Tyranny of Cool – Punk Year Zero

Posted on January 14, 2014 by theindivisibleholytrinity

The past is is another country:They do things differently there.

My memories of punk have provided me with a back-story that both informed and directed many parts of my life. The main prisms were ,how it affected me,how it was cool and therefore how I was cool and lastly how it was free thinking but…. it wasn’t any of those things. Analyzing those memories for the most part  it’s like the “recovered memories” bollocks that alt health nuts claim to find in abuse victims.Except that I “found” those memories not an interfering psychoanalyst . The fact that the (self) abuse happened in the early to mid 70’s is the only mitigating factor is my defence.

I came to punk in 1977 the decade ruled by the tank top

In the Seventies the look below was pretty typical – a decade ruled by the tank top. The only difference between the 70s and today’s hipsters is that this look wasn’t ironic – young people WE KNEW NO BETTER . The look below was pretty typical. It was at least a year behind the trend but, for Northern Ireland, that was pretty much bang up to date. Cheesecloth was a recent memory *shudder*.

seventies look

SOOOO I got my ma to change my flares into drainpipes – yes that’s right my ma what rebellion. I got a short  haircut actually (pretty much a skinhead). However just having short hair made you a punk – and I joined the less than 50 young people in my hometown who didn’t like Status Quo.

Musically I bought what I could The Rods, Boomtown Rats, The Jam, The Stranglers, The Pistols etc etc – a true punk smorgasbord I thought until I looked at Youtube .

Without the self-recovered memories you get

First Punk single – Do anything you wanna do by the Rods

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUYkHNAtXTI

Yup..former Eddie & the Hot Rods they were what R’n’B used to be before it  became Kelis, Beyonce and all the other big assed wigglers took it over and made it what it is now. Definitely not punk apart from the attitude (possibly).

Next Single The Boomtown Rats Looking After Number 1.

Warning Contains Noel Edmonds (I wish Yewtree would get a move on)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn5vbbQaPEI

I bought it on the then unusual outside of reggae 12″ single (TBH I thought they had given me an album at the wrong price). It had a cutout and wear Rat armband which I did cut out and wore. As it was cardboard it melted in the first shower.

Now Geldof certainly had the attitude, the Rats had Pete Briquette (such a funny name …sad face) on bass,  relatively short hair, some catchy pop punk tunes and what appeared to be an american sailor themed rent boy on drums.

HOWEVER they also had :-

  • songs longer than 4 minutes
  • a sneaking desire to be a Bruce Springsteen tribute act – Rat Trap people
  • a long haired front man who thought it was still ok to act like Mick Jagger

Pseudo Punk….maybe

Other early purchases would be The Stranglers

Punk Royalty, not in retrospect. Drummer was a fat middle aged jazz man ;Hugh Cornwell was a creepy teacher/sneaky uncle figure; Dave Greenfield was still a hippy; and though Jean Jacques Burnel had punk chops they were all hideously misogynistic, could play their instruments and had solos. And the truth was at the time they had a punk question mark – i.e. fellow travellers .

The Jam In The City (bargain bin in Woolworths)

Obvs a “The Who” tribute act  in the same way that Oasis were a Beatles tribute act. They also famously voted Tory and created the mod revival – to this day it amazes me the arse licking reverence that greets every word Paul Weller utters.

The Sex Pistols Anarchy in the UK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOe9PJrbo0s

Punk attitude sung to a glam rock backing track. Rotten was an Art School boy and he had McLaren & Westwood to thank for the look – oooh the rebellion.

I’m being overly harsh on the bands obvs. They hadn’t come out of nowhere. They were busy railing against one cage of repressive rules. But hey did it by happily welding together a new set. What was right , what was wrong and who the boring old hippies were. We were as deluded as any Led Zep fan, still not so many drum solos so it wasn’t all bad.

Looking back 2 bands who could truly be said to have a punk philosophy were

Crass

That was punk alright …..but a little bit shit. They created a legacy that started with The Exploited and ended (hopefully) with The Levellers. What a shower of bastards.

ATV

Original , quirky, lo fi and very very good. But you can’t pogo to reggae boys – elementary mistake ( Yes I know that was their only cod reggae one but a gag is a gag).

So then – that’s punk year zero (in Derry – punk year one everywhere else) next blog Sid Vicious is Innocent for those of you who remember the slogan plus the next set of stupidities. However also the sainted Undertones.

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Provaries

Posted on October 11, 2013 by theindivisibleholytrinity

Funny & Gross – that’s my girl

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The Tyranny of Cool – Part 1

Posted on July 16, 2013 by theindivisibleholytrinity

Coolness like politics has it’s very own greasy pole. You , your friends and everyone else “know” where they are in relation to each other in the coolness spectrum. In public in our own heads we are cool “whitened sepulchres” ( a classical education will out) – at home a charnel pit of contradictory likes “that none must ever discover”. If we value our cool status we edit our public actions. For example to combine two public actions driving a top down car (yes, yes a mid life crisis, sorry all) blaring a lovingly chosen playlist provides great danger or opportunity for your position on the greasy pole. A few killer tracks move you to DILF status, whereas the stench of an uncool tracks hang around like a fart in a spaceship. Strange to say the coolness quotient is unspoken for the most part – a bit like knowing Jimmy Savile was a “wrong-un” just from watching 1970’s TV.

My “road to Damascus” moment came as follows. On a recent road-trip to Devon I made a playlist of 52 songs for the trip. It was amazing. I  didn’t fast forward once. On the road there or  back. I’m listening to it now. However , listening to the self-same playlist , car roof down , in the recent sunshine I have been skipping like a deranged child. Why? Why, the Tyranny of Cool of course.

hipster

As an aside – if anyone wants to start using Tyranny as the collective noun for the endless hipsters swarming ironically through life at the moment…feel free.

 

Tracks by Morrissey, BRMC,Queens of the Stone Age, Green Day, Camera Obscura, The Vaccines ,Vampire Weekend, Ian McCulloch, Lily Allen and Noah and the Whale, fine, fine, fine. And, of course by listing those ones I hope to establish my generic coolness.

Tracks by Kelis (not Milkshake obvs), Blu Cantrell, The Petshop Boys,Kubb and Gabriella Cilmi …not so much.

So maybe there are some rules there:-

Can we derive rules – Rock IS cooler than Pop (except  Rush,  Status Quo or Rainbow are definite fart category-  vice versa The Undertones, The Buzzcocks or The Lightnings seeds have never seen the inside of a spacesuit?).

Male singers are cooler than women (except, using the same format as above – Sting, Sammy Hagar or Fred Durst – prepare to hold your nose – vice versa Debbie Harry, Amy Winehouse or Billie Holiday are veritable po-pourris of coolness)?

So to summarise , rules.

So how am I deciding skippers versus turn the volume up in public bands?

I certainly wasn’t a cool child, my first ever single bought using my own money was “Billy Don’t be a Hero” by Paper Lace.

Paper Lace

Paper Lace

I almost certainly debated internally other similarly dreadful tracks by the likes of Smokie, The Rubettes

Holy Crap the Rubettes

Holy Crap the Rubettes

, Mud and Terry Jacks……you get the picture?

My first ever album was the The Best of Showaddywaddy (a teddy boy / 50s revival band)

o-SHOWADDYWADDY-570

– now only remembered as a Hugh Dennis line he has had to retire following the Jimmy Savile revelations.

Young people, YouTube them all, but only play the first 30 seconds or otherwise I will not be held responsibility for the onset of narcolepsy. People my age – hang your heads in shame.

But then I lucked out. I was at my Aunties and read a Sunday supplement that described the new(ish) punk movement in London. I decided this was the music for me.So based on an article not on actually listening to any of the music – I was a punk – and for the first time considered myself cool.

Next Blog – The Tyranny of Cool 2 – how a self obsessed but unaware teenage idiot came to define cool first for himself and then for a generation….erm not so much the last bit.

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Them’s the rules….I don’t write the rules…but them’s the rules

Posted on April 10, 2013 by theindivisibleholytrinity

I have a friend….lets call him Ross, mostly cos that is his name.

Ross is a funny but reserved man. He works insanely long hours (& days) and these days rarely takes a holiday. If you were to ask him why he does it he would say something like “it needs doing” or “I’m a fanny” and both of these would be true in his mind (and in actuality).

To dig deeper though the best place to start is  “them’s the rules”.

Ross has a series of rules, most of which are shorter than Haikus and none of which make much sense. If you ask Ross to do something that breaks a rule he will recite the rule, say no and intone “them’s the rules…I don’t write the rules…but them’s the rules”. Also if the rule is stupid enough it should also hurt slightly and even better have cut off your own nose to spite you face.

Here are some of my favourites

Ross do you want some crisps?

No crisps after 6 o’clock, them’s the rules…I don’t write the rules…but them’s the rules (from here on abbreviated to TTRIDWTRBTTR  doesn’t that just trip off the tongue/keyboard).

Why aren’t you using your company car ?

It would ruin my street creed – TTRIDWTRBTTR

Context – Ross often brings 3 pieces of fruit to work. Generally a banana and two satsumas. This male genitals physical gag is hilarious only to middle-aged/teenage boys.

Ross  @ 11 o’clock “I’m hungry”

Everyone nearby well have a piece of fruit?

No fruit before lunch TTRIDWTRBTTR

Ross had the same crappy Peugeot diesel car for 15 years

Before it broke forever he would often be asked

That thing is a useless deathtrap why don’t you get something newer (we’ve given up on asking the company car question see above)

You can’t get rid of things that aren’t broken beyond repair TTRIDWTRBTTR

This has also been true of, a 17″ portable TV, a CD player that the display didn’t work on and currently an MP 3 player that will only play random

On replacing his car

Are you buying Japanese/German/Italian ?

You can’t buy from our enemies in WWII – TTRIDWTRBTTR

How about American or French

You can’t buy from late entrants or people who gave in either – TTRIDWTRBTTR

As time went on this way of thinking gradually seeped into my head

My first one was

4.01 pm – Oh no I can’t get chocolate from the machine

Ross why not?

No machine chocolate after 4.00pm – TTRIDWTRBTTR (actually I did write that one but hey ho)

Ross beam of approval – not just because the rule was stupid but also  because I’d left to get the chocolate a 3.55 and stopped to ask Ross a work related question that could’ve waited

Also – I missed the bus this morning and was late because it took me so long to walk to a shop to get some change

Why didn’t you walk back to the house

You can’t walk back the way you came – TTRIDWTRBTTR

So the next time you don’t want to do something remember….them’s the rules…I don’t write the rules…but them’s the rules.

But also remember that once you intone the phrase , you can’t go back, it’s a rule to live your life by and if it hurts …..so much the better

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So…..I started a blog

Posted on January 18, 2013 by theindivisibleholytrinity

So get on with it

Richard Herring started his blog (I love the fact that wordpress spellcheck doesn’t like the word blog) http://www.richardherring.com/warmingup/ to break some writers block that he was suffering from
As I haven’t written anything substantial since uni 29 years ago that’s a hell of a gap. If I called it writers constipation the log that should pop out would be the size of Burntisland (in fact that might explain where Burntisland came from it .). If you don’t know about Burntisland then think Fresh Kills in Staten Island but without the atmosphere.

Sooo I’m writing this in an attempt to void my log , popping my blogging cherry whilst at the same time getting my juices flowing (there’s a mixed metaphor to be proud of).
Already I can see that it’s post modern (I’m already commented on it) and heavily reliant on the rule of 3 (some deconstruction-ism there too)

On telling people that I was starting a blog the 1st question from most of them was what theme? WHAT THEME FFS  I haven’t had a theme to my life (unless “don’t get caught” is a “theme“) so what this blog will be about is this nothing, nada, whatever general bollocks is going through my head.

People with themes ….move on …nothing to read here…no really fuck right off….also over use of ellipsis is a guarantee (thank you Rachel for pointing that out some Facebook posts ago)

I once read a poem (get me) that described the authors thoughts as random chickens running through the farmhouse that was his mind. So if anything that is my theme…random chickens…with ellipsis

So…..I started a blog….cluck cluck cluck

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