FishFright
More wheels than sense
Perfection
King George's Hall had loads of folk on.
In fact I saw my first ever band there - Slade
(actually a great band)
I trust you weren't in the audience for that?
It's hard to know, and easy to read things in retrospectively with the benefit of (even rather belated!) hindsight. For me the songs stand or fall on their own merit, and will always be superb high-energy low-tech pop - it was never really punk - that carries good memories for me. I don't know now whether knowledge of his sexuality would have changed the way I appreciated the music in 1978. I guess that it would have made it seem more risqué, but that would have detracted from the enjoyment of the music for itself. After all, you don't need to know the biography of an artist to appreciate great art.Does this by the way rob or others shine a light on any of those driving hymns to angst?
Even as a big Buzzcocks fan, I had no idea at the time that Pete Shelley was bi, or gay, or however he would have described it. I only found out some 25 years later when a colleague of the same age as me said that this was common knowledge amongst the music-following youth of Liverpool at the end of the 70s. I can only imagine it was not mentioned in the NME and similar, else we would have known in South London/Surrey too. That suggests a degree of self-censorship even in the supposedly avant-garde music press in those days, whereas in the many obituaries today his ambivalent sexuality is openly discussed.
ETA: oh, the Damned, of course, the Damned.
- How may "genuine" punk bands were there? The Pistols obviously, and then? The Clash were an electrified skiffle group of middle class kids pretending to slum it. The stranglers read philosophy, spoke French and were melodic. So apart from the Slits and the Ramones, who else?
SLF and The RutsETA: oh, the Damned, of course, the Damned.
- How may "genuine" punk bands were there? The Pistols obviously, and then? The Clash were an electrified skiffle group of middle class kids pretending to slum it. The stranglers read philosophy, spoke French and were melodic. So apart from the Slits and the Ramones, who else?
Maybe I was being a little unfair to the Buzzcocks earlier on. Spiral Scratch certainly came over rather punky, but by Ever Fallen in Love they had moved onto great pop. Interesting too that Howard Devoto who left the band at that time was soon doing something more crafted and artistic with Magazine too.ETA: oh, the Damned, of course, the Damned.
- How may "genuine" punk bands were there? The Pistols obviously, and then? The Clash were an electrified skiffle group of middle class kids pretending to slum it. The stranglers read philosophy, spoke French and were melodic. So apart from the Slits and the Ramones, who else?