The Clash and Sex Pistols in Culture

[Demonamol]

Hi everyone,
I'm currently writing an essay on The Clash and the Sex Pistols regarding culture. I have to write about art, morals, customs, laws, belief and society with the punk movement in mind.

Any pointers or a bit of info will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks :)

[andy-hughes]

Get yourself a copy of 'England's Dreaming' by Jon Savage.

Read and ingest.

Interperet your opinions on the basis of historical perspective.

Get an 'A'.

Hope this helps.

[VHG]

As someone who lived through the 1970s and the punk movement it has to be said the punk movement as a whole was a reaction to the state of the country.

Britain was in a right mess at the time, with lots of strikes, civil unrest, and so on. In the late 1970s we had the "winter of discontent" (look it up on the internet) where society seemed to be collapsing.

While it was a protest, many of the people involved did not really have a clear message, they just wanted to protest. The Sex Pistols seemed to just want to upset as many people as they could and get as much publicity as they could (an early form of reality TV I suppose).

Someone like Johnny Rotten was not very bright and I dont think he ever knew what he was protesting about (he still doesn't). He just wanted to protest.

Also there was little youth culture on TV (no MTV etc) and all the media seemed to be run be older people so this was a way for young people to get a voice and get on to TV.

Musically it was a protest about some of the overblown rock groups who played long pretentious songs at the time (Pink Floyd, Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer etc). Punk was simple and easy to perform, anyone could be in a punk band.

It was giving music back to "ordinairy" people.

[Davethedog]

Punk was a reaction to a society, that had to an extent turned its back on the "youth" there are a great number of people who trace punk to America, Iggy Pop et al, its not something I subscribe to.

As far as the Sex Pistols are concerned you have to remember that they were as mnafactured as Westlife. MCClaren and to a degree Westwood built them and if wasn't for (the despised) Matlock you may never of heard of them.

They were, however, the trigger for "dissafected" youth to form thier own bands. A little digging will also lead you to the fact that most of these people were middle class, from comfortable homes and were not the dissafected youth they tried to be.

[Emerton]

Everyone will have their own perspective on this, my own is that most punk culture was just young people having a laugh while record companies and journalists made a plenty of dosh pretending it meant something.

[MarkRae]

The manufactured comment about the pistols is absolutely right. As for punk being a reaction against progressive rock, John Lydon has often cited Peter Hammill as a major influence, especially his "Nadir's Big Chance" album. It's not possible to write anything meaningful about the Sex Pistols without listening to it. Also, you should definitely listen to the first two New York Dolls albums to get an idea of the band McClaren intended to manufacture.

As for The Clash, remember that Joe Strummer was a public schoolboy, son of a Foreign Office diplomat and Mick Jones went to a CofE grammar school. I would strongly suggest you explore their education when talking about White Riot. Also, the influence of Mott the Hoople in general, and Ian Hunter in particular, can't be dismissed.

[andy-hughes]

VHG - have to take issue about Johnny Rotten not being very bright - I have interviewed him, and trust me, he is!

[Backdrifter]

Yeah, I don't buy this 'protest against prog' stuff that gets bandied about. But it did give people an alternative thing to listen to and join in with.

There's a lot of tosh spoken and written about how punk "killed off" prog. At the height of punk, some of those supposedly most hated 'prog' bands - Yes, ELP and Genesis - enjoyed steadily growing audiences and had their first top 10 singles.

I liked some of the prog stuff, and also liked punk and new wave. I never got this one-or-the-other attitude loads of people seemed to have, and i still don't get it. It is possible to walk AND chew gum.

[Demonamol]

Hi guys
Thank you all for your help - you've certainly supplied me with a lot of food for thought! 5000 words later and my essay's all done and handed in :D
I purchased 'England's Dreaming' and it certainly didn't dissapoint - I did find quite a bit of Jon Savage stuff floating around out there. There's also some excellent books from David Muggleton and Alex Ogg. One fo the best books I found was by John Robb called Punk Rock : An Oral History, it contains loads of quotes from plenty of worthy names including Glen Matlock, Jimmy Pursey, Mick Jones, Don Letts - the lists goes on...
It was quite interesting to see the Sex Pistols seem to be brought up more here and actually in all my research aswell. There's sooo much more pistols stuff out there which is odd considering the clash have a much much larger back catalogue.
I took quite alot of time reflecting the hypocrisy of the punk attitude and it got pretty deep at times!!

Thanks ever so much guys, you've been really helpful :D Tis much appreciated.

Tash

[MarkRae]

Are you allowed to make your essay publicly available? I'd certainly be interested in reading it.

[Demonamol]

I don't think I can until it's back from the board but I'll make sure it's up when it is. Thanks for your interest :)