OFF: HW/Fairies/Punk [long, but it ain't a meg :-)]

[andrew]

I don't know whether anyone's mentioned this before but there's a few
mentions of the Hawks in Stewart Home's Cranked Up Really High: Genre
Theory & Punk Rock. On the whole the book's a (pretty successful) attempt
to counter the over-intellectualisation of punk, with HW appearing in a
chapter entitled 'Blood Spattered With Guitars. A demonstration that there
are no direct links between Punk Rock, the Sex Pistols and the Situationist
International' (snappy or what?)
        The chapter is a timely attack on Greil Marcus and his attempt to place
the Pistols in some sort of intellectual trajactory which situates them
(ha!) as direct descendents of the Situationalists. [And it really is nice
to read an honestly written critique, Home doesn't pull his punches; on
Marcus: "What a twat!"] However, leaving aside Home's convincing argument
that the Pistols were not, in fact, punk rock, he brings the hawks in one
of the two major strands of influence on the british 70s punk scene (the
other being 60s garage punk (which he calls garage rock, but i'll forgive
him)). So, a few quotes that might interest one or even possibly two of you,

"Now the British underground, and in particular the Notting Hill freak
scene of the sixties, provide a very strong precedent for late seventies
Punk Rock. This should be contrasted with the fallacious notion that there
was a vast Situationalist input into PUNK. For a start, the Situationalist
International consisted of a very small number of intellectuals who were
consciously organised as a group, whereas both the sixties underground and
the PUNK 'movement' were amorphous and disorganised. [long discussion of
King Mob/Black Mask/Motherfuckers/SI snipped]
        ... Likewise the Motherfuckers, via King Mob, were hardly the most
immediately accessible aspect of the sixties counter-culture waiting to
inspire the average late seventies teenage 'PUNK'', while the
Situationalist 'influence' is completely negligible. What would inevitably
be encountered by anyone trailing around the London rock circuit at this
date were the muscians and sound crews clustered around the Deviants, the
Pink Fairies, the Edgar Broughton Band, Hawkwind etc, all of whom had been
stalwarts of the underground free festival scene.
        One of the things that tends to be associated with PUNK is independent
record labels, not that this was anything new, the idea that it was merely
demonstrates the average wo/man's innate capacity for complete amnesia.
Nevertheless, independent releases are a quintessential element of the PUNK
ROCK phenomenon. [...] New Rose by the Damned, released on Stiff, is widely
considered to be the first single of the British 'new wave' explosion [...]
Stiff's second release had been Between The Lines by the Pink Fairies, and
in 1977 they issued a solo single by ex-Fairy Larry Wallis. Likewise Mick
Farren did a comeback EP with Stiff, although for reasons unknown, the
label never got around to releasing a planned single by Motorhead,
featuring former Hawkwind bassist Lemmy."

[oh fuck, can i be arsed typing anymore? have any of you got this far? Oh
well, just in case:]

"Another of the bigger independent labels associated with the British 'new
wave' explosion is Chiswick Records, who had the honour of unleashing
Motorhead's first single on an unsuspecting world ... One of the best punk
records of 1977 came out on Chiswick: I wanna Be Free by the Rings. The
title was a completely abstract demand, typical of the gestural politics
favoured by PUNK and underground bands, the ex-Pink Fairy Twink, now with
the Rings, simply demanded freedom in a vacuum. Brilliant - loud, fast and
stupid!"

And there's more, but i really can't be arsed now. 'Sgood book if you're
into punk, especially if you've read any of the 'serious' tomes on the
subject. Half the time with Home you're thinking, "hey, that's a good
point... but hold on, is he taking the piss?" Whilst the rest you're just
enjoying the scenary of his polemic.

anyway, that's me done

andrew


Mama 'll have to buy him a muzzle:
Sit when I say "sit!"
And come when I whistle
-Thee Headcoatees