Book: John Robb - 'PUNK Rock:an Oral HISTORY'

John Robb's 'Punk Rock:An oral history' is out now on Ebury Press.  And you can read an exclusive extract right here!               

'John Robb is a great writer... and he is supremely qualified in my opinion to talk about punk rock' Mick Jones, the Clash

'John Robb is as punk rock as the Clash' Alan McGee

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From 'Punk Rock : An oral history'

"Punk was like we didn't have a map and we didn't have an address. It was like someone nicking a car and saying, "Who’s coming?"

Jimmy Pursey, UK Subs

1976, PART I - INTO CHAOS - I USE THE NME!:

The Sex Pistols Introduce Themselves to the World

J. J. Burnel

I think it was at the Red Cow one night in the spring of 1976 that our manager Dai Davies, who had worked with Malcolm McLaren with the New York Dolls, introduced us to these two boys and a girl. She sounded American and she said, "I’m going to be your new lead singer." And that was Chrissie Hynde, and she had come with Steve and Paul from the Pistols. Steve was dressed like an American college boy with a silk bomber jacket and slicked back hair, which was different in those days. He said to me. "I like your haircut." And he said, "We’re going to be famous in a few months time." 12th February 1976: The first Pistols gig to get any attention was supporting Eddie and the Hot Rods at the Marquee. Lydon was now really pushing the barriers of performance, walking off stage, sitting with the audience, throwing Jordan across the dancefloor and chucking chairs around, before smashing some of Eddie and the Hot Rods’ gear. It resulted in the band’s first live review in the NME, the review by Neil Spencer that made so many people round the country who read it suddenly realise that they were not alone. Under the headline, ‘don’t Look Over Your Shoulder But The Sex Pistols Are Coming’, the review also contained a small interview with the classic Steve Jones quote, "Actually we’re not into music. We’re into chaos." The manifesto was now in place.

Nils Stevenson

One day Malcolm suggested I come and see the band he was managing, the Sex Pistols. I went down with him, Vivienne, Chrissie Hynde and Jordan, in Viv’s puke-green Mini. I was hooked. They reminded me of Iggy and the Stooges. There were no more than 100 people there. They were all there for Eddie and the Hot Rods bar the Sex shop crew: five of us and Steve Severin and whoever he was with. All together, ten people to see the Pistols. I saw them play once, and by the next gig I was working for them. I closed down my stall on the Kings Road, and the following week we were working from Malcolm and Vivienne’s flat designing posters, until he had a ruck with Vivienne and moved in with Helen Wellington-Lloyd who became our secretary/co-designer. It all happened really fast.

Glen Matlock

John broke the PA at the Eddie and the Hot Rods gig. He didn’t like the sound of his voice.

Chrissie Hynde

In 1976 I went to every club every night, with my guitar. I just walked around the streets looking for someone to get a band together. I was desperate and determined. Everybody I knew had a band together by now. Even people who I showed how to play a few chords! And I was like holding out waiting for my band. And I knew when I found my guys they were going to be right. McLaren, to his credit, didn’t want anyone showing his guys how to play. He certainly didn’t want me showing Rotten how to play guitar! McLaren didnÕt know much about music but he was certainly a visionary. He wanted his poet, and his struggling musicians who could just make a sound. And of course, musicianship killed off punk. Because as soon as they learned how to play, they couldn’t play punk any more.

Vic Godard

There was no one there at all, about 30 to 40 people. That was for the main band, Eddie and the Hot Rods. The Pistols were the support band. We went by while the PA was getting smashed up, that was what drew us in. We were in the West End looking for gigs to go to. We walked up Wardour Street and we heard a big kerfuffle going. We thought, "What’s going on in there?" We went in. The Sex Pistols had already done a few numbers, so we saw the tail end of it. It looked like they were getting thrown out of the place! We were desperate to find out when they were playing next. We kept going to gigs finding out when the next one was.

After the Pistols at the Marquee, we went to every gig in London. It was very rough-sounding, nothing like what they turned out to be. They made a lot of errors. They did all the Sixties numbers. That’s what got Rob Simmons into them. What I liked about them was that they looked nothing like the Sixties. I wasn’t into that Sixties thing so much. I liked the sound of it but I didn’t want it to be a band doing just Sixties stuff. They had a New York Dolls type of sound. They were the only group that was anything like that at the time.

Rob Lloyd

The first thing I can remember was reading the review in the NME where the Sex Pistols had been supporting Eddie and the Hot Rods at the Marquee and they had ended up in some sort of brawl. The NME reviewer said, "It’s really primitive music and it all fell apart." I can remember the final line: "We’re not into music. We’re into chaos." I just thought, when I read that, "Yeah!" Even though I was really deeply into music I thought the chaos sounded great. I thought, "It’s arrived!"

Damian O’Neill

It was in the music press, the first review of the Pistols at the Marquee. I remember the Pistols saying, "We are not into music, we are into chaos." I got that cutting in my Undertones scrapbook - on the first page! [laughs] We hadn’t heard anything by them.

Nils Stevenson

The term ‘punk’ hadn’t been coined at the beginning. We were booked to do the pub rock circuit where everyone was playing r’n’b, and then the Sex Pistols came on and did their own brand of rock’n’roll - that created friction. Rotten’s attitude further infuriated the audience. Obviously it was the complete opposite of what everybody in showbiz had ever done. There were lots of problems, and then bands started coming out really fast.

Keith Levene

The word ‘punk’ didn’t really exist then, but we had a bit of a manifesto. We were trying to tear things down: the WhoÕs Farewell Tour Part III, Led Zeppelin, the likes of Yes, the likes of these bands that were so fucking incredibly musically talented.

Howard Devoto

Quite what punk consisted of at that point wasn’t that clear. Malcolm called it ‘new wave’, like French cinema. The word ‘punk’ was in the Neil Spencer review. The American magazine, Punk, been around a few months.

INTO CHAOS

Punk was a New York-based magazine/fanzine that covered the upcoming CBGBs scene in a witty and acerbic style from January 1976 till 1979, and was the direct source of the name of the movement. The word ‘punk’ originally meant a prostitute, mouldy wood or fungus. By the time Punk magazine took its name it had gone on to mean a person who takes it up the ass in prison, a loser, or a form of Sixties garage Rock’n’roll.  Two days later the band played a Valentine’s Ball at Andrew Logan’s studio in London. When Jordan jumped on stage, Johnny ripped her clothes off and started smashing the band’s equipment. When his microphone cut out he started to smash it up. This caused a punch-up between the PA company and the Pistols’ crew, while Lydon kept on singing ‘No Fun’.

Gene October

Andrew Logan used to have mad parties in London Ð he would invite the whole mad arts world of London, the underground, all these real nutters all over the place.

Mick Jones

Everyone had been waiting for a band like the Pistols to happen. I first saw them at Andrew Logan’s party by Tower Bridge. You knew straight away that was it, and this was what it was going to be like from now on. It was a new scene, new values - so different from what had happened before. A bit dangerous.

Brian James

It was a great feeling when we were in rehearsal in London SS and Bernie took us down to see the Pistols at Andrew Logan’s big Valentine’s Night warehouse party at Butler’s Wharf. Just seeing them playing made me, Mick and Tony aware that there was other people into this kind of music. They were playing the Stooges’ ‘No Fun’. They weren’t the greatest band in the world - but they had an attitude. They were barking up the right tree. It made you think, ‘I wasn’t wrong - there is people out there into this stuff!’ I spoke to John Lydon afterwards, and I was impressed by his attitude. I moved on from the London SS at that point. Me and Rat started looking for singers and bass players. I moved onto Portobello Road and started hanging out at the Lonsdale pub. There was quite a scene there. A lot of the people into this new scene started going down there.

Tony James

We were doing London SS, still trying to find people, in early ‘76. This was not working. Me and Mick didn’t fall out. It was not a big deal. Somehow it got lost in the ether. Mick was already off talking to Joe Strummer and I was looking at the wanted ads. Towards the end of London SS there is a classic Bernie moment. He got me, Brian James and Mick into his car, and we drive to Madison Terrace, which is the millionaires’ row, one of the poshest streets in London in those days. There’s a party going on and we’re sat outside in the car, and the Stones arrive and it’s all very bohemian. It was like our dream. We were totally on the outside in those days - guest list wasn’t in our vocabulary. We couldn’t believe it. We’re in! Bernie gets us outside and he turns around and goes, ‘You will be able to go when you get a great idea.’ And he drove us away – ‘You’re not ready for this yet!’ he said - and he was right. We were very pissed off at the time but it was true! He was taunting us.

Mick Jones

It wasn’t getting anywhere. We couldn’t find a singer. So me and Tony went our own ways. Bernie said to me, ‘Don’t work with Tony, work with Paul Simonon.’ I think we felt we weren’t getting anywhere at that time. Maybe Bernie pulled me away a little bit. Tony lent Paul a bass and Paul started learning the bass.

Tony James

We just kind of thought, ‘We will never find a singer. Let’s go our own way.’ There was a time when I was living at Mick’s gran’s flat. Mick was living at the Davis Road squat by then with Sid Vicious and Viv Albertine. Vivienne Albertine was later to join the Slits. And then somehow Brian hooked up with Scabies and formed the Damned and I hooked up with Billy [Idol] in Chelsea. It’s unbelievable, but we never took a picture of the London SS. The door of the Praed Sreet basement, I have a photo of that from 1902 with two blokes in stove pipe top hats by the front door – it’s a spooky picture. The two blokes look like me and Mick.

A lot of great people drifted through the London SS and went on to do great stuff. Bernie would be there most of the times and he would bring Malcolm down. Chrissie Hynde would come down as well, and Mick went off to write songs with her. It was Bernie who suggested that Mick should go and write with Chrissie for a bit, and that didn’t work out.

Mick Jones

I played with Chrissie Hynde for a bit. Me and Chrissie were playing songs in my bedroom and we sang together: ‘something’s Got A Hold On Me’ and Aretha Franklin’s ‘Every Little Bit Hurts’. I was still a kid and she was quite exotic to me, being from America. She was working for the NME and going out with Nick Kent, and I was like wow! But Bernie pulled me away from her as well! (laughs] He must have had a plan. He didn’t think like other people - that was what was interesting about him. He gave me a proper schooling.

'To see the Clash on the White Riot tour was like discovering how to be a rock star: you just did it yourself. You didn't wait for someone to come and discover you. That was the most important thing that came out of punk… We came home and we cut our hair and bought skinny trousers. It was year zero. That was the moment for me' Billy Bragg Punk Rock is a book like no other. It is an oral history of a radical movement which exploded in Seventies Britain. With its own clothes, hair, artwork, fanzines and radical politics, Punk boasted a DIY ethos that meant anyone could take part. The scene was uniquely vibrant and energetic, leaving an extraordinary legacy of notorious events, charismatic characters and inspirational music.

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John Robb & Punk Rock

John Robb has spent over a year interviewing more than 100 contributors including Glen Matlock, Mick Jones, Don Letts, Slash, Billy Bragg, Hugh Cornwell and Captain Sensible. Now, for the first time, they give the inside view on events such as the Sex Pistols’ swearing live on the Bill Grundy TV show and staging their anti-Jubilee riverboat party on the Thames, famous gigs at the Roxy and 100 Club, and the groundbreaking records by the Pistols, the Clash, the Damned and others. From the widely debated roots of punk in the late-Sixties through to the fallout of the post-punk period in 1984, and the ongoing influence on today’s bands, Punk Rock is the definitive oral history of an inimitable and exciting movement.

Escaping Blackpool suburbia care of punk rock, John Robb formed the Membranes in the punk wars. Fired by the DIY ethic of punk, he also edited his own fanzine, The Rox. He toured the world with the Membranes and put out several critically acclaimed albums. In the late Eighties he wrote for Sounds, the sadly defunct music paper, and was first to write about Nirvana and the upcoming Manchester scene, as well as inventing the word Britpop (sorry!). In the Nineties he put together Goldblade, who have toured the world several times with their incendiary live show and released yet more critically acclaimed albums. He has also appeared countless times on TV and films and has written bestselling books on the Stone Roses and Nineties pop culture.

About the editor

Oliver Craske is a writer and editor specialising in music, photography and other illustrated books. He is the author of Rock Faces, a survey of rock music photography.

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