The *** Pistols were ****
Posted by: John C on 04 December 2001
She played all the usual suspects and I was struck by just how bad the Sex Pistols were. A rather dull mouldy pub band. Even the usual middle aged beery nostalgia couldn't save them. On the other hand The Clash were brilliant and Londons Burning stands up as a real classic.I also think that the general cultural resonace of the Clash was much greater. Other good sounding(British)punk or new wave or whatever bands were
The Ruts (a piledriving Babylon is Burning)
PIL (far far better than the SPs)
The Buzzcocks (timeless greatness)
Aimless rubbish
The Damned
The Stranglers
Sham 69 (actually they were hilariously bad and this was amplified by reading that Jimmy Pursey used to go to the disco where Jonathon King picked up his little friends)
I would add to the pantheon of greatness
Undertones, Magazine, Pauline Murray, Joy Division and the greatest of all, The Fall.
All inflammatory or controversial thoughts welcome
John .
BTW If you go to the Shakespeare in Stoke Newington you may well bump into Mick Jones who often sits in a corner and, AFAICT, quietly drinks himself into oblivion. I actually saw him there on my first weekend after moving to London (something close to a fundamentalist preacher moving to Texas and finding Jesus praying at this local church) which led me to beleive for some time that not only were London's streets paved with gold the boozers were full of rock legends as well.
The Shakespeare also has the best pub jukebox in North London -- well at least the only one that includes Stump at any rate.
There have never been enough plaudits for Pauline Murray and Pentration either IMHO. Nor for Poly Styrene and X-Ray Spex come to think of it.
Matthew
quote:
She played all the usual suspects and I was struck by just how bad the Sex Pistols were. A rather dull mouldy pub band.
Nah, I don't agree with this. I really like Anarchy in the UK, God save the Queen, Pretty Vacant, and Holidays in the sun. In fact there is no way I would part with my copy of Never mind the bollocks. Admittedly after that they really did go crap with a vengeance. I accept your list of Ruts, Pil, Buzzcocks, Joy Division, Magazine, and The Fall, though would definitely add The Slits and Wire. I rate Wire's first three LPs as being absolutely essential in any record collection, and I would argue (for hours if necessary) that Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures is one of the greatest albums of any time or genre. This later phase (1979-81) produced some stunning music.
Listening back to the music of the mid to late 70s I feel in many ways New York was the place to be rather than London, with Television, The Ramones, Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Suicide etc all producing much that really has stood the test of time.
Tony.
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The Shakespeare also has the best pub jukebox in North London -- well at least the only one that includes Stump at any rate.
Fantastic.
Tony.
(Stump completist).
John.
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Are Stump the band who did " a fierce pancake"?
Indeed, that was their second album. Their first album Quirk Out sported the classic single Buffalo. Kev Hopper's bass playing is just beyond belief, fabulous stuff. Stump were great, and it irritates me that I never saw them live.
Tony.
"How much is the fish,
How much are the chips,
Does the fish have chips,
HOW DO I GET OFF THE BUS!"
John
I remember Stump now, a surrealist mixture of Capt Beefheart and Flann O Brien .r
Declan. Now dont be getting all pedantic on us now. In the spirit of punk itself we want inflammtory illinformed dogma here.
Fiddlers? Mayo?
John
[This message was edited by John C on TUESDAY 04 December 2001 at 13:44.]
[This message was edited by John C on TUESDAY 04 December 2001 at 13:44.]
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Yes but who actually played on that? It is a good album, so probably not the Pistols.
It was only Sid who couldn't play. Glen Matlock, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and obviously John Lydon all did their stuff. Live footage of them around this time more than backs this up. Most of the power came from the guitar, vocal and drums, so Sid's lack of ability was not that critical to the band, though IMHO they did definitely loose out compared to the band with Glen Mattlock on bass. I am pretty certain that someone else (probably Steve Jones) played Sid's bits in the studio.
Tony.
What next I wonder? Revelations about his collection of Clive Cussler novels? Andrew Vicari paintings?
Declan said of London's Burning "Hardly punk though"
Indeed -- more a homage to every style of American music other than Punk in fact. The Clash were merely a very good punk band but didn't become a truly great band until they stopped being punks (And I speak as a person who for many of his adolescent years wore a black shirt modelled on the one worn by Mick Jones on the cover of the first Clash album).
BTW, trivia fans, "London's Burning" was Rolling Stones' Album of the 80s (It was released a few months later in the US and so sneaked in to 1980).
Matthew
Isn't this rather falling into the trap of seeing punk as 3 chord thrash music played by people with mohicans - rather like the typical London postcard view, or the whole of the Oi movement. Much of the Fall, for instance could almost be described as Rockabilly.
Surely Punk was more about the DIY idea, than what exactly you DIYed ???
In that respect London Calling is very much a Punk record I would say.
As for the Poison Girls and all those Crass related groups. Why does the fact that they took one aspect of Punk to an extreme make them 'a true Punk band', as opposed to say the Damned or even the Stranglers
Did anyone hear Rotten on Capital Radio at the time with his fave tracks-included Can, Chieftans and a number of others i can't remember but def. a non punk choice of bands in opposite to his public utterances on non-punk music-hypocrite!
What was also interesting was how many of the punk bands/musicians were in rock bands before punk eg Stranglers, Clash.
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Did anyone hear Rotten on Capital Radio at the time with his fave tracks-included Can, Chieftans and a number of others i can't remember but def. a non punk choice of bands in opposite to his public utterances on non-punk music-hypocrite!
Not necessarily, John Lydon always stood up for Krautrock and all things dub, what he rebelled against was the pretentious and stagnant prog rock of the time (Yes, Genesis, Floyd, ELP etc). I can certainly see very close ties between certain of Pil's output and that of Can or Amon Duul II, in fact there is a track on Yeti that I could probably fool people into believing was Pil!
Lydon's autobiography is an excellent read.
Tony.
I can't see that. I hardly see the DIY ethic in say Limp Dikhead or much other American dross.
However ... I would say that say Radiohead were keeping with these ideals.
I'd agree that 'it was more to do with the sentiments portrayed' - but I'm saying that those sentimemts were that anyone could do what they wanted - be that music, fashion or writing. And that that was a revolutionary idea at the time.
If you are saying its more down to what they were saying in their lyrics - how do you marry up say Alternative TV with the Buzzcocks. How are those sentiments the same ???
"However ... I would say that say Radiohead were keeping with these ideals"
Hang on -- I thought Radiohead were Prog Rock? They can't be both surely?
Matthew
Of course the first Clash album was definitely a punk album and bit had a have a Lee Scratch Perry cover on it...
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Hang on -- I thought Radiohead were Prog Rock? They can't be both surely?
what - they can't be progressive and keep a DIY ethos ... why not ?
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what - they can't be progressive and keep a DIY ethos ... why not ?
No! The whole DIY ethic was based a simplicity and directness of approach that is diametrically opposed to Radiohead's massive sampled, layered, and overdubbed soundscapes. Lets be honest, bloody Yes and ELP did it all themselves, and believe me, they were not punk bands.
Tony.
John.
ENTERTAINMENT by GANG OF FOUR
OHH YEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Also Magazine/Wire/'Cocks..
And Unknown Pleasures is still a Killer
redeye
Malcolm Mclaren helped kickstart the London Scene with the Sex Pistols.
My personal preference is the Clash because they were better musicians than the The Sex Pistols.
I also liked the Stranglers for the same reason, well crafted songs.
British Punk to me always seemed a bit harder hitting than the New York version. Probably because I could relate to it more easily.
Punk in it's simplist form though must be the Ramones. Short 3 minute 3 chord songs.
John
well - if you're going to be like that then evreyone (except Milli Vanilli) does it themselves. I'm just saying that punk DIY was about saying you didn't need to use multinational record companies and be exceptional musicans ... and in many ways the dance explosion of the ninties is the logical successor of punk ... in that really anyone could make hits in their back bedroom.
Tony 'massive sampled, layered, and overdubbed soundscapes'
I can't see how the complexity of the music prevents it from being DIY. You can get a digital mutitrack recorder and sampler for very little these days. OK - Radiohead are now rich and are perhaps not the best example ... incidentally I'm not saying DIY is punk, I'm saying that punk was a DIY movement.
PeterC 'Punk originally came out of New York Underground scene '
That's a very contension statement. Yes there was a New York Underground Scene in the early 70s ... but the early british scene started before there was any connection to the NY scene. Yes - the Ramones (who are my favourite, and IMO the most important punk Band) really kick started the UK punk scene when they came over in 75 ... but the UK scene really turned the movement from another small underground movement to something really significant. In much the same way as House/Techno orginated in the US - but really blossomed, and transformed into something important over here.
The term "Punk Music" was originally used by a music critic in New York to describe a new type of music that was going down on the New York Underground music scene.
He called it Punk Music because it was being played by Punks.
I totally agree with you......Punk ....music for pissed up peasants.
Regards
Mick
John.