One thing that always annoyed me about
the UK Punk Rock scene was this obsession with the 'No Future'
'Career Opportunities' 'Right To Work' nonsense. The suggestion that
if only we all had a job,a few quid in the pocket, and new TV,
everything would be alright. It was a simplistic message to explain
away their anti-social behaviour,alongside Boredom(yaaaawn); and
attracted the kind of 'Punk' that produced the embarrassing cliché
that adorn many postcards today.The UK Subs and Sham 69 are typical
of this so-called street punk approach,dumbing it down to the level
of conventional politics. No-one thought that 'No Future' applied to
the Royal Family as well ,or sing about the right NOT to work(except
maybe Crass of all people). No Future applies to everyone,and the
horror of the human condition specifies that we are all future
wormfood. Having a career changes nothing about this hopeless
situation. An angle more than adequately covered by the nascent
Industrial scene in the UK,but not really addressed in Punk Rock UK.
Wire,to their credit were never part of
the general Punk Rock direction,and as a result were popular in the
USA,who's Punk equivalents never touched on this ,frankly, socialist
approach. Something that was alien to them completely. The yanks
liked the bands who rocked like the Damned,X-Ray Spex,and the
Stranglers, or the bands who looked to the future like Wire, the Pop
Group, and the Gang of Four(they obviously never listened to the
lyrics,but 'they rocked maaaan').
The early New Yawk 'punk' scene had
little in common with the UK variant, and I'd hesitate to call it
'Punk'. Proto-Punk were The Ramones, Heartbreakers etc, dressed down
guitar rock were Television, Patti Smith post-Hippie,and proto-post
punk were Talking Heads. Only Richard Hell and the Voidoids got
close,probably more like a prototype No Wave band if anything?
Which brings us to what I consider to
be the real US equivalent of UK Punk/Post-Punk, the aforementioned
NO-Wave clique. This encapsulated the real 'end of the world' feel
that Punk Rock should have been about. The discordant noise that
repulsed trad rock fans really put the torture of the human condition
into a sonic aspect. They didn't need or want to be liked ,there was
just an unstoppable desire to spew forth this horrible noise that
they had trapped inside. Something that Americans have always been
good at, and the emotionally repressed Brits never, without the help
of booze and drugs. “I'm so Bored with the USA” sang The Clash
about a country that only evokes extreme feelings. Whether it be hate
or love, one thing that you cannot say about the USA is that its
'Boring'?! No-Wave was these extremes of emotion in action,but still
had more in common with Industrial and so-called Post-Punk in th UK
,than the Punk Rock itself; but nevertheless the closest the US ever
got to the perfect punk philosophy embodied.
Mr. No-Wave was undoubtedly Glenn
Branca, co-creator of the detuned Guitar onslaught concurrent with
the more music schooled Rhys Chatham. His first trio, The Static,
unleashed this monstrous noise from 1977 to 79 to various audiences
in the New York downtown arty scene. Largely under represented on
vinyl,except one great single, and a few compilation appearances, I
have managed to unearth a live concert from 1979,ironically, in
London,at the very arty Riverside studios. Another bizarre trait of
the Americans is that they always have to leave it to the Brits to
appreciate the good things they have first, and send it back to them
before they realise what they had!? Without the UK the only music
they'd have in the charts would be the complete and utter shite of
Billy Ray Cyrus and the Eagles. Now that would be 'Boring'!But
as always it would be the extreme end of boredom,very American?
