PUNK GAVE US COMEDY... AND FASHION, ALTERNATIVE US PRESIDENT TRUMP!
As the Sex Pistols story is turned into a TV series directed by Danny Boyle, former punk GARRY BUSHELL asks: What is the legacy of those safety-pin teenagers (like me)?
WE WERE the wildest generation – the punks of the 1970s, with our loud, raucous music and our louder demands for anarchy and career opportunities.and yet look at us now. Yesteryear’s rebel “yoof” are mostly 60-something.
John Lydon of the Sex Pistols turns 65 this month. Rat Scabies of the Damned is 66 in July while Hugh Cornwell of the Stranglers is 71 – a youngster compared to Charlie Harper (UK Subs) who is 77 in May and still going strong, the world’s first pogoing pensioner.
Whatever you think of punk rock, it’s clear that it had a lasting impact on British society, some of it positive, some negative, and some of it surprising.
You can see that influence in the media, fashion, television, the arts and even in politics – but not always in ways we might have expected.
With its emphasis on free-thinking and sheer bloody-mindedness, a surprising number of old punks came out in favour of Brexit, including John Lydon, and media stars like author and columnist Tony Parsons, 67, and professional controversialist Julie Burchill.
It’s difficult to see how anyone with an anti-authoritarian streak could have warmed to the over-regulated, corrupt and controlling European Union.
Lydon declared, post-brexit: “The working class have spoken – they’re not going to be dictated to by unknown continentals.” True his fellow Pistol, drummer Paul Cook, was a Remainer but Cook’s argument was about what the EU could be rather than what it is.
Parsons and Burchill, once NME’S “young punk gunslingers” were both Brexiteers. Parsons described the metamorphosis from Common Market to a federal Europe as being “like agreeing to a date to watch Les Miserables and waking up in an arranged marriage”.
While Burchill, 61, likened the Common Market to Dr Jekyll, contrasting it with the “deformed, powercrazed face of the EU’S Mr Hyde”.
Punk’s politics were uneven. Pistols manager Malcolm Mclaren dumbly used swastikas as marketing to shock older generations. Many of us hated that even then.
Broadcaster Danny Baker, 63, once co-writer of seminal punk fanzine Sniffin’ Glue, famously overturned a market stall selling swastika badges in Carnaby Street.
Most punks were either nihilists or socialists like myself, then an ardent Trotskyist and Clash fan. Yet punk’s underlying message was the opposite of socialism...which may explain why many Labour councils banned punk gigs. The DIY ethic – reject corporations, form your own labels – was essentially a manifesto for small businesses.
Today, that same DIY spirit underpins the rise of Youtubers.
In 1977, Sniffin’ Glue said: “Here’s a chord, here’s another one. This is a third. Now form a band.”
At one level that was explicitly antimusic, yet the bands who benefited from punk were ones who learnt to play quickly and wrote great songs. Punk was responsible for the biggest spike in new groups since skiffle. But only the good ones lasted.
It gave alternative careers to hundreds of working class kids, including miner’s son Richard Jobson of the Skids, and not just in music.
Frank Skinner, 63, says punk rock gave him the guts to start performing comedy. And you can see its influence across a whole swathe of alternative comedians, from the ranting passion of Alexei Sayle to the comic anarchy of The Young Ones. They started in seedy clubs and were powered by attitude. Comedy magician Jerry Sadowitz is as punk rock as you can get.
Punk also kicked open doors for other musical forms that nestled at its breast – the New Wave acts, including Ian Dury, Elvis
‘Only the good bands survived’
Costello and The Police; the 2-Tone bands, New Mod and so on.
Independent labels like Stiff, Small Wonder and Rough Trade briefly flourished and, for a while, power drained away from the major labels.
You might think the music was an ear-splitting racket. Danny Baker certainly does... and some of it was.
But the best of punk – songs by The Ramones, the Buzzcocks, the Clash and The Jam – endure as perfect pop.
These artists inspired Green Day and Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, two of the world’s biggest bands.alan Mcgee, 60, the co-founder of Creation Records
and one-time manager of Oasis, has said: “Without punk there would have been no Creation and no Brit Pop.”
ESS IMPRESSIVELY, there might not have been reality TV either. Shows like Big Brother channelled punk’s anti-star, “anyone can do it” attitude and made “celebrities” of people with little talent but plenty of the common touch, such as tragic Jade Goody and ITV’S Alison Hammond.
The joke had worn thin by the time we reached Gemma Collins but you could argue that TV adopted punk’s populist spirit while other industries corrupted it.
Fashion was the worst offender. Dame Vivienne Westwood, 79, Mclaren’s one-time partner, found fame making outrageous clothes for their Kings Road boutique Sex – considered a ripoff by some punks even at the start.
Her trinket corset dresses sell for £3,000 a pop which isn’t very punk.
Kids today with ripped jeans and strange piercings are the children of street-punk fashion.
Punk’s legacy can be seen everywhere from film to fiction, via TV playwrights like printer’s son and ex-boxer
Tony Marchant, 61, who was directly inspired by the Clash and The Jam.
Novelist John King, 61, still a punk promoter, was a prominent member of Artists For Brexit.
Punk was punted quite shamelessly as a working-class phenomenon, while many of the bands hid their real roots, including diplomat’s son Joe Strummer.
Yet that professed calling as the sound of the dole queues and tower blocks encouraged genuinely workingclass bands to start in their wake, such as the Angelic Upstarts from South Shields and the Cockney Rejects from Custom House, East London.
DID PUNK sow the roots of modern populism? You can certainly hear it in Sham 69 numbers like Song Of The Streets that labelled politicians “all the bleedin’ same”. That same vibe influenced rock bands such as Twisted Sister whose We’re Not Going To Take It became a Donald Trump campaign anthem (until singer Dee Snider asked him to stop using it.)
John Lydon admires Trump, claiming he voices working class concerns.
In some ways the Donald can be viewed as the ultimate punk politician – dangerous, unpredictable, and often embarrassing, yet with an uncanny ability to touch a nerve that connects with millions.
“We’re bored with left-wing intellectual ideas,” sneered John. “We can’t take more of ya.you talk twaddle.” Amen to that.
That’s the kind of bloody-mindedness I referred to at the start. At heart punk was libertarian. Its true message was: question everything, think for yourself and do it yourself.
That spirit isn’t a million miles away from the Tory Anarchists, a term coined by George Orwell to describe people like himself and Jonathan Swift and by implication Spike Milligan.
Tory anarchists are both radical and traditionalist – they respect individual rights and oppose the ever-expanding power of the state. That’s punk.
In Eastern Europe punk fuelled anticommunist movements. In the US it reflected the country’s core founding principles – rebellion, freedom, independence and the desire for change.
And of course, for many punk wasn’t political at all. It was just the soundtrack to a good night out.
‘Punk was saying – think
for yourself ...do it yourself’