Never Mind The 25th Anniversary

jonerik writes "Considering that much of the controversy surrounding the Sex Pistols was centered around Queen Elizabeth II's silver jubilee, it's somewhat ironic that the band is now celebrating their own: The group's seminal album, "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols" was released 25 years ago today, according to this article from Reuters. Interestingly, although the album was hugely influential (and remains so), like most punk albums of the time, it wasn't a huge success in the U.S. at the time, taking until 1987 to be certified gold and another five years to be certified platinum. God save the Sex Pistols - we mean it maaaaaaaaan." Yeah, so it's not precisely topical - but still, whata band.

Comments

She was a girl from birmingham

[Anonymous Coward]

Bodiiiieeesss!

• • WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWWWW
    
    I'm not an animal!.
    
    Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
    Reason: She don't want a baby that looks like that.
    
    

Haha, what timing

[Raul654]

I helped run a trash (pop-culture) quiz bowl tourament about 9 days ago, and damned if this wasn't one of the things they asked about (but not in any way relating it to the band's 25th anniversary). Sweet...

Re:Haha, what timing

[kaas]

Given the incredible number of people who read slashdot, I bet other coincidences like this one are pretty widespread. I wouldn't be suprised if a bunch of people are listening to this album when they first read this story.

Re:Haha, what timing

[Mr_Dyqik]

I was listening to Our Lady Peace's Spiritual Machines when the Rob Kurzweil story appeared a while back. It was just on one of the reading's from the book when I loaded /.

Phil Collins

[Evil Adrian]

Sex Pistols are great, but goddamn do I love Phil Collins. In the air tonight is a powerful, emotional song, buried in urban legend...

Whoa, sorry, didn't mean to get all American Psycho there.

Re:Phil Collins

[fraggleyid]

Shouldn't it be renamed "In the Ear Tonight"?

Re:Phil Collins

[JimPooley]

Phil Collins? He's talking nonce sense...

Re:Phil Collins

[bjb]

I'll agree that Phil was a "lame excuse" for Peter Gabriel when talking about when he replaced Peter as the singer for Genesis in 1976. However, two things:

1. It was generally approved by the fans that someone from inside the group replaced Peter rather than having some outsider come in and try to act like Peter. I personally prefer 1970-1975 Genesis myself, but then again, the 1976-1980 music isn't all that bad either.
2. Phil a weak drummer? I disagree. Phil was QUITE a drummer, however, once he started with the lead singer position, he "stopped playing drums", as I like to put it. Once Genesis started going more commercial, their music became the lame 4/4 stuff which doesn't allow for good (interesting) drumming.

Just a rant, and off-topic, but I had to respond to this one..

Reuters. Reuters. Reuters.

[daniel2000]

has slashdot just discovered Reuters? Seems a oft quoted source recently (and by and large a good source)

Re:Reuters. Reuters. Reuters.

[FattMattP]

has slashdot just discovered Reuters? Seems a oft quoted source recently (and by and large a good source)

Well, we have to post something while waiting for a new story from the Register.

Re:Reuters. Reuters. Reuters.

[jdunlevy]

As in song on Wire's Pink Flag? Another 25th anniversary coming up -- in December!

Huh.

[global_diffusion]

I'm not trying to troll here, but I never did quite understand punk. What is the purpose? The punks I know talk about punk meaning not caring about anything and not conforming, but they spend all their money on punk clothes and releasing their music on vinyl. I mean, what is the appeal? Just what does punk mean and why is it so popular?

Re:Huh.

[leviramsey]

Punk and metal are both subcultures which consider themselves to be outsiders but have both developed fairly rigid (and sometimes contradictory) musical and sociological codes, with artists and fans judged to some extent on how much they stay within the codes.

Metallica, for instance, is reviled for being perceived as having broken the metal code (some portions of which they revised and extended in the 80's) with the Loads.

Re:Huh.

[antistuff]

you just dont know the right punks. get out of the suburbs and into the ghettos.

Re:Huh.

[HP LoveJet]

Rent the movie SLC Punk! . All will be explained, and rather divertingly at that.

Re:Huh.

[pezpunk]

actually i didn't really see SLC Punk as a movie about punk rock, per se. in fact, it really only uesd the whole "explaining punk rock" and "chaos theory" ramblings as a metaphor for one person's (stevo's) own personal internal conflict and evolution. i thought it was a lot more about self discovery then it was about punk rock.

damn good flick, tho. fun characters, fun movie.

Re:Huh.

[Kierthos]

Well, I'd also say that part of Metallica's loss of "credibility" among metal fans has to do with:

1) Starting their rise to fame on the power of bootlegs passing between fans, but slamming Napster once they were famous.

2) Jason Newstead leaving the group, for various reasons. (What, you think I listened to Metallica for Lars' drumming?)

Kierthos

Re:Huh.

[mabinogi]

> Starting their rise to fame on the power of bootlegs passing between fans, but slamming Napster once they were famous.

Those that believed that Metallica had lost credibility, believed it long before (like 10 years before) napster....

Those that didn't, couldn't give a shit....

Number 2 is pretty much right though...

Re: Huh.

[Black Parrot]

> I'm not trying to troll here, but I never did quite understand punk. What is the purpose?

Rebellion. It's a common theme in pop music. Sometimes the rebellion is against society at large; at other times it is merely a musical rebellion. And the musical rebellions can be against either styles or institutions. It seems to me that terms like "new wave" and "alternative" are clearly intended to mean "not the BOF stuff your uncle listens to".

Just a couple of historical notes that I find interesting:

By 1976 Pete Townshend was already refering to himself as a BOF in interviews, though his own band had been considered outrageous a mere decade before. He seems to have seen the punk movement as a changing of the guard. For one of the songs on his band's '76 album he penned these words -

So goodbye all you punks, stay young and stay high;
Give me my checkbook and I'll crawl off to die.

He may have seen this situation developing as early as '73, where the song "The Punk vs. the Godfather" on Quadrophenia seems to be an overlay of two conflicting metaphors, one portraying himself as the punk and the music industry as the godfather, but another portrying himself as a musical godfather and the upcoming generation of new bands as the rebellious punks -

GODFATHER:
...
And yet I live your future out
By pounding stages like a clown.
And on the dance floor broken glass,
The bloody faces slowly pass,
The numbered seats in empty rows -
It all belongs to me, you know.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Re:Huh.

[flyneye]

jeez, i remember SLC Punk as being the movie that hit just a lil too close to home for my friends and i, who survived the 80s.it was a documentary for the H/C era.Most of that stuff happened to us as i suspect it did to any outsider yobbo who was stuck in a bullshit lil city with NOOOOOOO FUTUUUURE.All the social situations,the friend who trips out of the game completely,the ones who just died.jeez that was a spooky movie.I really did prefer the days when I was part of "the blank generation" Punk wasnt necessarily politically motivated and didnt have a buncha stupid rules.it was just a reflection of the hopelessness felt during end of the cold war by the rightfully cynical."where were you in '77" pistols were great but we already had Ramones,Suicide,Richard Hell,James Chance,the NY Dolls,Television,etc.My Beef is the kiddies who think the pistols invented it."c'mon granpa iggy,tell us about the ol' days

Re:Huh.

[mr_gerbik]

2) Jason Newstead leaving the group, for various reasons. (What, you think I listened to Metallica for Lars' drumming?)

... but you listened to them for Jason's bass playing? Kirk, Lars and James are the core talent behind Metallica -- not to mention the only three original members. Don't forget that Jason was just Cliff Burton's replacement after his death.

Re:Huh.

[leviramsey]

... but you listened to them for Jason's bass playing? Kirk, Lars and James are the core talent behind Metallica -- not to mention the only three original members. Don't forget that Jason was just Cliff Burton's replacement after his death.

The following people have been members of Metallica at one time or another (I'm not including people who played with the band for only a few concerts as guests, or James' guitar tech who played his parts after the Montreal incident):

• Lloyd Grant: lead guitarist on the original demo
• Ron McGovney: bassist; friend of James Hetfield from high school; beame a bassist in a string of LA-area punk bands after being kicked out.
• Jef Warner: rhythm/lead guitarist; at this time, Metallica was a 5-piece band and James Hetfield only did vocals (at various points between 1981 and 1985, James Hetfield was not confident of his ability to play rhythm and sing at the same time, so various people were brought in to either sing or play rhythm)
• Dave Mustaine: lead guitarist; kicked out just prior to recording Kill 'Em All; would later found Megadeth; Mustaine has since made up with Lars, Kirk, and Jason and has often talked of wanting to do a reunion show/tour, with Megadeth bassist Dave Ellefson taking over the bass duties.
• Cliff Burton: bassist; some have referred to Cliff as the Jimi Hendrix of bass; due to his unique skills, several songs from the first three albums have yet to be played live and probably never will be, including, alas, the majestic "Orion".

Jason Newsted didn't contribute much to the music; in about half the songs recorded in his tenure, the bass is virtually inaudible, and most of the remaining songs simpl feature Jason doubling James' riff. Jason, however, being a fan of Metallica became the member who was the most into hanging out with the fans. After every concert, you could hang out with Jason. In concert, he was the energy on stage. "Creeping Death" will never be the same without Jason's "DIE DIE DIE DIE FUCKER!" chant during the "Die by my hand..." section.

The only member that Metallica couldn't survive without, imho, is James Hetfield; his lyrics, voice, and riffs are probably the soul of the band. Lars' drumming is nothing to write home about, though he generally gets into a good groove with James (who is basically the creative center of the band). Kirk's solos are written half the time by James and embellished by Kirk.

Re:Huh.

[kubrick]

I'm not trying to troll here, but I never did quite understand punk. What is the purpose?

Three weeks where everyone thought they were the shit, and 25 years of a subculture following those patterns because people are sheep.

That's my guess, anyway. :)

Re:Huh.

[JebusIsLord]

Lou Reed, the archtype, the proto-punk himself, was from Manhattan, as was his band the Velvet Underground.

Sex Pistols were a farce

[An Ominous Cowherd]

The Pistols were a marketed, packaged commodity -- the punk equivalent of the Spice Girls. Many other bands maintained a semblance of integrity, and deserve more credit: the Damned, the Ramones, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, hell, even the Clash.

What exactly is there to celebrate about a band that was all hype and zero substance?

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

They were a conceptual, situationist art experiment by Malcolm McLaren. I know it all sounds pompous, when referring to four yobs, only one of whom could even grasp "situationist" ans an idea...

McLaren was self-referentially, critiqueing the packaging and marketing of popular culture - by packaging and marketing something repellent and contrary to that culture. He demonstrated the obvious - blind greed is the paramount value of culture as industry.

God help me! I sound like fscking Julie Burchill!

Cash from Chaos

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[An Ominous Cowherd]

Yeah, I seem to recall the Clash's integrity last time I saw that Jaguar commercial with London Calling in it.

I said "semblance" of integrity. Tough to name any bands from the 75-78 period that didn't sell out, unless they broke up.

Maybe Mick's finally getting his teeth fixed.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[Malc]

I think the Sex Pistols did the UK a lot of good. Back at the end of the 70's, society was still *very* conservative. The Sex Pistols were extremely shocking to a lot of people. When they tried to tour the UK, they only managed 4 gigs due to the outcry against them. Like many other forms of art, controversy gets people talking. They helped changed many people's attitudes - rather than taking the English approach of ignoring the sub-culture and pretending it didn't exist and our children weren't involved, people were forced to deal with it. "God Save the Queen" reaching #1 (although it wasn't acknowledged by the BBC at the time) made huge statements about the establishment.

Of course, John Lyndon will say it was all about introducing something interesting in to people's boring lives... and he was probably right. We're sitting here talking about it today, aren't we?

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[RevAaron]

The Pistols weren't the first "punk" I had listened to, but when I finally got around to it, I was sure disappointed. Compared to all the stuff I was listening to before, it was utter shit. I can't say I've ever listened through the entire 'Bullocks album more than once, and that time was immiately after a friend gave it to me (he was sick of having it as baggage).

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[JamesOfTheDesert]

How many kids started bands because of the Sex Pistols?

Well, I started a band because of Richard Hell.

We can thank him for the whole punk look (spiky hair, torn clothes, safety pins) as well.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[zazas_mmmm]

There's no question that Malcolm McLaren created the Sex Pistols as, as you put it, "an...art experiment", but this is no reason to be dismissive about the Pistols' music and importance, and McLaren's legitimacy.

McLaren was a force in the cutting edge of 1970s music and culture, from managing the New York Dolls, to coining the term "punk rock" (though his forays into rap in the 80s are a disgrace...Buffalo Girls? Puh-lease). Malcolm McLaren sowed the fertile and largely underexplored ground of pop-proletarian art. Note the Da-daist artwork on the cover of "Never Mind the Bollocks" harkening back to the art radicalism and anti-modernism of the early 20th century.

In many ways McLaren's role with the Sex Pistols is no different than Andy Warhol's role with the Velvet Underground. McLaren got together 4 musicians (and I refer to the original line-up since Sid hardly qualifies for the M word), gave them a look, an attitude, and a subject line. Where Warhol gave VU the topic of S&M, McLaren gave the Pistols the topic of nihilism. Mind you, I'm not calling McLaren the greatest innovator in the history of music--since in fact he borrowed his turn of the century proletarian radicalism from Richard Hell and Lydia Lunch (who invented the ripped clothing and safety pin look copying the turn of the century Bohemians and whose writings borrow heavily from the turn of the century radical art and poetry).

But listen to how "Never Mind the Bollocks" brings it all together: the musical minimalism, the snarling proletarian, vaudvillian lyrics, the Dadaist artwork. It's a true classic in the history of Rock.

I could name a handful of other, more important artists and albums from within a 5 year period (Television, The Clash,The Ramones,The Birthday Party, Gang of Four, etc., etc.) but that doesn't mean that Mclaren, the Pistols, and "Never Mind the Bollocks" aren't legit.

Oh yeah, and the album rocks.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[SexyKellyOsbourne]

It's ironic how all the punks who need to get a job always claim to be anti-corporate, DIY idiots, but the bands they worship like The Sex Pistols, The Dead Kennedys, and The Misfits were nothing but manufactured fashion trends, just like people always try to accuse my favorite bands (Limp Bizkit, Crazy Town, Spineshank, Slipknot, etc) of being.

It just shows what pretentious, misguided idiots all these "dirty street punks" from the suburbs really are.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[JimPooley]

Bollocks, not bullocks, you fool!!!

Bullocks don't HAVE bollocks!

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[AtaruMoroboshi]

I hope you are kidding, because the Dead Kennedys and the Misfits were NOT manufactured fashion trends.

You may not know this, but the rest of the DK's have been suing Jello Biafra (the very outspoken singer of DK) because he refused to let them sell one of their songs to be used in a comercial.

The Dead Kennedys were on an independant label run by the band. Major labels told them they'd have complete artistic freedom if they only would change their name. They, of course, refused.

A lot of those late 70's/early 80's bands did manage to have some integrity: Crass, Black Flag, Subhumans, Rudimentary Peni...

The Sex Pistols suck, sure. "Plastic Surgery Disasters" by the Dead Kennedys doesn't.

(btw, have you seen the footage of Fred Durst in the early 90s dressed and acting like Vanilla Ice? Some credibility there.)

.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Oh,

Sorry!
I wasn't being dismissive of the 'Pistols. Just responding to the previous comment. I agree with you. And the record is great. Cook, Matlock and Jones were (and are) very underrated for this stuff.

When I contrast this with the L.A. "hardcore" stuff in the years that followed, it's clear that the Sex Pistols were punk ROCK. Emphasis on the second word here.

I got my grubby teen hands on this in the U.S. about winter of '78. Made my own 8-Track copy off of a friend's vinyl - on a Realistic combo-deck from RadioShack!

This was the beginning of finding out about the New York Dolls and The Stooges for me... And opened my doors for the Buzzcocks, The Undertones, etc.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[ross.w]

You are entirely right, and that fact was the whole point of their existence.

They were created to prove that with the right marketing and promotion (and a bit of controversy) you could dish up absolute tripe and turn it into a cultural phenomenon. Hence the movie "The Great Rock & Roll Swindle."

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[madprof]

I would disagree strongly.
The modern-day equivalent of the Sex Pistols would have to do a whole load than just swear.
Look at Noel Gallagher as an exmaple of someone trying very hard. He gets interviewed by Radio One who bleep out the rude stuff, and he is using about 70 times as many expletives as the Sex Pistols ever did.
He says stuff like "kill all Tories and the Royal Family".
He then goes on to say that taking drugs is like "having a cup of tea" first thing in the morning.
Are we shocked? No, it's just Noel being Noel.
Big deal....NEXT!.

We're desensitized to stuff and we're definitely not as conservative as we were.
Sex Pistols now just look quaint.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[sql*kitten]

I think the Sex Pistols did the UK a lot of good. Back at the end of the 70's, society was still *very* conservative. The Sex Pistols were extremely shocking to a lot of people.

Shocking is too easy. Take South Park for example: once the initial joke of small children swearing wears off, it's just not funny anymore. There's no actual creativity or talent there, so it's just boring once it's no longer novel. Or Guns'n'Roses: once people got used to Axl Rose saying "Motherfucker" in every sentence, the band faded out of existance. Maybe they are still recording today, but who cares?

Really the only people who are interesting in the Sex Pistols these days are sold-out baby-boomers with jobs in PR or media and grey ponytails desperate to pretend that they're still young and "edgy". The Sex Pistols aren't remembered for their music at all. In another 25 years there's probably be a /. story about the Spice Girls...

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[madprof]

A good reaction to events is often gained from the tabloids.
When the Sex Pistols swore on Bill Grundy's show the Daily Mirror led with a story of a man so angry with what had happened that he kicked in his television set to stop his child from hearing it.

Last people to get really and truly stitched up by the media were the Beastie Boys in 1987 weren't they?
"Pop Idols Sneer At Dying Kids" was the headline I recall.
Of course these days we have Chris Morris so don't need pop acts. :-)

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[MAXOMENOS]

What exactly is there to celebrate about a band that was all hype and zero substance?

Wow .. that sums up the way I feel about just about every band I hear being promoted on MTV these days.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[Schnapple]

The Pistols were a marketed, packaged commodity -- the punk equivalent of the Spice Girls

So how close were we to having Justin Timberlake stabbing Britney Spears to death and then overdosing in the UK? Quick! Get Christina Aguillera hooked up with a Backstreet Boy!

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[Shelled]

Right, the proprietor of an insignificant used clothing store - Malcom McClaren - was the exact '70's equivalent of the Spice Girl's record company. And both bands started off with the same promotional push, corporate backing, public acceptance and target audience.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[Mignon]

Reminds me of the following riddle:

Q: What has eight legs and commits suicide?
A: Squid Vicious.

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[JebusIsLord]

With all due respect, Andy Warhol's impact on the VU consisted of painting a banana for the cover of their first album, insisting that Nico sing on it, and buying them food. He was more of a patron and sponsor than a producer at all, and infact their band was already a very tight unit before he "picked them up".

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[madprof]

I can only quote the headline I read once but there is a comment from a member of the public on:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1160375.stm

They say:
'Lest we also forget The Beastie Boys, circa summer 1987, who were alleged to have told some kids who had recently had chemotherapy treatment that they were "baldies".'

There is some reference to this on:
http://www.essential-eighties.net/blist4.htm

And of course they were more popular for it!

irony==fun

[mojowantshappy]

Oh yeah, it is quite ironic that their album was released 25 years ago. Who'd thought that time would pass? I really didn't see that coming.

Re:irony==fun

[Mignon]

That's nothing. I've been playing my album at 45 rpm all these years, so my 25th anniversary only took 18 1/3 years.

Re:They saved music

[Fuzzle]

Who cares? It's music man. It's about entertainment, and in the case of "real punk" (such a retarded label), an attitude and a commitment to changing the world. Honestly, PunkRock and the Open Source Movement are kindred spirits. The DIY ethic, the distrust of large corporations and the "scene" support all mirror each other.

Sex Pistols == Punk Backstreet Boys

[toupsie]

Sex Pistols were to punk music what RATT was to heavy metal. They were nothing more than a put together Punk band fueled by a money hungry promoter, Malcolm McLaren -- who ran for mayor of London once. Adding Sid Vicious was nothing more than marketing. He couldn't play worth a damn. If you ever get to hear bootlegs of their US tour, you will know what I mean. Rush tribute bands sound better live.

Pretty Vacant for damn sure. But still I like Bullocks, it had a beat and you could puke to it.

Re:Sex Pistols == Punk Backstreet Boys

[jdunlevy]

Punk Backstreet Boys?! Wait; I thought the original Back Street Boys were the punk Back Street Boys, and the new Backstreet Boys were the boyband Backstreet Boys.

Re:Sex Pistols == Punk Backstreet Boys

[toupsie]

The Sex Pistols were -about- marketing. Pay attention to the whole story and maybe you'll get it. They're art -- social commentary.

Oh I know the story. I was alive back then and old enough to buy their albums. That is why I said they were the "Punk Backstreet Boys". Most "young people" don't know that. They just picked up the albums in the early 90s without the history. All they know about the Sex Pistols is from the movie "Sid and Nancy" which really doesn't give a clear picture of the band and makes them seem like the Kings of Punk. I see the "Young Punks" littering St. Marks street in NYC wearing Sex Pistols patches and buttons and I laugh at them and tell them how 'cute' they are. They have no clue. They might as well have Justin Timberlake T-Shirts on.

Re:Sex Pistols == Punk Backstreet Boys

[toupsie]

Just remeber, 50 years from now, people will still know who the Sex Pistols were. No one will know, or care, who the Backstreet Boys or Ratt were.

That depends. If any of the members of the Backstreet Boys or RATT kill their wife, they will be remembered.

Re:Sex Pistols == Punk Backstreet Boys

[Creepy]

From what I remember, Sid was a drummer that was moved to bass (because drums were filled) and later was more of just a miscreant, but that is beside the point -

The Sex Pistols had little to do with musicality and more to do with message, and they had a very powerful message in "God Save the Queen". Johnny Rotten (er, Lydon) was physically attacked because of that message, and the song was blacked out of the music charts because it was deemed too offensive. Other punk bands used that same style of message before music (the Dead Kennedys, for instance), while several offshoots just used the groove and power and dumped the political message, usually settling for a more conventional love-drugs-sex-rock and roll message (Surf punks... the only example I can think of at the moment is Agent Orange, and garage rockers such as Husker Du and the Replacements).

Punk really was the end of the corporate rock (stadium hard rock/metal - Boston, Styx, Queen, Pink Floyd etc.) and disco from most of the 70s and the start of a number of splinter movements, many offshoots of punk, and some became legit because of punk - speed metal, Goth, Ska, New Wave, Rap, synth-pop (80s rock), garage, surf punk. It was time for a change. Just as Heavy Metal (Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin) was a slap in the face for 60's folk movement, punk was a slap in the face for the big dance party of the 70s.

Johnny Rotten

[madsenj37]

is nothing but a no talent punk...oh wait, nevermind

1987?

[Malc]

It took Nirvana before the US mainstream finally started understanding punk. 1991 seems like a more significant date.

I once saw an interview with John Lydon. He said they had the option of touring the northern states. To him (or so he claims now) that was preaching to the converted. So instead they went south and got a lot of grief for their efforts. Who knows, if they had toured the north, their album might have done better.

Re:1987?

[rodentia]

Nirvana was a paragon of songwriting craft and I daresay Cobain would slap you calling him punk. He had better things to do than bring punk to the mainstream, like writing beautiful songs.

Punk was not a sound or a mode of costume; it was an attitude singularly unimpressed with quality or anything else for that matter. A perfect and vigorous nihilism; a generation of cutters. Kurt's depression and suicide exceeds punk in that it is full of significance and tragedy.

No one gave a shit about Sid except for the slow motion train wreck of his demise.

"Real Punk" = lazy white kids

[SexyKellyOsbourne]

Real punk ethics are for lazy white kids too pampered and drug addled to get a job, the kind of people who go from the suburbs to the homeless shelters. People who can't play instruments don't entertain me, either -- it's very boring.

Politics and music should be kept entirely separate -- idolizing someone like Jello Biafra or, on the other end, Ian Stuart can lead to some blind political choices.

The DIY ethic, distrust of corporations, and the "scene" are just anarchistic (which doesn't mean punk) ideals. Punk itself is long dead and still lingers in forms of trendies, poseurs, emofags, Blink 182, and Straight Edge Earth Crisis idiots.

Mallcore is where all the music is at -- real underground, pure enlightenment.

Re:"Real Punk" = lazy white kids

[caseyc]

Real punk ethics are for lazy white kids too pampered and drug addled to get a job, the kind of people who go from the suburbs to the homeless shelters.

True. I love to hear middle class kids complaining about how horrible their lives are. I'm especially amused when I see "punk rockers" here at college, which is most likely an endeavor financed by their "oppressive" horrible capitalist parents. Yeah. And all this anti-capitalism stuff that the kids buy into? Isn't somebody making a whole lot of money from the propaganda t-shirts the kids are buying? Hardly seems like "anarchy" or whatever they promote, to me!

Re:"Real Punk" = lazy white kids

[pezpunk]

The DIY ethic, distrust of corporations, and the "scene" are just anarchistic (which doesn't mean punk) ideals.

from the very beginning punk rock has been about these diy and independent ideals. minor threat, dead kennedys, etc. continuing on into today. and there are very good reasons for this. it's not just anarchist ideals put to music. it's bands wanting to focus on the music and the show rather than the business, the package, the marketing, and all the sleaze involved in trying to "make it". most punk bands are just out there doing all the things that matter -- playing shows, writing music, putting out CDs or records -- and none of the things that don't -- paying off DJ's, shmoozing, marketing, advertising, trying to cater to the lowest common denominator, etc.

we distrust corporations because they have earned our distrust. good friends of mine, a band called Violent Society, is currently owed over $40,000 by their record label. i've watched other friends' bands get screwed over in similar ways. plus there's the whole RIAA, who want only to insure the profits of the executives at the major labels. true story: i have a friend, she used to work for a major label. her JOB was to call up DJ's and say "hey, i've got two trips to disneyland i'd like to give you, for you to give to your listeners in a contest. in exchange, i want to hear the new Limp Bizkit single 40 times a week. and, if you keep one of those trips for yourself, i'm sure we won't notice." she quit because she couldn't face herself anymore. if you don't actively oppose this system, then you are only reinforcing it. music shouldn't be this slimy. and it's the money that did it. punk bands operate outside of that greed. we take ourselves out of that game.

Politics and music should be kept entirely separate -- idolizing someone like Jello Biafra or, on the other end, Ian Stuart can lead to some blind political choices.

there's nothing wrong with music being about something. frankly songs about girls or how cool the singer is or nothing at all bore the fuck out of me. to each his own, man, don't act like your opinion is fact. i enjoy listening to music whose lyrics actually make me think or even educate or enlighten me. propagandhi in particular is a band whose lyrics are at the same time both political and personal, deeply accurate and informed as well as emotional. they also tell you up front that you shouldn't make opinions based on theirs, or take what they say as fact. they want you to read the papers and make your own decisions.

Punk itself is long dead and still lingers in forms of trendies, poseurs, emofags, Blink 182, and Straight Edge Earth Crisis idiots.

you couldn't be more wrong. the underground punk scene is alive and well, has been that way since its birth in, what, the mid 70's, and will still be here once all this nu-metal crap has gone the way of that swing craze a few years ago. my band plays hardcore punk rock, like minor threat or the dead kennedys, and we play literally about 100 shows a year. and there are bands in every major city right now with gobs of integrity and heart, pounding out punk shows, doing it just like we do. i guess you won't know they're there if you don't go out and look for these shows. you won't hear em on the radio and you won't see them on mtv, cuz they don't have that kind of funding, but i guarantee their shows are more fun than 20 metallica concerts. we're not the "latest thing" but we'll still be here when the latest thing is dead and buried.

Re:"Real Punk" = lazy white kids

[Rinikusu]

No, probably not (re: the Tshirt stuff). Most likely the Tshirts are breaking even, if that, but if they "do" make money, it's so they can fix the van and go tour. Unlikes major acts, most bands lose money on tour and tshirts and cd's help offset the costs.

Re:"Real Punk" = lazy white kids

[Cyno01]

my hats off to you, this is probably the most insightful thing i've ever read about punk rock dont make too much fun of my sig, punks get dumped, they write whiny songs and yell about it, its funny

Good to see a story like this on /.

[Junky191]

We nerds ain't so good at appreciating the most significant artistic achievements of our respective generations. Maybe more art-related stories on here would broaden a few horizons? :)

Re:Good to see a story like this on /.

[RevAaron]

Because "nerds" often listen to shitty music, like the Sex Pistols, Def Leopard, or Brittany Spears. Most of the nerds I've known listened to the same shitty music that makes them feel special, just like everyone else, nerd or non-nerd. Many nerds think if they listen to music born of the same intent, but of a not entirely mainstream genre, with bands like the Pistols, MxPx or Marilyn Manson.

Then again, a lot of nerds listen to tripe because they actually like it, not just because they're fed it by the media. Makes no sense, but nerds often love awful music.

Re:Good to see a story like this on /.

[ozbird]

No no no... Nerds listen to Sex Pistols and Def Leopard; they look at Britney...

Truly classic music is that which stands the test of time. Apart from a few exceptions (e.g. Garbage), the bulk of my music collection is over ten years old. The Sex Pistols aren't everyone's cup of tea, but they are a classic; Britney will be lucky to be remembered 25 months from now.

(To stay on topic, Unix is your classic OS; Windows is Britney - nice to look at, but soon forgotten.)

Re:They saved music

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Power metal is hardcore punk with long hair. Except these days they don't all have long hair any more. So it's just hardcore that calls itself metal.

Re:poseurs....

[Drath]

I dunno, Black Flag, Circle Jerks and Kennedys were more California Hardcore than straight british punk. And I don't know Corrosion of Conformity but according to their allmusic.com writeup they seem more metal than punk. Related but diffrent. Stuff like the Clash, Stiff Little Fingers, Buzzcocks and so on are more dirivated from the british punk vein of the pistols creation.

I think of Hardcore as the most comparative of the American punk offerings to british punk (ie. Politically Relavant subject matter), but sonicaly Pistols-like it is not.

Oh and if you haven't seen "The Filth and the Fury" (the 2001 version) check it out it's a good documentary on the pistols.

Re:Punkers don't do opensource

[EugeneK]

REAL anarchists run free software.

Ironic?

[John Ineson]

Considering that much of the controversy surrounding the Sex Pistols was centered around Queen Elizabeth II's silver jubilee, it's somewhat ironic that the band is now celebrating their own

Errr... no it's not. There is no irony there.

Unless you they were speaking out against 25 year anniversaries or something?! (It's debatable whether they were really speaking out about anything, but it was a pretty effective way to sell records.)

Amusing anecdote about the Pistols -- they were originally signed to EMI, but were dropped after they said some naughty words on British TV. A&M gave them a deal but cancelled it a week later, after a couple of little incindents (one of which left a TV engineer needing stiches). A&M paid them £7000 to leave the label, which I think is about twice what my parents paid for our house, around that time.

Nice work if you can get it.

Re:Ironic?

[fatius]

> A&M paid them £7000 to leave the label

Heh. that is pretty common too. And that doesn't compare with what happened to wilco. Forced off label, picked up by another label owned by the same company. Which means the same company paid for it twice. What company? AOL. (in case you didn't know.). Which doesn't compare with Mariah. 20M to leave her label was it?

Re:Ironic?

[rodentia]

The Pistols were the first to make a regular job of it. They made far more from the payouts the leave their labels than they made selling records. Documented on *the Great Rock and Roll Swindle*, itself a lovely grift.

Re:They saved music

[G-funk]

So let me get this straight... None of them have any talent, and their success is based on their "attitude" (read: marketing to teenagers), and this is a good thing?

A history of punk

[rosewood]

Recently in my painfully slow but yet required English 102 class we were forced to read an Essay by Graffin from Bad Religion.

Does anyone have a good quick timeline of punk in the USA vs Brit Punk ??

For some reason everyone had it in their heads that Bad Religion started punk in the USA

Re:A history of punk

[rodentia]

Chronologically:

• MC5
• New York Dolls*
• Ramones
• Patti Smith
• Iggy and the Stooges
• Television

* I know, they're a glam band, but David Johannson is a total punk and there is the Maclaren connection.

Brit punk takes off at this point.

East coast wing (CBGBs) brings us Blondie and Talking Heads and the dawn of a *New Wave*. God I hated the Talking Heads for that, back when I cared.

West coast scene (whiskey a go-go) takes off after the British invasion: Dead Kennedys, Bad Religion, Black Flag, Minor Threat, Minutemen, Suicidal Tendencies, and a cast of thousands.

The MC5 were a funky, quasi-religious, freak show out of Detroit. Their live album *Kick out the Jams* is the missing link between the American garage scene in the sixties and the NY thing going on under the dusty nose of disco. That sixties garage era gives rise to a lot of the local flavors of American punk. The Northwest had some manky thing, Texas had a scene, Minneapolis, etc but mostly it goes NY - London - LA. Of course, it all leads to the cynosure of punk, the pinnacle of achievement in the punk ethos, the ne plus ultra: G G Allin. Let the flames commence.

Re:A history of punk

[dogfart]

For a really really excellent view of the LA Punk scene, get a copy of We Got The Neutron Bomb

Not mentioned in other posts and very significant to the whole punk thing was the influence of glitter rock/glam rock, with the NY Dolls being a bridge between the two.

Hard to imagine that before Patti Smith/Sex Pistols/X I actually listened to Peter Frampton. Music before punk was terrible, overwrought, unoriginal (my god, Robin Trower!!).

I wouldn't give the whole credit to Sex Pistols. There really was a movement on many levels - in their own way, Lou Reed, Devo, Television, Pere Ubu, etc. were just as influential.

From my own recollection, between 1975 and 1977, the face of rock music changed radically.

Re:A history of punk

[dogfart]

West coast scene (whiskey a go-go) takes off after the British invasion: Dead Kennedys, Bad Religion, Black Flag, Minor Threat, Minutemen, Suicidal Tendencies, and a cast of thousands.

Minor nit - "Minor Threat" was actually from Wash DC, not west coast. Fugazi formed from Minor Threat.

Also, when speaking of Black Flag, don't forget the essential role SST Records played in the West Coast punk scene and later 1980's indi scene. Bands like Sonic Youth, Husker Du, all initially recorded for SST.

Re:They saved music

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Uhhhh...

You listen to a very narrow band.

All the technical flourishes you praise are current in my listening vocabulary of "popular" music. From recent retros like Groove Collective, Air, Corduroy, Mother Earth James Taylor Quartet- to chillers like Morcheeba or Groove Armada. Even the waxies I still listen to from the late 70's and early 80's were big on improv solos and apeggia. I'm thinking of Squeeze and Madness, etc. here. Regular products of a post-punk explosion.

Re:They saved music

[Rinikusu]

Why should you have to "show off" knowledge of Lydian modes or doing sweep picking? What's wrong with writing a fucking song? Steve Vai, Yngie Malmsteen may be "guitar idols" in the sense that their technique is light years above the rest, neither one can write a song for fucking shit.

Nothing annoys me more than listening to some self-important "rock icon" play something I can dance or groove to, and that, my friend, is the important part.

Your attitude is reminiscent of most "linux guru's" that I know. while you get off on hearing the most technical boring shit that no one on the earth gives a fuck about, the rest of us want to listen to music and enjoy it. (analogy for you: Most people don't give a fuck about open source. They just want their email to work.)

then and now

[tanveer1979]

Then:
Once upon a time a "novice" said "I like boybands". He was hit on the head by the guru with floyd Pulse. the novice was enlightened.

Now:
Hemos said "I posted Sex Pistols Story on slashdot." He was hit on the head with 30 moderator points from brak. Hemos was *temporarily* enlightened.

Re:They saved music

[Rinikusu]

grr.. that should be something I *can't* dance or groove to. Sorry about that.

"Whata band"

[Simon Garlick]

but still, whata band

Wha? Are we talking about the same Sex Pistols here? The shallow exercise in media manipulation masquerading as YOOF KULCHA? The shamelessly-pimped whores invented by publicist Malcolm McLaren who staggered from one carefully-planned media event to another?

Sorry to sound so pissed, but... they were a band only in the sense that the Spice Girls and N'Sync are bands.

Re:"Whata band"

[BiOFH]

I don't agree with the Coward that you don't get it, but I do agree with the spirit of what he's saying.

It's kinda like 'imagine if the Spice Girls had turned out to be really fuckin cool _despite_ being slapped together in a boutique'. The Pistols never should have sold records cuz we liked the songs. They were supposed to sell records cuz they looked cool and thus sell clothes. But.. damn if 'Never Mind...' didn't kick serious ass. It still gets me going to this day.

Maybe we could split the difference with: "Steve Jones, whata band". :)

Yes, the Pistols sucked. But they sucked so fucking well. :)

An old Punk who's showing her age...

--

Re:They saved music

[Andy_R]

Your criticisms are very much centred round the American music scene, and probably go a long way towards explaining the slower sales of Pistols product in America compared to Britain.

Rock music is not the same dominating force in music over here, pop, disco, r'n'b, even rap have much more mainstream success. The 'rock' bands that were successful before 1977 over here were in the middle of the excesses of 'prog-rock', where 3 disc concept albums roamed the earth like dinosaurs.

Effectively, we had such lame music scene that it was possible for an insightful person to step totally outside the types of music that were avaialable, pull influences from the punk scene (let's not forget that the Pistols were just the successful packaging of what The Damned and others were already doing), assemble the most objectionable people he could get, and capitalise on the disillusionment of the record buying public so successfully that we are still talking about it to this day.

The closest thing the US had to this was Nirvana - not such a big jump in musical style, but still a band that no-one in the record industry thought would sell.

btw, I'd disagree that the Pistols were talentless, they had a LOT of memorable songs (even if it was Tenpole Tudor that played some of them for them!), and as for guitarists, have a listen to Richard Thompson and tell me there are no amazing ones left!

I was more into The Clash, myself...

[Graabein]

I was more into The Clash, myself. The distinction was very important, or at least it seemed so, back then.

In any case, anyone claiming to be punk today is only demonstrating all to clearly that they haven't got a fscking clue what punk was all about.

It was about broken glass, gloom and hope. Yeah, I know that doesn't make sense, but then again we're talking about punk here, OK? You had to be there, the early Thatcher years, the early Reagan years, the mainstream world hurling ass-backwards back to the values of 50s while unemployment was skyrocketing and mainstream rock and pop was more toothless than ever before in recorded history. On top of that both sides of the cold war had their fingers on the button 24/7.

The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones and the rest set us free, free from all the BS going on around us.

Re:I was more into The Clash, myself...

[Observer]

The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones and the rest set us free, free from all the BS going on around us.

Ah, yes, and who can forget those wonderful satirical Berlin cabarets in the 1930's that played such a big part in stopping Hitler's rise to power?

(With acknowledgements to the late Peter Cook).

--
What colour is the sky in the parallel universe you're inhabiting today?

Re:They saved music

[pezpunk]

The Sex Pistols and all the bands that spawned from it seriously degraded music. As much as you may have liked their attitudes, punk requires no real talent -- they could barely even play a few power chords on their instruments.

that was the point! music doesn't have to be acrobatic to be fun to listen to. listen to the ramones. those are some damn catchy tunes, and none of them could really play. punk was basically about doing the opposite of what everyone else did, and although some punks got insular and turned into elitist jackassas, many (like me) are still around trying to poke holes in convention, expectation, the music industry, "rock stardom", etc etc.

my band plays literally about 100 shows a year, we don't make shit for money, but we have a fucking blast playing the hardest punk you ever heard. i dunno, it's fun. and it's not for money and it's not an egho trip and it's not exploiting stupid people.

Re:Who cares?

[smoondog]

I'm usually a solid skeptic, actually. This case seems to be at least at some level, legit. I'm really surprised this wasn't national news a few days ago when the story broke. It seems with the controversy surrounding other incidents and the current political climate would motivate more attention to this.

-Sean

Re:They saved music

[leviramsey]

True, I had forgotten that little detail... still, most metal guitar is either power chord or minor key based.

/me smacks head...

yes, some relevance to Slashdot

[EricHsu]

Well, current punk scenes have some overlap with free software movements ethically: the do-it-yourself ethic, the desire to avoid conformity, de-emphasizing monetary reward as THE incentive to be creative.

I say current, since we're pretty far away from 1976. And I'm not saying all punks (or free-software types!) live up to those values, but they those are commonly expressed values.

There's also a more intellectual connection via those who consider the Pistols to be the all-time Situationist art piece linked to anarchism linked to certain anarcho-trends on Slashdot.

Anyway, even if you dismiss the Sex Pistols as hype (true enough), you've got to hand it to them:

1. They did start an amazingly creative movement which influenced music (via 70's British punk, then New Wave, then 90's grunge).

2. They left behind a pretty polished set of incredible singles. "Anarchy in the UK" still sounds modern, and "God Save the Queen" may still be the best music ever produced in post-Beatles England. Their producer, Chris Thomas, did an amazing job getting a sound out of them that sounded powerful and raw despite the layers of production. And if you read the histories, hype or no hype, most non-punks in England were really pissed off about the Pistols. As opposed to now, when punk is just another fashion choice.

3. They did allow Johnny Rotten to produce the first two Public Image Limited records, "Public Image" and "Metal Box"/"Second Edition". The best tracks of "Public Image" out-punk the Sex Pistols material. The best tracks of "Metal Box" are still ahead of their time.

What is Punk Rock?

[sickboy_macosX]

Punk Rock i have found in the years that I have been a punk rocker is more than Fast Cars, Loud Guitars and Easy women it is a way of life, it is a mind set, but according to people on MTV it is about Skateboarding and Drinking Beer with your friends, Punk Rock isnt a Fashon or a TV Show, it is not a concept on MTV it is somthing I have inside of me, it is not going to hot topic (or your favorite "Non Conformist" Store) and buying a Dead Kennedys Shirt, and saying "Anarchy in the UK Man" It is about trying new things and changing. It is not about Your Cool Tattoos (Even though I am sleeved) It is about being your own person and not letting people tell you what to do. If you wanna see a movie about punk rock go see "Another State of Mind" it is a good movie about the early west coast punk movement, or SLC Punk, is a killer show, but Its up to you.

-Shon

Re:Sex Pistols as packaged commodity

[driptray]

The Sex Pistols didn't begin as a packaged commodity. With their original bass player, Glen Matlock, they were an authentic band. It was only at the very end of their short career, when the musically competent Matlock was sacked and replaced with Sid Vicious, that they were successfully commoditised and sold as "punk" to naive teenagers.

Most Americans are only familiar with this stage of the Pistols, because it was during this stage that the Pistols toured America.

Re:They saved music from The Great Kat

[Anonymous Coward]

punk requires no real talent -- they could barely even play a few power chords on their instruments

Oh god, spare us the guitar-weenie pomposity already. Punk rock came in and washed away a pile of doodly-doodly-doodly "solos and exotic scales" and frankly, a bunch of tuneless *wankery*. And if grunge finished off the job, that's a good thing.

Playing music that resonates requires talent. Knowing theory and memorizing scales doesn't, and the former is not dependent on the latter. But you can't teach "memorability" in the latest issue of "GuitarYanker" magazine, so....here's how to play doodly-doodly-doodly in Mixolydian, dooooodes......

Steve Vai, Slash, or Ritchie Sambora

[sarcasm]Yeah, and the state of guitar art is so much poorer for losing the talents of Slash and Richie Sambora, innovators who have been unjustly passed over.[/sarcasm]

I mean, where's the mention of quarter-tone guitarists like you'll hear in ambient music? By the criteria you seem to be going by, exotic tone systems are a step beyond knowing which pentatonic scale D Phrygian maps out to, right? Christ, if you'd at least mentioned Fripp, I might have thought you even knew what you were talking about...

No solos, no exotic scales, nothing.

See above. This is a Good Thing.

Go forward from grunge and you have the mallcore bands -- my favorite genre -- such as KoRn, Limp Bizkit, Taproot, Adema, POD, Disturbed, and so forth, of which none know anything when it comes to scales, arpeggios, solos, etc; in many song, one string is played or bent. It's all about detuning and creating the proper timbre, not showing off knowledge of Lydian modes or doing sweep picking and so forth.

But by the same overgeneralization: Go backward from grunge and you have the heavy metal crowd, almost none of whom know anything about riffs, melodies, or songwriting; in many songs, 10 to 15 different riff changes are yoked together for no apparent reason except to present a facade of "complexity." It's all about showing off chops, like knowledge of Lydian modes or doing sweep picking, or copping riffs from classical composers instead of actual songwriting or experimenting with textures, timbres, dynamics.

I'm sorry, but the guitarists worth looking up to today (or yesterday, or 30 years ago) don't put such a cartoonish overemphasis on "exotic" scales or hyperfast arpeggios -- and the power metal bands you've named are weak throwbacks to a style that died out somewhere in the mid-80s. Ditto "progressive" metal; it's just hilarious, IMO, that so much "progressive" rock & metal, by placing so much emphasis on chops and theory, ends up trying to pretend that Yes and ELP and __(fill in your fave Shrapnel Records act here)__ is on the same level as 400-year-old Baroque music, even if none of these guys could write a memorable three-part fugue to save their lives. We've seen where that kind of "progression" leads: The Great Kat.

Sex Pistols eh?

[Spock the Baptist]

Now let's discuss real talent...

The Carpenters, Badfinger, Duke Ellington, Roy Clark, Yes, Tracy Ullman, The Moody Blues, Hanson, John Denver, Tony Douglas & The Shrimpers, The Oneders, Wierd Al Yankovic, The Cowsills, Don Williams, Stillwater, Ray Charles, Johnny Horton...

Re:Sex Pistols eh?

[reflector]

ok, i like ellington, yes, and the moody blues, but they're no coltrane, tangerine dream, or pink floyd.

Re:They saved music

[MoneyT]

my band plays literally about 100 shows a year, we don't make shit for money, but we have a fucking blast playing the hardest punk you ever heard. i dunno, it's fun. and it's not for money and it's not an egho trip and it's not exploiting stupid people.

Shhh, the RIAA doesn't want people to know that musicians don't actualy have to make multi millions of dollars to play/write/perform music. You'll ruin their defense if you let this out.

Punk's not dead...

[CaptainPotato]

...well, yes, it is, but, no it's not. Yes, the late 1970s punk scene, from which the Pistols, the Clash, The UK Subs, and so forth come, which most people think about - the leather jackets and safety pins, I mean, is long gone. Sure, walk around London, and you can pay a try-hard punk one pound for a photo, but beyond that...

What people forget is that this is not punk. The whole idea of a punk 'uniform' is in itself against everything that punk ever was - or is. Punk is about rebelling about what one does not like, and doing it how one wants - sticking your middle finger up at the world, in a sense. It's not about mohawks and leather jackets - or about self-destruction, a la Sid Vicious. In that sense, as other /.ers have pointed out, the Sex Pistols were a Spice Girls band in nature, having been created by Malcolm McLaren, who failed in his previous attempt with the New York Dolls; however, having said that, the original motivation for bands such as the Ramones, the Clash and so forth is more about what punk is.

Punk music is just that - a variety of music, nothing more. Like it or love it, whilst it has come to represent, along with the Sex Pistols at the forefront the ideals of a generation of disaffected British youths, it is not punk. Hell, punk rock (to give the music a name) is not even English in origin - it's American...

25 years on, yes, there are still punk bands out there - by this I do not mean punk rock bands such as the Sex Pistols, I mean bands who have the punk attitude. And they don't even have to play punk rock to be punk. Bands such as Die Toten Hosen, to name one, is a good example. Whilst they may have a punk rock background, they are not punk rockers now - but they are still punk in attitude. Blink 182, the Offspring - ha, don't make me laugh. They are not 'punk'.

Therefore, in a sense, Linux users can even be considered punk - sticking their middle fingers up at Microsoft :)

Re:Punk's not dead...

[CaptainPotato]

I guess we will have to disagree on this one; however, having toured as a roadie with the Hosen on two continents, I feel that I am in a better position to comment on their attitude than you probably are.

IMO, and strictly IMO (but I doubt I am alone here), they have more of the ethos of punk than most other people ever will. Yes, sure, they have songs about drinking; yes, they sing songs about Bayen Munich; however, knowing the guys personally, I believe that they do possess your three criteria (creativity, originality and intellect), but unlike some with an idea, they don't ram it in your face - you have to pay closer attention than I suspect you probably have (not that this is a flame - if you don't like the music, then why should you?)

In any case, I like their music, but above all else, I like the Hosen as people. :)

Cultural Revolution

[JimPooley]

What a lot of you people don't realise is what a cultural revolution the Sex Pistols were part of, and how the authorities tried to stamp it out.

The pop charts were rigged especially to keep God Save The Queen off the number one spot, and the record was banned from airplay.

Retailers were actually threatened with arrest and imprisonment should they have the "Never Mind The Bollocks" album on display in their stores.

So while they may not have been the best punk band, they had a major impact on our culture, as what was banned 25 years ago is now perfectly acceptable.

Of course, a lot of the stuff that passes for punk on MTV these days is just bollocks.

Never...

[rodentia]

had anything to do with what you were wearing. Like any scene it gets full of people telling you how its real one way or another but you could usually tell a brother/sister from a poser. The posers travelled in groups.

Punk Karma-Whoring

[caferace]

Gimme a mod point (or take one away) if you've ever seen any of the following bands, live.

Stiff Little Fingers
U.K. Subs
The Clash
English Beat
Madness
The Specials
The Damned
Sex Pistols
Selector

I have. A LOT. In fact, I've been to so many Damned shows, Cpt. Sensible uses me as his smoke machine (as in, "hey Jim, can I bum a smoke?")

The list could go on and on. Growing up in L.A. in the late 70's was pretty fun. Hollywood was crazy, and we would go on jaunts to S.F. for some shows.

OK, I'm dating myself. Midlife crisis. I just turned 40, and so did all these guys, and most are older than me, BUT.... These bands (with the exception of some of the cheesier ones) are the ones than spawned the same music most people listen to today.

-jim

Re:Ian Stuart is awesome

[AtaruMoroboshi]

Oh I see, after posting total misinformation about the dead kennedys elsewhere in this topic, you come out of the closet as a nazi sympathizer and racist.

Well, then...

"NAZI PUNK FUCK OFF"

Guess what...

[sterno]

A lot of people listen to tripe, nerds, or otherwise. I can confirm this by the fact, that I can only tolerate one station on the radio (NPR). You might think that it's rather arrogant to pronounce all of radio tripe just because I don't like it. The thing is that the world revolves around me, so it turns out I'm right :)

Re:Guess what...

[Junky191]

Hee hee- I feel sorry for people who think NPR conveys some sort of superior culture. Elitism just never seems to die.

The day punk died....

[the endless]

As far as I'm concerned, the day punk died was the day that Sporty Spice did a live performance of Anarchy In The UK.

"I am the antichrist, I am Sporty Spice..."

Oh, the pain.

My mallcore music beat up your punk music

[Powercntrl]

Let's face it... Music just boils down to personal taste. If I want to crank the bass boost on my amp so high the subwoofers drown out the vocals and I don't even hear what the song is about, that is my (insert deity(s) of choice) given right. If I like the way it sounds, I'll listen to it. I could care less what skin color the artist currently is (or what color he/she used to be), what gender or sexuality or who he/she is sleeping with, whether or not they're RIAA-owned or indie. All I care about is if the song(s) they've created are something I find enjoyable.

I know this post is kind of geared more towards music in general than to the Sex Pistols, but the attitude on Slashdot seems to lean towards "My x music is more closely represents the genre than yours" or "Band X is cool until they sell out, then they're just commercialized pop." I can understand having a beef with a video card cause it gets texture flickering in the latest Quake-engined game... That's something you can back up with actual facts. Music is meant to be entertainment.

I can respect that your music tastes are different than mine. Arguing that your artists or genres are better is like arguing chocolate is better than vanilla. Do I enjoy any music The Sex Pistols have released? No. Am I going to point out artists that I think are better than the Sex Pistols? No - the Sex Pistols created their own catalog of unique songs and comparing them to other artists' different songs would be comparing apples to oranges.

Re:My mallcore music beat up your punk music

[Triv]

"Band X is cool until they sell out, then they're just commercialized pop."

Sit down, my friend, while I tell you a tale. (with apologies to Peter Sellers) :)

There's this musician. A guitarist. He put out an indie album (on Aware Records, the indie side of Colombia), coffee-house recordings. 10 Tracks or so. real rough cuts. Real heartbreaking. Lyrics were kinda juvenile, but in a waspy, nostalgic sorta way.

Someone higher up hear this guy and said: "Hey. He's good, but not mainstream enough. Throw some money at the problem. Get him a band and some studio time. Have him rerecord his songs. See what happens."

So he does. Goes into the studio with a drummer who knows one beat and only one beat (DUM-dum-CHICK-dum-dum-dum-CHICK), and Dave Matthews' producer (who has the uncanny ability to make everyone he produces sound like Dave Matthews, regardless of what they sounded like before.) They rerecord his heartbreaking coffeehouse songs, and as if with a scalpel, remove the emotion, the edge, the cute mistakes, the personality and the vibrancy. The remove the profanity. They clean up the solos.

And lo and behold this completely transformed pop-star starts getting gigs at Irving Plaza in New York City and airtime on LITE-FM. People walk around singing his pointless renditions of once-beautiful songs.

HE SOLD OUT. That in and of itself isn't too bad, they gotta make a living. The problem is he changed from being honest to being a shill for Colombia.

The only thing I had over people was "Guys, I know he's vapid now, but LISTEN TO THIS: It's his first album. Completely raw. Try it. It's really really good, and it's out of print. You'll see what he used to be like."

And you know what those bastards did to me? They rereleased his first album like it was some kind of 'discovery'. They used ad slogans like "Before his success," and "Work from his younger days." (HE'S NOT EVEN 30 FOR CHRIST'S SAKE). But he's played on LITE-FM. He's on the Barnes & Noble Compilations (they're subsidised for the music they play in the stores.) He's gone.

So yes. To me, selling out is a horrible, horrible thing - once the sheeple like something, any substance that was ever there, any FUCKING ART that there ever was hsd been do diluted for mass consumption, so stripped of emotion that there's no point any more.

Ever. Wow. I'm crying. damn.

Triv

Re:My mallcore music beat up your punk music

[Chris Johnson]

*stares in shock and delight*

Muggins! :D

Rubbish. (But beautifully spoken)

Re:My mallcore music beat up your punk music

[Triv]

I appreciate the compliments (all three of them!) but I really don't think it's rubbish at all. He traded a small group of people who respected and adored what he did for a much larger group of...well, less intelligent people. Communication to the lowest common denominator is an easy way to make it big, but I find it to be demeaning as hell.

The Goon Show quote had a purpose (apart from shocking and delighting random people :P) - media like that requires a modicum of intelligence to find it funny. It's the difference between American Sitcoms and Brittish ones. Most Americans can laugh at Friends, but most of them confronted with, say, Blackadder, wouldn't get most of it - you need to know Brittish History (just a tiny bit of it) to find it funny; that's assuming too much of an American audience. I tried showing BA to my roommate - she watched all four series back to back (!) and thought they were the same characters throughout. She had no context with which to view it. She just couldn't understand what their costumes kept changing. (I'm not exaggerating.) It's the difference between comedy and humo(u)r.

"You've certainly got your patter down, haven't you?"
"No, this is different. It's spontaneous and called 'wit'."

The element to all this that didn't come through initially was the feeling of superiority I lost when they rereleased his first album. Be it britcoms or indie bands, I take pride in finding my own media. I don't own a tv good for watching anything other than DVD's and I try to buy my music from the artists.

I wanna live in England. :P

Triv

Another victim...

[rodentia]

of the Great Rock and Roll Swindle. q.v.--

artistic achievement

[rodentia]

Shut your fucking yap, eh? College-boy.

Never mind the farce, here come the Pistols

[commodoresloat]

Here here! The farce of the Sex Pistols was precisely their greatness, and McLaren's genius lay in packaging this commodity according to principles outlined by cutting edge art movements, including the Situationists -- principles aimed at disrupting commodity society. Of course, in the long run it played into commodity society much more than it disrupted, but that was to be expected. Punk was never going to change the world, but its beauty lay in the fact that, for a moment, it made it seem possible that the world could change. And it certainly opened the doors for an invasion of DIY indie labels, garage bands, fashion designers, and other artists, breaking through the dominance of tired old stadium rock.

I highly recommend Greil Marcus' outstanding book Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century to anybody trying to understand the Pistols or punk rock. And I forget the author but The Wicked World of Malcolm McLaren is a great book illuminating McLaren's background and experiences.

here's a chord now go away and form a band!!

[fantomas]

...since Sid hardly qualifies for the M word)... (muscician)

Hehe but that's the point, maaaan! You're there worrying about postmodernist intrepretations of popular cultural music, and _Sid_couldn't_play_ and _we_didn't_give_a_fuck!

What a breath of fresh air punk was. We all knew it was a laugh and it was taking the piss and if were in their boots we'd take the money and run! Skool kids wearing safety pins and singing "Frigging in the Rigging" in the school playground, punks on telly swearing at boring old middle aged presenters, bands that couldn't play a note and didn't care any more than their fans, the Metropolitan Police trying to ban the Never Mind the Bollocks album cover for obscenity and losing. Total breath of fresh air after the analytic self -infatuated prog rock triple album scene we'd had in the UK. Kicked against an incredibly conservative society and culture.

Wot a laugh! I think that's something a lot of these (mainly US) punk bands nowadays forget, they all take themselves terribly seriously..IT WAS A LAUGH! :-))

By the way, on your list of 'important artists' I think you missed the seminal band The Snivelling Shits.

Re:here's a chord now go away and form a band!!

[MrFredBloggs]

"I never understood why punk didn't die after the initial "fresh breath." Maybe it was needed in some way, but I'll never forgive punk for killing prog-rock."

I wouldn't expect a prog-rock fan to understand! Isn't that sort of the point?

Heres a clue: How relevant is a 35 minute song about hermaphrodites, or pixies or the dawn of the universe whatever the fuck prog-rock bands sung about to most people in 1970`s England? Ok, and how relevant was/is the stuff the Pistols were singing about?
The prog-rockers always took their stuff pretty seriously, but musically its dead. There were practically no talented musicians/songwriters in the prog-rock genre, which is why it inspired no-one - except other prog-rockers. Punk was an attitude - an `I can do that` attitude - which lives on. It manifested itself again in the Rave scene of the late 80`s/early 90`s. You can hear its echos in the modern `protest` songs (punk itself being a continuation of previous protest songs). Don't listen to all that situationist stuff - thats just do-nothing students trying to justify their obsession with analyzing everything. John Lydon et al were just having a laugh, and taking the piss out of everything they thought was shit about life in general - end of story.
Read `no blacks, no dogs, no irish` - his autobiography.

Re:here's a chord now go away and form a band!!

[fantomas]

It was Bill Grundy on Thames Today. Transcript is behind the hyperlink, Pistols and their friends mumbled some rude words in the interview and Grundy encouraged the naughty little punks to say something rude out loud.

"GRUNDY: Well keep going, chief. Keep going. Go on, you've got another ten seconds. Say something outrageous.".
Brief exchange ended up with Steve Jones saying "You fucking rotter!".

(Note for non UK folk: the word 'fucking' was most definitely extremely shocking and banned on tv at that time of day in the 70's, and 'rotter' is the kind of word you would imagine a rich aristocratic kid to use with his school chums. Stick them together and you have comic genius ;-) )

Re:here's a chord now go away and form a band!!

[LatJoor]

Wot a laugh! I think that's something a lot of these (mainly US) punk bands nowadays forget, they all take themselves terribly seriously..IT WAS A LAUGH! :-))

Ah, but it wasn't a laugh for the fans, see? That's why, as this discussion has entirely ignored, punk was reborn around 1980 with a whole new wave of kids who were inspired by the Ramones and the Sex Pistols. Hardcore in the U.S., Oi! in England, became the new music for and by dead end kids, not put on by art-minded showmen with an eye on their place in history. The kids didn't just have to fight to get records with naughty words into stores, they had to fight for the right to have shows and even walk down the street. The music got more grim and violent as the people that punk rock spoke to took the mic and started talking about real life on the streets, not life on the stage.

The early 80's punk scene is the true predecessor of much of today's punk tradition: Black Flag, Youth Brigade, Minor Threat, the Exploited, the Cockney Rejects, the 4-Skins, Blitz, these bands were a huge turning point in punk rock.

In any case, punk is now fragmented. It's not a single code, it's a whole array of different attitudes, traditions, and styles of dress, from gutterpunk to skate punk to straight-edge to street punk to skinhead. The only thing you'll find running through all of them is a disdain for society's rules and a love for punk rock.

Senseless...

[rodentia]

victimization. Are you even paying fucking attention? Rush tribute bands?!? Are you insane? Rush tribute bands sound like Rush, you dildo. The Pistols are fucking incoherent!

Sid Vicious was a drug-addled sod who gave his last vestiges of self-respect and coherence to a meaningless pursuit of oblivion. He is an aesthetic saint and barely qualified to pick his own nose.

This explains something

[delphi125]

taking until 1987

Now I understand why my (US) gf surprised my (EU) sensibilities. She said she was really in to punk music when she was younger. I thought 7 was a bit too young!

zero substance

[rodentia]

You have characterized the entire bowel movement of their achievement in the guise of a critique.

In the immortal words of Flipper:

Mike, are you on drugs?

Re:WFT is this...!!!! :)

[yatest5]

News for NERDS!???

The Pistols were never for nerds...


In my experience, 'punk' or 'goth' is a way for school-age nerds to be 'cool'. What baffles me is it seems to be timeless - there's gimpy goth kids running round my local school now...

Re:They saved music

[JimPooley]

Don't quote fucking Tim Rice at me!!!
Can someone mark this guy down -1 Irrelevant?

By the way, you do know Murray Head is the older brother of Anthony Head of Buffy fame, right?

Mark me down as irrelevant too, I suppose...!

Pistols were THE band,..we need it again....

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

1. They hated each other
2. They hated you
3. They made one stellar, brilliant album
4. They broke up

Now THAT is a rock band! Too many bands continue after the "plane crash album", sad really.
The hottest thing on the charts when the Pistols came was Hotel California. The trend would later continue when Nirvana decimated (and I don't mean grouping into ten) glam metal.

Sigh. It's time for someone to come along and decimate today's cock rock in the same manner.

But punk was like the industrial revolution.

[ahfoo]

In the sense that people tend to refer to it as a monolithic event when there were distinct phases with geographically and temporally secific characteristics. And the anaology is particularly telling in regards to what was going on in Europe and New York in the late seventies -vs- what happned in California in the early and mid-eighties --the RayGun dayz.
As a California kid from that period, the second period is real punk and it was only remotely related to the sex pistols or anything from
The point is, it's very subjective to say what is an important event in the history of punk. For me personally, it was when Geraldo Rivera did his ultra hyped 80's special on punk runaways living in squats in Hollywood. The night it aired, about seven of the runaways from the special were in my studio apartment smoking speed and watching themselves on my little black and white TV getting ready for a weekend of shows in San Diego.
So Johnny Rotten may be an important symbol to Hemos and Neil Young, but it's a bit of a stretch to imagine an international readership will easily share this point of view.
Oh, and I like McLaren's later work. It's all so subjective.

Commoditization of punk rock

[shunthemask]

I have seen lots of posts here concerning the commercialization of punk rock and about how the Sex Pistols were a commercial band, yet they suffered lots of controversy. Am I the only one here that sees the controversy as part and parcel of their marketing? Bear in mind that there was no such thing as an independent record label in the mid seventies, so any band that wanted to get their music out to the masses had to play ball with the corporate record labels. I bet that one day a record exec sat down and said "How can we really cash in on this punk rock thing that all of these suburban kiddies seem to be spending their parent's hard-earned money on?" And now, twenty-five or so years later, we are talking about the results.

I personally don't appreciate the Pistols music, but there was lots going on in the scene at the time and what the Pistols did was rocket themselves AND punk rock into the limelight. Essentially, everyone made out; the Pistols and their label made some cash and the rest of the punk rock and hardcore punk rock bands gained some notoriety.

Now, just because punk rock is another commodity that is marketed by the recording industry, is somewhat ignorant to comment that punk is just another fashion. This is somewhat akin to saying that open source is just another fashion. Just because there are charlatans in the movement doesn't make the movement worthless. Conversely, to those that whine about punk rock bands selling out - if you had the choice between a career doing what you love or working a sting of minimum wage jobs so you have time to spend on your passion, what would you do?

Just my view,
rdg

PS - it is widely accepted that the first punk band was the MC5. They formed in 1964 and came from Detroit, same as the Stooges, and were associated with the hippie White Panther Party who espoused "total assault on the culture by any means necessary, including rock & roll, dope, and fucking in the streets."

Submission

[hey]

I still think of the old song "Submission"
whenever I see a button that says "Submit".
I'll never submit!

I love it!

[DjMd]

Slahsdot news for nerds and there is a story about the Sex Pistols!


Who says Nerds are geeks!

Or wait is it who says geeks are nerds?

Ah! Never mind the Slashdot!
Its a holiday in cambodia, don't forget to pack a life!
(I know I know chill mod monsters!)

Re:Punkers don't do opensource

[Gordonjcp]

Quite a few, I should think. It's not all a "neat-haircut-suit-and-tie" environment. You may not like Microsoft, but Bill Gates is wise enough to allow his employees working environments suitable for them.

Two words

[mabinogi]

Fuck You.

That's the purpose of punk ;)

The 'You' being either conservative british government, or Fleetwood Mac, depending on who you ask....

Re:Two words

[JebusIsLord]

Now I personally like Pink Floyd, but I find it ironic that since punk was an attack on "corporate rock" and all its pomposity, and in many cases an attack on PF in particular, that you quote them in your sig :)

Re:Two words

[mabinogi]

personaly, I think that if any punk was an attack on Pink Floyd personaly, then they probably never heard anything before DSOTM, and also totaly missed the point of The Wall (Which was, Roger Waters saying, "OMG, we became mainstream corporate rock, and I hate it").

Between The Wall, and The Final Cut, Roger Waters was pretty much trying to give the same "Fuck You", to themselves (and probably Fleetwood Mac too...), and the Government (all Cold War erra governments) that punk was, but just expressed in a different way (and probably without quite so much of the drinking, puking, or saying 'Oi' mentioned in another post).

But then of course, David Gilmour pretty much went "Fuck You, I like being corporate rock, and rich and famous" and hence we have A Momentary Lapse of Reason, and The Division Bell......but, c'est la vie.....

Re:Two words

[JebusIsLord]

I actually agree with you, and like I said I like Pink Floyd. However I would suspect that many of the early punkers would not. I have certainly read a lot of anti-floyd punk backlash.

Oh, and it may be a bit of a guilty pleasure but I rather enjoyed Division Bell. Certainly wasn't a confontational album but it was hardly mainstream 1993 either. MLoR bit the big one however.

Watch "SLC Punk"

[erat]

Punk this, punk that... There seem to be lots of "experts" here posting what punk was all about.

Me, I prefer the viewpoints presented in the movie "SLC Punk". As much as I like Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys, etc., I do believe that the majority of the punk movement was over hyped and most of the folks who lived the "punk life" were actually living a romantic dream of what they wanted punk to be.

Jello Biafra may be the one true exception. :)

Flame away.

Re:Punk - Just a revival of Rockabilly.

[jonerik]

just take a look at how many times the Sex Pistols ripped off Chuck Berry

Not to mention Eddie Cochran - mod this guy up!

Warning: Flamebait

[GypC]

English music is like a funhouse mirror of American music. While occasionally there are interesting results (The Beatles, Black Sabbath), it's mostly only a pale imitation with little "soul". The Sex Pistols don't hold a candle to American punk bands that came before them like The Ramones or The Stooges. No bands from England have ever quite had the visceral punch of, say, The Doors, Janis Joplin, MC5, Black Flag, The Pixies, Jane's Addiction, Nirvana...

Anytime English bands get popular in the States it's only because they're superficially exciting in an over-the-top kind of way.

Of course, American music is itself only a reflection of African-American music. I know that there are lots of black people in England, but they tend to be very... well... British. The black American has a very special creole culture that constantly innovates musically. You might think that punk rock is purely a white-boy phenomenon, but consider that the Ramones' sound is a simplified and aggressive form of 50's rock'n'roll ala Elvis and Buddy Holly... and Elvis' sound was merely a countrified R&B (country music itself was already heavily influenced by blues and swing at this time).

African-American music is always evolving in it's own direction while the white boys jump on a tangent and run with it or take ideas from their current sound (note the influence that hip-hop currently has in rock music). Occasionally someone will step into the white man's game (Hendrix, Bad Brains) and prove that they can still do it better.

Remember, rock'n'roll is just African-American slang for sex.

Not precisely topical ?

[n-baxley]

Yeah, so it's not precisely topical

I hate to be a troll, but how does a story like this end up on /.? What do the Sex Pistols have to do with anything else on the site? I sure hope /. doesn't become the new Tiger Beat.

Re:They saved music from The Great Kat

[back_pages]

That's like ten pounds of insight in a five pound bag. No, I'm just kidding.

Who, in any field, in any time, has become "worth looking up to" by overemphasizing anything? By the very definition of overemphasizing, they are not presenting a well balanced form of their art. Who has truly cashed in on this strategy? Pee Wee Herman? Vanilla Ice? MC Hammer? RATT? All of these overemphasized some aspect of their art.

Taking this one step further, which you have avoided, what musical group is revered for its musical contributions yet overemphasized a lack of talent? The Sex Pistols? That's a joke. Nobody ever says, "This piece has a real 'Anarchy in the UK' influence." The SNL skit where a Martin Backpack guitar and a Casio keyboard are used to perform a minimalist song is funny because it embraces the same idea as the Pistols. They can't play, they can't write, but they can perform (for laughs or cheers). How is this any better than people who can play, can't write, but can perform? It's just as annoying and tedious. The crucial factor is whether or not a person can write. Those are the legends.

Dylan can play pretty well, but you'd never know it from most of his recordings or performances. He emphasizes his writing. Where has that gotten him? Oh yeah, everywhere. The same with Page/Jones of Zeppelin. Jones wrote the arrangements and Page had the skill to make the music immortal. And like it or not (here's my two cent predition) in 30 years people will still listen to Marilyn Manson, not because of the controversy, not because of the media circus, not because he had fake boobs, but because he's one of the very few people who made interesting albums in the 90s. The writing was good, that music will last. In the same vein as David Bowie making Ziggy Stardust, Antichrist Superstar will be a niche classic for quite awhile.

What else? The Velvet Underground had some very capable musicians. Did they overemphasize their skills? No, because they had phenomenal compositions that incorporated their skills into beautiful arrangements. In the absence of that writing, I'm sure they would have sounded like a book of musical exercises, just like Steve Vai does.

The crucial factor is not whether or not a musician has incredible skill. It is the writing which makes the difference. Some have it, some don't. To avoid an overemphasis of technical skills is just as damning as embracing an overemphasis of its absence. Either is equally superfluous to legendary music. Music lovers will be listening to Page's guitar sing on "Since I've Been Loving You" as well as Muddy Water's guitar growl and snarl through "Rolling Stone" for years to come, in neither case because of the technical skill but rather because of the song writing. Technique is cheap; inspiration is golden.

Re:They saved music

[Triv]

and as for guitarists, have a listen to Richard Thompson and tell me there are no amazing ones left!

YES! I'm not the only geek who loves Richard Thompson!

Funny story: my dad's name is, coinsidentally, Richard Thompson. Every once in awhile when he goes into an HMV in New York, one of the counter clerks sees his credit card (and has been Shelving Richard Thompson Albums for months) and looks at my dad. They say "Are you THE Richard Thompson?" and my father, being the loveable egoist he is, goes "Yeah." because, as far as he's concerned, he's the only Richard Thompson anyone in the continental US might have heard of.

So the last time this happened ('bout a week ago) he looks at the guy at the counter, points to his recept and says 'you should keep this. You never know...' The counter guy blushes and pockets the recept. :)

Triv

Re:They saved music

[Triv]

...not showing off knowledge of Lydian modes...

You really have no idea what you're talking about, do you? Lydian modes are major scales with a raised 4th - a tritone - that, granted, lets you do some pretty funks stuff, (like, in C lydian that gives you a modal D7, the prime secondary dominant (V7/V) which is quite neat to have to use whenever you want it) but 'knowledge of lydian modes'? C'mon dude, that's a pompous statement. Leave the theory to the theorists, k? ;)

Triv

Cobain & grunge ripped off the Replacements

[swb]

The Replacements did everything Nirvana did 10 years before, except a staged spectacle on MTV.

Their early years were as nihilistic ("I Hate Music", "Careless"), intoxicated ("Johnny's Gonna Die"), and rebellious ("Fuck School"). Along with this or in spite of this, they could also write compelling songs like "Go", "Don't Ask Why", "I'm In Trouble", "Color Me Impressed", as well as a big stylistic range "If Only You Were Lonely", "Within Your Reach", "Treatment Bound".

Paul Westerberg also didn't succomb to his own image like Cobain did and continues to make great music. "Mono" is one of the best records this year, and his solo tour was one of the best shows I've seen in a long time.

Re:Huh. (rent another flick)

[dogfart]

No. Rent The Decline of Western Civilization . A much better film, an attempt at a documentary of the Los Angeles punk scene. SLC Punk is a rather poor movie, more fantasy than anything (though the best scene is at the end when the 2 long haired '70s teenagers discover The Germs and their life is forever changed).

Exactly

[ArcSecond]

That's exactly what I was gonna say. "Fuck you!" sums up what being punk is better than any arty/intellectual analysis of Punk as a social phenomenon. "Fuck you" is definitely a better punk credo than any political or philosophical statement. Being punk isn't about being noble, it's about going to a show, getting drunk, puking in the alley, and crashing on someone's couch.

That, and shouting "Oi!" a lot... and getting beat up by boneheads.

Actually, McLaren was the farce

[reptilicus]

Sad to see that so many have bought into McLaren's grand vision of himself. Do yourself a favor, read "No Black, No Irish, No Dogs", Johnny Lydon's autobiography, or see "The Filth And The Fury" and find out that Malcolm was just a self-centered wannabe artist riding on Lydon's coattails while simultaneously stealing every penny the band made. Don't revere this useless bastard!

Oh, and he totally screwed up the New York Dolls as well.

Suprise Bollocks

[johnos]

Showing my age, but I remember when the album came out. Everyone knew they were a joke. That first BBC interview made headlines around the world. Yes they were pre-packaged. Yes, their schtik was to be as offensive as possible at all times. But it was funny. Nobody had ever called Paul McCartney an old fart before.

Nobody thought they would ever get their shit together to actually put together an album. And when they did, it looked like it would never be released. And when it was, it looked like it would never be distributed.

But the big suprise was that the album was incredible. Pure distilled venom with a beat. People would recoil when they heard it. It was shocking to a degree hard to imagine today.

The amazing thing was that this "punk version of NSync" went off like an atomic bomb. And the music business looked like Hiroshima afterwards. Don't kid yourself, they changed everything.

The only thing I ever knew about the Sex Pistols

[lildogie]

is something I heard on National Public Radio's _Morning_Edition_. One of Bob Edwards' humourous little zingers: that a batch of Sex Pistols' CD-ROMS were mistakenly labelled and sold as Lawrence Welk.

Mr. Edwards cleverly mused whether there was another batch of Welk mis-labelled as Sex Pistols, and whether the Sex Pistols fans were just as shocked...

Re:Punkers don't do opensource

[LatJoor]

Check this out then:

unixpunx.org

Re:poseurs....

[JebusIsLord]

Whatever man, tell me you like Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground and then we can talk.

80s punk all dead hard and serious?

[fantomas]

Cop this picture of Wattie (out of The Exploited) being dead serious in the 80s.

Yeah there were some hard edges as well, I got my copy of Dead Cities by The Exploited etc. (one of the best ever episodes of Top of the Pops on BBC, that was, when they appeared). Yeah the police moved in on shows and there was a fair bit of street fighting, but that first wave of punk really shook up the culture of the UK (sorry, can't speak for other countries), really changed things for ever.

Who cares if it all fragmented and moved in different directions quickly, I think that was part of its success. It was always a lot of people with a lot of ideas, and we had some damn fine silly fun in the 80s as well as the angry stuff as well. "Where's Captain Kirk?" by Spizzenergi, anybody?