I like it. I like the music and the overall gestalt. I'm not punk. Maybe in spirit, but not in any kind of measurable way.
I got an excellent book for Christmas. A coffee table book--an illustrated history of punk in the US and Britain.
It is unduly obsessed with the Sex Pistols, in my opinion. It seems to hold them, essentially, at the center of the punk world. From certain turns of phrase, it would appear that the compiler of the book is British (or many of the writers are), so I suppose this is to be expected. The never-ending debate exists: Is Punk an American or British phenomenon?
People tend to side with their own country, or whichever country they prefer in general, or, in an attempt to negotiate and compromise, they will say that American and British punk were, in fact, two separate musical movements and that to compare them requires some kind of faulty assumption.
I don't know about that.
I know that the two bands that usually end up at the center of the debate are The Ramones and the Sex Pistols and that these two bands are, in many ways, quite different.
Johnny (Lydon) Rotten sure thought so, anyway. For the most part, I think, when people insist that American and British punk are totally separate, they're parroting a statement made by the ever-opinionated, ever-indignant Rotten himself--a statement that arose in any number of variations (and continues to arise) over the course of his career.
"The New York scene has nothing to do with us. It's a waste of time."
In the end, I think that American and British cultures were just different enough to choose slightly different bands to exalt. Different bands were the preferred "face" as chosen by the people, but I don't think the music itself is fundamentally disparate.
Interesting fact:
John Lydon contracted meningitis as a child and fell into a coma for six months. When he awoke, he had forgotten almost everything he knew, including how to read, how to perform simple day-to-day tasks, and even a fair amount of his vocabulary. He was mercilessly teased in school (dummy, moron, etc.) and has walked with a hunchback ever since his illness because the needles they stuck in his spine to drain infected fluid did some kind of permanent damage to his posture.
He says he also suspects he was pretty well brain damaged in the process.
Another interesting fact:
Johnny Rotten was painfully shy and was described as such by people who knew him even at the height of his punk career. Contemporary interviews don't show much indication of this, but apparently, he had a habit of turning bright red--stammering--whenever strangers spoke to him.
Odd. Unexpected.
This maniac:
Hiding behind his mummy's skirts.
The boy ain't right.
Said Sid Vicious (who, at the time he met Rotten, was a "fashion-conscious" David Bowie fanatic) of Johnny Rotten:
"He was the vilest geezer I'd ever met...everyone hated him. Everyone hated me, too. We hated each other, but no one else would talk to us."
Heh.
Rotten says he thought Vicious was "a wanker."
Anyway. It's an interesting book. Most early Punk bands name Iggy and the Stooges as a primary (if not ultimate) influence. Does this make Punk an American phenomenon? Who knows. It's a fascinating thing, no matter who is trying to take credit for it.
Interesting fact #3: Iggy Pop was to be approached to lead the Sex Pistols, but he was in a mental institution at the time.
And while the painfully shy Rotten was hiding in corners backstage after exploding onstage, the band he constantly derided for its conscious image-crafting and apparent commercial pop-sellout--the Ramones--had a shy, hunch-backed lead singer and a tragic bassist who was hopelessly addicted to heroin.
The bands, in the end, come up looking an awful lot alike. All the more need, then, to insist upon differences, I suppose.
I also suppose that if people said this to Lydon, they would be--immediately and in no uncertain terms--told to go fuck themselves with a bowie knife.
Which is another sort of beautiful thing about Punk. No need for excuses or explanation. Just fuck off. If you can't understand why, that's your problem. Figure it out. You might not find THE answer, but AN answer is probably good enough. That is, there are plenty to choose from.
The book also contains a large-ish section on Green Day. A band who is, in my opinion, sort of the epitome of good punk gone bad.
Nevertheless, they are part of the legacy.
Billy Joe Armstrong has said that part of what Green Day's critics call "selling out" was simply a function of his (and the band's) getting older--maturing.
I was just telling my husband yesterday that I thought it was the stupidest excuse I'd ever heard.
Because SOME bands managed to write mature punk music right from the beginning. It wasn't ALL youthful, wasted exuberance. And when it isn't, it doesn't have to be an over-produced rock opera (American Idiot, indeed).
No. Mature, musically competent, intelligent punk is not impossible. There was, of course, the almighty Joe Strummer and The Clash.
Also this. My personal favorite.
Try again, Billy, you deserter.
A couple more videos, just for fun.
Anarchy in the U.K. (pre-Vicious)
Blitzkreig Bop
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