IS THERE STILL ANARCHY IN THE U.K.?

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IS THERE STILL ANARCHY IN THE UK?

I already know that the first line of an article is supposed to be catchy, intriguing, maybe shocking… but definitely in some way, is also supposed to make the reader feel ensured that the writer is informed. I’m going to do the opposite and tell you that I’m not a fucking punk scholar! All I have to hold on to is the hope that the perspective of a 20 year old – writing 42 years on from when the first punk single in the UK was released – is at least (vaguely) interesting and new. Though to help me out a bit, I’ll be including opinions and quotes from punk musicians who actually know what they’re talking about (all retrieved from interviews, documentaries and writings created by people much more talented and hard-working than me). Anyway, in order to give any kind of answer to the title question, I thought it’d be best to establish three things:

  1. Is PUNK an ATTITUDE or a SOUND?

  2. Does POLITICS make PUNK?

  3. Did PUNK DIE?

Once we have a grip on a working, supported definition of punk and understand if or when it disappeared and in what circumstances, we can conclude whether it’s dead and gone, or been lying dormant to erupt again.

ATTITUDE OR SOUND?

I think we know punk when we hear it, but what makes its sound? If we believe that everything is formed by its past, whether in influence or rejection, then it’s my best guess that the same thing happened with punk. Although it’s always felt like an unspoken law to scorn rock/metal giants like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, Arturo Bassick of The Lurkers mentioned that he’s “fallen asleep at a Black Sabbath concert”, mainly because of the abundance of “long guitar solos and twenty minute numbers” which all felt “too long [and] drawn out”. Explains the incentive for quick, snappy chord changes in tracks no longer than two minutes – so was punk a defiance against its preceding 70s rock and metal, riddled with self-indulgent solos performed on 7-foot high stages?

More obviously and a lot less arguably, punk is a massive fuck-you to the sweetened bubblegum pop slathered all over the media in the 80s, 70s and – well since ever, really. It makes sense to combat all the sugar with almost stupid levels of volume, speed, energy and viciousness, and all of this reaching the UK Top Ten on a few occasions (I’ll have to find all the videos I can of incongruous Top of the Pops punk performances) was a total revolution. This chaos was appealing, and it’s easy to see how punk caught on; Rat from the Varukers says “[punk] just seemed so exciting after watching shit bands on TV like ABBA, The Bay City Rollers and Boney M”. With that, I think we’ve accepted that a lot of punk was born out of distaste for the banality paraded around the charts in the 70s, but surely what ignited, justified, and unified this active feeling was an attitude?

Well, yes. First of all, everyone who thought Boney M and Cliff Richard were shit at that time all shared that level of defiance in common, particularly in an environment where it wasn’t really okay to go against the grain (it’s hard to think that by the late 70s, homosexuality had been legalised barely 10 years earlier). Adding to that though, was a feeling of wanting to be the opposite of what’s been idealised – all the long hair, baggy clothes and disco dancing became short spikes, leather jackets and ‘dancing’ I’d describe as half-pogoing and half-beating-the-shit-out-of-everyone (but most of the time quite amiably) This leads up to Captain Sensible’s philosophy: “punk rock should be appalling, disgraceful, [muttering what sounds like an apology to the cameraman as he tips over a nearby table] … just vomit on life and get your fucking arsehole out [demonstrated] … that’s punk rock for you”. You could say punk was just rejection for the sake of it, just to piss people off, but it definitely carried a strong message: you can’t tell us what we want.

So, punk undeniably has its own sound – formed predominantly by a rejection a pop – and this naked rejection is inevitably founded on an attitude of rebellion. Can one exist without the other? Punk with no attitude is posing, and the attitude that makes punk can be used in other genres (a lot of rap shows the same anti-police, anti-discrimination and anti-establishment energy) without it sounding like punk. Looks like there’s always been a bit of both.

IS THERE PUNK WITHOUT POLITICS?

Looking back on 70s and 80s punk, it’s easy to think politics is integral to punk. If you listen to practically anything by Crass, Subhumans, the Dead Kennedys, The Exploited… it seems clear that these bands’ music is born out of anger and discontent of the political environment we’re stuck in: Crass rants about the unjust class system, Subhumans warns us of the potential devastation of nuclear war, the Dead Kennedys wrote a song just to shit all over President Ronald Reagan and The Exploited’s Maggie doesn’t leave a lot to the imagination. (Any of these factors feel only too familiar? One? All of them?) “Social problems – that’s what punk’s about” reckons Wattie himself, and Jello Biafra talks about punk’s incentive to “break down different types of uniform and social etiquette getting in the way of an open mind”. But what about some of the punk giants like the Buzzcocks or The Damned – you can’t hear much anti-establishment there. The Ramones didn’t even swear did they?!

That’s just it – anarcho-punk is just a branch of punk, and I was surprised to find even Discharge – with their famously pacifistic lyrics and cover art – aren’t all what they seem… Founding member Tez tells Ian Glasper in Burning Britain “[Cal] was the one who was really anti-war. The rest of us didn’t give a shit about it personally; we just wanted to go out there and make a fuckin noise and piss some people off!”. Simon of Court Martial also mentions that “we weren’t anarchists or anything, we were just a bunch of kids from a working class background who formed a band for the love of music”. Seems like there isn’t much of a clear answer to this one. Personally, I think the idea of working class teenagers gaining a platform to write lyrics about their life and perform their own music – the kind of kids who haven’t had prior years of guitar, drum or singing lessons paid for by their parents, and the kind of kids who didn’t go to private art and music schools – is a big political statement in itself.

DID PUNK DIE? IS IT ALIVE NOW?

I’ll tell you what’s disheartening: hearing people, in 1981, talk about punk being dead. I think of the early 1980s as being the pinnacle of punk – if it was dead then, what is it now?

But there are a couple things about punk that are immortal. Punk’s attitude can exist in other musical genres and places, as Jello Biafra explains: “there’s always going to be punk in some way … the spirit is where you find it”. And it’s true: there’s always something to be angry about in social and political terms and things in 2018 give us plenty of ammo, the same kind of things fuelling punk back in the day. History repeats itself.

When we look at mainstream music now, it’s hard to deny its impeccability, in terms of autotuning, musicianship, and image: we expect everything to sound and look perfect, not one note slipped, drum beat missed, and those superstars who rule the media have always been a flawless, plastic kind of beautiful. Now more than ever we need ugliness and crudity, someone to balls up a snare roll while headlining Glastonbury and someone else to break a string in the middle of recording an album then carry on playing a three-stringed bass for the next five songs. This age of robotic perfection is daunting and unreal and most importantly, hard to keep up. Punk’s momentum is running faster.

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