Panic Attack: art in the punk years

"Wreckers of Civilisation" (Nicholas Fairbairn Tory MP, denouncing the COUM exhibition at the ICA 1976)

Punk kind of passed me by. The social, political and cultural event didn’t have much impact on me as I was around 7 years old and dancing around the living room listening to ABBA (ok, don’t hold that against me….). But having much older siblings who were into the punk scene I was able to witness the changes but memories are still hazy of that period.

So I was interested in the exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery which is celebrating punk and post-punk art (1977-1983). The blurb in the pamphlet talks about it being a tumultuous time with political and social upheavals.

A very insightful book littered with personal anecdotes to read in conjunction with this exhibition is "Left Shift" by John A. Walker.

The first pictures set the scene with the (in)famous iconic artwork of Jamie Reid for the Sex Pistols "God Save the Queen". One of my criticisms of the exhibition is that it’s kinda patchy and lacked coherence. Next to Reid’s work is John Stezaker’s conceptual art ('post-Duchampian art')based on collage and image. Art is this subjective animal and I have to say Stezaker's work never grabs me in anyway. His cut and paste postcards of 1950s London may have been transmitting some radical concept about the metropolis but it just smacked of dressed-up mediocrity but in a new style.

Conceptual art at its height challenged the nature of physical art as a commodity but now I would argue it challenges nothing and fits quite snugly in the bosom of the Establishment where value in terms of financial gain outweighs saying something important. A capitulation to comformity as opposed to radical opposition.

Victor Burgin's work intertwines Freud, Marx and Barthes and I was kinda transfixed by it with his juxaposing text and images (I much prefer his work in this period than his later work as he seems to have flipped over to postmodernism... ).

Though I was fascinated by his photography (UK76 and US77) as he explores urban and human alienation. One picture (Nuclear Power, 1977) is of an ordinary family with this text alongside that challenges the notion of the heterosexual nuclear family and the power dynamics.

What I did find powerful were the images of Stephen Willats, Martha Rosler and COUM transmissions. This is a mixture of video, performance and DIY art. Art that is easily accessible, goes beyond the boundaries, experiemental and is transgressive in its message but also has something to say without sticking rigidly to the usual format and medium. Even now I found their work refreshing and modern.

COUM transmissions - "Prostitution" caused controversy in 1976 and for the ICA 'cos of their performance art that included sexual acts, porn (can porn be subversive art?) and used tampons in their art work. Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti who later became Throbbing Gristle. What gave it the extra kick was photocopies of the newspapers of the day with their “shocked” “utterly shocked”, "moral decline" and “appalled” headlines. Brought a definite smirk to my face.

The issue of alienation is further explored by Stephen Willats in his excellent mixture of collage and DIY photography, "I Don't Want to be Like Anyone Else" (1976) and Martha Rosler's "Secrets from the Streets" (1980).

The lower floors were a mish-mash of work. It was fascinating to see women artists influenced by feminism, Hannah Wilke (So Help Me Hannah, 1979-1985), Barbara Kruger and Linder. The influence of feminism was prevalent in much of the work. Patriarchal norms and subverting the female form using performance art and video. Parallels can be made between the work of German Dadaist Hannah Hoch and Linder as both explored the position of women in society by using collage and photomontage as their medium (Hoch's The Beautiful Girl and Linder's Pretty Girl No. 1 are worth comparing as both depict the many fragmented and contradictory roles women play in this society)

The later post-punk kinda lacked any coherent message again the work of Tony Cragg, Tony Oursler, and graffiti artist of Jean-Michel Basquiat were bunched together without any real analysis. The influence of conceptual art and, for me, the artwork wasn’t saying much and not as clear as previous work. There was this kind of respectability and slickness in its presentation.

Photography of Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman and Robert Mapplethorpe (I like their work a lot) but again what was their significance and how were the pictures chosen? To be able to appreciate their work you need to be able to see a varied collection of work and I do think you really need to see the a lot more of Goldin's "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency" I would be interested to know why these particular photographs were chosen. I can see the logic of including them as they include people who are seen to live on the margins of society, gritty realism, no overly stylised content (a kind of "beauty is in the eye of the beholder") and an exploration of sexuality and sex.

There is a short film directed by Derek Jarman (I saw Jubilee in my early teens and still have a penchant for it) with Jordan (not that Jordan) resplendent in a tutu dancing around what only can be described as a bomb site. A very hazy looking silent film which finishes with the Union Jack burning in the background.

Overall I was disappointed as there was no interpretation of punk instead we were presented with an elastic interpretation stretched beyond belief. Why Gilbert and George were there struck me as strange. On the plus side, I was pleased to see so many women artists.

Where was the graphic design, and DIY stencil art which adorned many punk fanzines and LPs? Where was the fashion or anti-fashion that questioned conformity and identity that was an important part of punk? More questions than answers but if you want to see some interesting art that has something to say then go to this as it makes a change from the stagnating conformity that passes for art nowadays.

In defence of the Clash?

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I am returning to the issue of the Clash and punk, because I think this is a political topic of how socialists relate to mass culture. And in particular it is important to defend the proposition that culture enriched by mass popular participation provides a more fertile environment for individual talent, and which thus allows conventional cultural norms to be transcended.

In a comment to the post below about Punk, TWP defends the clash saying: "Have you ever heard Sandinista? The thing about the Clash is that they went beyond punk because they had the courage and musical interest to extend beyond the three chords. To me that's more punk than all the Sex Pistols put together. ... The point of punk was to do whatever you wanted to - not to fit into some "line" propogated by other punks - no matter how self-righteous."

I don't want to be unfair to TWP, and perhaps I am being by responding at length to a short comment of hers on this blog. Hopefully she will develop a longer and more considered defence of the political and cultural significance of the Clash, and their relationship with punk on her own blog, and we can continue the debate

I respond becasue I think she is actually making a dangerous argument: to defend the thesis that the Clash were a great "punk" band, and were "more punk than all the Sex Pistols put together", it is necessary to write the audience and popular participation out of punk. It is necessary to deny that punk was part of a wider social rebellion, spilling out into art, publishing, journalism and politics, and most importantly to deny that punk was about empowering young people.

Instead, the alledged individual genius of the Clash transcends the limitations of all us little people.

So let us look at the evidence - here is the Clash playing a song from the Sandanista album on American TV in 1981. I suppose whether you like it or not is a question of personal musical taste, but this is clearly a band totally at home in the context of corportate culture, and playing as rock stars to a passive audience.



In contrast, watch this clip below from X-Ray Spex in 1978, just three earlier. According to TWP, punk bands apart from the Clash were constrained because they didn't have "the courage and musical interest to extend beyond the three chords".

What we actualy see is a creative riot, bursting out of the conventional topics and style of popular music, spilling over into the audience who fully participate in the performance (it is worth persevering into the last three minutes, where we see confident, happy young women from the audience singing with Poly-Styrene) and involving a exuberant attack on consumerism and corporate values.

It was the relativley mass base of punk as a social and cultural movement that empowered such a diverse set of responses, including the genius of X-Ray Spex. The conclusion is inescapable that X-Ray Spex were empowerng, and the Clash were not.



Again, this is not a question of personal taste, this is a question of defending historical truth, that punk was a mass social phenomeon that encouraged a glorious flowering of talent. To diminish the experience by implying that punk was a constraining format and the Clash were able to transcend it becasue they had more courage and musical interest leaves the door open for elitest arguments, that seek to minimise the importance of mass popular participation in culture.

And another, shorter clip this time of the Lurkers, showing exactly what "Audience participation" meant in a punk gig. The key here is that there is that the band and the audience really are all jumbled up in a single creative event:


In any event, participation was not just gigs, becasue nearly everyone even touched peripherally by the punk scene was creatively active, making their own outfits, writing for and producing fanzines, organising and promoting gigs, being in bands, or acting as MC or DJ at gigs, or even spraying grafitti. If we allow punk to be redefined as simply a musical genre, within which the later Clash can be included, then the danger is that the real mass popular participation in cultural radicalism becomes just an audience, and not art of the creative process itself. Punk was a cultural revolution forged by participation.


(And in case you are wondering whether these performcnces were distorted by the TV cameras being there, they aren't. I saw both these bands more than once, and the Poly-Styrene clip is a pretty true picture of what X-Ray Spex and many other punk bands were like, and even by 1978 the Clash has pretty much fallen into the stale rock star mode we see in the clip above)

Oh Bondage, Up Yours!

As the last post was about punk, and the one before that about SM sex, here is a treat linking both themes.

X-Ray Spex from 1977. Brilliant:

I'm so bored with the Clash.

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The future isn't written maybe, but the past is being rewritten.

As Julian Temple releases another contribution to the revisionist Punk heritage industry, I feel obliged to say that the relationship between the Clash and punk is usually considered too uncritically. The character of Joe Strummer was especially problematic, using punk as a stepping stone to being a rock star.

Punk was a profound cultural revolution that has had lasting impact. The difficulty with the narrative put forward by Julian Temple is that it reduces complex social processes into the history of “great” individuals. So in the “Great Rock & Roll Swindle” McLaren was the Svengali who created punk, while in the “Filth & the Fury” it was Rotten who was the daddy.

Punk wasn’t even just about music, it was about self-empowerment and authenticity, in an anti-corporate culture, and it extended beyond music to street fashion, the visual arts, self-publishing and fanzine journalism, and of course people making their music and their own records.

Let’s go back to the 1970s. Even for those who experienced the period it seems extraordinary to look back on the degree of cultural conformity. There were just three TV stations, and no way of recording programmes, no videos, no DVDs. In most of the country there was no competition to BBC radio, and Radio One and Radio Two were both dominated by the utterly fatuous. In contrast to today’s diversity of genres and styles, there was a cultural monolith, symbolised by that insufferably smug piece of shit Bob Harris and the Old Grey Whistle Test. There were only the major record labels, and even if something alternative was happening then information about it spread largely through word of mouth and if something new was reported in the music press then you couldn’t even hear it or buy it because you were depending on your local record shop to stock it, and it was usually run by a hippy.

Punk self-empowerment meant that people made their own fashion, by spray painting second hand clothes, and chains and safety pins. People wrote their own magazines, and the influence of “Sniffin’ Glue” has had a lasting impact. Punk music also adopted its own aesthetic. And as another lasting impact, a whole series of minor labels were born, not entirely based upon punk, but riding on the wave of their explosion: Beggars Banquett signed the Lurkers, and Stiff signed the Damned. Bands also learned that they could press their own singles, and sell them. This was an important political and cultural space being claimed outside the control of the market.

Authenticity was also important, by which I mean an experience that has multiple potential outcomes. The closeness of a punk audience and the band, the invasions of the stage, and the general lack of deference meant that there was no passivity. The immediacy of making music, or writing fanzines outside corporate culture also brought songs and writing about acne, wanking, loneliness, sexual inadequacy and all sort of other taboo subjects.

Being a punk was rebellious in a way that no youth culture could be today. Our fathers or grandfathers had fought fascism, so wearing a Nazi armband (as I did) was a total rejection of their moral authority. The hippies, just ten years or so older than us had made a safe and personal rebellion in a time of full employment, and a period of political optimism. In the 1970s, British society was in crisis, political, ideological and identity crisis. There was no future in England’s dreaming.

The paradox that our own rebellion would be commoditised and sold back to us was always known and recognised. (And the genius of the Pistols is that they exploded in the faces of the record companies who signed them.) Looking back on the early days of punk it is remarkable how different we looked from the identikit punk-clones who later bought bondage trousers from shops and wore spiked Mohican hair dos. It was very personal, and for example I used a plastic coat hanger to fasten my jacket. It was even difficult to buy straight trousers – everyone wore flares everywhere. I pinched a pair of my dad’s old gardening trousers, and hid them at the end of the garden, so I would leave my house in flares and change in the shed! I also remember having to pierce my ears and cheeks with safety pins on the bus each time I went out, because it was simply not safe to have permanent piercings due to the reaction it caused. I was beaten up twice by strangers.

But quite apart from the Pistols, punk was happening anyway. The Hollywood Brats , a homegrown version of the New York Dolls (and rather better!) had first recorded in 1973, and ex-Brat, Casino Steel was involved with the Matt Dangerfield’s basement recording studio, which during 1975 and 1976 brought together a number of punks, and out of which grew both London SS and the Boys. In parallel, bands like the Lurkers were directly influenced by the Ramones and New York punk, and the Vibrators and Adam and the Ants grew out of pub rockers Bazooka Joe. (of course it is easy in retrospect to dismiss the Ants, but the later New Romantic version has almost no continuity with the art school faux fascism of the earlier band)

Former bank clerk, Mark Perry, was so influential, he had started the Sniffin’ Glue fanzine after seeing the Ramones, and co-founded Step Forward Records, which produced Sham 69, the Cortinas and Chelsea. But Mark also formed Alternative TV (pictured below), the best British punk band, and created by far the best album, “The Image has Cracked”, which confounded all expectations of the identikit punks by including Jools Holland keyboards, and a Frank Zappa cover-version. But it also showed with songs like “Splitting in Two” that great art could be made within the minimal punk musical aesthetic.

I used to think it was a bit sad that bands like the Vibrators, UK Subs, and others are still gigging round small venues 30 years later, or that bands like the Damned, the Adverts and the Boys play nostalgia festivals. But actually it is an achievement, they opened a space where they could make a modest living out of playing their own music, they did break forever the monolithic control of the corporate music industry.

Of course some individuals like Billy Idol and Adam Ant used their brief 15 minutes of fame to make as much money as they could, but they never pretended to be doing anything else, and why shouldn’t they. Of course the insufferable Paul Weller has become the new Paul McCartney, but he could only do so by breaking from Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler, and reinventing himself.

But then there is the Clash. The only big name punk band to have an uncomplicated signing with a major label (Look at the trouble the Banshees had getting a deal). The only ones to become Stadium rockers. The only ones to aspire to being big international rock stars. Of course they succeeded because their ambitions were comprehensible and compatible with the big corporate ethos of the music industry. Their punk identity a thinner veneer. Of course they were more commercially successful because their music was more conventional and less innovative than many punk bands.

From my observation, the Clash never saw the potential of Punk as constructing a creative space outside corporate control, instead they sought to get the best commercial deal so that they could proselytise their ersatz lefty message and get rich trying. Look at the cover of their first album! It is as posed and contrived in designer clothes as any image created for Busted or Westlife!

The Clash’s relationship with its audience very soon ceased to be an empowering one, that was two way. I last saw them about May or June 1978, and many of the audience groaned and mocked them when they played “Garage band” (with no sense of self-irony) in the style of preening rock stars. Many punk bands sang songs with some integrity and authenticity about their own experience, but how could diplomat’s son Joe Strummer really be sincere that he hated the rich? How could they be sincere that they hated the USA, when they wanted more than anything to be a success there?

In "Alternatives", an open mike session on "The Image has Cracked" recorded in january 1978, Mark Perry says: "You all think we've won because bands like the Clash ... are on the Telly, but there's no way you've won brother, ok so I'm a communist, there's no way you've won sister, what you are getting is diluted shit".