All you need is one guy or girl
to stand up and say fuck this...
and everyone goes,
Voice of a Generation.
Thank you,
I've been thinking that.
I never had the guts
to stand up and say it...
and all of a sudden,
fuck this has a backbeat.
You know,
what John Lennon always said...
say what you mean and mean
what you say, put a beat to it... go.
You only need 5% or less...
to like embrace ideas
and change it...
you know, change the way
people think all over again.
There's always gonna be people who are
artistically inclined who are gonna...
somehow find something that
brings them into the same room...
where they're gonna exchange information
and they're then gonna take that out.
It becomes a lineage.
These people find each other
and this time-line grows.
This is a public service
Announcement
With guitars
Know your rights
All three of them
You're kickin' ass.
You're doing
something new...
and you don't give a shit
about fucking commerciality...
and that's what punk is.
It's really kind of a philosophical thing
about how you look at some things.
Originally punk meant, you know, a guy
in prison who got fucked up the ass...
and that's still what it
means to people in prison.
I think it starts with
Brando in the "Wild One".
The famous line from that of course was
"What are you rebelling against?"
And Brando turns to the camera and says,
"What have you got?"
The rebellious part of it
was very important because...
people get
too complacent.
Shake, baby, shake
Shake, baby, shake
And I think the fight against
that complacency is punk rock.
If you look a little
back you see...
it was in 50's rock
and roll is really punk.
Running across the mother fucking
stage on one leg like this duck.
Like doing this duck walk shit and
some punk shit, you know what I mean?
Go, my coccon
There is your Mum's music and all
of a sudden here comes Elvis Presley.
Its always very important for like
iconoclastic artists to upset things.
Every culture, every century
has a handful of these dudes.
Guys and girls who go,
"Oh no, you don't"...
If you said, gonna crawl
I'm on the road again
The hippies were the real
punks if you ask me.
That was just as punk
rock as anything...
when everyone was against Vietnam
and they were doing their own thing...
and they were all having parties,
taking LSD at Woodstock and all that.
People were sort of
united against the war...
but they were united generally
against the establishment.
I always liked hippies, man.
I mean this country couldn't go
wrong with them. They're hippies.
You know,
they're not gonna hurt anybody.
They just wanna get high,
hear some music and fuck, you know.
We wanted punk to
wipe out the hippies...
blow up the whole world of rock 'n' roll
and start all over again.
Too many tears dropped
For one mind, to be crying
When I was a kid they
used to call punk rock...
like, you know, like,
Lenny Kay's Nuggets...
you know those garage bands
that he came out with...
and that's what I thought
punk rock was.
In his liner notes he said...
well, you know, some critics have
referred to this as punk...
and right after that you just start
to sort of seeing that word a little bit.
They were kind of like, you know,
young kids, American kids...
that were trying to copy what
the Rolling Stones were doing...
and some of the other
English bands...
and weren't really as,
even as, professional as them.
What I'm doing
Yeah, you really got me now
You got me bedside at night
Yeah, you really got me now
I mean I grew up with
the British Invasion...
but there was also really
great American bands...
that kinda got lost
in the shuffle...
like Question Mark & The Mysterions
and The Standells and Count 5...
you know Psychotic Reaction.
You know they were very
simple three-chord rock.
I can't get your love
I can't get affection
Oh, little girls
I got a reaction
And it feels like this
There is a school of thought
that has Andy Warhol...
figuring quite significantly...
in some of the gruesome scratches
that became Punk Rock.
The Velvet's stood out from
that whole hippie culture...
with the dressed in black,
the wraparound shades...
the subject matter
of the material.
The literary influences,
the sado-masochism, the drugs...
it was so attractive
and so alluring...
and I just loved it because it was
saying fuck off to the hippies as well.
Opening peoples minds up
to other possibilities...
can only be done sometimes
with rabid ideas.
Your really trying to be polite
about it in some ways...
and saying "Hey, don't you get it?"
And generally they don't...
and you have to push
the boundaries.
Here she comes
Up three flights of stairs
Nico came and
joined the band...
and this was kind of the first
turn she took in her career...
she was a top
fashion model.
Everybody knows
The things she
does to please
She's just a little tease
See the way she walks
Nobody understood it
at the time...
and that's where I suddenly got
a different view of Andy...
and that he had
the vision of...
of what PR really is and
how to propel image.
But the astonishing thing
about Lou's talent at the time...
was the literary
background...
but also he could sit
down with a guitar...
and pop up a song about
almost anything.
Hey, white boy
What you're doing uptown?
Hey, white boy
You're chasing all women around
But when their record came out
it was actually listenable...
and you know, to me, it was a beautiful
record, I played it all the time.
Lou Reed and his crew
making this atonal music...
coming from art and heroin and death
in the middle of like feel good...
that's Punk Rock.
Kick out the jams, motherfuckers.
Come on, go back
That's me
Feel pretty good
Yes, I could get crazy
The MC5 was part of
an entire generation...
that was in agreement that the direction
the country was going in was wrong.
We were the ones that were
gonna have to go to Vietnam...
we didn't agree with the way they
treated people of colour in America.
We didn't agree with the way they
surpressed our cultural efforts...
our ideas about things and
we just wanted to be heard.
Feel unhappy having
a good time
Doing all right
Doing all right
Doing all right
Doing all right
Yeah, basically our luck was cultural
revolution by any means necessary...
including rock 'n' roll, dope
and fucking in the streets...
that was number 1.
We read in the Black Panther newspaper
that Hughie Newton said...
there needs to be a
white Panther party...
to do parallel work that
the Black Panthers were doing.
We said that's us, we're ready,
yeah, let's go.
When you get that feeling
You gotta sock'em out
Put that mike in my hand
Let me kick out the jams
Kick out the jams
Gotta kick out the jams
One of our songs was called
"Kick Out The Jams"...
and we cooked up this intro for
the tune where Tyler would scream...
"Kick out the jams, mother fuckers"
and we knew it was a little bit wicked...
and we're kind of breaking a taboo,
gosh they said a bad word...
but what the hell, you know, this is
rock 'n' roll and it's all in good fun...
but when they rushed
the album out...
the programmers heard
the motherfucker and...
they lost it, they lost it...
and it effectively broke the back of
the whole, the MC5's entire campaign.
It's hard to think of today...
when you almost have
to say motherfucker.
I mean, you're talking about people,
a rock 'n' roll band, you know.
We're on acid, you know.
We're smoking 50 joints a day...
you know, around, biting along
with the bands for hundreds of miles...
with James Brown playing on ten,
in the car, you know.
We had some friends
up in Ann Arbour...
that shared some principles
with the MC5...
sonically especially, and they called
their band the Stooges.
Gimme danger
Little stranger
And I'll feel you bleed
Gimme danger
Little stranger
And I'll heal your disease
I remember the first time
I saw Iggy Pop...
he was covered with oil
and glitter...
and everyone was kinda staring at him,
going what the hell is this, you know?
It was kinda strange,
different kinda attitude...
and he was kinda jumping around
like a spastic, you know.
Now if you will be my lover
I will shiver and sing
Primal beats, you know,
slabs of sound...
brutally,
psychologically honest.
Lyrics, you know...
in a metaphoric, I mean, "I wanna be
your dog", those kinds of things...
things that he grabbed
from the blues.
Now I wanna be your dog
Now I wanna be your dog
I think the transformative experience
that happened to Ig...
was, and I was at the show too,
he saw The Doors.
Seeing the Doors
changed them.
They were mesmerised...
what they saw in that performance
gave them a whole new lease on life.
I'm worth a million in prizes
Yeah, I'm through with sleeping
On the sidewalk
No more beating my brains
Beating my brains
With liquor and drugs
With liquor and drugs
You know these were bands that weren't
selling records, you know.
Iggy claimed as far as he knew he didn't
sell any records until he came to NY...
and met this other, this newer generation
of like The Ramones and stuff who were...
completely informed by The Stooges,
which was shocking for him.
It seemed like a lot of the people
who started the early...
both the punk and the new
wave bands in America...
were the only Stooges
fan in their town...
the only
Velvet Underground fan...
and then we all moved to bigger
towns and met each other...
and started bands.
Yeah, yeah, yeah
No, no, no
Baby, no, no, no
You know rock 'n' roll
had become this just be...
denimed kind
of drum solo...
kind of thing, and what we wanted to do
was to bring it down to 3 minutes and...
put that Little Richard
drag on top of it and...
that's what rock 'n' roll was to us.
You know...
we were just trying
to make rock 'n' roll.
Punk rock wasn't even a thought
at that time I don't think...
but the seeds for punk were certainly
being sown by The Dolls...
and by all the bands that had
come previous to that...
such as The Velvets and
The Stooges and the MC5.
And your a prima ballerina
On a spring afternoon
Change on into the wolfman
Howlin at the moon
In England there was this thing,
this controversy...
because this guy said...
what did he say, mock rock...
which, you know I mean,
I couldn't care less at the time...
but I could see how it...
kinda like galvanised kids who
thought, like, this is the real deal...
so what do you know,
you old fart.
Festival music from an American
group like the Stones...
like the Monkees were
to the Beatles.
A pale and amusing derivative.
These are the
New York Dolls.
Who so fly up in the sky
Faster than any boy
could ever describe
When I saw them and the way
they didn't care about nothing...
and that just really struck me straight
away, you know what I mean.
It was something completely different
to anything else that was going on then.
Every punk band that I knew
in London, and I know all of them...
they all had both of
the New York Dolls albums.
No one had told us that
we had all this impact.
We didn't know
anything about it.
Yeah, we would have moved
to England and stayed here.
When I say I'm a luv you'd
best believe I'm a luv, L.U. V.
I know that there's this thing, Malcolm
McClaren managed The Dolls but...
he hung around with this us for the last
2 weeks of our existence. We were like...
we were going
down in flames.
Malcolm thought like what's the
most shocking thing in America?
They're really afraid of
communism in America...
so let's make all these red clothes
and have a red party.
And then for shock value...
he put a big flag with a hammer
and sickle in the back.
They didn't sing about
being communists...
it was just there to irritate
people and it sure did.
It's so funny to
think now that...
you know, that communism
in the States was like...
was like child molesting,
you know.
So this was it, I mean, in America which
we were such a hard pill to swallow.
You know everyone
was booing them.
You know, "Faggots get off the stage",
and you know and a lot of that stuff.
We were number one man and
we were way ahead of the pack...
and then that's when we fell
and broke our leg...
and bam and everyone
else just whoosh.
The red and black leather show and
that look was kind of the final blow.
It's sort of interesting
as that sort of marks...
the point where glam rock died
and punk rock started.
As The Dolls sort of began to wind
down and then eventually broke up...
there were other
bands coming in...
that had been in kind of
in the circle of The Dolls...
and had been inspired by The Dolls
and they started forming bands.
In New York pre-75...
the punk rock scene was probably
just starting to bubble...
but nobody knew it was going
to be the punk rock scene...
we were just taking notes from the MC5
and taking notes from The Stooges...
and the cauldron was
starting to bubble.
You know everybody was so fed up with
what was going on with rock 'n' roll...
which was Deep Purple.
These big bloated concerts where they
did these organ solos for 20 minutes...
or these guitar
solos for 20 minutes.
The Bowery was still The Bowery.
It wasn't cleaned up yet.
It was still fun and
a little dangerous...
and edgy and it was, you know,
a different cultural social world back then.
Also everybody was sick
of the Vietnam war...
which started in 1965
and went to 1975...
so it was kinda like, you know,
we don't wanna be political any more...
you know, we want to kinda be about
don't step on my blue suede shoes...
which is probably the most political
thing you could say...
because that's about
personal freedom.
The Dictators are a kind
of an unknown band...
and they were
actually the first.
They came out in 74 with an album
called "Dictators Go Girl Crazy".
I'm a street walking cheetah
With a heart full of napalm
I'm a runaway son
Of the nuclear a-bomb
Handsome Dick Manitoba
was on the cover...
you know and he had this big afro
and he was dressed in this wrestling suit...
but inside the cover,
if you pulled it out...
there was a cover and they're
all in black leather jackets...
sitting in a White Castle
hamburger stand...
and that's when
we said "Yes".
We were into White Castles
and pussy and getting drunk...
and playing rock 'n' roll...
and we're gonna spit out our culture
and what we think is cool.
I am the world's
goddamn voice
The world needs
something to destroy
You heard a lot about these groups
often from word of mouth...
and from other people
on the street...
and a lot of flyers were up...
and then people were pressing
their own singles, you know.
It was truly alternative, cause it really
was people doing it for themselves...
because they wanted
to express something.
We were kinda like uh smashing
those aisles you might say...
the status quo of the
guitar bass and drums...
and we took them all out
and then we had only two guys...
and the name
Suicide on top of it...
and, yeah,
we knew it was different.
I mean Suicide were around at
the time that The Dolls were around.
They were pre punk,
you know...
and they were doing something that
was so completely off the deep end.
They were out like with their with their
radiated glasses and radiated music.
Alan Vega would come out with this motor
cycle chain that was like 8 feet long...
and Marty stopped playing and
he would sing a couple of notes...
and then he would start whipping
the floor with this board, cycle chain.
This completely frightened
people out of the room.
Bebebebebebebe
He's lookin' so cute
Sneakin' round round round
In a blue jumpsuit
I'd have to think that Suicide had
to be a tremendous influence...
on absolutely everybody.
Ghostrider motorcycle hero
At that time there was only 2 bars
to play that played original music...
and that was
CBGB's and Max's.
I opened in December
'73 as CBGB's...
which stands for Country,
Blues Grass, Blues.
I made it a policy the only way
they could play here...
not they could the only way
they could play here...
is they had to do
their own music.
That was the first time
I had this new wave
of what we call punk music...
with the group Television,
but they didn't sound good to me.
I saw Television
maybe 20 times...
I think and I saw them, I think,
in some of their very first shows...
so I was, uh, really inspired by
that whole scene very early on.
There is something very French
in a way for me about Television.
I don't know why but...
aesthetically they
were very different...
and their music could have extended
instrumental passages...
that would just lift you away
and transport you somewhere.
Jesus's dead to somebody's sin
But not mine
We had Patti here in
the Spring of 75 for 7 weeks.
She's one person who sort
of really predates punk...
as far as like being like an artist
in her performance and her writing...
and but at the same time she really
informed punk to such a degree...
and so she's very significant
the way she comes in.
I thought Patti Smith was
the queen of the universe...
I mean the number of times I've sat
in front of, of her first album...
turned up the all
the way on my stereo.
I mean I just
thought this is it.
This is rock that
I've dreamed about.
The boy licked Johnny
Johnny wanted to run
Johnny wanted to move
But the movie kept moving as planned
The boy gripped Johnny
He whispered against a locker
He drove it in, he drove it home
He drove it deep in Johnny
These records were not records that were
what you would think as punk rock...
they weren't sort of, you know,
sped up Chuck Berry riffs...
and it wasn't, it wasn't, you know,
this, this kind of hammer...
you know, punk rock recording
thing, you know.
These were more other
worldly in a way.
When suddenly Johnny
Gets the feeling
He's being surrounded by
Horses, horses,
horses, horses
There was always an intellectual
side to the punk movement.
Many of those bands
from that time...
were picking up influences
from the poets and the writers...
that they had grown
up listening to...
Rimbaud certainly...
and actually a big one was Jack Kerouac
you know, "On The Road".
I was sayin' let me
out of here before
I was even born
It's such a gamble when you get a face
It's fascinatin' to observe
What the mirror does
But when I dine it's for the wall
That I set a place
I remember Richard Hell
walking in one night.
Richard kinda walked in wearing
these clothes safety pinned together...
and Malcolm was totally taken
by that idea of like anti fashion.
He was very bright and he wrote
"Blank Generation"...
and when he did that and sang
that with Television first...
and then he started
Richard Hell & The Voidoids...
Malcolm saw that and took
it back to London.
I belong to the
blank generation
And I can take it
or leave it each time
Some of the safety pins and the
stapled cuffs and things like that...
were more of a necessity...
of people actually trying to
hold their clothes together.
And then in London...
we'd see these pictures of kids
who called themselves punks...
and they'd have safety
pins all over the place.
They'd rip the
clothing on purpose...
just so they could buy
a whole bunch of safety pins...
and put the safety pins and
the rips all over the place.
And then we'd have to
hear about how they're...
on the dole and they
don't have any money.
The Ramones were rehearsing
down the hall from us...
when they and in
the rehearsal place...
and Joey comes
over and goes...
"David come down the hall
and hear my band", you know...
and so I get down the hall...
and they start,
they play me a song...
and I was like...
"You gotta be kiddin",
like, "Get a job", you know.
I had no idea that
they were so fabulous.
I don't wanna walk around
I don't wanna
walk around with you
I don't wanna
walk around with you
So why you wanna
walk around with me?
In the early 70's
we discovered bands...
like The Stooges, the MC5,
The Velvet Underground...
and later
The New York Dolls.
They're piling
in the back seat
They're generating
steam heat
Pulsating to the back beat
The blitzkrieg bop
Dee Dee had heard
about CBGB...
because Dee Dee,
Dee Dee was a friend of Richard Hell.
A few Sundays later we put
Television in and The Ramones.
They were worse
than Television.
One, two, three, four
It was a really interesting set because
our equipment kept breaking down...
and we kept breaking strings and we'd
get into fights between songs...
so we hardly ever, you know,
finished a song.
I remember seeing The Ramones
and hating them, I hated them.
I walked out so pissed off that
my friend brought me here...
and for 24 hours I could not think
of anything else but how mad I was...
that this guy brought me
to see this lousy band.
The next night I was back.
I'm a Nazi schatze y'know
The first time I saw
The Ramones...
the whole set,
maybe 12 songs...
went by in about 16 minutes and I was
thinking, like, what the hell was that.
We were missing...
the essence of rock 'n' roll...
which was basically
what we grew up...
with the was the
3- minute song.
What happened though was that
because we were playing so fast...
the 3-minute songs became
1- and-a-half-minute songs.
Take it Dee Dee
I can't stop it!
As far as why we were playing so fast,
that was the way we played.
Hey ho, let's go
Hey ho, let's go
Hey ho, let's go
Hey ho, let's go
They're forming in
a straight line
They're going through
a tight wind
The kids are losing
their minds
The Blitzkrieg Bop
They're piling in
the back seat
They're generating
steam heat
Legs McNeil and John Holmstrom had
this idea that they'd start a magazine...
and then they could probably
get free records and free drinks...
and they'd say that they were
representing a magazine...
and since they was no magazine
that they could represent...
because nobody cared about
this downtown music...
they started their
own magazine.
And John wanted to call it Teenage News,
which I thought was a very stupid idea.
I didn't realise it
at the time...
but it was from an unreleased
New York Dolls record.
I said ok so what do we call
the magazine about comics...
and fashion...
and funny stuff.
- Why don't we call it Punk?
- And I was, like, perfect.
We'll call it Punk.
The first night we decided
to do any kind of interviews...
we went to CBGB's.
Legs insisted on dragging along
his friend, Mary Harron.
And that was the night we met Lou Reed.
It was the first time I saw The Ramones.
The Ramones came out and
they counted off the wrong song.
One, two, three, four and they
all went to the wrong song...
and they threw down their guitars
in self disgust and it was great.
I was just like, you know, completely
shell shocked but it was so...
it was so, I felt like I was seeing
something completely new.
That was the night we met Lou Reed
and I went up to him and said.
Oh, we're going to interview
you for a punk magazine.
John said, yeah,
"We'll put you on the cover"...
and he said, yeah,
"You're circulation must be fabulous. "
I can't seem to face up
To the facts
I'm tense and nervous and I
Can't relax
I can't sleep
'Cause my bed's on fire
Don't touch me
I'm a real live wire
And the media picked
up punk rock...
and started calling Television,
Talking Heads, Patti Smith...
everyone in New York was
punk rock all of a sudden.
Psycho killer
Qu'est-ce que c'est
None of the bands called themselves
punk, or particularly wanted to be punk.
The Ramones certainly didn't
want to be called that.
Unfortunately I think
it was detrimental to us...
as far as the straight media
was concerned...
because they assume we were
a bunch of hooligans...
and were kind
of afraid of us.
And the bands
were so diverse...
that I don't even know
if that's what they were.
You know some
of these bands...
I wouldn't have classified
them as punk...
but they have a punk attitude,
like Television.
You see I don't
feel Television...
but they are,
I mean they came from the punk.
Patti Smith,
if you wanna take the lyric, alright...
you know, some of these things
in a sense are punk.
The Dead Boys were more rock
and roll than punk...
but they certainly had punk
lyrics and a punk attitude.
Oh baby
I need lunch
When punk rock came out
it was very threatening...
and frightening
to some people.
Even Debbie Harry talks about
when she would go to radio stations...
people were like afraid of her
because they heard she was punk rock...
like she was going to pull out
a knife or something.
He don't
Hang around
With the gang no more
So I remember one time seeing
Blondie at CBGB's.
I think it was "Heart of Glass"
that they were playing...
and it sounded almost
like a disco song...
and it sounded much more musical
and much more mainstream...
than any other of the bands
that had played before...
it sounded like something that you could
actually start hearing on the radio.
And what the major labels had done,
it said, "Ok, new wave is acceptable. "
Blondie, The Knack, The Cars...
pink neck ties,
snazzy suit jackets and all...
but we don't want anything
to do with punk.
When the UK kinda blew up...
which was immediately after really,
or almost at the same time...
there was a different vibe...
and we were really, you know, my friends
and I were really interested in that.
Curious as to how,
how does this same kind of thing...
how is it expressed in a somewhat
different cultural climate.
My Mother called me and said,
"Punk started in England"...
and I'm like, "Oh, Mum".
The political, social climate...
at the time in the 70's was crucial
to the formation of punk rock...
because punk rock was talking
about the dole queue...
and the Winter of Discontent.
The fabric of society at that time was,
like, when we first started...
it was, in our eyes,
falling apart.
We had the 3-day week,
you had rubbish strikes.
You know wherever you went,
it was bad news.
They were talking about burying
people at sea, in the Mersey...
because the grave diggers were
on strike. I mean it was that bad.
God save the queen
The time was just right.
It wasn't orchestrated.
It was like all these
elements of people...
not being happy with what
was going on at present.
So I suppose that probably had quite
a strong push for all of us to say...
well, we'd better do
something for ourselves...
rather than rely
on anybody else.
God take the Queen
She ain't a human being
And has no future
It ain't a string
Well, there was no such word
as punk at the time, if I remember.
The first time I heard that word using
in conjunction with what we were doing...
was Caroline Coon,
or one of these journalists...
and I was quite shocked
to be honest...
because, you now,
I thought we were kinda...
you know, I didn't really
know what we were doing.
All I knew was it was
kinda different from...
the other garbage that
was going around at the time.
God save your
mad parade
74, 75, 76, I mean the place to be,
was, you know, the King's Road.
It was the only place
that was interesting.
The one thing that would
draw us to the King's Road...
was Vivian and
Malcolm's shop.
That was the one thing you had
to go and see and hang out in.
I'd never seen anyone look
like this ever before in my life.
She had this white hair that...
stuck out all over the place
and these purple eyebrows drawn on.
And I'd never met anyone
like Malcolm and Vivian...
because they looked so fuckin
bizarre for a start.
People like Vivian Westwood
are a kinda social sponge.
I don't mean she sponges,
as in leech...
I mean sponges as in,
she soaks up what is going on.
She kind of feels all the political
and economic moods...
and then translates it into her
clothes and everything.
The trousers all come with
a line cloth on the back.
Everybody wants to know why.
It's just a line cloth...
It's just a gesture of
some kind of tribelism really.
You could always point out that maybe
it has some connection with the back...
It goes right round at the back
of the ass as well, I don't know.
The first time I went into Malcolm's
store here in England...
and I saw these bondage pants,
you know, that had...
straps on them, where you were
supposed to strap your legs together...
and it seemed like the dumbest idea in
the world to me. How are you gonna walk?
What, just kinda bounce down the street?
I thought nobody's gonna wear that...
I came back to England about
6 months later...
and all these kids with their
legs strapped together...
bouncing down the street.
I don't think punk would have happened
without Malcolm and Vivian to be honest.
Something would have happened and
it might have even been called punk...
but it wouldn't have looked the way it
did and the look of it was so important.
Saturday afternoon people used to flip
between Hackney Attractions...
and...
Let It Rock...
and John was
one of that crowd.
We arranged for this meeting for him
to come down to meet us for a drink...
and he got the gig.
He said, what are you called,
and we said, the Sex Pistols...
and he said, that's awful.
It's so bad, I love it.
I am the antiChrist
I am an anarchist
We'd been reading about
the Sex Pistols in the NME...
a gig at the St. Martin's
College of Art.
I think it was, the one where someone
shouted out from the audience...
"You can't play"...
and one of them said,
so what?
We read the first...
review of the
Sex Pistols in NME.
Don't look over your shoulder,
the Sex Pistols are coming.
And he said, "Oh look, there's a review
here for this band in London...
who do Stooges songs. "
Nobody did Stooges songs.
They do a version of No Fun
and we thought oooh.
And there's this
fantastic line...
well, we're not into music,
we're into chaos.
Which appealed to Howard.
And it was those 2 things that
kind of went ding, ding with me.
You fill me so with
this big temptation
This kind of feeling
Could destroy a nation
But we successfully saw them twice
the weekend we came down to London.
February 1976.
I said to Malcolm...
"Do you want to come
and play at our college?"
About 100 people
turned up...
and I think we know
that included...
Morrissey, half of Joy Division
and New Order.
Apparently everybody in that
audience started a band...
all 7 million of them.
Ever fallen in love with someone
Ever fallen in love, in love with someone
Ever fallen in love
In love with someone
You shouldn't've
fallen in love with
I can't see
much of a future
Unless we find out who's to blame
What a shame
The 100 Club Punk Rock Festival
was a 2-day event...
that featured bands like the Pistols,
The Damned, The Clash...
Subway Sect and Siouxsie
and The Banshees.
I think that my first reaction
when I went down into the 100 Club...
was I can't believe they've
taken this all seriously.
The formation of the bands
was quite liquid, you know.
One minute Tony James would
be in The Damned...
and the next minute, you know,
Chrissie Hynde would...
you know, we'd all be feeling each other
out, seeing how it went kinda thing, so.
Chrissie was in a early
incarnation of The Damned...
which she, she wanted to call it,
Mike Hunt's Honourable Discharge.
A charming name.
I got a new rose
I got it good
Yes, I knew that
I always would
I can't stop
to mess around
I got a brand
new rose in town
They were more like an American punk
band than the London bands...
which unfortunately they didn't always
have a great sense of humour.
We used to jump from, you know, top of
tall building to another tall building...
to steal a flag, you know...
or to get into someone else's hotel
room to shit in their bed, you know.
These things don't happen anymore
unfortunately, you know.
I remember going to see
The Damned, I think...
and I'm walking back with Mark P
who had just started...
was starting this
fanzine "Sniffin' Glue".
You've got to get it down there
and shove it down...
people's throats your ideas...
and if it means being a bit violent,
you know, it's ok, you know.
"Sniffin' Glue"obviously was like
the first Xerox copy fanzine.
It was like an expression
of our own thing...
rather than the more glossy
American magazines, you know.
The first issue of "Sniffin' Glue" put
Blue Oyster Cult on the cover.
Then it had the Sex Pistols
on the cover.
Yeah, The Clash, The Damned
and the Pistols were...
all about the same kind of fame,
stroke, notoriety...
whatever you want to call
it at the time...
until the Pistols were lucky enough
to be invited on the Grundy show...
I mean, anyone could have
gone on and swore.
Joe Strummer could have done it.
I could have...
I'm very good at swearing,
you know.
You've got 5 seconds.
Say something outrageous.
You dirty bastard.
- Again.
- You dirty fucker.
- Well fuck it.
- And that's it for tonight.
I'll be seeing you soon, I hope I won't
be seeing you again. Good night.
I've got to complain to ITV.
I really can't believe the
reaction that it had that...
you know, people kicked their
TV sets in and were outraged.
The filth and the fury.
I mean, you could never predict
that that would go so ballistic.
That's how they leapt across in the,
in the old fame stakes...
and they were the kind...
that was the filth and the fury on
the front pages and all this stuff.
I am an antiChrist
I am an anarchist
Don't know what I want
But I know how to get it
I wanna destroy
The passerby
It went completely mad from that
point on and we all like set off...
I think the next day we set
off on the Anarchy Tour.
The Pistols, ourselves and
Johnny Thunder & The Heartbreakers.
I think we had like 16 dates booked and,
as we went up the motorway...
the dates got
less and less...
and I think we ended
up only doing 4...
and it was back in
time for Christmas.
Do you feel the publicity following
the temps TV has been damaging?
Or you think it's helped you?
I don't think it's been damaging.
Far from it.
Whether it's helping us
is another matter.
You know,
a lot of shit had gone down...
and things came to a head
between me and John...
and I'd kinda had enough
at that stage.
Pistols Mark 2 with Sid,
bad mistake.
Nancy went
over to England...
cos Johnny Thunders &
The Heartbreakers came over...
and she was good friends with
them and she met Sid...
and it was apparently
love at first sight.
But they were really bad for each other,
cos Nancy was, you know...
on the dope
for a long time.
I saw that transition of what
that drug can do to people...
and courtesy of that Horrible girl,
Nancy Spunge...
I just saw him
completely change.
I'm too tired
I'll do it tomorrow
I loved the Pistols
because of their...
again like The Ramones...
although in a very
not American way...
the Pistols were very incredibly
reductive to emotions, anger...
3 chords, you know,
just the kind of damaged...
sound of rock 'n' roll
being very reduced...
was so beautiful to me.
It became clear that lyrics were very
important to these bands you know...
they were dealing with...
you know,
every day matters...
in a very...
erudite and poetic
fashion I thought...
especially when
you'd got to read...
Joe Strummer's lyrics
and things like that, you know.
Steel shoes on the
stone cold floor
I hear the screws screaming
In the corridor
The bad news
And the slamming of the door
The what did I dos
And the what am I here fors?
I took my existing poems and read
them at break-neck speed, you know...
because it seemed
to me that it was part of...
part of the house style
of punk was fast...
you know,
you had to be fast.
There's a tower in
the heart of London
With a radio station
right at the top
They don't make
the city beat
They're making all
the action stop
A lot of the influences for the
English punk scene were really...
mostly home grown, really.
The kind of glam bands,
like the Ziggy Stardust...
which was really David Bowie
& The Spiders From Mars...
Mott The Hoople and
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band.
White youth, black youth
Better find another solution
Tony James and I had a band
called London SS.
That was like kinda
before The Clash...
and we used to put an advert
in Melody Maker every week...
saying that anybody
that was into The Stooges...
the MC5 and
The New York Dolls...
should get in touch with us.
Bernie brought in
this kid one day...
too good looking I thought
to be in the band...
and was an art student...
and it was Paul Simonon
and I thought...
I looked at Paul and Mick
together and I thought...
"I've got to get
out of this now"...
cos I could see they were
made for each other.
It was essentially Tony James
playing bass, Mick Jones guitar...
and Brian James on guitar.
And they formed bands like The Damned,
Generation X, The Pretenders...
and of course, The Clash.
So don't complain
About your useless
employment
Jack it in
Forever tonight
We started the
first Clash album...
we really didn't want to know anything
and so we just did what we thought...
we played our tracks that we had,
a few tracks that we had...
basically our set before
we made our record.
All across the town
All across the night
Everybody's driving
With full headlights
Black or white turn it on
Face the new religion
Everybody's sitting round
Watching television!
London's burning
with boredom now
London's burning dial 99999
Everyone sees the second record,
given them enough rope...
as a transitional record...
and in that time we would go to loads
of places we had never been before...
and see a lot of the world
that we hadn't seen before...
and all that goes in towards our
third record, "London Calling"...
which is sort of like when
we come into our own.
London Calling
To the faraway towns
Now that war is declared
And battle come down
The Pistols were like really angry
and loud and just yelling about it...
whereas The Clash were angry and loud,
but questioning about it...
and whereas the
Pistols would just like...
scream about how, you know,
something was wrong...
the Clash would kinda say...
well this is wrong,
but what are you gonna do about it.
We're a garage band
We come from garageland
I remember there were a lot of places
that wouldn't let us play up...
and down the country,
universities...
and was probably something they read
that we had a song called "White Riot".
White Riot
White Riot
White Riot
White Riot
They thought that we were some sort
of National Front group...
whereas really...
the song was about white people getting
up and doing it for themselves...
as our black neighbours were doing
it for themselves insofar as the riots...
so it was time for the white people
to get on with their own situation.
Things got a bit serious after
a couple of years...
when Martin Webster's
National Front...
started coming to punk gigs
and trying to recruit people.
I think that's why we played
the Rock Against Racism gig...
just too sort of make
it clear that we're actually...
we're on this side of the fence,
we're not over there.
What people called the
politicisation of The Clash...
came from 2 things.
I would say that Bernard
said to us that we should...
write about
what we know about...
and the second thing was
the way that Joe was...
and he was always
thinking about things like that.
Strummer thought about the
world and the potential of music...
as like you know, he's always making
references to radio broadcasts...
and, you know, this one's
going out to the world.
He had that kind
of Woody Guthrie thing...
or a kind of thing that Dylan had
and Bob Marley had...
and sometimes
John Lennon had...
where they were aware of that power,
but weren't egotistical about it.
And he had this sense
and he knew and it was true...
that something he'd think of in a small,
in his basement in Ladbroke Grove...
had the potential of affecting,
you know, young people particularly...
all over the planet.
Know your rights
These are your rights
Know your rights
These are your rights
Well you're
a loudmouth baby
You better shut it up
In July of 76 we
went to London...
and we played
The Roundhouse.
I couldn't believe it.
I said, this is the audience
that The Ramones deserve.
This is the audience that this music
needs. This is the other half.
It was just
like totally like...
really short songs,
really hard attack...
no nonsense
and it was just like...
cut down bare to the bones,
you know...
and that was inspiring.
There were members of The Clash,
the Sex Pistols.
Sid Vicious learnt how to play the
guitar by listening to The Ramones...
and just staying up
for 3 nights on speed...
and playing along
to The Ramones records...
and The Ramones were
the one band I think that...
the English punks
kind of looked up to.
And I remember saying to Joey,
and he was like...
"Oh, they really liked
us in England"...
but I was like but who cares,
its England, you know.
Why don't we just get?
Why don't we have that?
Why don't we have
The first rehearsal I went to, we had
hardly had no songs, we could hardly play,
and we started with a Ramones song,
Blitz, "Blitzkrieg Bop".
Typical girls
Get upset too quickly
Typical girls
Typical girls can't control themselves
Typical girls
The Slits were one of the
best bands in the punk scene...
for my money and again
they were just so makeshift.
We were different from other
girls because of our lyrics...
and because of our, the way we dressed
and our attitude and everything.
I need some money
to borrow
But surely I'll give it back to you
Tomorrow
We did not enjoy any other girl
images that were around...
so we stripped down all the conditioning
and punk helped us to do that.
We're emotional
There was a scene already but
The Roxy was where it all kind of...
it was focused in on.
Suddenly you had
the place to play.
The Roxy was really officially
started on January 1st in 1977...
with The Clash opening.
It was a place where the groups
could actually get up on stage...
and play in front
of an audience.
Now comes the break up
Make up
From the make up
Just like the devil's rain
So musical.
There was a disc jockey at the time,
Don Letts.
His record collection was heavily
based on dub and reggae...
and there was no real
punk records around.
It was Don diving into his collection
and magically it worked.
He would play the real roots culture
rock reggae, the real dub...
and that's how a lot of the
punky reggae evolved later on.
So reggae was the sort of sound
track to the whole punk scene.
At least it was in London.
I mean no one would listen
to anything else that I know of.
It gave you an attitude
that you could tag on to.
That's how I learnt how to play,
was playing along to reggae records.
All the guys that were working behind
the bar were living up in Forest Hill...
with Don Letts, myself,
we all stayed up there.
Everyone always was hanging
out in Don's room...
cos he had all
the records and stuff.
Everyone that was hanging out there
got in some band or another.
I know Arianna
came up there...
some of The Slits
would be up there.
The Clash would
be up there.
That was the beauty
of that scene.
Everyone got a band together
and everyone was in a band...
and everyone you know was trying
to get a band together...
and you probably played
with half of them.
Oh bondage up yours
Would they break up?
Too be honest, I found some of the
elements at The Roxy quite disturbing.
Oh bondage up yours
Oh bondage no more
Oh bondage up yours
Oh bondage no more
I thought I was in hell down there. It
was like going into the nether regions.
Fifteen years
For the guildford four
Innocent people
sent them off to jail
We didn't make any money...
cos the bar staff were selling spliffs
behind the bar and not any drink.
Certainly speed, I think, was the,
the drug of choice...
and when The Heartbreakers came over,
they were all taking smack...
and so, of course, everyone was
in the toilets anyway shooting speed...
and then when the smack
came into the scene...
that was, kind of punk
was over after that.
It only lasted 100 days;
officially 100 days of The Roxy...
because of, things went
so fast in those days.
By the time the ball was really
going for everybody...
it was just... it was starting
to get a little bit cliched.
Suddenly the whole country
knew about it...
and then everybody
would turn up at gigs...
with what they assumed
was the punk rock look...
which meant the safety
pin in the cheek...
and like a black bin
liner for clothes...
but then again,
you look at the groups...
none of those groups had
safety pins in their cheeks...
none of them had a bin liner so this was
a whole tabloid thing that was made up.
It became a little
bit regimented later on...
when everyone was kind of wearing
leather jackets with studs...
and Mohicans and
all this stuff.
Oh shit arse
Arse
Punk Rock itself actually got a bit
nasty didn't it towards the end...
especially with all
the tabloid sort of...
you know,
all this gobbing, spitting, hate...
and Sid killing himself and Nancy
and all this weird stuff.
For the small amount
of people that...
were really integral
to the beginning of it...
I suppose we had all
moved on really.
Punk inherently...
was gonna have a short life span cause
the beauty of Punk music anyway...
was that that fact that no
one could really play very good...
and what happens is...
that if you get into a band
and you actually like playing...
and you want to make
music your life...
or well we didn't think
in terms of careers...
but if you wanted
to pursue that...
then inevitable you got
better at your craft.
It is time for you to stop
With of all your sorrows
It is time for you to stop
All of your sobbing
The Pistols and The Clash...
what was happening there,
there was an energy there...
a forcefulness there about what they
were doing and determination about it...
that really I could tie into...
the same kind of cultural
revolution and energy...
that was in New York.
There was a difference
and yet there was a sense of...
now an international
community of thought.
The immigration departament
tried to protect us from them...
denying them visas for a
few days late in December...
but now they're here and
they're loose to Pommerland...
They're the Sex Pistols,
the British punk rock group...
that began their first American
concert tour last night in Atlanta.
They had this whole
hype around them...
where they were the craziest
band in history...
and people were afraid to be
in the same room as them...
so the first half of
the tour was cancelled...
and they ended
up opening in Atlanta...
and the police kept
warning them...
that if they kept trying to piss on
the stage or throwing up on stage...
or raping any women,
they're going right to jail.
It's pretty far from
what the reality was.
They were, were not that crazy on stage,
until they got to San Antonio...
at this place Randy's Rodeo
was a converted bowling alley...
and there was about
2,000 rednecks there...
who each and every one
of them wanted...
to personally beat the crap
out of the Sex Pistols.
They didn't help matters because
Johnny was wearing a t-shirt...
that had 2 gay cowboys having
sex with each other...
and the audience was just throwing
full beer cans and food...
and anything they could get their
hands on at the Pistols...
and the Pistols
just kept going.
Sid would take a full beer
can right off the teeth...
and spit on somebody
and the crowd loved it.
They'd just done the
most successful thing...
they'd achieved
what every band wants.
They came as a new band,
starting in a couple of clubs...
ending up the last day playing
a huge theatre in San Francisco...
to a giant audience
and then broke up.
Here's an interesting
thing that happened.
Punk rock. Boom.
It comes out.
Then the Sex Pistols break up.
Johnny Lydon forms Public Image...
which to me is infinitely more
interesting than the Sex Pistols.
You never listen to a word
That I say
You only see me
For the clothes that I wear
Some really interesting
musicians came out of punk rock.
Like they really wanted to do
some music and all of a sudden...
Howard Devoto morphs
out of the Buzzcocks.
He has Magazine, with a really
challenging brew of music.
Shot
By both sides
We must have come
To a secret understanding
They got a bucket full
of grief from their fans...
and you find out
that punk rockers...
were some of the narrow-minded
people on the face of the earth.
Talk about you grow your hair too long.
What are you, a hippy now?
And we found it in America.
You try something on,
you put a guitar solo in a song...
the song is longer than a minute and a
half. And all of a sudden, what's that?
You know. Freebird?
You're like...
God, come on, give us
a little room. No.
My little girl was born
On a ray of sound
My little girl was born
On a ray of sound
We were very much connected with
the whole English post-punk thing.
I mean, it seemed to me they had,
they'd heard the New York bands.
I mean it was very similar
to the punk thing.
The Rough Trade bands...
The Raincoats and The Pop Group
and Gang of Four...
and those bands were
extremely powerful for us.
The Fall, you know,
from Manchester.
I mean these were just
different ideas coming out...
that weren't just, you know,
the it wasn't "Pretty Vacant".
You can see
See, see, see, see, see, see
The new wave scene was probably
best personified by James Chance.
I remember I beat him up one night.
I don't know why.
He had 2 black eyes...
which probably improved
his looks a little.
I'll tell you how
I got started.
It was one of the first
Contortions gigs.
It was in like this,
this sort of hall you know...
and there wasn't
any stage or anything...
and all these people were like
just like sitting on the floor.
And if there is one thing I can't stand,
it's people sitting on the floor...
at one of my shows...
and so I just started wading
out into the audience and...
and pulling them up
to their feet, you know.
You gotta put me back
In my cage
And that didn't even seem
to get them very upset...
so I just started
slapping them and stuff.
You know, I really was just trying to
get a reaction out of these people...
and then later on we would have
somebody who would come on and like...
like drag me back...
after I had been
in the audience for a while.
James Chance was doing his sort
of James Brown thing...
with people who really were,
at the time, non musicians...
and he like the idea of them
making scratchy, scrawky noise.
A satisfactory pleasure
And it hurts
more than pain
I got what it takes
To drive you insane
By 1980 punk was
really over because...
one, all the New York bands
got signed and were on tour...
so there wasn't a scene
at CBGB's anymore.
Patti left the scene,
Television pretty much disbanded...
Blondie became new wave,
if not disco.
So, I don't know, I mean,
at least, as far as I'm concerned,
it was like, well then fuck it...
I'll start a fucking band.
And I wanted to challenge people...
and I wanted to mess
with their heads.
I wanted to fuck them up.
One, two, three, four.
Theoretical girls
Theoretical girls
The new wave scene was, was really
hated by most people I knew...
who were into the
punk rock scene.
It's like, it was, I had friends that,
it's not music, it's ugly...
it sounds bad,
it's like horrible.
If you want to find what the sound
of new wave was...
it was truly DNA.
It was truly the band that
broke completely from everything...
everything that was happening in punk
and with Teenage Jesus...
I mean, my God, I mean, that's just
indefinable what the hell she was doing.
A very interesting music, but not
something you could really dance to.
Alright, alright.
- Who the hell are you?
- We're the band.
The band?
Where's your instruments?
What the...
In New York, punk rock became really
equated with hip hop in a way.
And there was a period in the late 70's,
especially in the early, early 80's...
where those 2 scenes merged,
hip hop and, and punk rock in New York.
At least socially.
Like with Rick Rubin getting
involved with Run DMC...
and The Clash getting
involved with hip hop.
You gotta fight
For your right
To party
They had records,
they had turntables.
They found 2 turntables...
you could take a piece of this on,
and a piece of this on...
and that was
their instrumentation.
Take the power
Take the power
Take the power
Hip hop had a completely
different attitude...
because it really
had its eye on...
being really
a communication tool...
but at the same time it had no
problems with going for the gold...
and that was the difference
I always noticed.
Punk rock was sort
of embarrassed by riches.
Come back some day
Back for a time
Thanks to Glen Branca you have
Sonic Youth, in my opinion.
I mean for at least 2 years no one
came to their fucking concerts.
You know, it was their constant
perseverance...
and touring and getting
records out...
and ambition that drove
them to where they are.
And I know
There's something down there sugar soul
Back to the cross
a twisted lane
There something down
there sugar kane
But that was the point that labels
just stopped paying any attention...
to people who in the Sixties'd've been
like Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart.
And that was when the music got
very interesting to me.
That's when, that's when
the rubber hit the road...
and all of a sudden
these guys are going...
"Screw ya, I'm going for
the music instead of what you think...
and what the genre wants".
Now that the spiky
hair has gone...
I see that you're
a well read guy...
cos now you can do songs that
show me you're a real artist.
I can see that you're
into different stuff.
Oh you're a Dadaist now, ok.
I'm very interested.
By the end of, say...
maybe mid 79...
the only people playing
punk music left...
were the people who really
wanted to be there...
and so their was a big split...
which means that punk
went more underground...
and got more intense
more purist in a way...
which is both
good and bad...
and more hardcore.
The genre hardcore...
it's American as, you know,
fake wars and apple pie and baseball.
Gotta, gotta, gotta go
It's when that fuck
yeah guy got a guitar.
He does that in
the 7:11 parking lot.
What the fuck you looking at?
That's his band.
Ok, now he's got a guitar.
Bands that I love,
that I consider hard core punk...
and it's probably the best
way to say it...
were bands like Black Flag,
Circle Jerks, Dead Kennedys.
They were a phenomenal band;
they had so much to say.
Zen fascists will control you
100% natural
They've got this sick sense
of humour that other people have...
but they're not showing in their bands.
What can I do with that?
Plus, what would happen if I took
the horror of Alice Cooper...
but made it about real things
that happen to people.
Instead of vampires
and monsters...
police brutality.
Soon I will be president
Carter Power
will soon go away
California Uber Alles, California
Uber Alles, Uber Alles
I mean, there was punk and then there
was more extreme punk...
and people were calling
it hardcore.
They were surfers, they were
skateboarders and, in some cases...
they were very violent surfers
and skateboarders...
so out came the song,
"Nazi Punks Fuck Off".
Nazi punks, Nazi punks
Nazi Fuck Off
The Dead Kennedys also got tagged
with that hardcore punk thing.
Most people'd concur that it was kick
started by the appearance of The Damned.
They came here very early
in April 1977...
caused a sensation.
The Bags came up.
The Bags, The Germs,
The Weirdos...
The Screamers, you know.
Another great band that
actually never recorded...
but was just one
of these biggest...
disappeared,
undocumented legends of all time.
They got me
out of the pain
The Screamers were one of the most
important influences on Dead Kennedys.
As I said, there was both...
was British
stuff influencing us...
but also there so many things right in
our back yard that are largely unknown.
The Screamers show, I think...
was probably my first punk
rock show that I went to...
official punk rock band,
punk rock show.
Mary Quant is
not what I want
How can I feel for
Miss Emma Peel?
Every scene needs centre...
every scene needs a set
of characters, a club house.
I think, without The Masque...
it wouldn't have grown,
it wouldn't have flourished.
There was,
you know, a bit of...
the glam rock fleet from West LA
that coerced around The Germs...
the art school crowd that
coerced around The Weirdos.
East coast, dirty cities, small,
a lot of people, you know...
people living high,
stacked on top of each other.
A lot of street crime,
polluted skies...
the ocean comes up to your ankle
and there's a dead guy floating in it.
To California, sun, fun, beautiful
girls, surfing and punk rock.
How can you have sun, hot chicks,
surf boards, oranges and punk rock?
A lot of people mistakenly think that,
because it's happening in California...
sunny California...
where kids are at the beach,
that they have great lives...
but, you know, you can have
a messed up life anywhere.
From the East Coast
To the West Coast
Gotta, gotta, gotta go
On the East Coast...
often it's a little faster
beat per minute...
just cos East Coast people,
like what like I am...
we talk faster,
we talk more...
we're more in your face.
"Fuck you" means
"fuck you"...
not, "Hey let's do
lunch next week".
It's on and the
music reflects it.
Agnostic Front could've never
have come out of LA.
Can't keep touch
with you or me
Gotta, gotta, gotta go
It kind of went from punk,
to the new wave, to the arty stuff...
and we were really
nothing about that.
You know,
we just wanted pure aggression.
You know, we started doing the circle
pits and stuff and slam dancing.
Crucified
Straight that arm
Crucified for your sins
Crucified
Straight that arm
Crucified for your sins
Guys touching each other,
sweating, flesh...
pectoral muscles.
Very homo erotic.
You say, fellas, stop fighting,
get a room. Get it over with.
But lyrically now
there was changes.
It was bands like Minor Threat,
coming up with saying...
like there was
a straight element...
which they considered no drink, no
smoke, no fuck, whatever that was about.
The Straighter scene was coined,
say in Washington DC...
with the Teen Idols
or Minor Threat.
We don't drink,
we don't smoke, we don't fuck.
You know, it was,
it was a way of self-control.
It was a counter-culture
to the counter-culture.
Fugazi.
It's one of, it's one of
Ian MacKaye many bands.
Lan had the Teen Idols.
Lan had Minor Threat, which was a huge,
hugely influential band in this country.
Fugazi has a few things...
they did and did not
do which were huge.
First off, Fugazi will not do an
interview in any publication...
that has ads that have
liquor or tobacco in them.
So Rolling Stone's like, pretty please,
can we do an interview?
Sorry. Can you do an issue with
no liquor or tobacco?
No.
Then we can't talk to you.
Time time time
Forever time
Black Flag was hanging around. They
were like the 2nd generation of bands.
They were...
This was even pre-Henry...
cos Henry was
in Washington DC.
This was...
the first generation
of the band. Keith Morris.
We always had this like,
go for it attitude, like...
you can't wait around or somebody
to do something for you.
You have to do
it for yourself...
and I think a lot of that came
out in the Black Flag music.
At first
Relax
Get set
Get your message from time
Time, time
When Black Flag
started in 79...
I think Henry Rollins joined,
I think it was 1982...
so Henry's comes into it.
He's more an
East Coast figure...
you know...
I think his punk credentials came
more from the Washington DC side of it.
There's songs about cops...
there's songs about killing yourself,
there's songs about depression...
the women who leave,
the car has no brakes...
and we're flooring it and
we're gonna hit something.
So what?
It's Black Flag.
I walk by your house
To see if you
were at home
They were the band that
was smart enough to tour.
Actually they got their
shit together after tour.
So that really
helped them a lot.
And helped us all a lot.
Black Flag's going through;
The Dead Kennedys are going through...
the independent labels are
all swapping records.
Many, you know, independent
distribution is coming along.
America kind of ignites between
Summer of 79 and Summer of 81 and bam.
One night a band from
Washington came up here...
and they were a black band
and they were playing.
Well, they said they were
a hard rock band, a punk band...
and this was
the Bad Brains.
You see, I had people telling
me I played hardcore.
I never knew the fuck
what hardcore was.
I never even said
hardcore in my life.
I always thought hardcore was porno,
like triple x, or whatever.
The Bad Brains sound is a sound
of punk rock from the Dead Boys...
a combination of Ramones,
Sex Pistols and Dead Boys.
What you got in hardcore is the Bad
Brains starting out playing punk rock...
and getting faster.
For some reason,
if the drummer's bored, Earl...
he want to go talk
to a girl...
he might play
the songs all fast.
I might be on stage
looking at him, like...
Dude, you're pissing me off.
Man, come on.
The next thing you know, it became
and created like a genre, you know.
The speed.
The music is fast we want to try
and play a little faster...
but if the music gets
smooth right here...
we've got to make
it nice and smooth.
If the music is gonna get buck wow right
here, then its got to get buck wow.
Here you had Puerto
Rican skinheads...
you had Jewish skinheads,
you had Black skinheads.
Nobody is gonna get up on stage
and be against anybody here...
otherwise they would be torn
off the stage and thrown out.
I never really once heard
anybody go "Nigger!"
Actually it happened
to me in England.
A kid, we're playing England...
and he said,
"Fucking Yankee nigger, go home".
Spit, spit on me and shit.
I jumped down and punched
him in the face.
Punk was now on the news,
in the news.
Everybody knew what it was,
or thought they knew what it was.
Right around 92...
everyone just
curled up and...
started having their stomachs
scratched by Sony...
and they kinda went and
old people like me, are going...
you know, "Back in my day
we would've blown that up".
And they're like,
"Shut up, you old man". And I, "Ok".
You pick up these punk books,
you never see what's going on...
between. They'll, they'll start
like mentioning the Pistols...
and they'll mention like DC
bands like maybe Black Flag.
And then it's quiet...
and they always say that and
then it's like nothing happened...
until this little band from Seattle
got formed and came the late 80's.
It's like a secret history,
you know.
It's like nobody really knows
what happened in the 80's...
cause there's really
not much mutation...
of exactly what happened
in underground music.
I'll tell you what happened
in those 10 years.
There's bands like our who were having
the roughest times of us lives...
who believed in what
we believed in...
and still to date we're
pursuing our beliefs...
and everything and touring
and putting out our records...
but the crowds are a lot smaller, very
underground, very true like always...
but that's the core
of the audience...
the core of the people.
So in the 80's you had this
gigantic underground movement.
Now eventually that, the underground
movement would turn into...
Nirvana, you know.
I mean, Nirvana didn't sell
10 million records because...
you know,
they were so fucking great...
which they were,
which they were...
but that audience had been building
for more than 10 years.
It was almost as if Nirvana had
taken all the lessons of the past...
and synthesised them down into
their band and into their music...
in a way it was palatable
for the masses.
The title itself...
it's not about punk,
it is punk.
All of a sudden to have a band
like Nirvana sort of come out...
it, it completely was great in
the way that it's very galvanised.
Everything that had been going
on in those 10 years...
but historians can only
look at it...
as that moment...
because they don't know really
what it, where it came from.
They think it comes from a void.
It didn't come out of a void.
Kurt Cobain and the Seattle scene
tapped into a vast...
chunk of American
white youth...
who were depressed,
bummed out...
and here is a guy who looks
like them, comes from them...
sings for them, about them
and to them...
and all of a sudden you
have a Nirvana shirt on.
There just were good,
you know...
and it was great because no one could
understand what they were saying...
you know, it sounded like about mashed
potatoes or something, I remember.
That's when MTV came
along and really broke out.
And I think they needed
someone like Nirvana...
who's actually a good rock
and roll band to get behind...
much to Kurt Cobain's displeasure
because he ended up killing himself...
because he had all these jerks
hanging around him.
He swung his guitar and the industry
in one year had to go reset.
You're dropped, you're dropped,
you're dropped, you're dropped.
You're hair's too long, you better
cut it or you're dropped...
and all of a sudden,
Alice In Chains are signed.
Soundgarden are signed.
Nirvana.
And they're all going
multi platinum.
It basically people who are...
it's not rock
inspired punk bands.
A lot of what got big,
especially through Nirvana...
was punk inspired
rock bands.
Shortly after that is when bands
like Green Day became million sellers...
and bands like Rancid came
out of nowhere...
and that led to bands like Blink
182 and Sum 41 that we have today.
Let's take some time
to talk this over
You're out of line
and rarely sober
We can't depend
on your excuses
Cause in the end it's
fucking useless
It was like ok...
now the media has finally said
oh punk rock happened now.
Nirvana, Sonic Youth and
the year that punk broke...
basically was the doors...
of all the major label, major
record companies basically saying...
"Come on in".
Freakin' me out
You wear a mask
You're freakin' me out
You wear a mask called
Counterfeit, you're freakin' me out
You wear a mask
The core music to me
is very formulaic.
You have your breakdown section,
a little rap thing, and a DJ guy...
and like its all this and I want
like this and that and "Dooh"!
Because I'm a...
And the crowds
are bouncing.
That's right
It's freak, it's freak
You're like,
this is a no-brainer.
If I was 17 this would probably
be my favourite band...
and the pay-off on those songs
when that big guitar comes in...
you can't help it...
you're like, hell yeah,
let's go wreck something.
Punk completely
changed my life.
It changed my attitude
to culture...
it changed my attitude towards
what was possible...
and I think I learnt to go against
the system a little bit.
Punk proved to people and
it is now ingrained in people...
that what they thought was impossible,
is not impossible.
You didn't have to wait
to start doing something.
If you wanted to do it,
you could try doing it.
Punk rock gave me a platform
to put a band together...
and do it my way...
and that was good for
an 18-year-old kid.
Kids are still wanting the same
thing as they wanted back then.
Something to express
what they're feeling.
They get all this information
from MTV and VH1...
and that's their
history of rock...
and they find out that, like,
well it's like everything else.
It's like school. You're not
really getting the full story.
They were introduced
to it as a package.
They... you know...
the business turned it
into a commodity, if you will.
There's a lot of manufactured
anger these days, if you ask me.
When you can make
a dollar off it...
it gets uploaded into
the cultural lexicon...
the slang becomes your
normal patois of the day.
You know,
grunge become...
you know,
Mom knows grunge now.
As soon as Mom knows how
to say grunge, gotta go.
Back then it, it was very much
considered an anti-establishment...
and it seems that today
most of the bands...
that to form are, want to be
part of the establishment.
What they pay you for now is being
stupid and making people stupider.
It's easy for a young person
today to say fuck you.
I'm 43.
I'm still saying fuck you.
I'm like still pissed
at something.
You know, whatever you've got,
I'm mad at it.
Where's the political awakening?
At this point on the planet...
it seems that 80% of the people
are fucking asleep, you know.
Don't ask me why the cataclysmic
state of the environment hasn't...
galvanised and, you know, mobilised
people into doing something.
The more severe,
the political landscape becomes...
the more repressive...
the more valuable that
the imagination becomes.
It possible that music is not
really the expression of it...
now as far as relating to world,
what's happening in the world.
People people doing visual arts, people
doing literature, people doing film.
You know, Michael Moore making
that movie against Bush is really punk.
Punk definitely had
a major influence...
in the eruption of militant
anti-corporate activism...
that first came to light over
here in the Seattle protest.
The actual whole Internet
is a very punk idea.
Because of the Internet...
the record companies are losing
their power to be king makers.
You can go make your own records,
you can go put them out yourself.
You can build your
own little website.
You can do all these
things by yourself.
Fuck you to corporations,
fuck you to branding everything...
and fuck you to corporations
having dictatorial control...
over society and governments.
Being able to look people
in the eye and say fuck you.
I don't care what you think.
I'm doing what I want to do.
To have that to hold onto is
really important to move forwards.
That's the whole idea...
is to take the whole spirit
and inspiration...
and do your own
thing with it.
All you need is one guy or girl
to stand up and say fuck this...
and everyone goes,
Voice of a Generation.
Thank you,
I've been thinking that...
I never had the guts
to stand up and say it.
You only need 5%...
or less to like embrace
ideas and change it...
you know, change the way
people think all over again.
It becomes a lineage.
These people find each other
and this time-line grows.
Know your rights
All three of them
Number 1
You have the right
not to be killed
Murder is a crime!
Unless it was done
By a policeman
Or an aristocrat
Know your rights
And Number 2
You have the right
to food money
Providing of course...
you don't mind a little...
Investigation,
humiliation
And if you cross
your fingers
Rehabilitation
Know your rights
These are your rights
Hey say who I am
sync; fix: titler