Punk: useless fight! (2)

The Sex Pistols, 1977

So contrary to what many people think, punk wasn’t born in England with the Sex Pistols, but our English friends have always had the talent to go to the source of their influences, and bring back to the country where they had found the ingredients up and make them more creative. As only example I will remember the Beatles which, in Hamburg, in 1961, took over the songs of the soul or the Motown artists, adapting them to their phrasing and their more rock rhythm. And sometimes with great happiness. As far as English punk bands like the Pistols are concerned, the new thing was at the level of appearance, due to the dress ideas of Malcolm Mc Laren and Vivienne Westwood, who overwhelmed the puppets found on the left or right with aggressive elements. 

                                             Malcom Mc Laren, the punk father

And so Malcolm created what remains today the classic image of punk, which was usually poor musicians, even though they were. But that wasn’t the point. They had to be aggressive in an England dominated by Margareth Thatcher, who brought England to its knees for a few years. In short, a hateful look and a reason for being couldn’t have come at a better time. And it needed quick songs for a message of rebellion, which blocked the way to progressive rock. The Sex Pistols had to be ugly to scare, to play badly, and to be really mean. At least their audience. Singer Johnny Rotten took the look of this man from a psychiatric asylum, bug-eyed, who sang with a tense voice, while bass player Sid Vicious, the most dangerous, played his three notes on bass, as in the blues, under the effect of illegal cocktails injected during the day. 

                                           Sid Vicious, the image of the punk mouvement untill now...

                                         The Clash, maybe the only punk punk band with credibility

He was just a dirty kid, who used his looks to provoke and seek a fight, in the name of hatred of the system and especially under the effect of ingested substances. Yet artists such as Chrissie Hynde, future Pretenders, Siouxsie Sioux, or even Patty Smith found her interesting. And they weren’t fools. But just look at the band’s exitance dates to see that the Pistols were a shooting star, often banned from concerts, that didn’t have the musical talent to play on the one cult album came out, "Never mind the bollocks", leaving room for studio musicians, except Rotten’s vocal.

And between you and me, The Clash, The Stranglers, The Jam, and even Iggy Pop were a lot tougher in their sound. And of all these bands from 1977, only The Clash can be considered the most credible punk band on their first two albums. But even though Strummer, the singer of The Clash, claimed that the Rolling Sones were «dead», the band played the same music, perhaps faster, and louder. But the natural coming to the fore, London Calling, their 1979 masterpiece, is heavily influenced by rockabilly and ska.

Punk, as we see today, was the product of this fashion designer, Malcolm Mc Laren, who took advantage of the country’s political situation which gave a theme that the Americans, concerned about other problems, did not exploit. In truth, the Pistols were not interested in monarchy, but in provocation. Apart from Sid Vicius, the other members avoided participating in the violence of the fans, unlike the Stranglers, true talented musicians, but who, according to an interview with Jean Jacques Burnell, The bass player had to fight to play, even though it didn’t achieve their goal. But they weren’t afraid of that. Burnell was a black belt of karate and guitarist Hugh Cornwell, not very strong but enraged, did not hesitate to go into the audience when the behaviour of kids soaked in beer did not show themselves to be educated to the English. As for Jet Black, the drummer, his pace alone drove away the brawlers.

The Stranglers, DaveGreefield, Hugh Cornwell, Jet Black, Jean Jacques Burnell

The Stranglers were all almost 30 years old, graduating, and facing fans from other bands earned them the sympathy of big guys, leaving them the opportunity to focus on their baroque melodies. It would be unfair not to cite early bands of this era, who would gently forget the progressive rock bands, like The Buzzcocks by the great Pete Shelley, Magazine, Generation X by Billy Idol, or 'pub rock' bands such as the excellent Dr Feelgood, who will greatly influence the 'mod' trio The Jam, whose The Leader, Paul Weller, 18, rebelled with a certain naiveté in his early texts on their first album, «In the City», influenced by the aggressive rock but also the soul of Motown. 

                                     The Jam: Bruce Foxton, Rick Buckler and Paul Weller

Unlike punks, He respected the Queen, the English symbols, but attacked politicians and the Prime Minister, and denounced racism in their success (‘Down in the tube station at midnight’), and racial riots, as The Clash (with ‘White riot’), and nuclear in their first issue, ‘Going Underground’, an absolute masterpiece. The Jam, which gained enormous popularity in England, with a series of numbers one in the charts, were nevertheless to separate in 1982, Paul Weller, the brains of the group, choosing music close to his love for American soul music. He created The Style Council with former keyboardist Mike Talbot  (to  be continued)