PUNK ROCK: SO WHAT? It’s now over twenty years since punk first pogoed its way into our consciousness. Punk Rock: So What? gathers together leading cultural critics to provide a controversial reassessment of punk and its place in the history of popular culture. Combining new research and exclusive interviews, the book brings a fresh perspective to the analysis of this primal generational scream, and kicks over many of the established beliefs about its meaning. Punk Rock: So What? re-situates punk in its historical context, exploring its possible origins in the American surf-garage scene and London clubs as well as in Malcolm McClaren’s brain. Challenging the standard mythology of punk, the contributors question whether it deserves its reputation as an anti-racist, pro-feminist movement, which was confined to the big cities and which, despite the words of the Crass song, was dead by 1979. The contributors trace punk’s legacy in literature, art, comics and cinema as well as in music and fashion—from movies such as The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle, to the graphics of Jamie Reid; and from novels of Richard Allen to the comix of Savage Pencil. Meditating on the appeal of the Ramones, the Slits, Johnny Rotten, itchy mohair jumpers, and hair dye that ran in the rain, the contributors establish that, if anything, punk was more culturally important than anyone has yet suggested– though perhaps for different reasons. Contributors: Frank Cartledge, Paul Cobley, Robert Garnett, David Huxley, David Kerekes, Guy Lawley, George McKay, Andy Medhurst, Suzanne Moore, Lucy O’Brien, Bill Osgerby, Miriam Rivett, Roger Sabin, Mark Sinker. Roger Sabin is a Lecturer in Cultural Studies at Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design. PUNK ROCK: SO WHAT? the cultural legacy of punk Edited by Roger Sabin London and New York First published 1999 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. © 1999 selection and editorial matter, Roger Sabin; individual chapters, the contributor All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Punk rock: so what?/[edited by] Roger Sabin. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index, (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Punk rock music—History and criticism. I. Sabin, Roger, 1961– . ML3534.P89 1999 781.66–dc21 98–37416 CIP ISBN 0-203-44840-5 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-75664-9 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-17029-X (hbk) ISBN 0-415-17030-3 (pbk) CONTENTS List of figures vii list of contributors ix Acknowledgements xi Introduction ROGER SABIN 1 PART I Shock waves and ripple effects 15 1 Too low to be low: Art pop and the Sex Pistols ROBERT GARNETT 17 2 Misfit lit: ‘Punk writing’, and representations of punk through writing and publishing MIRIAM RIVETT 31 3 ‘I’m so bored with the USA’: The punk in cyberpunk GEORGE MCKAY 49 4 Tinseltown rebellion: Punk, transgression and a conversation with Richard Baylor DAVID KEREKES 68 5 ‘Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?’: Anarchy and control in The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle DAVID HUXLEY 81 V CONTENTS 6 ‘I like Hate and I hate everything else’ : The influence of punk on comics GUY LAWLEY 100 7 Concrete, so as to self-destruct: The etiquette of punk, its habits, rules, values and dilemmas MARK SINKER 120 PART II Experience, memory and historiography 141 8 Distress to impress?: Local punk fashion and commodity exchange FRANK CARTLEDGE 143 9 ‘Chewing out a rhythm on my bubble-gum’: The teenage aesthetic and genealogies of American punk BILL OSGERBY 154 10 ‘Leave the capitol’ PAUL COBLEY 170 11 The woman punk made me LUCY O’BRIEN 186 12 ‘I won’t let that dago by’: Rethinking punk and racism ROGER SABIN 199 13 What did I get? Punk, memory and autobiography ANDY MEDHURST 219 14 Is that all there is? SUZANNE MOORE 232 Index 237 VI FIGURES 0.1 Adam and the Ants on stage (1977): S & M nasties? 8 0.2 Does the media reflect subcultures or make them? 10–11 1.1 Front and reverse of sleeve to Sex Pistols single ‘Pretty Vacant’ 26 1.2 Gavin Turk’s ‘Pop’ 28 2.1 Gideon Sams’s The Punk (1977), The First Punk Novel’ 34 2.2 Portrait of the writer as a young punk. Gideon Sams in 1977 36 2.3 Richard Allen’s Punk Rock (1977) 38 2.4 Three Martin Millar novels repackaged for a 1990s readership 43 3.1 The cyberpunk ‘look’ makes it into the clubs 50 3.2 Cover to Billy Idol album Cyberpunk (1993) 55 4.1 Poster advert for Nick Zedd’s Police State (1987) 71 4.2 Still from Dum Dum 72 4.3 Still from Good Things Happen to Those Who Love the Lord 73 4.4 Still from Cirsium Delectus 74 5.1 Still from The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle. Fake Johnny Rotten number one 92 5.2 Still from The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle. Fake Johnny Rotten number two 93 5.3 Promo artwork for ‘Who Killed Bambi?’ 97 6.1 Cover to Punk magazine 103 6.2 Savage Pencil’s Rock ’n’ Roll Zoo (1977) 105 6.3 Cover to Hate comic (1996) 115 6.4 ‘Subvert Man’ from Simon Gane’s self-published Anarchy Comics (1995) 116 7.1 Detail from Looks Yellow Tastes Red fanzine (1995) 122 7.2 Wire look the part (1977) 127 7.3 Panels from Love and Rockets comic, issue 38 (1992) 132 7.4 More Love and Rockets, issue 39 (1992) 137 8.1 Classified adverts, as seen in various music papers, 1977–78 144 VII FIGURES 8.2 View of the audience at a Ruts gig, 1979 147 8.3 More classifieds, music press 1979 149 9.1 Sleeve to The Dictators’ ‘Heartache’ single (1977) 161 9.2 Joey Ramone goes surfing (1978) 163 10.1 ‘Punks in on Work March’ 178 11.1 Collage by Linder (1977) 190 11.2 Covers to City Fun fanzine (1982, 83) 192 11.3 The Stranglers at Battersea Park, 1978, plus strippers 195 12.1 Cover to Sounds (25 March 1978)—a special racism issue 201 12.2 National Front leaflet, General Election 1979 204 12.3 Typical stage invasion at a Sham 69 gig (1977) 211 12.4 Skrewdriver in 1977 214 13.1 Front and reverse of sleeve to Tom Robinson Band EP, Rising Free (1978) 223 14.1 The Prodigy, 1996 235 VIII CONTRIBUTORS Robert Garnett is a freelance art critic for, among others, Art Monthly, and a Lecturer at the London College of Printing and Distributive Trades. He would like to do to Cultural Studies what the Pistols did to pop, but he can’t afford to. He collects avant garde pop records instead. Miriam Rivett is a Lecturer in Writing and Publishing Studies at Middlesex University. A classic part-time punk, she spent much of the late 1970s searching out Undertones gigs and (as now) worshipping John Peel. George McKay is a Reader in Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Central Lancashire. He was a 16-year-old Glaswegian living in rural Norfolk in 1977, so felt a bit fractured anyway: then punk came along and safety-pinned him together for a while. He’s since found himself writing about a cluster of issues around its legacy, and his books include Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance Since the Sixties (London: Verso, 1996) and, as editor, DiY Culture (1998). David Kerekes is the editor/publisher of Headpress: the Journal of Sex, Religion, Death and co-author of Killing for Culture (Creation, 1994). He was at engineering college in 1977, where he surreptitiously carved into a desk ‘Who are the Clash?’ in order to infuriate fellow student and six foot punk rocker ‘Boomer’. David Huxley lectures in the Department of the History of Art and Design at Manchester Metropolitan University. He was too old for punk, but too young to die. Guy Lawley works as a GP and moonlights as a cultural critic. His life was irrevocably changed when he read his first Marvel comic in 1965, but luckily the resultant stunting of his development was ended 11 years later by the arrival of punk. A minor relapse in 1992 led to his founding Comics Forum magazine, published by the Comics Creators Guild of the UK. IX CONTRIBUTORS Mark Sinker is a former editor of The Wire, and writes about music and movies, sex and politics. His forthcoming book The Electric Storm is a critical history of how technology changed music between 1876 and 1976, or thereabouts. Frank Cartledge no longer vomits on a voluntary basis to impress girls, but now induces a similar effect on others in the course of his lecturing at various educational institutions. Bill Osgerby (a.k.a ‘Billy Ramone’) is a cultural historian and writer. Presently teaching at a range of institutions of higher education, his survey of post-war British youth culture—Youth in Britain Since 1945 is shortly to be published by Blackwell.