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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