"They're too busy, fighting
For a good place, under the lighting…" --The Clash, White Man in Hammersmith Palais


In 1979 I was just (only just) one of the record buying public. The PSV / Russell club in full swing The Buzzcocks in the chart. Ahh....golden days!
Punk today can be much more clinical. Clean, well-pressed punk uniforms, professionally dyed hair. These kids often have things wrong-they aren't supposed to LIKE punk songs, they were supposed to be the INSPIRATION for punk songs among their less privileged and attractive classmates. I don't remember this from the old days of the late 70's. Maybe Darby Crash's mom laid his clothes out for him before a show. Maybe Jello Biafra's dad drove him to his first punk show in the family "station wagon". I don't remember the typical Free Trade Hall audience for Joy Division or the drones etc comprised of Wilmslow & Knutsford girls and boys. I remember the sweat, the spit, trying to get home in James Andertons Manchester when the 211 SELNEC night bus was cut to once every two hours.
Anybody who loves punk music, especially the foundational songs and bands, surely knows that their economic lot in life means nothing, has nothing to do with what sort of person they are. And knows that punk clothes, punk haircuts, anything else that you can buy with money mean nothing compared to your strength and character as a person. Sure character means something different for a punk than it does for your middle class kid. Maybe character means exactly the opposite in fact-the ability to not follow rules, to make up your own mind, to act as an individual. But that doesn't mean that honour is dead for a punk, it just means that honour springs from a different source, a more natural source. Honour is just upholding the natural freedoms and dignities to which we are all entitled as humans. I can't say for sure if punk has ever been concerned primarily with uplifting the masses of suffering people as a movement, but I do know that at one time it was concerned with bettering their lot in life according to the songs that used to be sung. And until punk rock can again mean BOTH celebrating in not doing what authority figures tell you to do AND realizing that everybody is a worthwhile human being until they do something to call that worth into question, then punk will remain dead. Neuvou punk of the 21st century has some way to go.

Lookout for some of the North Wests best punk talent: All Rights Rejected, Blue Tile Lounge, Built from Scratch, Crylo Death By Design, Duck Hunt, Dumpster, Fall in Line, Federal Super Heros, Gur, Hit and Run Holiday, The Hyperjax, Idiom, Idiosyncracy,The Influence, Joes Steakhouse, The Kinki Wizards, Laymar ,Lets not Lose Mars to the Commies, Lowgrade, Me and Three Others ,Novembers Lie, Out of Gauge, Pentatonic, Rhythmic Coughing, Riot in Juvenile Prison, Rocket Baby, Skank Like Frank, Speed Monkey, Saucerman, Two Foot 2 Tall, Thee Exit wounds, Wine-o.