70s crap
LBernier at tribune.com
LBernier at tribune.com
Fri Jul 11 11:31:09 CDT 1997
From Harrison:
From: LBernier at tribune.com
Andrew sez:
Anyway, I really liked lots of the lousy musician stuff.
Even Sham 69 sounded quite good live. You really really had to be
there. I don't think I have met anyone of my generation from the US
who has understood how much the whole thing was wrapped up with
British culture.
Yeah, us stupid yanks, couldn't even come up with our own rebellion, eh,
Mr. Dinn?
Woah, switchblades down, kiddo, that's not really what he said,
here....
Don't worry, it's really sharp, he'll never feel a thing. Just a bit of a
tweak, really, since I sensed the old "US culture and everything that's
wrong with it" attitude behind those words. Course, we are known for
getting our panties (or boxers) in a wad.
Actually, I've always thought it fairly glaringly obvious how much
British punk was wrapped up with the class system and Thatcherism and
the Decline of Empire, and a quick skim of John Lydon's book "No
Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs" should clear up any remaining ambiguities
toot sweet.
Enough critical ink has been spilled over the difference between the
American and Brit flavors of punk (two utterly different beasts) that
we don't really need to go into it, but it would be an interesting
anthropological study to compare just how _much_ "the whole thing"
reflected the differences in our respective cultures.
I wasn't walking around spitting on hippies in the early eighties because I
was economically deprived, no sirree. I was just another upper middle
class white chick with a shrink who wanted to prove to the world just how
tortured and different I was. Me and about 20 million others. But in the
skinhead/slam-dance/l.a. punk scene so vividly personified by Darby Crash,
that guy who sang "I Love livin' in the City" et al, there's a definite
class underpinning. 'swhy the people who were really into that scene were
such fascist racists. Now they've all joined militias . Some of them have
blown up things. (That Murrah building, it blowed up real good.)
And I'm much better now, thank you.
Jean
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