The latest Podrophenia rewinds to Bas-Vegas during the summer of punk, captured in the pages of Strange Stories fanzine - featuring The Vicars, The Machines, Grinder and Mik Bostik - a scene that led to Depeche Mode, Yazoo and links with The Cure..
Also London squat-life and sleeping in Sid Vicious' bedroom - through to Adrian's Records in the 80s.
We bring you a world exclusive from Fitz & Sons from Dave Fitzgerald and Mick Nixon - a glam off by way of Pantherman from Steven Hastings - and a fanzine or fake-zine quiz..
Dig in DL below
Podrophenia goes Lucky Dipping for June.. A jamboree bag of free plays - pop, punk, prog - who knows - it's all in the the musical mix. Where else could you go from Harry Belafonte to Hollie Cook and Johnny Harris to Johnny Rotten
There's a Pod Quiz - Audible or Edible. Is it a band name or bread based snack?
There's natter and chat about the Pistol series, Elvis film and a round up of recent gigs/festivals…
Podrophenia takes a trip round cities and towns. There's a City or Town quiz, sandwich chat - are they best eaten gamey, and playlist of places that spans from Hanoi Rocks to a Lou Reed/Booker T team up, with new tunes from Vix20 and Campbell Findlay and The Tranquil.
One of the earliest entries on this blog involved Batman 222 wherein the Caped Crusader investigates a 'Paul is Dead' type mystery - September 2007 to carbon date the actual post.. A few weeks later it appeared in Word mag' ish 56, after a very generous offer from Mark Ellen to write 250 words on it...
Fast forward 13 years and a fantasticus chat was had with David and Mark for a birthday treat. In forty five mins, we cover: rock stars in unlikely places - comics. football programmes, Rod Temperton's dodgy toplines. The sky-high value of collectable comics.
My Radio 1 calendar/diary, with odd singles bought during this period, and tales including - Radio Luxembourg Roadshow comes to Southend - with m'self and pals getting drunk on crate of Crocodillo I won doing the pop quiz. Naked neighbors displaying. Dressing up as KISS at the School Arts Festival... and of course records bought
To Westcliff-on-Sea where our celebrating patron offers highly entertaining memories of the "white stiletto crowd" at the Lacey Lady in Ilford, the Fickle Pickle Folk Club in Southend, a 'Paul Is Dead' Batman comic, Toni Basil's effect on a Bowie sleeve, Petula Clark, Sex Pistols ads, a Goofy Greats compilation and the Ladykillers at the Pink Toothbrush ("Altamont meets the Muppet Show") - and we play Southend Stackwaddy and guess the psychedelic album that starts with a foghorn.
X marks the spot Pod Pals as we run out a playlist of x related bands/songs and X film related
chat with a live session from Millsy of power-pop rockers Vix 20
A four-way whammy of winners were on Friday night's bill for The Railway shakedown. I'd managed to grab a loose-blues jam with opening act BONE down In the bar earlier that evening, but due to a few backstage scoops missed his and J.D Smith's main stage sets.
Instead, I crept in late to catch the incredible and insane world of Thomas Truax. Who, travels minstrel style around and about the hemisphere pitching up for gigs with an orchestra of self-built percussive and musical mechanicals. The Mother Superior,The Hornicator: think Wilf Lunn goes steam punk for a David Lynch soundtrack, with each song and instrument introduced and contextualised in a Rich Hall style Texan drawl.
Like TV Smith's solo sets - Ed Tudor Pole, sand-blasts punk's energy and attitude back to raw, acoustic roots, deploying his set as almost protest-folk in the tradition of Wat Tyler meets Woody Guthrie. Still as animated and erratic as when first stepped onto a stage to audition for the Pistols, Pal Ed is Wide-eyed, excitable and engages with audience, fidgeting 'n' twitching around the stage like a battery hen liberated and let loose into a widescreen horizon
At the close of Ed's set an in-house scratch band - Dave Deville, (guitar) Dave Dulake (drums) me (bass) were summoned onstage for a few Chuck Berry numbers, a gospel cover and of course Swords of a Thousand Men. And what an absolute first class blast was had by all. A blinder, a belter and teenage dream to share a stage with a former Sex Pistol (albeit by his own admission for just two weeks) .
Saturday and it's along to Old Leigh way for the Woodcock Festival. A shuffle of pre-booked bands and open mic types. After Dave Woodcock kindly pitching up for Podrophenia so regularly - it was a treat to be able to join him for an outdoor jam, with a pint on the table, the estuary behind us and the Crooked Billet ahead, blasting out the Chuck Berry and Little Richard covers.
There are even whispers we may be reuniting for a repeat performance on the 28th of April at the Sarah Moore - should you be buzzing about the Broadway that evening.
In the summer of 1980 as a trembling teenage punk - and some several years below the age requirement of an X Certificate - I managed to blag my way in to the local Odeon (wearing a homemade Who Killed Bambi T-shirt) to see the Sex Pistols cinematic release - the Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle. A rambling, scrappy and ultimately disappointing ninety minutes that could have offered so much more (are the hours of unseen out takes and extras ever going to be released?)
Although the opening moments had me wide-eyed and gripped, seeing live(ish) Sex Pistols actually moving around - in an era when the only snatched exposures of musical heroes and idols were frozen monochromatic music press photos - intercut with Helen of Troy collecting together the Swindle lettering while the Pistols auditioned for a Johnny Rotten replacement. A role that eventually went to the manic, erratic Ed Tudor-Pole -
The date of my visit to the flix is documented hereabouts (19th). So a mind-frying Friday night lies ahead tonight as I'll be sharing a stage for a few tunes with ex-Pistol himself - Tenpole Tudor!! It's a return visit to Southend's most rock 'n' roll local The Railway for Ed TP, on a bill that also includes J.D Smith, BONE and Thomas Truax And finally Dave Deville and myself will be joining Mr Pole for a few covers and of course....
If you're round and about Southend way swing by and come on down for a Friday night bounce...
Fight,fight,fight - when I had rumble with Rochard
(pronounced roach-ard). Our school year's notoriously handy Judo bloke. It
started when he whipped a few stinging flicks of his school tie at a mate o' mine in the changing rooms - and ended with me having quick a
straightener with him. Although the PE teacher walked in put the handbrake any more fiesty hi-jinx.
In other news, it's a weekend in London at cousin Sylv's
where we call in to see her best mate Nick Saloman (who stopped by the blog
for a guest spot earlier this year) and his legendary record collection.
Including the rare Hot Rods edition of the Damned's debut album and tales about
his childhood chum Stuart Goddard. Dig about and you'll spot Nick's mum making
an appearance in Adam Ant's biog!
The London weekend
Then later - an evening at the pub to see his Nick's band
the Von Trap Family, who had managed to nip a couple of spins on the Peel show, where I wore my dad's old Mothers Pride coat for it and put purple crazy colour in my hair. Would you believe in moment of psychedelic synchronicity Nick Saloman as Bevis Frond has just released a new
album - The Leaving of London
Crazy Horses
And those wild horses are back, busting loose and
running riot through the school grounds.
Although I'm still no clearer who the strange girl is who follows me home. And
sits on the bus!
Records added to collection include: ver Subs - Party in Paris (with Capt Sensible on keyboards), Adam
Ant - Dog eat Dog and The Professionals with Steve Jones doing a B A Robertson barnet..and of course The Von Traps..
Which album is Kid Christmas is holding? Scroll down for the answer
And so shipmates we come to our end-of-year sign off, the closing chapter in our 12 month part-work. But what a year, skin-shedding from disco poppet to teenage punk and junking Edwin Starr for Sid Vicious, with all manner of hi-jinks, capers and carry ons recorded forever by way of a few scribbled bits. Coincidentally I found the 1980 (mentioned on 12th) calendar last month. What do you reck' give it a go, or stick to '79?
What was traditionally a bumper month for birthdays 14th, 16th and 28th has become a case of 'last man standing'. But let's not end on morose note, and before we step into Christmas...I'll dedicate the entire run of Dear Diary posts to mum and dad who made this year, and every year, so special for me.
What can we spot in December then: a torn ankle ligament, early snow (18th), black DMs (10th) and two family traditions. The tree and deccies up around my birthday. And a London run driving to the maternal aunts and uncles handing out gifts and prezzies. I literally loved this, dad zipping around town and seeing the capital kitted out in it's Christmas shiny finery
Chart-wise the closing moments of '79 looked like this. Tune-wise I'll leave you with a couple in keeping with the punky mood of this month (Damned, Wolfmen). The Greedies (a re-up, as my single's dropped down the back of our wardrobe), a New Year's variant of the same track from the Kenny Everett show plus a best of '79 chart run-down with Tony Blackburn...sensational!. And not 79-ish in anyway but also a tune from Spector LP pictured with David 'Kid' Jensen..
Let's all meet up in the year 2011. Until then - have yourselves a merry little Christmas and a rocking New Year doings. Make the most of your loved ones, go easy on the port and plum duff, and hope Santa brings you everything you've worked and wished for..
x
London Calling should be in here too, but seems to have gone the way of The Greedies
One of my nearly ran bands for Piley and I's Sound-a-Like podcast were The Creation. An outfit of heavy legacy, but little credit or recognition (excepting revisionists and retro-ologists).
Primarily it's Creationist fret-fiddler Eddie Philips who's due for the retrospective nods and tips of the titfer. The first guitarist to experiment with violin style bow-ing techniques - a trick later nicked by Jimmy Page to scrape unearthly squeaks and squeals from his Les Paul. Factor in Eddie's invite to join The 'Orrible 'Oo as a second guitarist, that Ron Wood briefly served as a Creation member, the Sex Pistols covering the band's Through My Eyes and you've got something of a glowing CV by any standard.
So what in the name of Boney M has all this got to do with sound-a-likes they chorused? Well, to my old ears The Creation's How Does It Feel sounds entirely like the type of heavy-level stomper reformed and reformatted by Oasis as a template tune for their signature sound.
And in a mobius style movement of music trivia: who were Oasis spotted and signed by? Alan McGee, founder of Creation Records. A label named after - The Creation...
Bow Selector - Eddie can be caught having a fiddle on a tune covered by Boney M?!?
Hormonal boys and bangers: a teenage rampage of fidgety trigger fingers and blue touch papers. So what were the targets on our pocket-size pyromania hit list? Old boys dozing in cars waiting to collect their wives from the WRVS (bangers under, not in the cars) Mr Whippy dollops of doggy doings and poor ol' Heidi Roxborough (30th) discreetly reading in the park, had her library book lifted and a fast-fizzing banger placed bookmark style between the pages. Cue offstage pops, puffs and ever-diminishing smoking scorch holes receding from cover to cover.
Punky trimmings are taking hold with two T-shirts leopard skin and Sid Vicious bought from Nasty in Southend (now the brilliantly named Threads Atomic Dustbin)
The Pistols may have been the Pied Pipers of punk who reeled me in - but The Damned were the band that maintained my momentum (note Love Song scrawled at the heading of last month's entry and Smash It Up on this.)
Oh, and the tick system for sick days - I uncovered these decoding notes scribbled on a back page. You'll notice most calendar sick day ticks are downward...
All this and a new scarf (black and white Grimsby colours - but inspired by The Stranglers). October's chart for this week of '79 looked like this - and singles added to the collection included...
I haven't ripped the vinyl of Smash It Up, but a version that appears to be demo, found on this compilation
Picking up where we left off then - what news does July bring?
Days off, larks with French Bangers and beach trips. But the terrifying highlight (fright-light?) takes place at the Rayleigh fair (21st - check the doodle) with a spin on a madly mysterious ride that I've never seen since.
How can you describe it? Imagine church pew seating, suspended garden swing style from a supporting frame. Position this inside a giant octagonal tombola cover of alternating coloured panels. As the communal seat is pulled back, the cover is spun fowards, creating a whirling illusion of increasingly, hight-tilting seats - until the angle begins to feel impossibly steep.
It may sound simple but it's a ride of such eye-widening, giddy terror that I've never forgotten it. Neither I'll bet have bleached jeans and bull-necked boneheads or spikes 'n' studs punks in the front pews who screamed like piglets and flung themselves to the floor as an escape from tumbling into the 'void'
I've found out it's something based on the haunted swing principle, a ride that seems to have slipped out of circulation since.
Chart-wise July looked like this (Thom Pace though - who he?) with singles snapped up being...
So what shall we spin? How about something punk(ish) and something disco(ish) as that seems be the mood of the month. Aged 13, clocking Sid Vicous riding about in a motorbike jacket, no helmet, no shirt and padlock 'n' studs bling was possibly the coolest thing I'd ever seen. Ps it's a Rabbit padlock available here if you're tempted
Did I ever tell you my The Day I Met Paul Gambo (George Michael, Limahl and Leee John) story?
What's June's news then?
A new bike. Not brand new - but some crazy arrangement built by and bought from my biker neighbor: a combo of racing frame, chopper handlebars, banana seat and an easy rider back rest towering as tall as my neck - a snip at 20 notes
The annual School Arts Festival featuring a one off appearance of our KISS trib’ band (read miming to Detroit Rock City). Paul Stanleyif you’re asking.
Food poisoning, sickness and never noshing on Leigh Cockles again (9th)
The Radio Luxembourg Roadshow rolled into Southend. Where, hurrah and hats in the air - I took first prize in the Bits ‘n’ Pieces pop quiz, walking away (age 13) with a crate load of Crocodillo sparkling wine. A few bottles, but nowhere near the full compliment of all 24 made it back to mum and dad’s drinks cabinet if I’m honest.
The last week of June's chart looked like this with singles bought being: The Skids and UK Subs (did I ever tell you my The Day I Met Charlie Harper story) I’m guessing the Anarchy logo is a hidden symbol for Anarchy in the UK (probably as I was still slightly guarded about coming out as a punk fan to my parents).
Hurrah! Things seem to be moving to a better, brighter and more manageable position, so I'm in the mood for getting back on the good foot(y) and giving two formations of Young Scene (The Big Match theme) a run-out. Keith Mansfield's original versh and a sprightly, sporty refit from The Graham Walker Sound
Think of this fixture as a pre-season friendly for Friday's post
Anarchy comes to Maine Road:the programme pictured atop this page features one of the earliest outings for Jamie Reid's Anarchy graphics - you can catch a clip of the match below
"My name is Malcolm McLaren, I have brought you many things in my time"Malcom introduces himself in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle
Given a multiple choice of Malcom McLaren's talent and character, where do you place a tick: genius or jinx, myth-maker or manipulator, situationist or self publicist? The correct answer is - all of the above.
McLaren's early history is one of fractured families, student riots and art college sit-ins. In 1971 he opened a profitable outlet for his outsider stance through the most English of institutions - shopkeeping. Kicking against the trends of glam, hot pants and heavy rock, McLaren, and girlfriend Vivienne Westwood, sold fifties outfits and rock 'n' roll accessories to Teddy Boys and bikers at the wrong end of King's Road (430: formerly the site of Hung On You, Mr Freedom and Paradise Garage) nestling like a neighbour from hell next to the Chelsea Conservative Club.
Three years later they refitted the shop as SEX, retailing rubberwear to suburbanites and creating a catalogue of inflammatory imagery that brought police raids, confiscations and later an arrest for wearing the infamous two cowboys shirt in public. Still at 430 King's Road, Seditionaries: Clothes For Heroes opened in '77, with a collection consolidating all that had gone before: rock 'n' roll and cultural icons reformatted in shock-horror collages, under-the-counter imagery posterised in cartoon colours or stenciled with situationist slogans - and adding spiky new lines: tartan bondage suits, long sleeve muslins, Spider-man boots and parachute shirts.
By the mid-seventies, following a brief period managing the New York Dolls (dressing them in red patent leather and hammer and sickle imagery), slow-shifting whispers about the hate couture on sale at 430 King's Road drew new blood to the shop, becoming something of a club house for a handful of bored teenagers. And, like a dayglo Fagin, McLaren focused and stoked this shapeless momentum into a movement of Molotov cocktail combustibility. When punk, the Pistols and all hell finally broke loose, it was just another chapter from the McLaren scrapbook of anarchy, chaos and controversy, but a chapter that perhaps overshadowed his other hits and highlights..
Recruiting college chum and member of Suburban Press Jamie Reid as punk's graphic designer
Creating the template of historical references and Burundi Beats for Adam Ant
Spotlighting Boy George's potential as frontperson (George performed with a pre-Annabella Bow Wow Wow)
Styling Bow Wow Wow’s pirate chic, which, underwrote the new romantic wardrobe.
Breaking Hip Hop in the UK by way of Channel 4 'Tube' special.
Putting world music on a world stage with his Duck Rock album
Whatever you're take on him is, the fact remains, McLaren was a career subversive, a serial situationist and a repeat offender - before, during and after punk. His real skill was technique more than talent, mixing and matching mediums - film, fashion, politics and Pop Art - although music was always a key ingredient (just lend an ear to the SEX jukebox). Whether dressing New York street-toughs in red leather, London bovver boys in Destroy shirts or discovering adolescents in launderettes and Harlem based break dancers - mixing street level chic with with art school concepts for maximum publicity was his signature style. I'll leave the final word to Barry Cain, who worked with McLaren on his (still unreleased) autobiography.
"He’s the Brian Clough of pop who should’ve managed England. Knowing Malcolm, I think love got in the way – he’s an incurable romantic. But we should all be thankful he turned the world dayglo"
The New York Dolls - Red Patent Leather Recorded while McLaren was the Dolls manager and taken from a live set that also includes Something Else later covered by Sid Vicious.
This really is a marvellous, marvellous piece of footage. Taken from the Dress For Pleasure documentary it uncovers SEX's bread and butter customers. Watch out for the chap who looks like Stanley Unwin, casually chatting at home in his black rubber number.
I'd like to correct a factual error from a couple of years ago. Wherein I dated buying my first Sex Pistols single as 27th February 1979 (based on a release date collected here). But look - there it is in biro and white, 1st March 1979. And probably only bought because the b-side's effing and jeffing if I'm honest.
So what else does March bring us
The final run of 'urcha' riffing
More ongoing disco-doo dah
And what's this? Shock, horror! Crocs?? On a Friday Night!!
Crocs - clubhouse of our friends electric and magnetic north for Essex alternative types? Well, yes - sort of. In truth Friday night was Junior Disco Night. I've even got a badge somewhere (down the back of the wardrobe if you're asking). Two tunes then..
Sid Vicious, ripped from my very own vinyl. And Dennis Brown something that always seemed to be spinning at the junior disco shindigs - with lyrics scanned from my Smash Hits of the time.
Why not set the scene with a peep at the Top 75 for week ending - 24/02/1979
So another month of disco fixtures and 'urcha' references - but no entries for records collected yet. Strange, as I remember Feb' kicking off a lengthy run of multi-coloured vinyl releases - with me bagging three pinkies (King Rocker, Cool For Cats and my first 12" - Contact) around this time. And mates grabbing Milk and Alcohol (brown or white) and Sound of the Suburbs (clear).
Another fad reaching it's peak-point this month - satin disco drainpipes. The swishy type of trouser favoured by Rod Stewart, Hot Gossip and seen here. A best friend's (birthday on the 18th) older brother ran a Petticoat Lane market stall, when we helped out one Sunday morning, these hi-shine strides were literally shifting by the lorry-load while Heart of Glass boomed from radios all around.
One final observation. Tellingly - and in purple felt tip, not the regulation biro - a note of Sid Vicous's death. An early warning alert that like Blondie-in-reverse I may soon be dropping disco biscuits in favour of other rowdier sounds..
The top set of cuttings were given to me by other best friend (birthday 10th Feb'), the bottom set are mine. Both are in my Punk Scrapbook started after Sid's death.
(Or 'Oi To The World' to borrow a Five Centresphrase)
Given punk's sloganeering and songbook of No Future, Boredom and Blank Generations there's possibly more punky seasonal sing-a-longs than you'd expect...
And of course the Sex Pistols played their final UK date, before hitting then splitting in the US, at a Huddersfield charity gig on December the 25th 1977
So good to see then that the tradition of Advent, Anarchy and God Save The Queen's Speech is being kept alive by the good people at Punk Christmas with an online advent calender that pops out one Christmas-chestnut-newly-reworked-as-punky-nugget per day (all for free too) - where you can grab crackers like these...
Bonus points are available if you can spot which punk/new wave classic has been adapted as the template for each tune
A special Santa salute to Agent Cooper for the tip off about this treat.
And if you know someone who's any sort of a Ramones (or punk) fan - here's just the thing to drop in their bovver boots for Christmas..Jenny Lens's photo-based eBook covering The Ramones first west coast tour of '76 - loaded with over 100 exclusive hi-res photo's sent straight to your inbox for just $15!!! (or 8 of your Queen's pounds)
Jenny Lens is the California 'punk scene' photographer, with a role call of spiky icons and heavy-hitters in her archives - Blondie, The Ramones, the Sex Pistols and The Clash were all caught on film by Jenny during the seventies punk explosion. Her last book 'Punk Pioneers' is a must have if you're a nutter for punk like me - and at literally pocket money prices for this gallery of goodies, you really can't pass up the Ramones digi-book.
Did you know? - A major influence on The Ramones non-stop power punk (and haircuts) are the glam-anthems of our very own Christmas stompers Slade!
The Sex Pistols lastpre -Bill Grundy'Filth and Fury'- interview, was by Barry Cain for Record Mirror - click on the photo to supersize the original article....
If Nick Cohn'sAwopbopaloobopAlopbamboom is Ye Olde Testament of Rock, the New (Wave) Testament being Jon Savage'sEnglands Dreaming, then Barry Cain's 77 Sulphate Strip is surely the Dead Sea Scrolls revived and risen again from the russet coloured copies of his Record Mirror reports, reviews and interviews, scrapbooked against a lip-smacking-ace-tasting-page-turning-eye-bulging micro dot-to-dot diary of '77's key moments and movers, groovers and shakers. The year when groups of grey-faced, straight-laced politicians and hair flare bunches of prog and pop stars went twelve rounds against a fistful of prickly punks. 365 days with more dynamics, dramatics and duality than any year since pop records began.
After his stretch at Record Mirror, Barry went on to launch Flexipop, one the snappiest music mag’s ever published, I found a few copies in the loft recently and had forgotten how they crackle with facts, fun and features - including a genius parody of The Face's famous '82 'Hard Times' cover - 'Really Hard Times' starring two turps glugging tramps which perfectly burst The Face's snoot-nosed, yell and bellow bubble .
So, some questions for Barry Cain then.... 77 Sulphate Strip is one of only a handful of rock books I've read without any acknowledgment or nod to The Beatles - it's like they never existed. Was this the mood at the time No. The Beatles meant everything to me and most my mates throughout the sixties. They were my teenage idols and helped take the sting out of those years. There’s an unsubtle homage in the names of the characters in StreathamLocarno at the beginning of Strip. I stopped dancing to The Beatles after Rubber Soul because that’s when they started inviting me back to their place – via the Pye Black Box in my bedroom – where I could listen to their darkest thoughts. They changed the way I thought, simple as that. And thank you, for your very kind words. They mean so much. Incidentally, one of the ‘Hard Times’ tramps in the picture is my dad who will be 91 this year and was, I guess, my fifth Beatle. I was an only child and my parents (my mum is 81) have had four dogs all dying tragically and leaving my mum and dad desperate and bewildered. The last one, Bobby, a cute black poodle, died a week ago in my dad’s arms, and it’s eating them both alive. I buried Bobby in my back garden alongside the previous two and that nearly fucking killed me. I felt like some canine-killing version of Fred West.
Sorry to veer off the path , it’s just worrying me right now. Pray, continue. How did you go from being part of a Motown loving Boot Boy and Suede head set to becoming Record Mirror journalist Pure genius! If you came from a council estate in London at the time, you became either a straight, a skinhead or, if you took a lot of hallucinatory drugs, a working class hippy. It got interesting when the skinheads got into hallucinatory drugs in the late sixties, but that’s another tale. It was rare to stay on at school after 16 but I went to a grammar and emerged, at 18, with two low grade A Levels. I always kept my school friends and my flats’ friends far apart. As a result, I became, around 15, two people – schoolboy and coolboy. Two heads are better than one, and after a bit of luck and a lot of graft, I went from trainee court reporter to indentured journalist on a local paper to entertainments’ editor to Record Mirror. That’s a Yellowbrick Road a lot less travelled these days.
Your first meeting with Rotten reads like a snake charmer being hypnotised by the snake – have you met any other performers with a similar charisma Malcolm McLaren. He and Rotten both possess the ability to paint stark pictures with barrages of meticulously chosen words that give delight and hurt not. They’re in a class of their own. Joe Strummer was a little boy lost who dug his way out of his nightmare with remarkable songs and a hunk of devotion that swept me away. Paul Weller was hopelessly devoted to rue - the secret behind his genius. Hugh Cornwell and Jean Jacques-Burnel were deep sea divers in the psyche and there was nowt more challenging than a Stranglers interview. The Damned had collective charisma – they were the Commie punk band. Who else? Barry White, Bob Marley, Paul McCartney? Heaps of charisma. But not a patch on Malcolm and Johnny.
In 77 the Pistols were possibly the most hated band in history. It wasn't just the older generation or other youth movements that were anti-Punk, but politicians, musicians, record exec's, DJs and almost everyone who wasn't directly involved with the Pistols (or Punk) that seemed to despise them. Do you think it's possible we'll ever see such international outrage caused by a single rock act again Impossible. Music has popped its cork. It’s no longer the force of nature it was (what an old git). Outside the X Factor comfort zone, records just don’t sell that much anymore. That’s why TOTP was dumped. That’s why Smash Hits, RM, Sounds, Melody Maker all fell by the wayside. How many generations to go before music is just a bowl of cherries? Before life gets in the way? Before its portability and a few billion options make it futile, obvious, an easy lay? I give it twenty years, tops. My kids’ kids will give the odd flying fuck for a stunning song. Their kids? Different world. Different ballgame. Different tune.
For a movement that was all momentum and 'of the moment', Punk styles, sounds, designs and influences are still with us and everywhere from US metal to Top Shop clobber. What do you think has kept Punk (and New Wave) enduring without dating Punk was all about bright minds in bondage who wanted to fuck off out of old Durham Town. Sleepy time girls and the boys of summer dancing to a ’77 beat. Punk’s callous, disruptive demands – an anathema to Joe Public – could dislodge reality in exciting minds and create innovation. Originality breeds contempt and contempt breeds originality. It was a vicious circle that has continued to spin unabated like a flaming Catherine wheel shooting flames in every direction. And you didn’t need a voice like Sinatra’s to make the punters sway. Lapsed punks haunt the corridors of power.
I loved the piece about your mum and dad and the pub scene with the piano players, costermongers and comedians having a sing-a-long. Do you think the real seventies get overlooked with all the novelty nostalgia and ‘Abbafication’ of that decade I don’t think there ever was a real seventies. It was the itsy-bitsy-no-focus post Beatles decade kicking off with dross, glam, Philly, dross, New York disco, dross and ABBA. It welcomed punk with open arms, shook hands with high-street ska, gave birth to the New Romantics and invented Freddie Mercury. If you were in your late twenties in 1970 the next ten years meant fuck all really. You wouldn’t get it. The seventies had to be ‘Abbafied’ because the sixties were too sad.
Caining It - Barry with beard and Buzzcocks
Malcolm McLaren once said “I have brought you many things in my time” which included breaking Punk, World Music and Hip Hop, but equally there’s a trail of broken relationships and bad blood.” What's your take on him – genius or jinx
Genius. I mentioned in the book that Malcolm asked me to ‘ghost’ write his autobiography in 1979. I got to know him as well as anyone after countless interview sessions in my living room over a three-month period. He made me dance all night and still beg for more. He’s the Brian Clough of pop who should’ve managed England. Knowing Malcolm, I think love got in the way – he’s an incurable romantic. But we should all be thankful he turned the world dayglo.
In the book, the music press seem just as hardcore and heavy living as the bands - almost like The Sweeney with press passes rather than police badges. Were there a few juicy nuggets, tear ups and tales you couldn't include
Yes.
If you could beam back to 1977 and take someone aside for a word of advice - who would it be, and what would you say?
It would be me, I’m afraid, and I’d say, ‘Don’t get married, keep your finger on your trigger and put all your money on Man Utd winning the FA Cup, Red Rum winning the Grand National and The Minstrel winning the Derby’. Oh, and to Sid Vicious I’d say, ‘Go for it’.
The Damned, The Buzzcocks, The Stranglers, The Wolfmen (Marco from The Models and Adam and The Ants new band), Carbon Silicon (Tony James and Mick Jones) have all released new albums over the last few years. Have you heard any of the original Punk players’ new songs
I saw Hugh Cornwell play live a year or so back – great show at Scala – and downloaded his impressive Hoover Dam album, but that’s about it. I don’t listen to much music these days and when I do it tends to be through headphones attached to my laptop as I write. Usually, it’s Michael McDonald’s tribute to Motown, which is just wonderful, interspersed with Steely Dan. I’m a dude. Hey dude, don’t make it bad. Just let it out and let it in.
You were involved with Flexipop, are there any plans for an 80s sequel to 77 SS using Flexipop as source material?
Writing it now. Starts in 1978 when I resigned from Record Mirror, teamed up with then PR guru now PR mogul, Alan Edwards, running a punk PR company out of a Covent Garden squat, discovered I wasn’t cut out for a career as a publicist, became a freelance writer and spent the next two years travelling the world with rock stars, doing big, fat, hairy interviews. It ends 20 years later with the death of pop. Don’t worry, there’s not much to tell after ’84. I launched Flexipop together with my ex-partner Tim Lott (now, of course, a hugely successful novelist) in 1980, and after three bizarre years I found myself alone, publishing mainly one shot poster mags on pop’s latest flames which I continued to do for the next decade and a half. Got myself a family, a house, a Porsche. Cost myself contacts, desire, drive. Naturally, I blamed everyone but myself for those sad losses – complacency is a cancer of the spirit. But if you catch it early, the prognosis is good. Life can be groovy again Oh, and there’s a few twists and a fucking shitload of watusis. The book should be available this time next year, if anyone has any money by then….
If you were a Record Mirror reporter in 2008 - what would get you picking up your pen and pad, and who would you be trying to interview or avoid
The song Distant Dreamer made popular by Duffy, who rocked my boat when I saw her perform it at Glastonbury. The version by MC Almont & Butler is a work of art. Pop music at its finest. I think Leona Lewis has an incredible voice. I’d love to interview her. And Duffy. Shit, I sound like an old perv. Who else? Paul Weller, for old times’ sake; Eminem., for Pete’s sake; Alex from Big Brother, for fucksake. That’s five cracking interviews.
Never avoided an interview in my life.
And finally, are there two tunes one Pop, one Punk that sum up 1977 for you Anarchy In The UK and Anarchy In The UK.
Anarchy In The UK - from the Filth and Fury
Anarchy In The UK - Early version, slightly rowdier than the single, but possibly my fave take.
