London calling and more from reggae central

Here's This Week's Big Question --

 

From S.W.

Firstly, a great thank you for turning me onto some great music when I was at school (eg 'Jeannot Ou Est Le Serieux.) Re: NME (the UK music weekly,) when it was putting Sun Ra, etc. on the cover -- do you think that punk can take any credibility for opening up some of this other 'world music' to a wider public, music which seems again to be ignored. The question there somewhere was about Punk's relation to other music, or the music presses brief period of openness. -Question (b) what about music (punky) that you didn't personally like, for example, I don't know Siouxsie and the Banshees? How do you feel about them in retrospect? And is it possible to like the punk ethic (D.I.Y.) and think the Pistols were miserable and wonder why John Lydon always has to sound eternally bored when he opens his mouth. Something to do with Punk's acquired habit of nihilism..? Also, I loved your record with Chantage. Was it a one off?

Hey S.W, I don't know who or where you are, but your letter does strike a chord that zings in my heart. It's so nice you remember that long gone moment when the music press was really experimental, and having a mass youth audience, there was a way that information about stuff you might never have even thought to look for, snuck into your consciousness. Now it's all split up into niche marketing, special interest groups (which can be good), and there are sites like afropop.com and calabash.com serving world music fans; but you miss out on that random quality of stumbling across some totally unexpected life changing groove in a style you didn't know you liked.

Just like you, it really was the D.I.Y. punk ethic that got me, babe; though that Rotten snarl trademarked a moment, still gives the chills, and did the job of grating up the charts like nails scraping the paintjob of a new Humvee, Rotten himself was more likely to chill out at home with a wicked dub than a punk 45, and so was/am I. Having said that, "Oh Bondage Up Yours" by X Ray Spex is still a disc to live by/with/for, and the same goes for many punk gems.

The point you make about punk and world music is a good one -- certainly the more complex sounds of post-punk, like Gang of Four or the Raincoats, say, aren't shy to be jazzy; and of course, punk interacted profoundly with reggae, which was the "world music" of the time, as African and other non-Anglophone musics were rarely around. I reckon the rather sad tag of "world music" loosely means stuff that it isn't sung in American or British English.

Gang of Four's - I Love A Man in Uniform 

P.S. S.W. -- I love that you remember "Jeannot Ou Est Le Sérieux" and my old Chantage record, "It's Only Money" both from the early 80s! Yes, that twelve inch was our one and only. Maybe me and my mysterious partner in our duo, Moona, should unleash it on the world again. How ever did you find it?

QUESTIONS FROM MY READERS FOR NEXT TIME...BE SURE TO STOP BACK BY FOR THE ANSWERS

From Drew S.
How would you define the differences between Punk and Ska, both the music and the lifestyles?

From Tee Bob
Lady V, The term "bottom line" is most often used in business usually to achieve goals derived from a strict accounting criterion. How is this concept in tune and in conflict with punk ethic and punk business practices? What is the punk business ethic and where does it stop?
Love and Donuts, Neonsandwich

Since We Last Met:

The Stranglers performed at Camden Town, London's legendary Roundhouse - 30 years to the day since they last played the venue...the Bush Tetras played NY after almost as long away...and arguably the biggest re-reunion of all, the Sex Pistols did LA and London... and here are special reports from our Spies...  

The Stranglers - Midnight Summer Dream

The Bush Tetras - Too Many Creeps 

 

London:

When I labored at punk-rock weekly SOUNDS in London, one of our bright writers was Pete Silverton who went on to co-author "I was a Teenage Sex Pistol" with Glen Matlock, the Tuneful Pistol.

Glen Matlock

 

Pete Silverton - Our man at the Sex Pistols homecoming happening

Pete reports from London:  "They were the Sex Pistols. They played every song they knew and recorded. It was everything you wanted. It was loud and fun and noisy and familial in a strange kind of way. My son wore my original 1970s black leather Schott jacket, the Ramones one. It was a typical moment of the evening. The audience was far too acute to complain that this was a show rather than the frightening, unstable upheaval of a 1976 Pistols 'performance'. I didn't pay, of course. But I would have."

L.A.:

Jamaican scene maker Wayne Jobson, aka Native Wayne, is a film-maker and top reggae DJ on the West Coast's Indie 103.1. Back in the classic punk time in London, he was a real reggae regular on the scene and had a band back home called Native, together with his wonderful brother Brian. Their daring, haunting album "Rockstone", produced by dubmaster general Lee "Scratch" Perry, is just reissued on the groovy UK label Pressure Sounds. Wayne reports from the Pistols' LA show -- where old cohort John Lydon bigged him up from the stage!

Rare reggae groove from the fabulous Jobson Brothers

"I have seen the future of punk music, and it is the past!" The Sex Pistols stepped onstage at the Roxy in Los Angeles and showed all the clones to the throne like Green Day that they are all still green and that their day has not yet come! Easily one of the greatest front men in history, Johnny Rotten put all the impostors in their place, even reminding the audience that it was the Pistols that started the revolution and not the Ramones! Steve Jones attacked his axe like the crazed Jack in The Shining. Paul Cook and Glen Matlock showed us why they are still "the tightest rhythm section in punk music."

And more from Reggae Central. You want to play for hours, opening the wee envelope flaps to discover the mini-CDs and memorabilia of "Reggae Scrapbook" (Insight Editions), a very personal statement from actor/broadcaster/archivist and Marley specialist, Roger Steffens of Reggae and African Beat magazine, and photographer Peter Simon. They ransack their visual and memory stash to deliver a glorious, very touchable coffee table book of tricks and tales.

Reggae Scrapbook cover by Roger Steffens and Peter Simon Chocka with reggae tchotchkes.

A last word on New Identity Dance Music: By starting the weekly Basement Bhangra parties in Manhattan in 1997, DJ Rekha became godmother to a global movement that made the thundering throb of the traditional tall dhal drum a regular sound on Ibiza dance floors. Guests at Rekha's album launch at writer/producer/actor/siren Tanya Selvaratnam's Lower East Side pad cheered this long-awaited long-player, which features collaboes with Wyclef Jean and remixes by all the bhangra biggies -- Bally Sagoo, Apache Indian, Punjabi MC.

From l to r: DJ Rekha, Tanya Selvaratnam, Vivien Goldman at the Basement Bhangra bash

Marc Bolan's 60th Birthday Party

From Ron Ramone:

Dear Punk Professor,

Part of your response to the question "Is the UK cooler than the USA"? struck a chord with me. You wrote, "One distinction that I have observed: the English generally tend to prize eccentricity more than Americans, which partly explains why punk flourished there." Let us not forget that punk in the UK was way more a political statement than it was in the US. The Ramones were not singing about anarchy or dead-end jobs like the Pistols & the Clash were. In the US it was driven by boredom with the status quo, how corporate rock music was and how conservative society had become. In the UK it was also more of a fashion statement & in the US it was more of an anti-fashion statement. That said; I believe that you'd see that the East & West Coast of the US prized eccentricity more than the South & Midwest. That is why the punk communities in places such as Boston, New York & LA flourished. So I guess I really don't have a question.

Dear Eric,

Thanks for your interesting points, which all make sense. It's very punk of you to "not have a question"! But negative's the flip of positive and your non-question actually extends the debate on the links between US & UK punk -- what do you reckon about it, rough readers? -- and even takes it a stage further. So here's a non-answer to your non-question. You reinforce a general observation that's cropped up quite a bit in chats with NY people who've moved to Miami, where I'm writing this. Everyone agreed that coastal areas around the world, not just in US or UK, are often more receptive and sophisticated than inland regions; maybe because they're so obviously on the edge, just oceans away from Other Cultures. Anyway, Other Cultures are likely to be sitting next to you on the subway, so we're all Other Cultures now. OK, let's hear it from angry landlocked readers!

I wish you glitter, fierce reader, and plenty of it. Like the glitter that twinkled against the dark trees as a motley crew pranced onto the stage at Marc Bolan's (posthumous) 60th Birthday Party at Central Park's Delacorte Theatre on a recent warm Saturday evening. It was like a carnival "by the light of a magical moon" as Marc sang.

Marc Bolan was an enchanted, enlightening figure in 1970's UK pop who went through many mutations -- almost as many as his frenemy David Bowie -- starting out as a mystic hippie bard ("My people were fair and wore stars in their hair...") and switching teams to become the prototypical glam rocker ("Bang a gong/Get it on...") leading an army of swooning schoolgirls, including me. His shocking death in a car crash in 1977 froze him forever young -- a fey, dirty dandy with dark ringlets and intense kohl'ed eyes. Bolan was a bohemian freethinker who punks adore. A true rock icon.

Marc - Always Amazing

 

 

Looking spiffy in a satin waistcoat by designer Zandra Rhodes

In homage, a galaxy of punk rock stars appeared at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park on a warm Saturday night to show respect. Moby happened to be there celebrating his birthday (though he was careful to point out, it wasn't actually his birthday that day,) and joined a mega-jam onstage. "I'm honored to be playing 'Twentieth Century Boy's visceral libidinous, riff," said Moby. The true Metal Guru, American producer Tony Visconti who helped mold both Bolan and Bowie, played with lots of the bands. He spoke tenderly about when he had a flat in London and Bowie and Bolan were always coming round to jam and party as they both still lived at home with their mums.

 

 

Richard Lloyd (Television) 

 Moby, Clem Burke (on drums), and Tony Visconti

Surprise guest Patti Smith took "Children of the Revolution," right to the barricades and over the top. By the power invested in her, Patti chanted Marc's words like a punk preacher, riffing ferociously on "They're trying to take us down, don't be fooled, child!" and relishing my personal fave couplet, "I drive a Rolls Royce/'Cos it's good for my voice."

 

The High Priestess of Punk

An honor roll of NYC's original CBGB's posse brought Marc's music back to its home away from home -- it turns out that Bolan recorded a lot in the Village. Backup through the show and "Born To Boogie" were performed by NYC punk heroines, Tish and Snooky, who used to be in the Stilettoes with Debbie Harry before Blondie. Now, best known for Manic Panic, their vivid line of punk hair dyes, they're still a rainbow riot. The drummer for Blondie, Clem Burke, lived up to his hype by Moby as "the best rock drummer of all time." Richard Lloyd from Television did "Jeepster".

Rocking très glam/trash leopard-skin jeans as he put some passion into "Ballrooms Of Mars," was Ivan Julian, ex-Clash/Richard Hell and the Voidoids. Two of the New York Dolls did two separate sets, Sylvain Sylvain rampaged through "Get It On" and Steve Conte growled "Rip Off." The Bongos' Richard Barone swanned through "Mambo Sun" and Joe Hurley, who was a prime mover in the show along with Joe's Pub and Bill Bragin, gave "Life's A Gas" some spine-tingling vibes. There was also a dazzling version of "Dove" by a barefoot Icelandic flower child called Ragga.

 

NYC punk heroines, Tish and Snooky

 

 

Ivan Julian

 

 

Two New York Dolls get it on again with Tony Shanahan

 

 

Joe Hurley

 

 

Barefoot Icelandic songbird sings a spell

 

A funky living link to Bolan is pop's own Irish eminence grise B.P. Fallon. Like Zelig, the ageless, elfin B.P. has been scene making since pop began. Not so much a publicist as a vibe conjuror, B.P. promoted people like Elvis Costello at one of the original punk indie labels Stiff Records. Now he has three books out, has a globally roving club night called Death Disco with Alan McGee (who founded Creation Records of Oasis fame.) As always, B.P.'s skating merrily along the cutting edge and now he's managing a very tall, very genial bloke called Justin Tranter, of rad glam band Semi Precious Weapons, who looks as good as Grace Jones in his high fetish heels and corset.

Looking dashing in Bolan's own stripey black/silver satin waistcoat by designer Zandra Rhodes (value: $20,000) Justin kindly lent his own silver waistcoat (value: $20.00) to The Scissor Sisters' glam man, Jake Shears, who joined him along with Steve Conte as Justin conveyed Marc's feline ways on "Metal Guru" and led the multitudes through "Hot Love."

 

Jake Shears, Justin Trantor and Steve Conte

From the past, look to the future. Right now B.P and Justin are pushing on through the mist of confusion round the music business. They are giving away their new CD, "We Love You," (and I love "Her Hair Is On Fire,") free in stores like Urban Outfitters, and even Barney's, where Justin sells his SPW glam/punk jewelry line. B.P sees it as a way forward for musicians, though even he agrees it's not much help for broke musicians who are only good at music and want to work at it all the time. These days, the Children of the Revolution gotta multitask.

Semi Precious Weapons' "We Love You" is out October 30 on Precious Records.

 

 

All pix by Kevin Yatarola/Joe's Pub & Bruce Alexander 

 

Welcome to Punkville

From Angela Jaeger: Can punk become an ideal to live by in a post-modern global community?

 

Go, Angela! Tell it like it is! That's why I'm writing this column now. The ideals you mention are clear to punk bands all over the world, united by their urge to change things like the ongoing rape of the planet or the unfair system they're living in (and they're all more or less unfair, except maybe Scandinavia and the Netherlands.)

 

It's like Punk is a huge encampment, call it Punkville, sheltering various bods who'd maybe never meet if they didn't all dig hanging out there. Some move in permanently, others drop in for a weekend, but they all have Punk stamped somewhere on their personal, intimate profiles. Rabidly anti-materialistic crusties living off the grid, fashion designers nostalgic for their wild youth, (or still wild,) vegan bakers, Professors yet, and of course musicians, including artists who aren't obviously punk, like Michael Franti and Manu Chao. Punk bands identify with the outsider, the oppressed -- that's why Bob Marley's more punk than, say, the lovely lads of The Police, who are more likely to be filed under Punk. Punk-ish bands exhibit varying degrees of commitment to the real ideals of punk -- but if the thin boy singer has artful holes in his clothes and wears black eyeliner, it's a fair bet he's punk-identified. How punk are they really? More on the punk-o-meter in the next question from Eric....

 

 

More Punk 

 

Punk-ish 

 

 

From Eric Siegel: Do you think there's a band that doesn't deserve to be called punk and a band that does?

 

A great and challenging question, Eric. Thanks. If punk is in the heart, as I believe, then I stick to identifying bands as "punk" primarily where they offer not only energy and attack, but also some sense of social engagement and a desire for change. That narrows the field and I would love readers to write in and let us know which bands are inspiring them right now. MIA's music is cosmopolitan and danceable but also angry and thoughtful. She's very punk. Good Charlotte rock the punk tattoos, smeared eyeliner and jagged Mohawks, but their music is power-pop. They mock the rich on "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous," but I wonder if singer Joel Madden feels the contradiction now he's a full-on tabloid celeb? Ah, how to still be angry while you're sipping champagne in your Jacuzzi! Always a problem! On "World Is Black," G.C. bemoans the state of the planet; still, their approach is more in tune with emo's all-about-me meanderings. So they give solace to many, but Good Charlotte ain't as punk as they look. 

 

 

Punk via Sri-Lanka 

 

Is this really punk?  Or does it just dress like it? 

 

 

Angela and Eric, thanks for your questions. Keep ‘em comin'!

 

Lastly, a big Punky Birthday 2 U to www.punkcast.com for their tenth anniversary. Founder and videast Joly is a true punk legend, uncompromising and quite a visionary. A New Yorker for some 22+ years, Joly's imprint, Better Badges, were first to use the humble badge as a guerilla medium in London in the first wave punk time. I always remember his Patti Smith badge, the first time that she and her band, including Lenny Kaye and the dear departed Richard "DNV" Sohl, hit the UK. The Patti Smith people were some of the few original US punks to identify with reggae and dub, so Joly put her distinctive profile on a red, green and gold badge that went everywhere and said it all. It's amazing how Joly is still always down with the key underground action; he got some of the last footage of Joe Strummer when he visited NY with the Mescaleros, and the first of bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeah's.

 

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs image courtesy of Joly

 

Being a bit of a mathematical and technical whiz, Joly was hot on the internet while it was still obscure boffin stuff, and typically, got the potential of the new medium. He's been recognized in the Village Voice as an indispensable New Yorker, and recently both Wired and Rolling Stone rated punkcast among the hottest video podcasts. When I teach Punk at NYU's Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music, I always ask Joly to come in, bring some of his fanzine collection and tell us how it really was and is. Big up Joly in Punkville!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marley's 'Exodus' 30 Years Later - (NPR)

"Thirty years ago, reggae superstar Bob Marley released his highly acclaimed album "Exodus."

Veteran music journalist Vivien Goldman says it was a response to a politically motivated attempt on Marley's life.

Farai Chideya talks with Goldman, author of The Book of Exodus: The Making and Meaning of Bob Marley and the Wailers' Album of the Century."

Click here for the interview!

Lost Women of Rock FOUND!

From Pedro Marazzi: What is your view of modern-day punk bands? Particularly those we in the US are subjected to. In the UK there was deemed to be three generations of punk bands. The first generation, which you seem to belong to, being Pistols, Clash etc. Generation 2 being Stiff Little Fingers, Ruts etc. Generation 3 being Anti Nowhere League, Exploited etc. Due to my age I came in at Generation 2 and initially felt like I'd already missed the party. First generation punkers tend to be too easily dismissive of most punk that followed, probably due to less originality. What is/was your view?

Thanks for the astute question, Pedro. Your breakdown is very precise 'specially as the waves you mention came quite close together. But who do you think is less original -- the late-wave musicians, or the people (not) listening? I'm assuming you mean the musicians, in which case I'm glad you dig the under-appreciated Ruts. If only their wonderful singer, Malcolm Owen, hadn't OD'd on heroin so young... he was gorgeous and had a great intensity that was very compelling and seductive but seems to have burned him right up. You're probably right anyway, Pedro, in that seeing any style, e.g. punk, coming round the cultural conveyor belt yet again can prompt yawns from the been-there, done-that dudes. Not those neck tattoos AGAIN?

There's also the nostalgia factor -- people get all smooshy over the music they first snogged to. So it's partly too-blasé-to-bop, and partly that original punks like the Clash had a commitment that still inspires people.

But the sign of a lively mind -- crucial to punk - is not to get locked into one era. Keep cruising for compelling voices! Lily Allen is this column's reigning Punky Reggae Princess; Tanya Stephens is our Rebel Queen; and the mighty Manu Chao, whose new album La Radiolina, breaks a six-year silence, is the artist Joe Strummer would have liked to be. So it's never all hopeless, even when it's a bit grim.

 

 

Image courtesy of Blake Zidell.

 

 

In the Wailers dressing room after their fantastic, packed out show at the High Line in Manhattan, Tré Cool from Green Day, a huge Wailers fan, was there to big up the band with his super girlfriend, Sarah Belger. He insisted on having his photo taken with the Punk Professor and bass legend Aston "Family Man" Barrett, and rather impressed me with his glee at how the band's smash hit, 'American Idiot' had distressed President Bush.

 

 

Drummie Zeb, Tré Cool, Punk Professor,

Aston "Family Man" Barrett. Image courtesy of Sarah Belger.

Emotion and excitement bubbled like the champagne at the lunch in London's hip Portobello Road that writer, artist and activist Caroline Coon put together for 'The Lost Women of Rock Music: female musicians of the punk era,' (Ashgate Books) by Dr. Helen Reddington. It was old home week for first wave punk rock grrrlz, and British punk legends, Lora Logic, and her old bandmate in X Ray Spex, Poly Styrene, were both there with personality-packed daughters! There were also various MoDettes, Belle Stars, and others.

 

 

The Punk Girls' Token Bloke: keyboard player Steve Beresford,

Slits bassist Tessa Pollitt and Slits manager Christine Roberston.

Image courtesy of Vivien Goldman.

 

 

 Tessa Pollitt (the Slits), Christine Robertson

and Jane Crockford, bassist for the Mo-Dettes.

Image courtesy of Shirley O'Loughlin.

 

 

 

(left to right) Ana da Silva (drummer for the Slits), the elusive

Lora Logic (saxophone for X-Ray Specs and solo artist),

Gina Birch (bassist for The Raincoats), Jane Crockford.

Image courtesy of Vivien Goldman

 

Caroline gave a great speech, which you will be able to see a bit of right here (coming soon!). The author used to play in a Brighton punk band called The Chefs as Helen McCookeryBook. Classic punk rage at how girl punk musicians have been ignored and written out of history -- see, that's why it starts with "his"! -- inspired Helen to write this valuable book. It began as an academic thesis but will reach much further.

 

Vivien Goldman (aka Punk Professor), Dr. Helen Reddington

and Caroline Coon. Image courtesy of Kieron Tyler. 

 

The seriously cool guys, like Kurt Cobain, who championed the Raincoats, and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, do get the greatness of the girls. Supported by London's original punky reggae female rockers, the Slits, Sonic Youth performed the whole of their 'Daydream Nation,' at McCarren Pool, a hipster hangout in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Onstage Moore hailed up the Slits and called Ari Up "My hero!" Although Thurston later humbly said "I just kept my head down and tried to get through to the end," the show really felt like a journey, epic and emotional. Kim Gordon is a sultry, brooding rock star, with a fluid, forceful bass style, who scores double 'cos guys love her and the females in the audience all sense she's a sister.

 

 

    Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, unidentified woman and

Ari Up (The Slits). Image courtesy of Peter Remke.

 

 

 

  The eternally cool Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth)

Image courtesy of Peter Remke.

 

 

The audience had never seen anything like the Slits, who played many of their old school gems like "Typical Girls" and some of their newer material, too. Sadly, the listings were wrong so keen Slits fans like the girls of "no age jungle riddim vendors", Gang Gang Dance, missed them. Backstage, GGD's Lizzi Bougatsos and Jess Holzworth introduced their own sister in punk, the smashing actress Chloë Sevigny, joking, “She's a star!" Nice Chloë practically crawled into the room in a major just-a-regular-gal attack! They're old friends and Slits fans forever.

 

 

 

Chloë Sevigny with Ari Up (The Slits)

Image courtesy of Peter Remke.

     

The new generation of Slits, like Hollie Cook, keep the vibe alive. Hollie is original punk rock royalty as her father's Paul, the drummer of the Sex Pistols, and her mother is Jennie of the Belle Stars, who was in great form at the Women In Punk lunch. You can also hear Hollie on 'Milk And Honey,' the single from a new release that I love, called "Survival of The Fattest: Battling the forces of evil with hippy reggae," by Prince Fatty. It's the new project by Mike Pelanconi, the producer/engineer who made the smash "Alright, Still," with Lily Allen.

 

 

Image courtesy of Mike Peloconi

 

 

Hollie Cook (The Slits).

Image courtesy of Peter Remke. 

                                                                                                      

 

 

Hollie Cook (The Slits).

Image courtesy of Peter Remke. 

Your Questions Answered!

READER QUESTIONS ANSWERED

 

This week’s session is a little different as it's more of a chat between us; call it a think tank if you like. Keep sending those questions and at regular intervals, we'll just devote a column like this to filling in those blanks, as well as the regular answer-per-column business.

 

1) From Lindsay Tulkoff: I love punk - I really wish I had been around back then. How come punk in the United States wasn’t as political as it was in Britain?

 

Thanks, Lindsay. I can tell you, those were some wild times, and though there was a lot of beating-up type of violence, guns were not involved – which I noticed in recent trips to my home town, London, is sadly not the case today. Kids killing kids has become a grisly reality. But more of that another time, and I’m curious about readers thoughts/questions on violence and punk.

 

There’s a school of thought that insists that EVERYTHING is political – in which case, The Ramones singing 'Sheena Is a Punk Rocker' or Blondie singing 'Denis Denis' has as much political weight as the Pistols' 'Anarchy In The UK.'. But you’re right in that UK punk was a vehicle for expression about the extremely messed-up state of Britain at that time. Unemployment was at a new high, and it seemed like the old systems had crashed completely. There were constant strikes by the unions – which Margaret Thatcher would soon de-fang, for good or ill, just as punk was segueing into post-punk. Power cuts lasted for days, garbage frequently piled high in the streets, and IRA bombs could explode anywhere, any time.

 

Debbie Harry of Blondie

The Ramones 

Jon Savage’s photos which we ran recently, were an amazing reminder of how my old ‘hood, Ladbroke Grove celebrated by the Clash as The Sound of the Westway (a motorway that sliced through the area)– used to look as if the wartime Blitz was still going on, with its many vacant rubbish-strewn lots fronted by dented corrugated iron. Now the area is totally posh and some of the most expensive real estate on the planet. In short, London in the mid-70s was rich in the sort of anger Johnny Rotten expressed on the Pistols’ last ever show, in San Francisco, when he famously shouted, “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” With the old British Empire gone, and the ebullient 1960s sense of abundance shriveled, there was a sense of Year Zero, that pride in English identity was a joke. And kids round the country were keen to mouth off about it, resulting in the wave of political music that means a lot to you & many others.

 

 

The Sex Pistols 

 

 

 The boutique run by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood

 

 

But there was much to vent about in America, too – why didn’t it happen here? I think partly because as punk was beginning, the Vietnam War was just trailing to its ignominious close. I get the feeling that kids here at that point were OVER protest in music, as a reminder of the boring bad old days. It meant hippies, folk music. It was seen as being too earnest and serious. Instead there was a thrill in being what I call perma-teen – embracing the zany, sometimes surreal, endless adolescent fun and escapism embodied by The Ramones’ cartoon persona.

And what do you, dear punk reader, think of the other aspects of American punk? Let me know.

 

2) From Joyce Crowley: Where did you meet the Clash and what is Paul Simonon like?

 

The way it was for me was the way it can be in any low-rent, high-skills community of artists. The Clash were a local band – Joe Strummer started out playing in the Elgin pub across the road from my house in the 101’ers - and I was a music journalist. Just like in, say, the tight knit SF punk scene, or the CBGB’s crowd in NYC’s pre-gentrified Lower East Side, there were none of today’s barriers between artist, fan and media pal. The famous incident where my fellow scribe Nick Kent was punched out by the volatile Pistols' bassiist, Sid Vicious is less likely to happen now that VIP rooms isolate artists from their audiences in all but the punkier venues. Stay punk! (But skip the punch, preferably.)

 

CBGB'S 

 

What is Paul Simonon like? In many ways, Paul IS the archetypal punk, in that one of the first times he ever picked up a bass was onstage with the Clash. After being taken on by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, it was pretty well acknowledged that though he had zero bass playing experience, he more than made up for it with his style and impressive cheekbones. Paul was really the visual artist of the band, (as well as the in-house heartthrob, -- his dramatic fling with Patti Smith, who he met when she jumped onstage with the Clash at a gig, was one of the first collaborations between Anglo-American Punk.) His early canvases, particularly one grey and brown-toned landscape of a car dump, indicated his visual taste was just as raw and punky as his first bashes at bass. He was largely responsible for Clash fashion statements like the words stenciled up the legs of his flight suit; and the paint-spattered look inspired by Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings. Now, Paul plays with the Gorillaz' Damon Albarn in The Good The Bad and the Queen, and the rest of the time, he's the fine art painter he first set out to be.

 

 

Paul Simonon/Cover of The Clash's London Calling album 

 

3) From Devin Farrell: Do you agree with me that the U.K. is better than the U.S.? (I live in the U.S.)

 

Thanks for that neat philosophical query, Devin. You may have guessed that I’ve lived and still move between both great nations, and I can tell you that ultimately, everywhere has its advantages and disadvantages. One distinction that I have observed: the English generally tend to prize eccentricity more than Americans, which partly explains why punk flourished there.

 

4) From Edward Arthur: 1) Whatever happened to Ed Bahlman? 2) Did PUNK really start in the UK?

 

If anybody reading this knows a number for Ed Bahlman, do let me know. Does Bahlman owe you money, Other Ed? Or are you simply a fan of Ed’s late 70s-early 80s label, 99, on which I was an artist along with ESG, Glenn Branca, ETC, all now regarded as musical post-punk pioneers. The spacey NJ?? Funk of all-girl trio, ESG, is now on the road again – this time, with their daughters! -- and Glenn is a busy composer. Thus the artists Ed signed are all present and correct, but – where’s Ed?

 

 

 

Glenn Branca 

 

And a very interesting question from Pedro Marazzi: What is your view of modern-day punk bands?

 

Particularly those we in the US are subjected to. In the UK there was deemed to be three generations of punk bands. The first generation, which you seem to belong to, being Pistols, Clash etc. Generation 2 being Stiff Little Fingers, Ruts etc. Generation 3 being Anti Nowhere League, Exploited etc. Due to my age I came in at Generation 2 and initially felt like I’d already missed the party. First generation punkers tend to be too easily dismissive of most punk that followed, probably due to less originality. What is/was your view?

 

TUNE IN NEXT TIME FOR THE ANSWER TO PEDRO'S QUESTION -- AND ASK ME ANOTHER....

Punky Hippy Party

Your Reader Questions Answered!
 
From Kurt: “Ok, so I've seen the Sex Pistols reunion tour, the Gang of Four reunion tour, the Slits reunion tour. I saw Wreckless Eric last year, reuniting with himself I suppose. All but one was great. My question, Punk Prof, is this: do bands owe us anything when they get back together? Are there right or wrong reasons to do it, or is it all just their own flippin' business?”
 
Punk band reunions puncture society’s fond delusion that fresh creativity is the prerogative of the under-25s. Somewhat to their surprise in many cases, these bands realize that there’s a market for these reunions with their old bandmates/frenemies, and it strikes a chord – particularly as many of these musicians had found themselves adrift, forced to acknowledge that their sum really had been greater than their own egos. However, for both musician and audience, these shows usually wind up being quite powerful events, more than mere nostalgia. If the artist has given up playing in the interim, they’re bound to fall in love with playing all over again, a sensation vividly captured in “New York Doll,” Greg Whiteley’s documentary on Arthur “Killer” Kane of that band. Seeing the Sex Pistols reunion was remarkable as now their playing had improved so they sounded as good as the polished sound coaxed by Chris Thomas, the producer. When I wound up jamming onstage with the Slits at their reunion, it was frankly a thrill that bass player Tessa Pollitt and singer-songwriter Arri-Upp had found a new crew of junior Slits, who were obviously the band’s artistic progeny, with their dub influence and white girl dreads.
 
It’s a given that there’s a Pavlovian fascination with the music we first XXXed to (insert your favorite wild thing here,) in our childhood and adolescence, which in many cases is transmitted to the offspring. Thus the many families attending the recent Roger Waters concert in a Jersey Arena, generations singing and playing air guitar together along with his band’s performance of the whole ‘Dark Side of the Moon,’ the hippy magnum opus Waters recorded with the band he co-founded in the 1960s, the Pink Floyd.
 
In short, old punk bands, LIKE OLD HIPPY BANDS, deserve a chance to grow, just like everybody else. These shows can fire memories and inspire the next generations.
 
Hope this answers your question, Kurt. Thanks for asking.
 
 
OK, you in the back there, I’m wondering why your essay on the tension between punks and hippies has no words, and what exactly these sixty-four drawings of brightly colored safety pins and skulls actually mean? You say this is the result of three solid weeks of original research? Oh, I see. You were switching between LSD and amphetamine to compare and contrast punks’ and hippies’ drugs of choice, and this is your response. Well, I’m afraid your research will have to be a bit less original, unless you want your grade to be @@###?”///. Consolation: that grade may not get you a degree, but it’s like an invite to the Punky Hippy Party.
 

Roger Waters kept the Pig in the Pink Floyd divorce

 
Yes, Bob Marley sang about the Punky Reggae Party, to which the Clash and various other punks were invited, along with the Wailers. “No boring old farts will be there,” promised Marley, and many listeners assumed that he must be referring to the Pink Floyd and their ilk – the dinosaur 1960s superstars who had dominated the charts, it was felt, for far too long. Nobody sang about the Punky Hippy Party -- not till this column, anyway. The whole point of punk, or so it seemed at the time, was to sweep away what was seen as the deluded idealism and annoying naïveté of hippies and replace it with punk’s gritty realism.
 

Jon Carin with Punk Professor: Both factions of the old Floyd love this multi-instrumentalist and punks do too
 

“Punks hating hippies? That was all a load of rubbish,” declared Jon Carin firmly, helping himself to some moules in the leafy garden of a West Village restaurant. An hour before, the brown eyed multi-instrumentalist had been onstage in front of twenty thousand people at a New Jersey arena, backing Roger Waters, the co-founder of Pink Floyd. “John Lydon and Steve Jones (ex-SexPistols,) Captain Sensible (Damned) – I’ve got them all tickets to our shows.”
 
And Carin should know. Taken on by the supergroup while he was still in his teens, due to a particular combination of talent and personality, he is now the only musician invited to shuttle back and forth between Waters and Dave Gilmore – the two feuding ex-Floydies who each tour the world with their own representation of that august catalog. Reggae has paid Dark Side of the Moon the ultimate tribute with a great favorite of mine, the Easy Star All Stars’ “Dub Side of the Moon,” but the original version still sounds strong. It was a gas to watch that familiar Floyd emblem, the big pink graffiti’d pig, float overhead—Waters reserves his ripest anti-Bush insults for the pig’s plump rubber rear and the graffiti are altered according to issues relevant to each concert’s location, Carin explains. Being immersed in the big sound of LEGENDARY SINGER, P.P. Arnold, the guitar stylings of original pop icon, the Amen Corner’s Andy Fairweather-Lowe, plus their sophisticated mini-movies and psychedelia, was a delicious sensation. A handy reminder of why, though punk happened in stinky cellars, I’d have quite liked IT to be bathed in irridescent colored lights.

 
Though Waters’ political analysis in songs like Leaving Beirut, is a touch lacking in nuance, the timing of its performance sent a shiver down my spine. While Waters was emoting against a superb backdrop of oversized cartoon frames telling the story of how a nice Arab family rescued Waters when he was a lost hitchhiking student, my hostess, super Punky Mummy, fashion PR Oberon Sinclair-Carin, showed me the latest war death updates on her mobile phone. Seems like the fight for different IDEAS of peace has an even longer shelf life than the Pink Floyd’s canon.
 
And you in the back there, staring obsessively at a blank wall.  While you're busy opening the doors of perception, don't forget to close the classroom door on your way out, as this lesson is actually over.  The other students are all gone - and so, it would seem, are YOU.  REAL GONE.

Punky Hippy Party Continued

Aha! A special welcome to you in the back there. After the last class, the Psychedelic Roger Waters/Pink Floyd session, when everyone else had gone and you just sat there watching mental television on the blank wall, I wasn’t sure you’d make it back intact. What was that? On your trip you lived through the last hundred years of your family tree? Well, in that case, you’ve got a head start on today’s class as we’re still looking at the 1960s; a decade whose influence remained strong in the 1970s, even though lots of Punks said it was all a load of bollocks. We will see that the Hippies’ ideas of Peace and Love were actually not that different from the Punks' Search and Destroy; because both generations were fighting in their own way for a more honest society.
 
“Summer of Love, Remembering the 1960s”, a show at the Whitney, is a reminder of why that decade still fascinates. Musical entertainment at the opening soiree, which I attended with Punky PR Mummy, Oberon Sinclair-Carin, was provided by hippy bard, Donovan, who swung his way through favourites like Mellow Yellow. His hair still in artless ringlets, the genial Donovan confided to us that he always watches BBC America when he’s in the US, and that his stepson with wife Linda, whose father was the late Rolling Stone Brian Jones, is obsessed with old school reggae.
 
 

Gene Anthony – Hippies on the Corner of the Haight. Image courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art

 

Mati Klarwein Aleph Sanctuary View. Image courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art

 
The exhibition’s focus on entertainment, music and underground art like British comic book, Oz, make it a magnet for music people. Among the swinging gear on display: Richard Avedon’s famous oversaturated color images of the Beatles, looking as if they were Indian deities; Patrick Litchfield’s shot of the newly married Mick & Bianca Jagger in a Rolls, she the height of Biba and Ossie Clarke chic in her white floppy hat, both imperious in their beauty, like they were off to honeymoon in Olympus. I adored this expo. For me it LITERALLY hit home, particularly as it showed London murals that I vaguely recalled from my early childhood, like the wall of Granny Takes a Trip on the King’s Road, very near where Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren would open the shop Sex, the home of punk, a decade on. A stellar Sixties crew of artists includes paintings, photos, sculptures and installations by Richard Hamilton, Mati Klarwein (of Santana sleeve fame,) Jimi Hendrix, Lynda Benglis and Andy Warhol, among others, and the show was organized by Christoph Grunenberg, director of the exhibition's originating museum, the Tate Liverpool.
 

Gene Anthony photo of beat generation icon Ken Kesey. Image courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art

 

Victor Moscoso Neon Rose 12. Image courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art

 
It was a joy to experience once more the elaborate rococo Edwardiana, the lush decadence of the illustrations inspired by Aubrey Beardsley and the organic voluptuousness of Art Nouveau; all those pre-Deco decorative flourishes which came to seem redundant when minimalism and its spawn, the color taupe, took their wraithlike hold on the design world. Though it skipped a couple of generations, it struck me as I tripped (hoho) past the warning for epileptics and those of a sensitive disposition and entered the exhibition’s strobe room, how it felt like an Ibiza house rave, from the 1980s through to today. That psychedelia never really went away. But it’s often said that the political awakening and awareness that the 1960s have come to represent got lost somewhere round the 1980s Greed Is Good era and never quite returned. Still, hiphop, whose birth paralleled punk’s in the 1970s, has always had a strain of conscious activism duking it out with the taboo vocabulary and mutely gyrating “video ho’s”. Hiphop guru, Russell Simmons has had to busy himself with more than one culture battle recently. The Don Imus debacle has seen Simmons align himself with a purging of hiphop’s crasser gangsta aspect; and the brazen inequities of the Rockefeller Drug Laws have prompted him to tackle the government directly, as Lockdown, a new documentary directed by Michael Skolnik and Rebecca Chaikin, explains. “We thought it would be a quick shoot, eight weeks and they’d close the deal to change the law. It wound up taking three years to just to finish the documentary, and the fight isn’t over yet,” Skolnik says.
 
 

Hiphop guru Russell Simmons

 
The draconian, antiquated and brutally punitive Rockefeller Drug Laws first brought in to combat the ravages of angel dust or heroin in the 1970s, have long been ineffective for dealing with any problems created by drugs, and are really a tool to tear families apart, ruin lives, and criminalize mainly Black and Latino prisoners; effectively castrating their citizenship by ensuring they’ll never get to vote. A pernicious social bargain views prisoners as a cheap, convenient work force, whose housing has become a growth industry re-energizing dying industrial towns; while keeping a prisoner in jail costs us taxpayers 60K a year. To that staggering sum must be added the social costs, which are literally incalculable. The fact that African-American women are in the front line of HIV infection is just one of the side effects, as previously straight prisoners adapt to their incarceration, and infect their women on release. While many mothers who find themselves effectively single mothers are heroines, few would dispute that having a male in the home is usually a plus. No conversation on the Rockefeller Drug Laws passes without someone observing that your Wall Street cocaine user never gets hit with the legislation that sends a small fry street corner hustler away for years. The answer to that math can be found in serious issues like the rise in gang violence plaguing our cities.
 
As “Lockdown USA” points out, New York’s Governor Elliot Spitzer’s election campaign promised to deal with the Laws, but somehow it all got sidelined once he was elected. Some slight cosmetic improvement did happen in 2004, when the sentence was cut from fifteen years to life, to eight to twenty-one years – but that’s still like a lifetime to a young person caught with as little as two ounces of any narcotic.
 
Skolnik and Chaikin focus their lens on the case of Darryl Best, who wound up in jail after signing for a package that arrived while he was working at a friend’s house, which turned out to contain drugs. The traumatic effect of his imprisonment on his family is interwoven with Simmons’ own struggle with “politricks,” as reggae singer, Peter Tosh used to say.
 
When the music mogul realizes that Governor Spitzer hadn’t acted on the deal Simmons thought he’d successfully brokered, he is visibly shocked and tells a reporter, “No matter how much these politicians are wiggling, they are guilty, going for their summer vacation leaving people suffering in jail who they know should come home. Politicians call themselves civilized, but in hiphop we have to tell the truth to each other. People come from the struggle and are sometimes not so polished, and you can’t go around lying, splitting the truth. In the rap business people get killed over shit like this. If I lied to my artists, I’d be dead!”
 
Comments Gabriel Sayegh of the Drug Policy Alliance, “New York has been waiting for reform for thirty-four years and nothing’s going to move until Governor Spitzer lives up to his campaign promise and makes it a priority.”
 
In short, you in the back there, if you insist on INDULGING YOUR TASTE FOR PSYCHEDELICS – make sure you do it when there are no surveillance cameras AROUND.
 
Lockdown USA will be released later this year.
 
Whitney exhibition ends September 16.

Punky Mummies

OK, class, it’s time to reflect on the role of the Punky Mummy. On first hearing, that might sound like an odd combo – but that’s only if you haven’t seen the teensy onesies advertising CBGBs or The Ramones. You in the back – is that a Mother’s Day card you’re writing? Go on, pass it over. How very thoughtful. Oh, I see, it’s a print out of profiles on your dating site. Looks like a shopping list. Well, that’s how it works today. Not that punk was a really romantic era, as such. It’s rather a relief that the punk slang for the act of coitus has been long abandoned – it’s “squelching,” which has a louche, even unhygienic, subtext of snatched seconds in mucky lavs. The Sex Pistols “Bodies” is a loathing song, not a love song, or the invitation to unbridled lust the title might imply. Nonetheless, all that, jumping up and down pogoing, did stir the blood, and unleashed an excess of energy, that had to go somewhere – and not always that far, as evidenced by the fact that the daughter of Sex Pistols’ drummer, Paul Cook, and Jenny, lead singer of the Belle Stars, now sings with the Slits.

Loads of punks are mothers. In fact, Patti Smith’s daughter Jesse is now a musician herself, and both singer Arri Upp and her old Slits-mate, Neneh Cherry of Cirkus, have bands with their children.

 

Offhand, though, I can’t think of a Punky Mummy’s love song to her child, like the way Lauryn Hill’s paean to her child, Zion, is as touching as any great love ballad; nor of any song about hating your mother, like Eminem’s. Please email me with thoughts on any I may have missed or blanked on.

 

Stu: his musical, Passing Strange, is strangely memorable

 
Being an essentially anti-authoritarian mode, though, it’s not surprising that the punks and their mums arena can be a bit problematic. Certainly, it’s the obsession of the protagonist of a memorable musical, “Passing Strange,” that I saw at the Public Theater obsesses over it. Bearded, bespectacled, burly, wry and professorial Stu, mainman of San Francisco’s band The Negro Problem, basically plays his younger self in this touching, bittersweet musical co-written with his mate, Heidi Rodewald, directed by Annie Dorsen and co-produced by Joe’s Pub’s innovative music booker, Bill Bragin. Punk is pivotal to the piece, a lively and thought-provoking narrative with an engaging six person cast, based on his coming of age as a budding, bookish black beatnik more likely to go Om than Yo coming up in 1980s Compton, LA, who’s the sole son of a strict church-going single mother. Starting a punk band liberates and emboldens Stu to go adventuring in Europe where hilariously, he re-invents himself as a threatened gangsta, rather than a fugitive from the church choir, to get some cred with the radical, free living and loving squatters in Berlin and Amsterdam. But he’s so busy looking for himself on the road, that he can kid himself he’s not just running away. Ultimately, it’s his unresolved maternal scene that trips him up, and makes this pioneering Afro-Punk re-consider what being radical really means.

 

 Mamarama is the roller-coaster of balancing family and creativity

 

 Punk Love by Susie J. Horgan 

 

 Truth has a lot to do with it, of course, and nothing’s more punk than the truth. And to tell the truth, back in London, in the Goldman Towers of my youth, it was understood that Mother’s Day was a load of bollocks designed by the greeting card companies, and we were never to mind it. The point being, every day was Mother’s Day for our merry little nuclear unit; though whether that was really so, I slightly doubt, in retrospect. Anyway, discovering how a woman who was previously all about free self-expression, i.e. a Punky Mummy, can make every day Mother’s Day, is sometimes a tough one. Finding a community can be a lifesaver, as writer Evelyn McDonnell and photographer Susie Horgan, two Miami P.M’s, discovered.

Evelyn is well kitted out with kids – two stepdaughters and a son, all charmers – and Susie, whose husband is in a wheelchair, has an adopted boy. In their freewheeling punk days, they hadn’t necessarily anticipated such complicated though enriching domesticity, and they’ve both chronicled it in their own way.

In her “Punk Love,” Susie re-visits her youthful photos of the early D.C. punk scene, when she sold ice cream in a Georgetown store managed by the future political bard and TV personality, lantern-jawed Henry Rollins. He contributes text, alongside musician Ian MacKaye, co-founder of Dischord Records. Susie’s photos of soft-faced boys ripping out harsh guitar chords, are very immediate and innocent, and show how the full-frontal attack of DC punk really was born with a bang.

 

 

Henry Rollins proves - Punk really is a love fest, after all

 
“Mamarama” is writer Evelyn McDonnell’s reflection on her roller-coaster evolution from the kid who camped under the stars with her parents and brother, through their divorce, her two marriages, (one happily ongoing), participating in guerilla media on the east & west coasts, plus the aforementioned Punky Mummy thingy – all the while listening and responding to music. She’s currently Music Critic at the Miami Herald, but in the basements of the early 1990s downtown Manhattan’s Nuyorican Poetry scene, Evelyn and her buddy writer Jana Martin, kinda adopted me. We formed a sustaining writers group and punky collective, the Fictionaires (watch out for Jana’s book of short stories, ‘The Russian Lover,” by the way.) Between us, we’ve delivered four books and one baby in the space of a decade, not bad going. Though we’re all scattered, the Fictionaires still critique each other’s work and lives, so it was no surprise when “Mamarama” turned out to be a bonny, bouncing book weighing in at approximately eight ounces. Evelyn says Mamarama means, “Balancing your life and the family thing and the freedom thing, mothering without losing your sense of adventure and the culture at large.” Susie laughs, “Me and Evelyn have these chats – ‘What was your Mamarama today?’”

Evelyn’s receiving quite an emotional response, particularly as it’s one of the few cool commentaries available for young women – or hey, even aging-almost-imperceptibly women – who are trying to invent new ways of mothering and re-envisaging womanhood, without throwing the baby out with the excess fat.
 

This book will help any woman, any time 

 

Talking of motherhood and excess fat, you really don’t need to be a Punky Mummy to find that yoga is as lifesaving as a community of reliable and endlessly amusing mates. To be gagging for yoga, you don’t need to be lugging laundry or a baby. It could be a big briefcase or, as in my case, a big bust and a job as a writer hunched over a laptop – or simply a load of angst. If it weren’t for the work of Mr. Iyengar, and his daughter Geeta, who wrote the foreword for “The Woman’s Yoga Book”, and particularly its author, my teacher Bobby Clennell, my knuckles would definitely be trailing on the tarmac, in the style of our ancestors the Neanderthals. “I’m keen on doing yoga as a woman, not a man; coming back to our nature, but in a progressive way,” she explains.

Over some four years, Bobby has distilled her knowledge of woman’s yoga for every phase of life and combined it with her old skill as an illustrator – she used to be an animator– into a completely original and very necessary handbook to keeping your head on straight and your limbs in the lotus position.

And you in the back there – is that the lotus position, or are you just copying the answer from your mate? Now if I were your mother, not your Punk Professor…