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
johng
May 3, 2008 at 8:45 pmsome mates of mine had a band called the hysteretics-they never made it into the pages toxic graffiti although they actually did do a couple of gigs-oh and they got onto telly on a documentary presented by old pisshead ray gosling…….
Penguin • Post Author •
May 3, 2008 at 9:55 pmMitch Sam photos up in ‘puppies and their friends’ subfolder in photo gallery.
Sam
May 3, 2008 at 10:41 pmNice one. Cheers!
“Jake do you recall an event in 66a or in 107 Iverson rd called the ‘Indian Lover’ it had a theme tune that said ‘Indian lover you’ll never recover’ and featured you in some long johns with a full on errection with a lot of scratching”
We made our own entertainment in those days.
rich kid
May 4, 2008 at 8:19 amKeith didnt exactly OD
He got sectioned.After they booted him out he was never the same.The drugs they gave him left him unable to take care of himself when he stopped taking them.
As told to me by TB & Roz who were his mates at the time, like they weined him off those drugs & wiped his bum , literaly , for a while
He stopped going to get food , by whatever methods ,got thin , ill and then wasnt seen . weeks later hes was found dead in his place on the Finchely Rd.He was taking drugs but not in any great quantitiy .He just wasnt capable of ‘living’ anymore.I was out of the country but it all sounded very sad.I saw him immediately after his release from being sectioned & he looked 50.
Still making our own entertainment , eh.
But of a different nature I guess.
There was others..’fleshhead’ cant remember, but many more.I do remember you did a very hilarious comic strip about that. I thought you were gonna be a cartoonist.Maybe you have been?
Sam
May 4, 2008 at 3:59 pmBlimey…never knew that about Keith but it doesn’t surprise me. Did they ever diagnose him with anything? I think he was first introduced to drugs at Campbell Buildings and that probably tipped him over the edge but who knows? I last saw him off Cambridge Circus in 1984. He was washing dishes in some restaurant and had a big Rasputin like beard but he seemed in good sorts. A Jam fan extraordinaire.
Rich Kid
May 4, 2008 at 5:39 pmYou saw him quite soon b4 he died by the sounds of it.Actually I aint sure if it was that year or the next.
I think Keith was diagnosed as psychotic.He tried to kill Nicky,went catatonic & was sectioned by his dad after not moving for a week .You saw him after that event I think.
Ok was gonna scan this in but its knackered it seems
There was along with ‘… i want your giblets…’,(mark)The lunar beast’, (jake )The Rubber Boy’ (tony)’Derek the Mellow Gallowsman’ (tony)’victor ‘(jake) ‘The white Nun of Kilburn(jake)’The heat Queen(mark)’Father Murphy'(not sure who, Sam maybe?)
Sam
May 4, 2008 at 10:16 pmI remember ‘I want your giblets’. That was Flesh head wasn’t it? A Fleshist member of the Nasti Party. Wank had a dream that his real name was ‘Quizbit’. Earlier bullshit from 66A was:
‘The Wah! sausage plantation’ (meat humour well ahead of Vic and Bob).
Teabag slapping.
Pointing the bone.
Rogue Bullock (Simeon as street fighter).
Who was Nicky? Didn’t realize that about Keith. One of the last times I saw him he came round my mum’s and we went out with Si for a drink. We got back and he had something we called a ‘warp spasm’ where he convulsively slapped my mum’s kitchen cupboards for a minute or so. Bizarre really.
Talking of Nickys….I don’t know if you remember Nicky from Amsterdam…very cute English punk girl? I got in touch with her friend Louise (who’s now a Dutch TV celeb) a couple of years ago. Turns out Nicky also OD’d sometime in the eighties. It was weird…I had a dream in around 88 that she’d OD’d and I knew it was true.
I’d like to mention Hogging Out but too many references to Iverson Rd will depress me. That place was evil.
Sam
May 5, 2008 at 3:36 amJust listened to ‘No Character’ again. I really like it! Good intro and I think this must have been closer to how we sounded just before we split up (but with the addition of a bass). Much tighter than the other tape anyhow. I’d love to hear the tapes we lent Crow.
Sam
May 5, 2008 at 3:39 amAs I remember it, it goes:
I wanna be in Berlin
So cold I want a new sheepskin
Let me do my mummy in
Through the wall I can see them leering
No Character
Maybe a red
No Character
Who needs character when I’ve got friends
Can’t remember the other verses.
Sam
May 5, 2008 at 3:43 amI lost my tape of the recording we did of ‘Lambeth Skyline’, ‘And the Pylons Went By’ and something called ‘Run Smile Fall’. It was me, Leigh and Tony. Leigh did have a copy. I wonder if he’s still got it?
Rich Kid
May 5, 2008 at 9:35 am‘Pylons went by’ Yeah,was brilliant. I liked it better than LS I remember.
The Dam?U know Branko died? & Manuealla went nuts.That must have been late ’80s too.
Heard this year in Vietnam from some dutch ‘rockers’ we met on the beach, that she recovered. Dam is a small town.
107… I remember me & you fell out , no doubt about nothing, some foolishness –
You were coming out of the smack haze so probably had a more accurate perception of its evilness.Me, I just carried on for a few more years so it doesnt stand out as being that different to other places.
It got mentally ‘heavy’ for me in a brief stint in bedsit land in Earls Court, between foreign trips.Living under a false name,on the run, lots of silliness etc.I spose that was the ‘evil ‘ time in my memory.
Rich Kid
May 5, 2008 at 9:36 amThat ‘gooning’ at 66A was bloody funny…
Rich Kid
May 5, 2008 at 9:43 amNicky(W***e) was keiths girlfreind, from fulham.
Shes been on the tele as a sort of spokesperson for the S&M community a couple of times.Kieth, he knew how to pick ’em.
Kays telling me that she married a well known alcohol heir
We visited him whole he was sectioned in Herne Hill luny bin. It wasnt great.But the rasputin beard was after that I believe.Its hard to get the chronology right.
Rich Kid
May 5, 2008 at 9:56 amHey Mr S you & me seem to going down the road of doom n gloom….
Its a beautiful day 24dgs sunny .Were goin to the bluebell forest, then possably the beach. (its always good to put off chores…)
Had a great weekend , my niece down , always good to spend time with ‘the kids’.Were tight with them
Were ‘ the stable but “kool” ‘ uncle & aunty.Nieces parents splittin up as we speak so its hard for them.Its happened on both kay & mine sides of the family..
So get out into them sunny cornfields withyour family & a picnik & have a great day .
jake
Sam
May 5, 2008 at 3:57 pmDidn’t know about Branko…that was the ‘Braakmaraak’ bloke wasn’t it? Drugs? Just heard from Mike Clarke that Sniper died in the late eighties.
But you’re right…this is getting a bit gloomy. I’ve never been able to truly get warm and fuzzy nostalgic about punk.
I vaguely remember your brothers…they were a lot older than you I seem to recall. Good that you’re close to your nieces. Me and JD rented a boat yesterday and zipped about on the lake. Very nice weather over here at the moment.
Jah Pork Pie
May 6, 2008 at 1:07 amHey y’all
What a find this place is! Never thought I’d get back in touch with you all. Did Lambeth Skyline go something like this?…
One day you’d pay the price,
You even said it yourself…
Life’s design is wrong,
It’s based on health
Now’s the time
Reflect no thoughts
Commit your crime
Lambeth Skyline
Feel the pain
Your fractured vein
Will heal sometime
Lambeth Skyline
(I seem to remember it went like that anyway. Great song). I wrote a song on the same kind of subject called “A Place Of Our Own” some time in the mid-80s. Not a patch on yours though, Sam.
On the Campbell Buildings front…
Just a few other names that I’ve remembered:
Russ. Skinhead guy who looked a bit like the famed St Monica’s Goblin. Died in a fire started by bikers apparently, in Brixton. Too off his face on Tuinal to get out of the place. Was wearing my suit at the time, I seem to remember. Does anyone remember what his girlfriend’s name was? Me, Russ and Ruth all shaved our heads, then the next week decided to use Immac instead. Bad move. Russ had got distracted by Big John the previous week and had run the razor horizontally across the side of my head. Spent next 2 days with head in bucket of water trying to get Immac out of brain!
Evelyn (black punk girl, very short hair. Main claim to fame being genital warts. Worked brilliantly, nobody ever wanted to shag her).
Karen (cute little girl about 16 from Manchester. Not punky looking at all. Huge Stranglers fan. Once told me that Jean-Jacques Burnel had told her (after a lengthy game of plug-the-jack-in-the-Fender-Precision with her) she had “T’Purrrrrrfect Boddeh” (haven’t got my mancunian keyboard driver loaded) 😉
Beano (Alex?) Posh-ish bloke who shared a flat with Yorkshire Phil (lots of cargo netting on the ceiling). Always wore a dinner jacket and went off on extended bin-raking trips every night for stuff for their flat. Might have been (briefly) ex-Army. Had a puppy called Misha, after the Russian Bear symbol for the Moscow Olympics. Damn nice bloke. And, btw, I didn’t think that Leah was the “slave” as Bob said in his article, I thought it was some young kid that Ruth put through a “Kangaroo Court” and kept locked in Beano’s spare room. Could be wrong though.
Alan. The dope dealer and ex-junkie who lived in the next block. Always had the Floyd on the record player. Swapped my electric razor for a ‘teenth of Red Leb.
Leslie. Stocky Brummie girl and mate of Pinki who was sporadically on the game but would I think have been quite happy to be an amateur at the same sport!
Pat and Marilyn. Pat was a BIG ex-Para and Marilyn was his boyfriend. Marilyn went the whole hog on the Monroe looky-likey thing. I remember coming out into the courtyard one morning to find them squaring up to each other. Marilyn took the fingernails to Pat’s face, and he drew his fist back to punch back. I ran up and shouted “hang on mate, you can’t hit a Wo……. Er, sorry fellas, carry on!”.
Has anyone heard anything of Lou? What a nice woman. Funny, sweet and clever. I last saw her in 1981 when she’d moved back to her mum’s in Ewell and was doing some music with Mick Wahee (from The Satellites).
I do remember that Mitch had a pet plastic shark called “Smegma”. When you opened its mouth she’d written inside: “Hello, my name’s Smegma. Pleased to MEAT you”.
I had such a tear in my eye the other day when I stumbled upon Bob’s recollections on here. Particularly the bit about Crow. Now that guy could play drums, couldn’t he? And smile too. Peter Locke was his name, wasn’t it? I was only talking to my partner about him a month or so ago.
I remember the Scousers too. Dunno if it was the same occasion that Bob was taking about: Big Phil was laying on the door, and I got Ruthless to stump up a can of hairspray to make a bomb with if they managed to get in. But they got fed up and fucked off in the end, which just left us to throw the hairspray bomb at the wall. Lovely sticky sheet of flame! I remember walking back through the courtyard one Friday night and finding a wage-packet (about £40 in it). Realised it was one of the Scousers’ so went and knocked on their window. They came out, I gave them back the packet and got chatting. They were really decent blokes, it turned out. Good socialists: The reason they didn’t like us lot was that they’d misunderstood some of the Nazi insignia that some of the punks had (never went down that route meself) and thought that we were in the National Front!
One recollection that comes flying back to me from the St Monica’s days is getting chased round Trafalgar Square by a gang of imaginary rockabillies from the all-night cafe while on a bastard of a speed comedown. Finding a copper and saying “can I stand here mate, them Teddy Boys are gonna give me a kicking. He told me to fuck off in no uncertain terms! And then running back to the cafe where the rest of you guys were (can’t remember exactly who) and saying “thanks a lot, they could have killed me” only to be told that said Teds hadn’t moved from their cups of tea for an hour!
And the other, goblin-related, is of being with Ruth in her room and hearing Bob go downstairs for a piss. 2 minutes later, there’s a blood-curdling scream and the sound of running upstairs. Discretion being the better part of valour, we stayed well put behind the locked door. AAAAAAHHHHH, FUUUUUUCCCCKKKKK! we hear, in strident Aussie tones. Bob kicks in the Americans’ (at the end of the corridor on the top floor) door. Turns out that while he was pissing, he’d seen the goblin bloke standing next to him as well. Can’t remember whether that was before Wank saw the little fella or afterwards.
Anyway, enough for now: if anyone wants to contact me directly, it’s misterwomble@hotmail.com – would be nice to hear from you all. And if there’s a non-alcoholic pissup going, then include me in! (the old bipolar meds don’t really work with the golden throat charmer, sadly!). More recollections when my brain lets me!
Jah Pork Pie
May 6, 2008 at 1:33 amOh, and great news that Mark Darrington is still with us. I knew him from a teenage disco in Morden in ’78 and he was a top fella. It was him that got me up Portobello with you lot. I’d assumed that he might have been another loss over the years.
Just out of interest, a few names of people from Portobello:
Mitzi (my ex)
Claire (Clarabella)
Martha
Pete Oliver (woke up at Mitzi’s party the next morning with a Galliano bottle up his arse. Anyone unfamiliar with the geometry of said bottle, check out your local offie!)
Dino and Lisa (from Harrow, enjoyed the odd Tuinal as I remember).
Little Ken (skinhead mugger. Arsehole extraordinaire.)
Big Ken (nice skin).
And Thing of course (Jerry)
The Satellites (Mick Wahee etc)
Chaos (Paul Hardesty).
The Two Sues (Big Sue – black punk girl with afro, Little Sue – usually blue hair).
Julie from Chislehurst (straight ginger hair, big blue eyes. Kinda New Wave-y rather than punky).
Anyone remember much about them? Or got any other names?
Jah Pork Pie
May 6, 2008 at 1:39 amAnd Slug, whatever happened to that off-license? 😉
Sam
May 6, 2008 at 2:18 amHello Pork…good to hear from you again. I can’t believe you remember Lambeth Skyline. The first line is:
You didn’t have long
you even said it yourself
Aside from that….spot on.
Interesting to hear about the scousers. I find it hard to believe that they thought Quick Phil and his fey friends were members of the National Front. I decided to take on the whole of that Mod pub across the way one evening whilst under the influence of Madam Tuinol. They seemed quite intimidated at first but eventually a large surly pack of them emerged from the pub and naturally I got a hiding. I also got my home made Damned T shirt ripped from my back which I think was taken by the Modernists as some kind of smelly prize. I was escorted back to the squat by a couple of mates, ranting and raving all the way, when I was suddenly gripped around the throat and lifted off my feet by a stocky little scouser. About 5 feet tall and built like a brick shit house, I promised to shut up if he’d let me breath again.
I wasn’t there, but a couple of days later Mad Dog went on a lone mission to avenge the loss of my T shirt. He cooly kicked over a stack of scooters and sat on the bar in the pub demanding the return of said shirt. Naturally he got a hiding too but I don’t have too many mates like that anymore.
I seem to remember Pork was present at the ‘Night of the flying clitoris’.
Jah Pork Pie
May 6, 2008 at 11:56 amProud to say I was there that vulval night, and it damn near had me eye out!
I don’t think that sexual orientation was ever an issue withe the NF: just look at Martin Webster – one of the campest men ever to have lived (or perhaps I just misread him!)
It just occurred to me (looking at one of the earlier posts, that Liz was the daughter of Lord and Lady Cottesloe (I remember that because Claire’s family lived in Cottesloe House on the Lissom Green Estate up the Edgware Rd). She worked in Battersea Dogs’ Home. You guys nicked a framed pound note of her brother’s that was signed by Paul Weller: “To [so-and-so], Cheers, Paul”. Then you replaced it with a Monopoly pound note that said something to the effect of “Cheers for the fags money, Sam”, didn’t you? Nice job!
There was a mate of hers who’d got raped by a punk called Ricky who started hanging around Campbell Buildings. Me and Keith found out (basically she went troppo when she found out he was around) and pulled him out of his flat and gave him a fucking good hiding. Old Bill turned up from Kennington and started asking questions. When they found out what he’d done, they gave us a pat on the back and put out the description on the radio “short white male wearing makeup, bleeding heavily and wearing only his underpants”. Think they got hold of him pretty damn quick!
Did Robbo’s mate Crap really do that murder? I remember him vehemently denying it at the time, saying that there were a couple of geezers waiting for him inside the flat who hit the other bloke with a hammer (a lot) then threw Crap out the window. Sadly, at the time, he said that he didn’t mind going down for it because he’d probably end up dead inside a year otherwise.
And how about the Great Schism when Campbell Buildings divided into “Cowboys” and “Indians” and everyone had to make up your mind which side they were on?
Dunno if anyone else was there but does anyone have anything about the “punks v Blitz kids” game of British Bulldog in Richmond Park (prob early 79)? I’m sure Philip Sallon, Boy George and Steve Strange were there in fully ponced up silk outfits (Pierrot doll etc, and Sallon had a blue silk parachute jumpsuit on). I recall it being a very muddy day indeed!
Just to be un-PC for a further moment or two: “Kilburn High Road, Uber Alles, How I wish that Ruth was Bra-less”. There, that’s got it out of my system. Ah, the smell of hairspray and greasepaint still does it for me to this day!
Sam
May 6, 2008 at 2:03 pmYeah we did nick Liz’s brother’s pound note. This was during an extended stay at her house which involved myself, Mad Dog, Tessa and Mr Locke. I remember her dad as a kindly old gentleman, similar in manner to JR Hartley. After a couple of days he poked his head in the door of Liz’s bedroom and asked if she could turn the music down. “Fuck off you stupid old cunt!” she shouted and slammed his head in the door. He retreated to the other end of the house. That same night I stole a couple of bottles of his Cognac and probably some very valuable wine and passed out. I was woken the next day by him poking me with a walking cane and inquiring:
“Got a head…eh? Got a head?”
Mad Dog reckoned he was going to give a speech at the House of Lords:
“We must do something to get these punk rockers out of our houses!”.
Liz used to bring home needles from Battersea Dogs Home which we’d use after sharpening on match boxes [involuntary shudder]. Of course I had to make a little trip to the Septic Theatre at St Thomas’.
I wonder if we had post traumatic stress disorder after this period? I spend my early 20s being distrustful of my body, convinced some hidden, lurking thing was going to dislodge and get into my bloodstream. Talking of self-destruction – why did everyone used to cut themselves up with broken bottles? There was also a fad for burning yourself with fag ends.
Sam
May 6, 2008 at 2:32 pmHere’s an interesting document. Me scoring at Junkie Allen’s, Campbell buildings 1980.
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/1934/keef3cf1.jpg
Note: Kung Fu stars, jossticks, alternative comic book, Rizla papers, giro, 70’s hi fi and small silver bowl for small things. I’m doing the “Waaaankerr!” thing with my hand. I realize, 30 years on that my jeans need a good wash.
Allen was a strange, quibbering South African. Definitely a 1960s casualty.
Nic
May 6, 2008 at 2:32 pmI have to say that – as fascinating as it is reading these accounts of social history – you didn’t really manage to embrace the more ‘fun’ aspects of Punk, did you?
😉
Can I ask: why did you do it to yourselves?
Sam
May 6, 2008 at 2:48 pmExcellent question.
Jah Pork Pie
May 6, 2008 at 3:24 pmThere weren’t all that many fun aspects to punk at the time.
Police, Teds, Skins, Bikers, Mods, Soul Boys, blokes in Cortinas etc ready to stove yer head in with the nearest blunt object.
Unemployment and recession (…think it’s bad with a bit of a pinch on mortgages now? Think again).
Thatcher ready to rock and roll.
Anyone who had a good reason not to be at home with the parents couldn’t get a place to live (and I remember there being a LOT of good erasons from the people I spoke to at the squats).
Dole money at £5.35 a week. Speckled blues at 3 for a quid. Math done!
Why did we get into it? Youth. That’s all. That time when you think you really can be part of another Kronstadt. When you’d rather spend your time bumming cigs and ten-pences at Waterloo Station than being told 8 hours a day by a man in a suit that you’ve fucked up again. When you’d rather spend your time with people who didn’t look like you but didn’t look like anyone else either. But you knew they thought like you and would stand in there with you when it got bad.
And punk girls, obviously.
Sam
May 6, 2008 at 5:31 pmJust out of interest Nic…which fun bits did we miss out on?
luggy
May 6, 2008 at 9:39 pmAlright Pork, glad you’re still about. I metamorphised from Mick Wahee into Mick Luggy not long after I knew you.
Lou’s still about, lives in Barnet these days. I told her about this thread so hopefully she’ll get in touch. She’s still got a tape that I haven’t heard in years of us all doing a gig in suburbia as The Spasm Ensemble!
Jah Pork Pie
May 7, 2008 at 9:26 am@Sam -> Nice one mate!
@Luggy -> Good to hear you’re about too mate! Don’t think I’ve seen you since about ’81, probably that rehearsal in the pub down in Esher? I’m down in Portsmouth these days, not doing much but enjoying it nevertheless.
Are any of us others still doing music (I know Sam’s doing the bluegrass)? I knocked it on the head about 5 years ago when a guy I knew nicked one last guitar off me. And was supposed to be a musician. Bastard! I keep meaning to get some software and start doing something PC-based, but I never get round to it.
Jah Pork Pie
May 7, 2008 at 9:45 amBTW all, anyone know what happened to Pinki (Rebecca?)? I remember being told she’d made a shedful of suicide attempts at The Buildings, including walking down a tube tunnel towards a train (it stopped a few yards in front of her apparently), throwing herself out of a second storey window (ostensibly she winded herself and got up unharmed a few minutes later), and she was then reputed to have banged up a whole barrel of air, only to find that she’d skin-popped it, and ended up with no more than a bit of a sore arm.
One time that I do have first-hand experience of was that she took a heroic amount of Tuinal and crashed out naked on a bed. Someone just supposed she was dead after a day or so and threw another mattress over her. She woke up about 4 days later as right as ninepence.
The optimist in me says that someone that seemingly indestructible MUST still be up and running. Mind you, my overriding pessimism tells me she might well finally have got her life where she wanted it only to discover a peanut allergy a moment too late!
Jah Pork Pie
May 7, 2008 at 9:47 amAnd Mick…
The only song title of yours I remember was “C’est En Revenge”.
Remind me, how did it go?
Nic
May 7, 2008 at 9:54 amI think that my half-serious comment was perhaps a little obtuse…
🙂
Sam – to clarify, the ‘fun’ aspects for me would exclude drug addiction, catching diseases, stealing from people, ‘kangaroo courts’, and the like…
Reading the threads, the predominant tone is one of an angry and unfocused nihilism which courted ugliness (to the point of seeming as if people were actively wishing misfortune upon themselves)…
It just seems a little melancholic that there are quite a number of people (or so it would seem) who seem to have very bad memories of the time they spent around the ‘Punk’ scene…
My experience was on-the-whole very positive: ‘coming of age’ at a time when Britain had the highest unemployment figures in recorded history, my time on the dole (over 10 years with the odd gap here and there) was a time of much creativity and interesting exchange of ideas, of taking advantage of the free time that not working afforded (such as lying in the park reading with a bunch of friends, writing, travelling – particularly when we were gifted with 8 week signing on, walking around the city exploring, playing music, hitching out into the countryside and so on), of spending good times living in communal housing with good people, and of generally enjoying what life had to offer on a very tight budget…
There was a lot of drink and a lot of substances, but never to the detriment of health (well, perhaps in the short-term 😉 )…There was a lot of hassle from the police and squares, but that is par for the course…
I’m not in any way trying to suggest that this is necessarily ‘better’ than anything else which occurred (so please don’t take it that way)…just that it seems very different…
However, I’m aware that this all occurred outside of the ‘pressure cooker’ of London, so it is a very different topography…
For one thing, out here in the other cities it seems to have been easier to get somewhere to live in comparison to London, and there also didn’t seem to be a problem with gear…
Jah Pork Pie
May 7, 2008 at 10:50 amBlimey, Nic, that lifestyle sounds like the punk version of Brideshead Revisited, dunnit? Jeremy Irons with matchstick-sewing needle-indian ink tats, Domestos and soap-flake hair and rotting brothel-creepers with pink and green unmatched sox. And a lovely first-edition Nietzsche under his arm.
Seriously though, I don’t think any of the people from the squats would say that we didn’t have good times. They’re taken as read. But most teenagers spend time lying around in parks, playing guitar, exploring and generally sodding about.
There was just more to be had if you wanted it (or less, if you will – nihilism is the ultimate minimalism, innit?). Some of us did to a greater degree than others.
It’s left me with a great tolerance (not to say encouragement) of difference, and a very healthy suspicion of people in authority and their supposition that they know what’s better for me than I do. I may not agree with people’s chemicals and/or diseases but I defend to the death their right to bang it up their arm or the end of their dick!
Jah Pork Pie
May 7, 2008 at 11:59 amI may have forgotten them or just not known them in the first place, but what’s this “Band Of Holy Joy” thing about? Certainly someone who knew Keith, and Ian Pigg too. And Robbo’s mate Crap by the sound of it.
Check out: http://www.bandofholyjoy.co.uk/newcross2.htm