Some Friendly Voices

Soundtrack - Free, 26 track Punk CD - Then and Now

In two minds about this one. I didn't really hear much punk when it first hit the UK, though everyone else at school seemed to be into The Sex Pistols AND Led Zeppelin. Of course a lot of that was because it was 'dangerous' - well the Sex Pistols were. They used to bring the records into school just to show that they were cool because there was no way of playing them. I am thinking now of them listening to 'Never Mind The Bollocks' on their parents' gramaphone, anxiously poised to remove the needle when anyone approaches. I was lucky in my limted listening that I never had to play any records furtively probably becaise I didn't listen to anything controversial. Having just had a go at the little darlings, I have to say listening to punk in Worcestershire in the 1970s probably was quite dangerous. I am reminded of the reaction to the Castlemorton Rave. Anyway, the current album is a mix of old and new punk records - The Clash, The Hives, The Adverts, The Strokes. All 'The something'. Twenty five years is enough to make all that angst and terrible behaviour the norm. Are we generally more forgiving of the bad attitude or is it just that we all have it? We are onto the Undertones now. Teenage angst and playful obstinence rather than any political anger. What did you expect? I'm not Jon Savage or Griel Marcus. I may be a situationist and then again I may not. I don't actually know what one is but I suspect it has something to do with PostModernism. No-one actually knows what situationism is because they everyone falls asleep within 2 seconds of starting to read a 'text'.

Submission by The Sex-Pistols is so un-punk and so mid-seventies. What were they angry about? We know now that John Lydon actually likes Led Zeppelin so it is not surprising that the Pistols sound like them. Punk is not a Genre; it is an attitude. Ahh. Hong Kong Garden. I would say new wave but then again, I would have been beaten up for saying it.

When does not being able to play become being able to play. There are NO records where no-one has no musical ability at all. Not punk ones anyway. I used to listen to John Peel in the late seventies and early eighties when radio one was still on AM only and you had to tune it exactly or you got Radio Moscow interfering. He used to play the Comsat Angels a lot from what I remember and a lot of Reggae. Even then it was difficult to reconcile the mild-mannered janitor voice of Peely with the extreme records he played. But even in these far-flung outposts of musical incompetence, there was nothing as bad as some of the atonal rubbish they were playing on Radio 3 at the same time.

I was always on the brink of buying a Sleater-Kinney record and now I am hovering over the abysss like Daffy Duck waiting for the realisation of his predicament before gravity kicks in. Watch all spaces.