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Monday, September 19, 2005

I DIED IN THE PUNK WARS SO GAVIN HENSON COULD GEL HIS HAIR, BUT DO I GET ANY THANKS?: Thoughts on the disapearance of music cults


STAND DOWN MARGARET, STAND DOWN PLEASE!

OK, so she did, many years ago, still a good record though. A few years ago a friend of mine borrowed a CD of another friend.. The Beat: Beats Per Minutes, a two disc t’ing with disc one being a best of The Beat type thang and disc two being a collection of remixes, released in 1996. I have been keeping an eye out for it so I can get a copy myself, but after drawing a blank (me thinks it deleted) I have tracked down the old friend that had it originally and got a copy burned off.

I have been looking out for it off and on for a number of years (probably since '96) but my determination to get hold of it was reinvigorated after seeing a reformed version of the Beat live a while back. I was never really into them when they were first around; I was still very much a punk then and had no interest in the ska/mod/rude boy thing that was happening in the late '70s early ‘80s.

Ah yes, the tribal style wars… those were the days. When I were a lad you were either a punk, a mod, a skin, a rocker/metal head, or a ‘straight (square)’. And you rarely hung out with kids outside your tribe. I remember this mod coming up to me in Cardiff bus station in '79 trying to tell me punk was old fashioned. When I explained to him that mod was almost 20 years out of date, him and about 20 of his mates chased me through the bus station baying for blood.

It wasn’t just other tribes you had to watch out for, back in them days you could get a good shoeing just for being ‘different’ or ‘weird’. These days you would not be shocked if your bank manager had a Mohican, and it is common place for lads to gell their hair up to deliberately look unkempt. Well these youngsters ought to appreciate those of us that died in the style wars for them to be able to do all this. 20 years ago only freaks and poofs used hair gel, and freaks and poofs used to get regular kicking’s.... and as for being able to buy pre-ripped shirts in places like Burtons!!

My personal evolvement came through listening more and more to dub reggae/ska, which had strong links with punk anyway; then I started going to Northern Soul All Nighters, initially to stay up all night and take drugs but I eventually got into the music as well; then I came out and admitted that even when I was a punk I had a secret love for heavy metal. I then started going to festivals and was overcome by a whirlwind of sounds and drugs, space rock, psychedelia, folk (well, the pogues anyway), ‘world’ music, blues, jazz… and all the while all these styles were growing and clashing and merging to form the messed up head f*ck that was rave. After rave exploded and shattered into a million pieces we had a myriad of crazy styles, from the Madchester baggy scene, through drum ‘n bass to afro-celtic-dub-diddly-folk-rave. I lapped it all up, and still do.

I am not sure if the rivalry between music cults is the same as it always has been or if i just dont notice it cos i is older. I certainly get the impression that since the rave scene and the melting of lots of boundaries to form lots of different crossovers (rap-metal, folk-punk, digital-dub etc) things are not as black and white as they once were, which is probably no bad thing.

The only thing I do not like is manufactured commercial cr*p that is constructed just for the purpose of selling units … MUSIC IS AN ART FORM NOT AN INDUSTRY!

Ermm… I have forgotten what I was going to write about now, I only mentioned what was on my CD player and have got carried away… couldn’t have been important!

The picture at the top of this post is anarcho-ska-punk outfit SPANNER from Bristle, taken at an anti-G8 benefit i put on earlier this year in 'The Toucan Club', Cardiff.

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