Punk: the filth and the fury. But it was so much more than that.
In The History of Punk Music, author Stephen Palmer depicts the punk rock explosion of 1976-77 in tired, bored, and socially stratified Britain. Emerging from the litter-strewn streets of London, punk’s music expressed the suppressed anger of young working-class people with nowhere to go and nothing meaningful to do. Its music was raw and shocking. Its fashion mocked staid middle-class values. Its art was expressed in cut-outs and by sprayed graffiti. Yet beneath this sudden explosion, frightening to those of the establishment who witnessed it, incomprehensible to white-collar workers commuting to and from work, lay a philosophy of individual creative expression and an ethic of anti-racism and liberation for women.
Punk in its original form was a movement of human liberation, a Year Zero moment in the history of a nation more used to colonial exploits and a vast empire. It spoke of fury, of hopelessness, of cathartic anger expressed through visceral, exciting, revolutionary music. Its visual images captured the gaze of the nation, and soon the world. And all of its central figures yelled, hammered and smashed the doors of the Establishment.
This book charts the origins, appearance, development and ending of punk. It is a book of passion and vivid description, befitting the individual visions of the original punk musicians.
Punk was filthy and furious, yet it was also a new dawn for the British music scene.
Author: Stephen Palmer is a professionally published author of thirty years, whose work has garnered much acclaim in genre, independent, and national press. His books have encompassed SF, Steampunk, and in narrative nonfiction Anthropology and Music. He was the man behind the psychedelic group Mooch, and the real world project Blue Lily Commission. He lives in south Shropshire with his partner and an unfeasibly large number of musical instruments.
Review: I was there. The day The Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen 45 rpm arrived at my record shop. I bought it. Played it loud so my neighbors could hear it. So my rock and roll friends could react to it. What is that? It's the new Rock, I'd tell them. That's not Rock, they'd reply. But they listened. And have continued to listen till today. Punk. Post Punk. Retro Punk. Hardcore Punk. But through all the changes, Punk remains the music of its day, a singular music for a singular era. The seed before the tree. And that's why "A History of Punk" by Stephen Palmer is so important: It reminds us of when and where it all began.
It is tempting to want to recap the book and compare notes from America about our Punk Movement on the Eastside of Los Angeles, but that's how enthralling Steve's recounting his perspective about the UK Punk Movement is that I want to say, So that's what inspired the roots of the Punk Scene. The book is not erudite research; it is a lived in community that an insider shares with outsiders looking in. It is not cold calculation and pedantic footnotes; it is a voice that echoes the beginnings of Punk because Steve celebrates the birth and growth of the Movement. And he does so with references to real times, places, and bands from his memory, his experience, and we listen to the words with envy, but also with pride, because, yeah, I was there too, but over here in Los Angeles. Reading A History of Punk is not nostalgia; it is being there buying and listening to God Save the Queen by The Sex Pistols all over again as if for the first time.
