The people who brought us the great Synth Britannia documentary now bring us Punk Britannia. A bunch of interviews with aging rockers in too tight jeans? Check. Grainy footage of outraged 1970's politicians. Check. Grainy footage of overdressed 70s punks walking on the Kings Road. Check. Somehow although we've seen this before many many times, it all works.
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I watched the first episode and found it interesting. I wasn't able to connect with it the same as I connected with Synth Britannia though. My interest in music didn't really kick in till around '79 by which time the punk revolution was giving way to New Wave (whatever that was). I remember confused conversations on the playground as we tried to categorise the Damned, Stranglers, Boomtown Rats, Stiff Little Fingers, Slits, Clash, PIL, Undertones, etc. Nowadays they all seem to be classed as punk but back then...no one seemed to know.
Mike
What I uploaded here is part 2 which I think is the best one of the 3 part series. Part 1 on prepunk is pretty good though and like you I was fascinated by the post punk fall out in part 3.
Mysteriously missing in all 3 parts were the Undertones my fav of all these bands. And I think I would have liked a little flash forward to 1989 "The Year Punk Broke In America"
Mike
The 12 or 13 bars of John Lydon singing the theme from Dads Army will haunt my nightmares for a long time.
Couple of things. Peter Rozovksy is running a McKinty Competition over at Detectives Beyond Borders: Win a Book! If you're not too late:
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com.au/
Also
I've got a little piece in today's Independent:
http://t.co/CbZRvjOd
Here are those links in handy link form:
Mckinty competitation at DBB
Mckinty piece in The Independent
As I said in my post on here "favourite albums of all time" I was a punk in the late 70s, and though I quite enjoy these punk Britannia things, they are a summary by one or two rather nice programme directors (and their jolly nice researchers) about a phenomenon that evolved outside mainstream, pre MTV, pre-internet, pre-digi cameras and pre-videos etc,(so there was limited 'capture' of events by the punks themselves). It was certainly not completely London/ big city based. No-one cared about classification of bands, there was a huge energy, an excitement and a coming together with other sidelined (at the time) genres.. reggae being a good example - Don Letts, Steel Pulse, Black Roots, Aswad - not just at gigs, but on the big anti-racism marches of the time. ... try this by Steel Pulse http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ6fcv5Ixxc
Deb the Pleb (my punk name at the time...)
Alas, the competition books are gone, but you can still enjoy the posts.
I was on my way from high school to college when punk hit and, as much as I loved the vitality of "Anarchy in the UK" and "God Save the Queen," I was a wiseass suburban kid. Punk seemed like a pose to me, especially once scenemakers and, incidentally, critics, got hold of it. You know, too many concerts and bands getting dubbed :legendary.
By the way, it was announced this week that the Harvard Square Theater in Cambridge, Mass., where I saw many a cheap double feature but did not see the Clash's 1979-- excuse me, the Clash's legendary 1979 gig, is closing.
=======================================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com
Alas, my punk name was not Pete, the Reet Neat Slab of Meat. I was just plain Peter Rozovsky.
Deb
My internet service provider is punishing me for band with violations so I cant respond as promptly as I would like or in as great a depth, but on the point on your other post Yup I'm with on the Black Keys and another band you might like are the crazy bunch of LA hippies known as Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.
The post punk racism/reggae aspect is well covered in part 3 of this doc.
Peter
I only became aware of the Sex Pistols when the BBC banned them. Jesus the BBC has banned them I've got to listen to that, I thought, and did. And then the Undertones came along and I was hooked.
Adrian,
Thanks for the band tip - I will catch em...
Re: Punk Brit - ha, ha - I should have followed it all, instead of getting bored with it..
Undertones are a family fave band - Rose and Matt knew the words to Teenage kicks as toddlers. Bill, I and they would sing along in the car on days out.
I used to write to John Peel (and he wrote to me - pre-email, and sometimes played my requests), it was only fitting that TK be played at his funeral..
I saw the Undertones in 2005, sadly no Sharkey, but McLoone did well, I got Damine O'Neill's autograph on my arm.. my kids (17 and 15 at the time) were horrified when I got home (too old to rock...) and insisted I remove it!!
I read Rolling Stone at the time, so I knew what was what.
Speaking of the Sex Pistols, my newspaper has been packing itself up to move to a new building and, as each cabinet or office has been emptied, the folks in charge of the move have slapped a sign reading VACANT on it.
First time I saw this, I went nuts and printed out AND WE DON'T CARE in jumbled, ill-matching fonts and pasted it on the sign.
Peter Ha Ha - did your colleagues get it??
During the Queen's silver jubilee celebrations 1977, I + pals bought SP's 'God Save the Queen' on release day (it was banned for a while after that!), took it back to our squat in the middle of Worcester and played the single full blast, over and over again, speakers on the window ledges, JR's nasally whine falling on the hapless shoppers below..
I don't kow if they got it. I should see if the sign is still up.
I wonder if "God Save the Queen" is getting any airplay in this latest jubilee year.
I see you are all over the Guardian this week. Check out the Line of Duty Episode 1 thread CIF where everyone is raving about Cold Cold Ground.
Peter, Deb
Its funny isnt it that this Jubilee the 60th is a lot less controversial than the 25th.
Kiri
Very nice music choices on your blog profile BTW.
Maybe Brits realize that a symbolic ruler is very, very far from the worst problems the country faces.
my blog profile has gone missing (not that there was much to it) and google seem to be saying I have to create a new one.. aaargh.. lost in the ether...
Excellent call on the Undertones Adrian ,who were one of the best singles bands around.I would argue that "Get Over You" and "You've Got My Number" were two of the finest pop/punk records through the whole period.As you've previously mentioned "That Petrol Emotion" were also a great band .
Neil
TPE and PIL were two of the best post punk bands rising from the ashes of punk.
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