’t.
“Punk is just a lot more important in Paisley, and that’s a great thing. It really means something here.”