70s crap

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

RICHARD ROMEO writes:
> Andrew--

> Would you agree with those who, when punk re-emerged in the U.S. (at 
> least in the pop conscious when Nirvana exploded in 91), claimed that 
> final the conditions were right (stagnant economy, no jobs, slackers, 
> etc) or similar to, Britain in the 70's where punk emerged?

Well, I guess so. But there was strong strand of anti-US-imperialism
in the UK punk rebellion - I'm so bo-o-ored with the U-S-A, indeed. A
key element of UK punk was the rejection of US dominance in the music
business. Not that the musicians were all from the US - e.g. Led Zep,
Yes, the Stones, the Who etc were all UK product - but the sound, the
packaging and presentation were heavily laced with strains of a US
culture which bore no relation whatsoever to UK people's lives.

Fantasies about drinking bourbon with good old boys or chasing
California girls may have appealed in the 60s and early 70s, but they
rapidly wore thin in the face of the more gutter realities of UK
life. We live in a cold, wet country which, in the 70s, was poor and
parochial. Our cultural heritage was a grudgingly servile social order
which the hippy era had challenged but hardly dented and that failure
led young people to look back to their own culture for a replacement.
Particularly the remnants of working class culture which punk
wholeheartedly embraced in an attempt to retain (or in most cases,
obtain) individuality, roots and defiance. And this was especially
true of the middle and upper class punks or punk-wannabes, for whom it
provided a far more offensive and effective means of putting up two
fingers to the parents, teachers and other guardians of moral
rectitude than growing your hair long. Punk encouraged sharp and
spiky, DIY difference where the marketing arm of the music business
had encouraged a dull sameness, packaged rebellion!

One thing which amazed me at the time was the presentation of Bruce
Springsteen as a US punk equivalent. Patti Smith, Television, the New
York Dolls, etc I could understand, but Springsteen? At best he was a
washed out good old boy manque. And he was still the guitar-wielding
hero everyone was supposed to look up to and emulate. No one wanted to
emulate Johnny Rotten, at least not per se. What they took from him
was his iconoclasm, his full-frontal attack on convention and
pretension, his smash-it-all-up-and-lets-start-again nihilism. For us
it was no more heroes. Obviously you folks just didn't get it.

I guess that the grunge scene was fuelled by a similar sort of
rejection and similar embrace of difference as punk, only the
social/class background really doesn't equate. And anyway, grunge was
still guitar bands, lots of feedback and noise but still most of it
essentially boys wanking off. Contrast it with the UK rave and dance
music scene which has no heroes but still manages mass dissent. If 1
million tablets of ecstasy every weekend doesn't lead to a new social
order I don't know what will.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
We drank the blood of our enemies.
The blood of our friends, we cherished.