Good Morning

The Slits

Viv Albertine's old band in the '70s, the Slits, revolutionised music for women in the UK.  She will be doing a reading from her new book "To Throw Away Unopened" at the Faversham Literary festival in February.

The Slits - "Typical Girls" late 70's British Punk Rock (rare original full-length video)

SLITS Clips 1978-2007 (including Viv and Ari interviews)

This BBC documentary puts the punk period into the overall cultural frame.


BBC  2  -The Culture Show "Girls Will Be Girls: Women In Punk"

I must start reading this book before the literary event.

Punk Brittania 1

The '70s was a strange turbulent time bit it produced some great music and yet also loads of mainstream crap  -  jazz went fusion or free and/or political The Canterbury scene gave us some forward avant-garde music from the Soft Machine, Caravan, and such like. Reggae became more widely noticed and its variant dub style not forgetting the way out stuff from Captain Beefheart, Zappa and the music coming from Germany by bands such as Faust, Can, Amon Duul, Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream.  But then rock had a backlash - the groups that formed the late sixties became rock behemoths or dinosaurs and punk gave a new edge when it hit late 1976.

Here is another documentary that surveys that period. Part of three docs it looks at the period just before punk. I do not agree with all the comments as I was not a great fan of pub rock and I did love some of the more progressive bands like Yes and King Crimson. during the seventies - as well as being into some of the prog rock bands I was a soul boy too.

Punk Britannia 1of 3

I also got into classical at a later period and the Wire magazine was still many years away in the future. 

Punk Britannia 3

Punk rock was not my main focus during the late seventies, as I had got into Northern Soul. However, what followed . or more accurately known as post-punk I found much more interesting and diverse.  Enter Joy Division, Gang Of Four, Magazine, The Fall and Wire for example.

Punk Britannia 3

Enjoy.

In fact, Mark E. Smith's The Fall get a whole chapter to themselves in the Wire Primers book I have in my collection.

My Fave Punk and Post Punk Tracks

Ten classic slices -

The Damned - New Rose

( More music here )

Enjoy.

Just Wondering

Do you feel obligated to apologize, even when something isn't your fault?

Have you ever tried a flip on a trampoline?

Are you nervous when walking through a cluster of people?