Punk Rock: So What?: The Cultural Legacy of Punk

260 Pages·1999·3.14 MB·English

by  Roger Sabin

PUNK ROCK: SO WHAT?

It’s now over twenty years since punk first pogoed its way into our consciousness.
Punk Rock: So What? gathers together leading cultural critics to provide a controversial
reassessment of punk and its place in the history of popular culture. Combining new
research and exclusive interviews, the book brings a fresh perspective to the analysis
of this primal generational scream, and kicks over many of the established beliefs
about its meaning.
Punk Rock: So What? re-situates punk in its historical context, exploring its possible
origins in the American surf-garage scene and London clubs as well as in Malcolm
McClaren’s brain. Challenging the standard mythology of punk, the contributors
question whether it deserves its reputation as an anti-racist, pro-feminist movement,
which was confined to the big cities and which, despite the words of the Crass song,
was dead by 1979.
The contributors trace punk’s legacy in literature, art, comics and cinema as well as
in music and fashion—from movies such as The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle, to the
graphics of Jamie Reid; and from novels of Richard Allen to the comix of Savage
Pencil. Meditating on the appeal of the Ramones, the Slits, Johnny Rotten, itchy
mohair jumpers, and hair dye that ran in the rain, the contributors establish that, if
anything, punk was more culturally important than anyone has yet suggested– though
perhaps for different reasons.
Contributors: Frank Cartledge, Paul Cobley, Robert Garnett, David Huxley, David
Kerekes, Guy Lawley, George McKay, Andy Medhurst, Suzanne Moore, Lucy
O’Brien, Bill Osgerby, Miriam Rivett, Roger Sabin, Mark Sinker.
Roger Sabin is a Lecturer in Cultural Studies at Central St Martin’s College of Art
and Design.

PUNK ROCK: SO WHAT?

the cultural legacy of punk
Edited by Roger Sabin

London and New York
First published 1999
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.

© 1999 selection and editorial matter, Roger Sabin; individual chapters, the contributor
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Punk rock: so what?/[edited by] Roger Sabin.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index, (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Punk rock music—History and criticism. I. Sabin, Roger, 1961– .
ML3534.P89 1999
781.66–dc21 98–37416
CIP

ISBN 0-203-44840-5 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-75664-9 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-17029-X (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-17030-3 (pbk)
CONTENTS

List of figures vii
list of contributors ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction
ROGER SABIN 1
PART I
Shock waves and ripple effects 15
1 Too low to be low: Art pop and the Sex Pistols
ROBERT GARNETT 17
2 Misfit lit: ‘Punk writing’, and representations of punk
through writing and publishing
MIRIAM RIVETT 31
3 ‘I’m so bored with the USA’: The punk in cyberpunk
GEORGE MCKAY 49
4 Tinseltown rebellion: Punk, transgression and a
conversation with Richard Baylor
DAVID KEREKES 68
5 ‘Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?’: Anarchy and
control in The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle
DAVID HUXLEY 81
V
CONTENTS
6 ‘I like Hate and I hate everything else’ : The influence of
punk on comics
GUY LAWLEY 100
7 Concrete, so as to self-destruct: The etiquette of punk, its
habits, rules, values and dilemmas
MARK SINKER 120
PART II
Experience, memory and historiography 141
8 Distress to impress?: Local punk fashion and commodity
exchange
FRANK CARTLEDGE 143
9 ‘Chewing out a rhythm on my bubble-gum’: The teenage
aesthetic and genealogies of American punk
BILL OSGERBY 154
10 ‘Leave the capitol’
PAUL COBLEY 170
11 The woman punk made me
LUCY O’BRIEN 186
12 ‘I won’t let that dago by’: Rethinking punk and racism
ROGER SABIN 199
13 What did I get? Punk, memory and autobiography
ANDY MEDHURST 219
14 Is that all there is?
SUZANNE MOORE 232
Index 237

VI
FIGURES

0.1 Adam and the Ants on stage (1977): S & M nasties? 8
0.2 Does the media reflect subcultures or make them? 10–11
1.1 Front and reverse of sleeve to Sex Pistols single ‘Pretty Vacant’ 26
1.2 Gavin Turk’s ‘Pop’ 28
2.1 Gideon Sams’s The Punk (1977), The First Punk Novel’ 34
2.2 Portrait of the writer as a young punk. Gideon Sams in 1977 36
2.3 Richard Allen’s Punk Rock (1977) 38
2.4 Three Martin Millar novels repackaged for a 1990s readership 43
3.1 The cyberpunk ‘look’ makes it into the clubs 50
3.2 Cover to Billy Idol album Cyberpunk (1993) 55
4.1 Poster advert for Nick Zedd’s Police State (1987) 71
4.2 Still from Dum Dum 72
4.3 Still from Good Things Happen to Those Who Love the Lord 73
4.4 Still from Cirsium Delectus 74
5.1 Still from The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle. Fake Johnny Rotten
number one 92
5.2 Still from The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle. Fake Johnny Rotten
number two 93
5.3 Promo artwork for ‘Who Killed Bambi?’ 97
6.1 Cover to Punk magazine 103
6.2 Savage Pencil’s Rock ’n’ Roll Zoo (1977) 105
6.3 Cover to Hate comic (1996) 115
6.4 ‘Subvert Man’ from Simon Gane’s self-published Anarchy Comics
(1995) 116
7.1 Detail from Looks Yellow Tastes Red fanzine (1995) 122
7.2 Wire look the part (1977) 127
7.3 Panels from Love and Rockets comic, issue 38 (1992) 132
7.4 More Love and Rockets, issue 39 (1992) 137
8.1 Classified adverts, as seen in various music papers, 1977–78 144
VII
FIGURES
8.2 View of the audience at a Ruts gig, 1979 147
8.3 More classifieds, music press 1979 149
9.1 Sleeve to The Dictators’ ‘Heartache’ single (1977) 161
9.2 Joey Ramone goes surfing (1978) 163
10.1 ‘Punks in on Work March’ 178
11.1 Collage by Linder (1977) 190
11.2 Covers to City Fun fanzine (1982, 83) 192
11.3 The Stranglers at Battersea Park, 1978, plus strippers 195
12.1 Cover to Sounds (25 March 1978)—a special racism issue 201
12.2 National Front leaflet, General Election 1979 204
12.3 Typical stage invasion at a Sham 69 gig (1977) 211
12.4 Skrewdriver in 1977 214
13.1 Front and reverse of sleeve to Tom Robinson Band EP, Rising
Free (1978) 223
14.1 The Prodigy, 1996 235

VIII
CONTRIBUTORS

Robert Garnett is a freelance art critic for, among others, Art Monthly, and a
Lecturer at the London College of Printing and Distributive Trades. He would
like to do to Cultural Studies what the Pistols did to pop, but he can’t afford to.
He collects avant garde pop records instead.
Miriam Rivett is a Lecturer in Writing and Publishing Studies at Middlesex
University. A classic part-time punk, she spent much of the late 1970s searching
out Undertones gigs and (as now) worshipping John Peel.
George McKay is a Reader in Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of
Central Lancashire. He was a 16-year-old Glaswegian living in rural Norfolk in
1977, so felt a bit fractured anyway: then punk came along and safety-pinned him
together for a while. He’s since found himself writing about a cluster of issues
around its legacy, and his books include Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of
Resistance Since the Sixties (London: Verso, 1996) and, as editor, DiY Culture
(1998).
David Kerekes is the editor/publisher of Headpress: the Journal of Sex, Religion, Death
and co-author of Killing for Culture (Creation, 1994). He was at engineering
college in 1977, where he surreptitiously carved into a desk ‘Who are the
Clash?’ in order to infuriate fellow student and six foot punk rocker ‘Boomer’.
David Huxley lectures in the Department of the History of Art and Design at
Manchester Metropolitan University. He was too old for punk, but too young
to die.
Guy Lawley works as a GP and moonlights as a cultural critic. His life was
irrevocably changed when he read his first Marvel comic in 1965, but luckily the
resultant stunting of his development was ended 11 years later by the arrival of
punk. A minor relapse in 1992 led to his founding Comics Forum magazine,
published by the Comics Creators Guild of the UK.
IX