Punk: Born In The US, Thrived In The UK? | History of Punk | Amplified

[Music] when the UK kind of blew up which was immediately after really or almost at the same time there was a different vibe and we were really you know my friends and I were really interested in that curious as to how does this same kind of thing uh how is it expressed in it in a somewhat different cultural climate my mother called me and said Punk started in England and I'm like oh Mom foreign political social climate at the time in the 70s was crucial to the formation of punk rock because punk rock was talking about the dolcue and the winter of discontent the fabric of society at that time was that when we first started it was in our eyes was falling apart we had a three-day week we had rubbish strikes [Applause] you know everywhere you went it was like bad news they were talking about burying people in the sea in the mersey because the grave triggers were on site I mean it was that bad the time was just right it wasn't orchestrated it was like all the all these elements of people not being happy with what was going on at present so I suppose that's probably had quite a strong um push for all of us to say well we better do something for ourselves rather than rely on anybody else [Music] well there was no such word as Punk at the time if I remember the first time I heard that word used in in conjunction with what we were doing was uh I think it was Caroline [ __ ] or one of these uh journals um and I was I was a little bit shocked to be quite honest because uh you know I thought we were kind of you know I didn't really know what we were doing all I knew it was kind of different from the garbage that was going around at the time [Applause] [Music] 74.75 76 I mean the place to be was you know the King's Road it was the only place that was interesting the one thing that would draw us to the King's Road was Vivian and Malcolm's shop that was one thing you had to go and see and hang out in I've never seen anyone who looked like this ever before in my life she's just this white this white hair that's just kind of stuck out all over the place and these purple eyebrows drawn on and I'd never met anyone like Malcolm and Vivian because they looked so [ __ ] bizarre for a start people like Vivian Westwood are a kind of social sponge I don't mean she sponges as in leech I mean sponges and she soaks up what's going on the mood line you know she kind of feeds feels all the political and economic moves and then translates it into her clothes everything the trousers all come with a little loin cloth on the back everybody wants to know what that's for it's just a loin cloth it's just a gesture of some kind of tribalism really you could always point out that maybe this it's got some connection with the fact that this ZIP goes right around the back up the ass as well I don't know first time I went into Malcolm store here in England and I saw these bondage pants you know we had straps on them we were supposed to like strap your legs together and it seemed like the dumbest idea in the world to me and how are you gonna walk just gotta bounce bounce down the street I don't know gonna wear that and I came back to England about six months later and all these kids with their legs strapped together bouncing down the street I don't think Punk would have happened without Malcolm and Vivian to be honest something would have happened and it might have even been called punk but it wouldn't have looked the way it did and the look of it was so important Saturday afternoon people used to flip between acne attractions and um Let It Roll then John was one of that crowd we arranged this meeting for him to come down to make us for a drink and he got the gig he said what he called he said the Sex Pistols he said that's all thought so bad I love it nice we'd been reading about the sex pistols in the nme a gig at the Saint Martin's College of Art I think it was the one where somebody shouting out from the audience you can't play and one of them said uh so what we read the first um review of The Sex Pistols in nme don't look over your shoulder The Sex Pistols are coming and he said oh look there's a review here for this band in London who do Stooges songs nobody did Stooges songs they do version of another fun and I thought oh and there was this fantastic line of well we're not into music we're into chaos which appealed to Howard and it was those two things that that kind of went with me [Music] we successfully saw them twice the weekend we came down to London February 1976. I said to Malcolm uh do you want to come and play at our College about a hundred people turned up um and I think we know that included Morrissey half of Joy Division and New Order apparently everybody in that audience started a band uh all seven million [Music] to the Future foreign Club punk rock festival was a two-day event that featured bands like the pistols the Damned The Clash Subway sect and Susie and the Banshees I think that my first reaction when I went down to the hundred Club was I can't believe they've taken take it all seriously [Music] foreign the formation of the bands was quite liquid you know you you one minute Tony James would be in the dam then the next minute you know Chrissy hind would you know would all be work feeling each other seeing how it went kind of thing so um Chrissy was in a an early incarnation of the Damned which she she wanted to call it um Mike Hunt's honorable discharge um a Charming name [Music] they were more like an American punk band than the London bands which were Unfortunately they didn't always have a great sense of humor we used to jump through you know top of tall building to another tool building to steal a flag you know or to or to get in someone else's hotel room to [ __ ] in their beds you know the these things don't happen anymore unfortunately you know I remember going to see damned I think and I'm walking back with Mark P who had just started this was starting this fan scene sniffing glove you've got to get out of there and shove it down people's throat you ideas and if it means being a bit violent you know so okay you know sniffing glue obviously was like the first the Xerox copy fancy it was like an expression of our own thing rather than this more glossy American magazines you know the first issue a sniffing glue put Blue Oyster Cult on the cover then had the Sex Pistols on the cover yeah The Clash the dams and the pistols were all about the same kind of fine stroke notariety whatever you want to call it at the time uh until the pistols were uh lucky enough to be invited on the Grandy show I mean anyone could have gone on and swatched Joe's drama could have done it I could have I'm very good at swearing you know it's gone you've got another five years you can say something outrageous Dirty Bastard God again you're a dirty [ __ ] what a [ __ ] well that's it for tonight I'll be seeing you soon I hope I'm not seeing you again from me though good night I'm gonna complain to ITV I really can't believe the reaction that it had that you know people kick their TV sets in and were outraged the filth and the fury I mean you could never predict that that would go so ballistic that's how they left across uh in in the old uh Fame States and they were the kind that was the filth and the Fury and the front pages and all this stuff don't know what I want but I know I went completely mad from that point on and we all like set off I think we the next day we set off on the Anarchy tour um the pistols ourselves and uh Johnny Thunder and the Heartbreakers I think we we had like 16 dates booked and as we went up the motorway the the dates got less and less and uh I think we ended up doing only four and then it was back in time just in time for Christmas do you feel the publicity following the temperature television interview has been damaging or do you think it's helped you I don't think it's been damaging far from it whether it's helping us is another matter [Music] you know a lot of [ __ ] has gone down and things going ahead between me and John I can't have had enough at that stage pistols Mark II with Sid bad mistake Nancy went over to England because Johnny Thunders and Heartbreakers came over and she was good friends with them and she met Sid and it was apparently love at first sight but they were really bad for each other because Nancy was you know on the dope when for a long time I saw the transition of what that drug can do to people and courtesy of that horrible girl Nancy sponge and I just saw him completely change [Music] I love the pistols because of their again like the Ramones although in a very not American way the pistols were incredibly reductive to emotions anger three chords you know just the kind of damaged sound of rock and roll being very reduced was so beautiful to me it became clear that lyrics were very important to these buns you know they were they were dealing with um you know every day matters in a in a in a very um erudite and poetic fashion I thought especially when you got to read the you know Joe strummer's lyrics and things like that you know steel shoes I heard a screw screaming in a corridor the bad news and the slamming of the doors what did I do don't know what am I here for I've shot my existing poems and uh and read them at Breakneck speed you know because it seems to me that it was part of the part of the house down upon was uh was fast you know you had to you had to be fast [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] [Applause] for the English Punk scene were really mostly homegrown really kind of Glam bands like the Ziggy Stardust which is David Bowie and the spiders from Mars that's not the Hoople and The Sensational Alex Harvey band [Music] [Applause] Tony James and I had a band called London SS that was like kind of before the clash and we used to put an advert in the Melody Maker every week saying anybody who was into the Stooges in the MC5 the New York Dolls should get in touch with us Bernie brought in this kid one day two good looking I thought to be in the band and was an art student and it was Paul Simon and I thought I looked at Paul and Mick together and I thought I gotta get out of this now because you know they I could see they were made for each other it was essentially uh Tony James playing bass Mick Jones guitar and Brian James on guitar they formed the bands like the Damned Generation X The Pretenders and of course the Clash [Applause] [Music] she started the first Clash album and uh we didn't really want to know anything so we just did what we thought we played our tracks that we had a few tracks so we had basically our set before we made a record [Music] at night [Music] everybody sees the second record Give Them Enough Rope as a transitional record and in that time we we go to loads of places we've never been before and see a lot of the world that we hadn't seen before and all that goes in towards our third record London Calling which is uh sort of like when we come into our own [Music] this is really like really angry and loud and just yelling about it was the class were angry and loud but questioning about it and whereas the Epistles was just like scream about how you know something was wrong the class would kind of say well this is wrong but what are you going to do about it [Music] I remember there were a lot of places that wouldn't let us play up and down the country universities and and that's probably something that they'd read that we had a song called White riot [Applause] they thought we were some sort of national front group whereas really the song was about white people getting up and doing it for themselves because uh our black neighbors were doing it for themselves in so far as the riots and whatever so it's time for for the white people to get on with their own situation things got a bit serious after a couple of years when Martin Webster's National front started coming upon games and try to recruit people I think that's why we played The Rock Against Racism geek just to sort of make it clear that we're actually we're on this side of the fence we're not over there foreign called the politicization of the of the Clash was came from two things I would say that Bernard said to us that we should write about what we know about and the second thing was the way that Joe was was always thinking about things like that grammar thought of the world and the potential of of music as like uh you know he's always making references to radio broadcasts and you know this one's going out to to the world he had that kind of Woody Guthrie thing or a kind of thing that Dylan had and Bob Marley had and and sometimes John Lennon had where they they were aware of that power but they weren't egotistical about it [Music] and he had this sense and he knew and it was true that something he would think of in a small in his basement in Ladbroke Grove had the potential of affecting you know young people particularly all over the planet [Music] these are your eyes [Music] in July of 76 we went to Ireland and we played The Roundhouse I couldn't believe it I said this is the audience that the Ramones deserve this is the artist that this music needs this is the other half it was just like totally like a really short songs really hard attack No Nonsense and it was just like cut down bare to the Bone you know that that was inspiring there were members of The Clash The Sex Pistols Sid Vicious learned how to play the guitar by listening to The Ramones and just staying up for three nights on speed and playing along the Ramones records and the Ramones were the one band I think that the English punks kind of looked up to and I remember saying to Joey and he was like oh they really liked us in England I was like yeah but who cares a thing one you know

Channel: Amplified - Classic Rock & Music History

Views: 164,971

Keywords: American punk rock, Amplified - Classic Rock & Music History, US punk rock, alternative music history, birth of punk rock, controversial music genre, defiant music culture, evolution of punk rock, famous punk venues, history of punk music, iconic punk musicians, iconic punk songs, non-conformist music style, punk rock bands, punk rock documentary, punk rock era, punk rock evolution, punk rock musicians, punk rock revolution, raw energy music style, underground music scene

Id: LxnI2JkvxtA

Length: 18min 18sec (1098 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 25 2022