I was chatting to some young musicians a few years ago and one asked me "what was punk rock all about". I said "Well it started with a bunch of hooligans booting down the doors of the record companies and music establishment, then all manner of freaks and weirdo's snuck in, until the industry managed to shut the door and regain control. The industry has spent the 50 years since ensuring that no such thing will ever happen again". At this time of year, I always think about that period, as in February we celebrate the birthday of my band, The False Dots.
This year, we are doing something really special and different. As has become our tradition, we are holding the bands birthday party at the Dublin Castle in Camden Town on the 16th Feb, at 2pm. We always try and do something different and I thought it might be a laugh to delve into the back catalogue and play a song from the genesis of the band, that we'd never played live before. It's called Wrong! and we wrote it about the winter of discontent and the crisis in the UK at the time. It was a blast at the misinformation in the press. At the time the band were heavily influenced by Anarcho punks Crass. It's a 51 second blast. co written by Pete Conway and myself. Even better, we are getting the legend that is Tom Hammond, our trumpeteer to sing it. We played it at our first rehearsal of the year, last week for the first time since September 1979, when we dumped it. Oddly, it has aged pretty well and to my ears sounds more Blur than Crass with Tom singing! When I was looking for a song from the beginning to do, I narrowed it down to 2. The other one was a song called "No Confidence" which we wrote when Thatcher was elected and immediately put up VAT. "You all vote in a General Election, for a bit of protection, from the taxman and VAT, but you f@cked it up and voted for Maggie, No Confidence, No Confidence" - Then a guitar riff that was supposed to sound like Police Sirens. There were songs about the Vietnamese Boat people crisis (oddly the lyrics are not entirely irrelevant today - when I realised that irony in song lyrics doesn't always work) , Uncle Charlie's Dead, about the electricity board cutting off pensioners fuel and them freezing to death and The Factory, all about the only jobs being badly paid, boring ones. Funny how times change, or don't.Thinking about it, took me back and made me consider the truth and the myths about Punk rock. If you ask anyone who wasn't there in 77/78 about what they think punk was all about, they'll probably talk about tattoo'ed men with mohicans in leather jackets with studs, singing super fast rock songs in gruff voices, whilst being showered in a sea of gob. Oddly, I can remember the first time I saw a such attired man. It was on Thursday 18th May 1978 at the Music Machine. A band called The Depressions from Brighton, were supporting The Vibrators. They had a fan called "Pete The Mohican". He caused quite a stir and within a month, everyone seemed to have one and they all claimed to be the original. That was how things were. Looks and trends moved very quicky!
But sadly, they moved in the wrong direction. It all moved towards fast, loud and aggressive music, which was very male. For me, the best thing about early punk was that it was not like that at all. The girls in UK punk were such a breath of fresh air. The leaders of the pack were Souixsie and Poly Styrene. Of all the punk bands, these were the most interesting in my opinion. They had something interesting and very different to say. Then there were The Slits, who were off the scale in their desire to break taboo's and do things in a different way. I believe with all my heart that if the hooligans hadn't kicked the doors in, none of these artists would have got within a million miles of a record deal and national exposure. Of all the punk icons I loved, Poly Styrene is probably top. She never made any compromises to anyone. Whist most female artists trade on their looks, Poly deliberately made herself look as individual and different as possible. She performed with a brace on her teeth and ill fitting clothing, but had a look you simply couldn't ignore. Any success she had was unarguably because she was a brilliant singer and composer. She wrote songs that were not about the usual subject matter of young female singers. Poly snuck in whilst the door was ajar. Shortly after it was slammed firmly shut. Many brilliant female artists have followed, inspired by Poly, but none have been able to totally refuse to compromise in the same way and acheive mainstream success (and TOTP appearances).
Another aspect and perhaps a more lasting legacy of those early days was the DIY ethos, where people published their own fanzines if they didn't like the music press, organised their own gigs, if promoters wouldn't have them, set up their own labels and invented guerilla marketing. The sad aspect of this was that most bands simply saw things as a tool to a major deal, rather than finishing the job and completing the music revolution.
In truth, punk went wrong. The big bands got major deals and they either played the game or got shunted into a siding and forgotten. The best of the fanzine writers got contracts with mainstream press, the independent labels got bought and eaten alive by the majors. The real tragedy was that the network of creativity that was able to flourish between 1977-1980 eroded. Of course aspects of it persisted, but by the mid 1980's the majors were very much back in charge. Of course there are plenty of great independent labels, who do their own thing and give artists a platform that the majors won't, but the last thing the majors wanted was people they couldn't control having too much of the pie.
The real problem is and always has been that keeping a band on the road is a difficult, expensive and time consuming business. For a band like the False Dots, covering our bar bills when we play is often a major victory. For a band like us to get TV or Radio coverage is like winning the lottery. The way the industry works is that there are a layer at the top, who make a fortune, the next level who just about get by and the rest of us who have to unblock bogs and stack shelves to make ends meet.
The real tragedy of punk was that there was the opportuniy to democratise the business and give everyone a fairer slice of the cake. I've no objection to the likes of the Stone and Madonna making Zillions, it is there talent. What I object to is way the streaming companies, major gig promoters, labels, etc get most of the pie and spend most of their time standing in the way of bands trying to survive. Almost every aspect of the industry involves a bunch of totally uncreative bean counters creaming off huge profits, whilst putting nothing back. Punk rock was perhaps the last time that there was a realistic opportunity for artists to re-address the balance and we failed. A whole lot of amazing musicians have not made a whole stack of great music, because the greedy gatekeepers and the companies that are meant to promote music keep just a bit too much of the pie for themselves and there is nothing us poor plebs can do about it.
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