Tag Archive: sex pistols


He said he was all right so we carried on

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March 12, 2019

UNKNOWN PLEASURES by Peter Hook (Simon & Schuster, 2012)

joyPop-pickers of a certain age and diehard hipsters out there surely won’t have missed that the title of yesterday’s post on Ricky Gervais’ ‘Afterlife’ featured a quote from the Joy Division song ‘Heart And Soul’.

This track, from their second and final album ‘Closer’, includes the tortured lines: “Existence, well what does it matter? I exist on the best terms I can. The past is now part of my future. The present is well out of hand”.

Anyone pausing to reflect on such lyrics would probably conclude that the author was either a) deeply troubled or (b) that he had been reading a little too much outsider fiction. Both of these were true of the band’s tortured lead singer Ian Curtis who hung himself on 18th May, 1980. Continue reading →

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The very British coup of The Crown

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December 2, 2016

THE CROWN Season 1 – Netflix TV Series written and created by Peter Morgan (UK/USA, 2016)

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If you ever get me on the subject of the Royal Family it won’t be too long before you hear words like ‘leeches’ and ‘parasites’ or  me expressing the view that The Sex Pistols’ ‘God Save The Queen’ would make a better national anthem for the UK.

My wife and I therefore began watching season 1 of The Crown on Netflix more out of morbid curiosity than out of any real expectation of viewing pleasure.

I was waiting to see how many layers of superficial dross and gloss would be applied in order to present HRH in a positive light. But the opening scene of King George VI coughing up blood (red not blue!) signals that creator Peter Morgan has something else in mind. Continue reading →

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Boyracers: Going nowhere fast

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August 24, 2013

BOYRACERS by Alan Bissett (Polygon Books, 2001)

Cover

“Like characters in a plotless novel, we race through night after night, story after story, film quote after film quote, eternity stretching out before us like an open road”.

The above quote may sound like a romantic dream, but this rambling, albeit entertaining, tale is set in Scotland not America so the symbolic open roads have a nasty tendency of going in ever decreasing circles or else ending up at brick walls.

The ‘boyracers’ of the title are groups of teens who race cars in industrial wastelands in the city and exemplify the speed of life which is a double-edged sword of excitement and terror. A kind of modern equivalent of the ‘chicken’ game played out in Rebel Without A Cause.

This is not the story of the racers themselves but of four young male onlookers whose beat up car named Belinda is not built for speed. The Falkirk friends are soccer mad Irn-Bru addicts in pursuit of any combination of sex, booze and rock’n’roll that they can find.

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JOHN LYDON’S QUESTION TIME

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July 7, 2012

I had tickets to see the Sex Pistols at Derby Kings Hall on 3rd December 1976 but this concert , and most of the band’s tour, was cancelled in the wake of the furore over the band’s infamous TV interview with Bill Grundy two days before.

I find it ironic that Derby was the venue for BBC’s Question Time where one time ‘enemy of the state’ Johnny Rotten (now plain John Lydon) was invited to air his opinions on topical current affairs issues.

Among the weighty subjects debated were bank fraud, the British citizenship test, proposed cuts in the UK armed forces, drug laws and whether Moors murderer Ian Brady should be allowed to starve himself to death in prison.

In true democratic fashion, Lydon was joined on the panel of ‘experts’ by one MP from each of the main parties and journalist Dominic Lawson. He was dressed in a designer boiler suit to denote his role as the wild card of the bunch, a calculated risk on the part of the Beeb to boost ratings and provide some much-needed contrast to the tedious party political mudslinging.

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PUNK ROCK’S INVERTED SUBVERSIVENESS

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June 20, 2012

PUNK BRITANNIA – BBC Four

Rock Britannia is yet another documentary series about the “filth and fury” of punk rock in the UK but this one at least has the virtue of putting the subject into a wider context.

There is still something ironic about the fact that this kind of sociological study is being conducted by the very institution that banned the first two Sex Pistols singles from the airwaves.  When ageing punk rockers look back and recall an oppressive climate of ultra conservatism in the 70s, let’s not forget that the BBC were ,and are, at the heart of the establishment that lend credence to such values. It’s only because three decades have passed that they can be sure that any revolutionary threat to the status quo has been quelled.

Part one (1972-76) focused mainly on the vibrant pub rock scene with bands like Brinsley Schwarz, Ducks Deluxe and Dr Feelgood.  The third and final part (1978 -1981) looked at the “refuseniks and malcontents” of ‘post punk’ which also got burdened with the more insipid label of  ‘New Wave’. This was worth watching alone for Gareth Sager of The Pop Group‘s assessment of that band’s sound as “avant-garde jazz meets King Tubby at the roots of hell”.

Among the numerous, and mostly legitimate, testimonies, Adam Ant featured prominently looking and sounding a bit of a prat. I’m at a loss to explain why he should be considered such an authority on the subject. I’m suspicious of a guy who so rapidly set aside any fledging anarchic tendencies to become a dandy pop highwayman.

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