The Chris Low Obscure Punk Tape Post…

The Apostles / Primal Chaos / Black Flag / The Heretics

Man about town, obscure punk enthusiast and general good guy, Chris Low late of Political Asylum, The Apostles, Oi Polloi, in the 1980’s and The Parkinsons in 1990’s, handed this tape to me on his birthday along with a load of others. I have uploaded this late because it is unfortunately been dubbed / copied onto tape by horrid mono means, i.e it only comes out of one speaker…bummer! Two other tapes Conflict at Brixton Ace 1982 supplied by Mark ‘Vegas’ Palmer starts off stereo then clicks into mono. Sadly to say Lugworm supplied a cassette tape recorded from Spaceward Studios of The Mobs LP recorded there. Not interested in The Mob LP as such but there is an alternative mix of ‘Stay’ which I was absolutely interested in. This track also plays on one speaker. Point of fact – nothing wrong with my cassette playback system!

Any how, I do not like putting up faulty or mono cassettes onto this site, but this has to be an exception because of the rarity value. The Apostles, Primal Chaos, Black Flag, and The Heretics all for the price of…well nothing. Not sure of the history of the tape, no doubt Chris will comment on it. Not sure of the line up, track listing or anything else. Again I hope Chris or his chum Nic will comment. On the B-Side of the tape is a Flux live gig and a Napalm Death practice. All I the info I got what was written on the tape itself, just band names basically. I actually have not heard this tape yet cos wifey needed me to do something so I just let it play…hope Bucks Fizz does not come on half way through the recordings!

Info from Nic:

The Apostles:
Pete The Plectrum (later formed part of ‘The Hunt’ on the first LP)
Some Men Are Born To Rule (the first song the group ever wrote)
Antichrist
? (This isn’t from this time period if I remember correctly – it features the drum machine: is it ‘The Island’, Chris?)
Solidaridad Proletaria (This is the original title at the time of recording: it was later changed to ‘A New World In Our Hearts’ and was re-recorded on both tape and vinyl)
Killing for Peace
Proletarian Autonomy (later re-recorded on tape and vinyl)
Time Bomb
Stoke Newington 8 (later re-recorded on tape and vinyl)

Primal Chaos – Rehearsal 1982:
Systems Slave (This isn’t part of their ‘Fighting for a Future’ rehearsal tape)

Black Flag – Rehearsal 1981:
The Master Race   (Earliest version of this song that I heard)
Waiting for the All Clear (later recorded by The Apostles, but this version features Matt Mcleod on vocals

The Heretics – Rehearsal 1980:
No Character

Jake from Heretics on stage with Iggs of Crass 1979

The Heretics

811 comments
  1. Jah Pork Pie
    Jah Pork Pie
    June 2, 2008 at 11:02 am

    @Lou-> What was the gig we went to up in Regents’ Park, with some of the guys from Hackney? And didn’t we go back to Hackney after the gig? Or is that my mind playing tricks?

    Did your brother go on to musical fame with his keyboard playing, btw? And was his name Ben, or was that the dog? 😉

  2. Jah Pork Pie
    Jah Pork Pie
    June 2, 2008 at 11:34 am

    @Phil->”Like there’s more awareness but more subtle control”

    As I posted above “Ignorance is bliss, but bliss is ignorance”. The controls are still there, and I don’t think that many of them are all that much more subtle, but the impression given is of freedom, and most people don’t bother to think about being controlled when there’s a nice new kitchen, a pair of Manolo Blahniks or a gram or two of coke to buy. On the whole, people are doing what the government want them to do: stop thinking or complaining; work 60 hours a week; borrow and spend to prop the economy up. And they’re under the impression that it’s what THEY wanted to do in the first place. You’ve got to admire spin doctors sometimes.

    Can you imagine how much strife we would have got into if there had been such things as Anti-Social Behaviour Orders in 1979? Everything we did was designed not to be anti-social, but certainly “ostra-social” (“we don’t want to be part of your game, look at us handing you the ball back”). ASBOs are not only aimed at people who are doing things which annoy other people, they’re aimed at people and acts which are uncomfortable for the political and judicial system. Here’s what the National Association Of Probation Officers has to say about ASBOs:

    “Napo believes that the original purpose of the ASBO has been abused in some areas. In many incidents, individuals are receiving a custodial sentence where the original offence was not itself imprisonable. This includes people banned from begging or prostitution. The ASBO is clearly, therefore, moving offenders up tariff and resulting in the inappropriate use of custody. ASBOs are being used against young people whose behavour may be anti-social but not necessarily threatening. It is being used to deal with nuisance which could be dealt with in other ways.”

    Hmmm, “people banned from begging or prostitution”… Campbell Buildings wouldn’t have lasted 10 minutes. Anyone remember that old Seditionaries t-shirt: “Punks, Prostitutes and Dykes” (or something similar)?

  3. johng
    johng
    June 2, 2008 at 4:30 pm

    since 1997 when new labour got in they have passed something like 3000 new laws.thats apparently more than the whole period since the magna carta was issued back in 1215?
    have you noticed how many of the new labour mps happen to be also barristers of law.
    gorton,east manchester is un-officially the asbo capital of britain.

    for soldiers,prostitutes,dykes and punks…………………………………

  4. Phil
    Phil
    June 2, 2008 at 4:51 pm

    Yeah Pork and johng, they’ve chipped away bit by bit so no one would notice unless you were already living on the fringes.
    And all that terrorist bullshit gave them a massive excuse to do it.
    By creating a new (fictional) enemy.
    Who ever they are.

  5. Lou Mc Grew
    Lou Mc Grew
    June 2, 2008 at 6:07 pm

    Hey hi Pork and Phil and Baron and everyone one else. Yeah it got kinda confusing Pork as the dog was called Ben and my brov Max and one might expect it to be vice versa. I just found a tape which says its Esher 16.5.81 with Mental Disorder and Spasm Ensemble. Hey yes Pork great to be back in touch thanks. I think I still remember the lyrics to C est en Revenge. If you want me to recite them???!!!!Latest update on this here Esher gig tape I think history played a cruel joke on me and although I havent listened to it all yet it seems to be Max, and Ben doing a hour long version of Tubeway Armys Down In The Park booo hoo me sad

  6. baron von zubb
    baron von zubb
    June 2, 2008 at 6:14 pm

    Stewart
    You’ve never seen them or heard any of the Heretics music? THIS MAN IS AN IMPOSTER.
    Instant ban, mods.

  7. baron von zubb
    baron von zubb
    June 2, 2008 at 6:24 pm

    Mate if you ever get the time to read this thread, you may find youre not alone there..
    Lou great to hear from you. And what you up to? Good to have another lady on this punkgeezers reunited.

    Val & you makes 2?
    As the pic portrays there was no gender bias at the time.
    We need someone to find Ruth & Mitch at least.
    Are you out there ladies.?
    And Evelyn any news on her?
    This is now bigger than any individual. Its gonna be punknormous. Were all gonna go down the cut on a sunday to eat in the last greasy spoon thats there, 113, ’79, oldpunks in period costume only. I can feel it.

  8. Phil
    Phil
    June 2, 2008 at 6:36 pm

    I would be up for the greazy spoon. Dunno bout the period costume bit.
    There’s enough of those already walkin bout london

  9. Stewart
    Stewart
    June 2, 2008 at 7:04 pm

    Baron – You’d all miss me if I wasn’t here… (*winks*)

  10. Jah Pork Pie
    Jah Pork Pie
    June 2, 2008 at 11:36 pm

    @BaronVonZubb-> I’ll have to get Sam’s expertise in for the home-made Damned t-shirt then! Maybe we can all walk past the mod pub and get our heads kicked in afterwards, just like old times 😉 I’d definitely be up for getting an afternoon in up there though. Just say when!

    On the subject of Stewart never heaving heard the Heretics, I think you may well be heading for cult status. In fact, I’m reminded of Rocky Sharpe (of Rocky Sharpe and The Replays fame). When asked what he thought about the band’s alleged cult status, he replied “I think it’s great. When my grandchildren grow up they’ll be able to say ‘Grandad… what a silly old cult he turned out to be'”!

    Talking as you were of Ruth, I don’t know if you saw on the TV news tonight, but there’s been a 15-year-old kid stabbed to death in a tower block near Waterloo Stn. Looked like the block that Ruth’s sister (I think) used to live in when we were at CB.

    @Lou-> That’s a bummer about the tape – though a hour long version of Down In The Park (or in Ben’s case “Down In The Bark”?) sounds kinda avant-garde to me. Perhaps you could release it as “Laughter and the Dog’s”?

    And yes, you DO need to recite those lyrics: since I popped up on here and bumped into Mick, I’ve just had “C’est en Revenge” going round in me head so I need the rest of the lyrics in order to file it away in my memory properly. Incidentally, folks, (though it doesn’t apply in this case ‘cos Luggy’s tune was a good one) Mark Lamarr has a good cure if your brain gets assaulted by something like the Sheila’s Wheels commercial and you can’t get the tune out of your head, just sing “In My Life” by The Beatles [as loud as circumstances will allow you] and normal service will be resumed) 🙂

    @Phil-> You’re so right there mate: “no one would notice unless you were already living on the fringes”. Middle England is not called that for nothing. There will be no police raids on Ikea this Sunday, and nobody will ever be accused of hate crimes for writing in to the Daily Express. No Middle Englanders will ever be far enough towards the bit of the envelope that needs to be pushed so that we can hold on to our rights that they’ll get caught in the sticky bit when it’s licked!

    @johng-> I remember reading a book some years ago called “Law, Justice and Politics” which pointed out that in Britain these 3 concepts are supposed to be kept separate in the way in which they’re instituted (constituted?).

    With barristers becoming MPs (and then ministers) and judges (and BISHOPS too) serving in the House of Lords (they are only nominally separated from politics) and now the Orwellian spectre of a “Secretary of State for Justice”, these previously discrete areas are becoming dangerously homogeneous from the point of view of individual liberty. They’re supposed to be separated to provide checks and balances against the abuse of power by the others, but in Gordon’s Brave New Britain they’re there to ensure that we all know what’s good for us.

    It seems incongruous to me that having had 300 years of Enlightenment and the modernist quest for progress, humankind (or “Britainkind”) have seemingly evolved BACKWARDS to the point where we need regulating MORE rather than less. You’d think that if all this government, commercialism, state-sponsored religion and militarism had been good for us and had persuaded us that it really was the best way to live, then they could have had a bit of confidence in us, done away with a few of the less-used laws and not bothered bringing in any new ones. Doesn’t seem to be the case though, does it?

  11. Jah Pork Pie
    Jah Pork Pie
    June 3, 2008 at 12:42 am

    @johng-> “gorton,east manchester is un-officially the asbo capital of britain.”

    If you’re interested, the address that I got that information about ASBOs from has a lot about ASBOs in Greater Manchester. You can find it at:

    http://www.napo.org.uk/cgi-bin/dbman/db.cgi?db=default&uid=default&ID=110&view_records=1&ww=1

    I note that one of the things they can prevent you from doing is “begging in an earnest or humble way”. Presumably one would have the defence, if arrested for begging, that one was doing it in a “duplicitous and arrogant way” 😉

  12. johng
    johng
    June 3, 2008 at 9:59 am

    gorton and east manchester also happens to be probably the most run down ,underpriviliged area of manchester i know.
    tried to post earleir but my pc has started to decide to constantly reboot itself without asking me first…………….oh bugger technology!

  13. baron von zubb
    baron von zubb
    June 3, 2008 at 11:33 am

    Great to hear someome elses PC going down.
    Phil , theres a lot of old punkies about in the smoke? Or young punksters?
    On the coast here we get crews of ’emos ‘ down for the day. I like em. Even talked to some once. Did they remind me of us or what? But with out the inclination to extreme anger & violence that some of us had.
    I’m not in Kings Cross or Hackney ever but Im always so shocked at how boring everyione looks when i go to the metro. Its like a film set of some dull american soap.
    Pork I reckon the younger members of me family have definatly placed me at the old cult stage already.
    Old(er) people are born old. Very soon were gonna be the same grey bald wrinkly old bastards at bus stops, that were so upset by us then.
    Or its over to Switzeralnd to pay the £4 grand. Take your pick

    Oh Crikey I’ve discovered the edit function. Its telling me I’ve got 14 mins & 4 seconds.
    And that explains why all your posts are so lacking in mistakes.
    You bloody buggers.

  14. Jah Pork Pie
    Jah Pork Pie
    June 3, 2008 at 11:54 am

    @johng-> if your PC is stopping because of a piece of bad hardware, you need to be able to see the “Blue Screen Of Death” in order to diagnose it. Instead of just rebooting, you want the PC to stop and tell you what it’s doing just before it stops. To do that:

    1) Go to Control Panel

    2) Double click ‘System’

    3) Click the ‘Advanced’ tab

    4) Click the ‘Settings’ button under the ‘Startup and Recovery’ section

    5) In the ‘System failure’ section next to ‘Automatically restart’ make sure the checkbox is UNTICKED

    6) Save changes by clicking on ‘OK’

    … then, next time it stops, write down what’s shown on the blue screen and drop me a line – perhaps I can help. It’s usually either a new bit of bad hardware (memory, drive, USB device) etc, or (less likely) a virus.

  15. Jah Pork Pie
    Jah Pork Pie
    June 3, 2008 at 11:58 am

    @BaronVonZubb-> “Im not in Kings Cross or Hackney ever but Im always so shocked at how boring everyione looks when I go to the metro. Its like a film set of some dull american soap.”

    Try Peckham. 🙂

  16. Penguin
    Penguin • Post Author •
    June 3, 2008 at 12:05 pm

    Ho ho ho Baron Von Rich Kid, the edit function has only been there a couple of days, press it to amend your text if you ever need to.
    I have been editing your comments (and other people as well) for spelling errors etc, when I see errors and mistakes in grammar I clean them up…please note I do not adjust any of the text or censor things or anything moody like that.

  17. Jah Pork Pie
    Jah Pork Pie
    June 3, 2008 at 4:45 pm

    Ho, ho, ho, Baron Von Rich Kid. The edit function has only been there a couple of days. Press it to amend your text, if you ever need to.

    I have been editing your comments (and other people’s as well) for spelling errors etc. When I see errors and mistakes in grammar, I clean them up. Please note that I do not adjust any of the text, censor things or anything moody like that.

    Consider yerself modded, Pengy 😉

  18. johng
    johng
    June 3, 2008 at 4:49 pm

    @jah pork pie-> dont get the blue screen of death…ever…it just decides to reboot itself,sometimes when i have maybe too many windows and/or tabs open.
    recently it just goes into a loop of rebooting.ie.gets as far as loading desktop and everything else(av etc) then reboots,then reboots,then reboots.
    will try your suggestion anyway.
    thanks.
    get back to the punk rock now……………………………….

  19. Penguin
    Penguin • Post Author •
    June 3, 2008 at 4:55 pm

    We are the modded, we are the modded, we are we are we are the modded…etc, cheers Pork. What’s that mean then?

  20. Stewart
    Stewart
    June 3, 2008 at 4:58 pm

    Baron: Quote: “Oh Crikey I’ve discovered the edit function. Its telling me I’ve got 14 mins & 4 seconds.
    And that explains why all your posts are so lacking in mistakes.
    You bloody buggers.”

    “Oh Crikey” ?!?! :O You got a Time Machine that takes you back to the 1950s or something?!?! Or just good mates with David Tennant????

    PS And the reason all our posts are so lacking in mistakes is because we’re a literate bunch. No reflection on you, of course… 😉

  21. Jah Pork Pie
    Jah Pork Pie
    June 3, 2008 at 5:57 pm

    @Pengy-> I tidied up your punctuation and grammar for ya 😉

    BTW, when I hear “we are the mods, we are the mods” I get a lovely warm feeling about Leslie Ash down the alley with Phil Daniels in Quadrophenia. Is that just me?

    @johng -> The reason you wouldn’t get a blue screen is that your machine may be set to reboot automatically on a STOP error. If you turn off the automatic reboot (as per instructions above), you should get a blue screen with all the details of why it stopped. A lot of sequential reboots might signify that you have a “denial of service” virus though (it’s switching off your RPC server). Have a look at the blue screen once you manage to get it.

    @All…

    One of the really nice things about Campbell Buildings was that Ruth introduced me to the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on the radio on those dark winter nights. All piled round her place for a smoke half an hour before it started every week. It felt like one of those things that was just totally appropriate to the squats and to us lot, for some reason. Douglas Adams had that sort of slightly subversive sense of humour and was a clever bastard too. I’ve met a lot of younger people over the years who were into sci-fi (I’m not) who dismiss it as just a comedy without any science in it. The irony is that the science that he had in it was far more advanced, and his writing far more subtle, than anything they’d ever come across. Lovely.

    The reason I mention this is that I’ve got my MediaMonkey on random and it’s just picked out an episode from the first series. Took me back head-over-heels in time to the Buildings!

  22. Phil
    Phil
    June 4, 2008 at 9:57 am

    Baron there’s quite a few kids walking around town in punk “fashion”
    like there is kids with a 88 raver Beastie boy look, but i doubt it has much to do with a counter culture.
    As i said to Lou, after that recent Crass Gig a large amount of the audience
    could be seen stuffing there faces in McDonalds.
    Oh yeah and Kings Cross deff still has its sleazy side to it (not just me!)
    I still get the odd crack whore or overdressed trannie stumble pass me on the way to tescos.

  23. Jah Pork Pie
    Jah Pork Pie
    June 4, 2008 at 10:57 am

    @Phil-> Are the underdressed trannies the ones who just blend in so well that you don’t spot them, I wonder?

    Maybe the counter culture is just happening online these days. Or perhaps people have just got too fed up with being hassled and beaten up to make too much of an outward show of their dissent: there are probably still a few anarchists and subversives on the go but with the Terrorism Act it’s a damn sight more dangerous to let the old bill know that you’re unhappy with the way things are. Better to do it insidiously I suppose.

    And unless you’re speeding your tits off like we used to be, when you’ve had a day out on the town posing and bringing down the system ( 😉 ) McDonalds IS a cheap place to eat, even if one can’t personally vouch completely for the quality/origin of the food (lawyers please note this is not a derogatory statement, just a personal opinion!)

  24. Phil
    Phil
    June 4, 2008 at 11:10 am

    Hee, Hee.

  25. Jah Pork Pie
    Jah Pork Pie
    June 4, 2008 at 11:16 am

    I was right about that murder of the teenage girl “near Waterloo Station”. It was a tower block on Baylis Road. There’s something about that place, isn’t there? Lilian Baylis has a lot to answer for.

    I’ve just put a little edit into the Wikipedia page for Baylis Road ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baylis_Road ) (mentioning that it was home to Campbell Buildings, punk squats etc) and linked into the URL for this page, but it would be great if some of you guys would edit a few bits into it too, or possibly start a page for Campbell Buildings on there.

  26. Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    Kerr Ray Z. Fokker
    June 4, 2008 at 4:56 pm

    My commendations to the fellas on this thread. I sat up last night and, more or less, read it all. Highly entertaining and deeply emotional. Best thing I have read on any forum bar none and I’ve been hanging out on ‘street culture’ forums since ’99. What struck me was how similar the experiences were to my own in south and east london in the early 80s. Only place mentioned that I actually once visited was Campbell Bldngs but the cast list resembled squatting microculture archetypes of the time, so I found it easy to empathise with the characters mentioned. Only difference I suppose from my recollections of the era is that your experiences were probably slightly more raw insofar as you were the pioneers. Actually I have always seen the Heretics as the precursors of the ‘tramp punk’ movement, both in style and general attitude. Okay, so the ubiquitous props of later years such as white rats perched on shrugging shoulders and dogs on pieces of string were largely or wholly absent, but the general mood of drug-infested criminal decadence seems to more or less encapsulated its essence. There was always a whiff of senseless Dickensian murder to that subculture that seemed to spring from some dark well of London’s ancient blackness.

    London always seems to be incalculably new yet primeval and remotely unchanging at the same time. It’s like watching someone with an extraordinary madness endlessly repeating the same cycles in a bright succession of endless carnivals. Roll up ! Roll Up! No matter how innovative the acts, you always get the feeling one has seen them before, long long ago. That’s why I don’t really fear for the future. Father Thames seems to have eternal dominion here. This dawned on me one afternoon, when I was walking the cobbled streets of waterloo and was greeted by the harsh guttural tones of a cockney artful dodger inquiring if I was lost. The voice came from the statuesque figure of a 2nd generation Eritrean immigrant. But his demeanour and quick-witted appraisal of the situation betrayed the mannerisms of old London. Heh. The song always remains the same even if the melody changes.

    Particularly enjoyed reading about descriptions of the fear that beset young punks circa ’79 when gangs of young village toughs roamed the streets in search of outsiders ie punks, gays, immigrants etc Thing I never got to understand was why and how that changed so quickly. By ’82, that predatory pack instinct had largely faded and things were a lot more relaxed. Okay, so those largely homogenous urban communities that produced these vigilantes had largely been broken up by a combination of drugs, demographic decline, white flight and Thatcherite self-improvement (barrow boys into city traders etc) but the suddeness of it all does beggar belief. The London of countless little villages, as remarked upon earlier, gave up its community spirit and seemingly and unconsciously opted for some wider cohesion based on the illusion (real or imagined – now there’s a contradiction!) of economic prosperity. I’m still puzzled by it now. A mate of mine who left for Wales in 1983 claims it literally happened one night around 1980. Says he woke up one morning and found that all traces of the blitz spirit(ie gallows humour, obligatory socialism amidst endless cups of tea etc) had vanished and been replaced with a simpering monetarism and a transatlantic contempt for the dignity of poverty. Could be. Who the fuck knows?

    Anyway, gents, I salute each and every one of you.

    PS The STP (DOM) aside gave me the shudders. Took that shit in ’82 and I am still not convinced I ever came back to the same world. Remember having severe problems for a good six months afterwards. Actual trip only lasted about 18 hours, after an enormous wait of three or four hours. Convinced I had been burned. Sometimes I wish I had been. Oh happy days…

  27. Stewart
    Stewart
    June 4, 2008 at 7:16 pm

    Crazy name, crazy guy… (*winks*). Good post mate! 🙂

  28. baron von zubb
    baron von zubb
    June 4, 2008 at 10:34 pm

    Crazy

  29. johng
    johng
    June 4, 2008 at 10:48 pm

    Crazy crazy crazy crazy chain!

  30. baron von zubb
    baron von zubb
    June 4, 2008 at 10:49 pm

    Tried peckham.Was more like an american gangsta rap film set.We got lost in the car on the Nth Peck estate.And golly those bloods & their crack whores just didnt look like the right chaps to ask directions of.There was no one else on the street.
    Luckily, and this is the truth, my trusty partner has a compass on her key ring & we did it that way.Headed south to the south circular and thus home to our little coastal town.
    Peng you can mod me anytime.
    Mr Ker has said that the H band started yet another sub culture, the tramp punks.
    Oh lord.
    Presumuably by the time this glorious thread eventually comes to an end we will be known as the unbilled band at the ’76 islington(?) punk festy who influenced those weedy immitators, Pistols, Clash etc.
    And I will have my rightfull place as the spokesman of a generation.
    And the boy looked at Jakey.
    Actually Ker its a very good post

  31. Jah Pork Pie
    Jah Pork Pie
    June 4, 2008 at 11:05 pm

    @Kerrazy-> “No matter how innovative the acts, you always get the feeling one has seen them before, long long ago. That’s why I don’t really fear for the future.”

    That would be one reason why I would fear very much for the future. I don’t want America in the 50s, the Soviet Union in the 40s, Nazi Germany in the 30s or Victorian London EVER to surface again. One of the things about the bit of punk I was involved in was that we had that “incredulity towards metanarratives” which looks askance at “progress” through industry, technology, science and military and social repression of any dissenting ideas.

    We felt like we’d arrived wherever we’d been going and that things weren’t going to get any better. You can call that nihilism or you can call it Enlightenment (in the Buddhist sense rather than the Modernist sense). You can call it either optimism or pessimism. But once you hit that spot where you see nothing of value in re-living the past (and there are plenty of reasons not to re-live Britain’s glorious past) and you don’t trust those in charge of you to direct you to their golden future, you live in the present. There is no circularity in that single point in time.

    That’s not to say that people coming to London won’t follow the same path that we did: I don’t think it was a bad path. I hope they manage to get where they want to be as well without losing as many friends as we did.

    I think you’re right about Thatcherite self-improvement: the reason that there were so many attacks by the good old working class on anyone who dared to look or talk a bit different was that the traditional working class “knew their place”. When punks broke ranks with the mainstream proletariat and declared that they didn’t want the place they’d been assigned, the thugs realised that their place wouldn’t be worth anything if people could escape: so they became the prison guards and decided to batter us back inside the walls.

    When Thatcher came along and gave them the impression that they too were as good as anybody else in the new consumerist dawn (and of course we know that it really was ONLY an impression, not the real thing), they swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Once they thought that they could be middle-class (what a thing to aspire to, eh?) they could laugh at the punks and get on with getting their heads in the trough without having to worry that their social position was being undermined.

    One thing that I’ve never managed to figure out was the particular hatred that other youth cults had for punks. The skinheads didn’t really want to have a good old East End knees-up with jellied eels and sing-songs, they wanted to do drugs and listen to ska music. The Teddy Boys/Rockabillies didn’t really want to make Britain into the Confederate States of America (regardless of the CSA flags they all seemed to have): they didn’t know anything about the deep South. And the soul boys DEFINITELY didn’t want to live in downtown Motown – they’d have shit their pants within 10 seconds of getting off the bus. They just wanted to look different in their own way and listen to their own type of music.

    I wonder whether it was that the punks (and I’m generalising here) seemed to be more political, and that the rest thought of politics as something that (a) only politicians should do, and (b) hadn’t given them anything in their lives so they were wary of anyone who espoused anything political. Or maybe that their World War II generation parents had told them that the anarchy signs we were all so fond of meant the downfall of everything that was good and holy, and the little Clockwork Oranges weren’t bright enough to think through to the bit where they figured life hadn’t given them anything all that good or holy to fight for.

    I like your phrase “contempt for the dignity of poverty”. It reminds me that I have a deep sympathy for those that suffer the all-infusing indignity of climbing that greasy pole for wealth. And I’m happy about that.

  32. Jah Pork Pie
    Jah Pork Pie
    June 4, 2008 at 11:13 pm

    Oh, and talking of rats: Pinki had 2 rats at the Archway, didn’t she?

    A white one and a Crazy-Colour dyed pink one. They were called Duncan and Germolene.

    (For those of you who never got to see the school nurse with a skinned “playground knee”, Germolene is a bright pink antiseptic ointment which stings like fuck).

    Which leads me to think that the white one might have been named after a famous albino called Duncan. Can’t think of any though.

  33. johng
    johng
    June 4, 2008 at 11:29 pm

    first heard/saw the term ‘ tramp punks ‘ in the news of the world……..

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