☺ Now The Dance Is Dead ☺
In November 2004, The Prodigy (the first major pop act to
come from Essex) released their first album since 1997. It reached No.17
in the national charts. In February 2005, The Chemical Brothers
(originally from London but who met at Manchester university and adopted
that mecca of popular culture as their centre of operations for the next
decade) released their first album since 2002. It is currently at No.15
in the national charts. Both these groups were regarded as the epitome
of all that was excellent in what was loosely termed ‘dance music’
in the 1990s. However, much of the material on these two contemporary
releases is hardly what would have been recognised as dance music in
1995 even though on an aesthetic level, the music is among some of the
best these outfits have ever released.
A colour supplement issued with The Guardian newspaper in 2004
proudly announced the death of dance music in a three page review. So
are The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers simply living out the fag-end
of the dance craze in a tedious repetition of those punk bands like
Discharge and The Exploited who tried to keep the rotten corpse of punk
alive after 1977? Were they repeating similar instances of an even
earlier age when beat groups in 1967 reverted to playing cabaret venues
if they were unable or unwilling to mutate into psychedelia like all
their more commercially successful peers? One thinks of the group UK
who, in 1979, tried to prove that progressive rock was still alive and
well. On the contrary, they proved nothing of the kind. Their two
albums, while technically most accomplished, were rather boring and sunk
without trace at the time although they sold reasonably well when they
were reissued on CD in the 1990s, no doubt purchased by middle aged
middle class types alienated by the dance craze that swept the nation at
the time.
The analogy should not be taken too far.
1)
Punk
rock lasted just 3 years, from 1976 to 1979.
2)
It
was a movement in complete isolation with no other musical fashion of
any worth to compete with it.
3)
It
was a direct reaction against the alleged irrelevance of the previously
prevailing musical scene to life in Britain in 1976.
4)
(This
is most crucial) it was musically an extremely conservative genre
afflicted with severe limitations. Technical ability was not only
regarded as unimportant, it was even dismissed as bourgeois! In a
misplaced desire to be direct and honest, the music was simple to the
point of being primitive. Basically, the music had nowhere to go after
every possible permutation had been played, rehashed and regurgitated in
garages and clubs across the land.
5)
The
political posture of most of these groups was precisely that: a pose
designed to boost street credibility.
Perhaps the most odious example of this last salient point is a
group called The Clash whose meticulously manicured record covers
contrived to present the band to their public as a bunch of political
revolutionaries, of aural guerrillas intent upon the downfall of western
capitalism. In fact The Clash had nothing much to say and were bereft of
any means by which to say even that after the first two albums. They
made records for CBS, an American multinational corporation involved in
the arms trade. The nadir was attained in 1980 when they released an
album called Sandinista. The cover showed the four band members lounging
on a flat bed rail truck in some rural setting intended to imply
Nicaragua. Each of them was attired in military combat drag, an allusion
to the Sandinista rebels. This cynical use for personal glorification of
an image by a mere pop group of a nation of people engaged in a struggle
against a military dictatorship is deeply offensive.
Here is where the analogy fails to retain an ability to be
completely convincing.
1)
The
dance craze lasted from 1990 to 1997, over twice as long as punk rock.
2)
It
had to compete with Brit Pop (Blur, Oasis, Pulp and Radiohead being the
most obvious examples) and the burgeoning, relentless march of gangsta
rap (NWA, 2 Pac, Puff Daddy, Ice Cube, Three Six Mafia, Snoop Dogg
Snoopy, Master P, Ghostface, So Solid Crew and a whole host of others).
Brit Pop and Gangsta Rap were hugely successful, both commercially and
aesthetically. Gangsta Rap in particular succeeded where punk rock
failed, that is, it spoke for a marginalized section of society with
wit, anger and eloquence. Even now, in 2005, there are gangsta rap
outfits in operation which, though they now sound a little dated, are
still highly enjoyable and definitely relevant to the social milieu they
represent. Compare that to the lamentable attempt of punk rock in the
1980s whose groups trudged ever further down a vacuous little cul-de-sac
populated by sad social misfits unable to face reality or the passing of
time.
3)
The
third point is also salient. The dance craze was never a reaction
against anything. On the contrary it evolved from a curious amalgam of
American hip hop, European industrial noise groups and a mutation of
disco. When teenagers first flocked to the Spanish island of Ibiza in
1991, their sound track must have sounded like tunes written by aliens
to the local population. A brief digression is in order here. Consider
the two drugs favoured by punks in the late 1970s: amphetamines and
alcohol. Both are killers. Both render the participant incapable of
coherent speech or activity. By contrast, the favoured drugs for the
baggies were ecstasy and marijuana. Both are virtually harmless taken in
moderation. Both render the participant able to converse (on a somewhat
eccentric level, to be sure) and, in the former case, leap about in
alloyed joy. The euphoria may well have been false but I preferred to be
among my pals who were laughing, joking and having a good time on E than
with a bunch of sad, miserable brutes incapacitated on alcohol, choking
on their own vomit and starting fights they could never finish.
4)
When
we encounter the fourth issue, here we are obliged to confront a
problem. Critics of dance music complain that it is little more than a
repetitive succession of computerised electronic sound effects set to a
moronic 4/4 beat. I have to accede to there being a degree of truth in
this but only in the sense that there will always be third rate copyists
who try to emulate the more artistically successful efforts of their
peers from the first division. For example, Travis and Coldplay were
initially poor, meagre and much less accomplished relatives of their
heroes Radiohead. That they later managed to produce more interesting
music coincided with a corresponding decrease in the musical influence
of Radiohead on their own works. In any case, The Orb, Paul Oakenfold,
Leftfield and their peers at the Ministry Of Sound were never going to
produce progressive rock or freeform jazz for one simple reason: their
music was designed primarily for nightclubs and raves. It was functional
music, a sound track for a scene raised on computers and the internet.
The use of collage had never before been so effectively utilised.
Through the use of digital manipulation, samples of music from any and
every source (even classical, country and western and swing bands from
the 1940s) were infused into this joyful electronic melée.
5)
As
for politics, our rave culture was political in action. We preferred to
club together and do something rather than inflict polemical diatribes
upon our audience with every record we released. Any fool can sing about
the injustice of the world from the clinical safety of a recording
studio or on a concert hall stage. Well, when crowds of teenagers (and
older people) flocked to our dwindling forests and woods during the
1990s to prevent motorways and tower blocks being built in their place,
these were the same people you would see next month at squatted
warehouses, dancing to the latest remixes from the Ministry Of Sound.
They were not punks.
Note: most American punks who read this will either find my
comments above faintly offensive or simply confusing. To them, I
apologise right now. I am well aware that there is and has been for over
a decade a strong political consciousness among the American punk
movement as is revealed by their support of AK Press to give just one
example. Besides, there is no equivalent of Rave Culture in America.
Point 5 above applies to Britain only. To emphasise the issue, during
the first years of the new century, we encountered many punks in London
who started to squat empty and derelict council buildings. This was new
– punks had ceased to bother with this form of direct action since the
early 1980s. What had caused the sudden change of attitude? We found out
soon enough when we asked them: they replied in strong French and German
accents. So that is the way it is: to locate punks who are politically
active, we have to import them from Europe. (Also, I admit in this
instance I was personally biased in their favour because it turned out
two of the German punks owned copies of Fire & Ice, our 3rd album!)
During the 1990s (which must rate as the most inventive decade in
the history of popular culture) hip hop itself mutated into garage,
jungle and drum and bass as black teenagers in America and Britain
became more financially secure and learnt to use computers as
instruments of artistic expression rather than mere functional tools.
Over in Europe, teenagers interested in the avant garde realised that
those same computer programmes (Q Base being the most celebrated)
enabled them to create in their bedrooms what people their parents’
age had to labour over in a recording studio for £100 a day. In the
best techno and dance music the phrase ‘anything goes’ comes to
mind. Even if the beat was unfortunately tied to 4/4 with an unnecessary
rigour, what went over the top of it was often extremely inventive and
interesting. The combination of mutated found sounds, stolen music from
previous eras and computer generated original sounds resulted in music
that kept us fascinated and enthralled for nearly a decade. At times it
may have been self indulgent but then so is much progressive rock, jazz
and modern classical music. The acid test (excuse the pun) is this: do
people like it? In market terms, does it sell? The answer to both
questions is ‘yes’ although the latter question is utterly
unimportant of course, unless you are some sort of business executive or
financial consultant in which case you are a sick bastard who doesn’t
deserve to live anyway.
I go further in my assault on the paucity of punk rock to achieve
anything. In the 1990s we squatted abandoned factories and warehouses.
We held our own raves, complete with sound systems and DJ’s from our
own social circle. We had no need of heroes or experts. We did properly
what the punks tried to achieve a decade earlier. Why did the punks
fail? Well, to be fair, it is not accurate to dismiss all their efforts
as failure. The Zigzag club was opened up and squatted by members Crass,
The Mob and my own group The Apostles, although it was Crass who
organised the event and who must receive most of the credit for its
success. It is believed they squatted the Centro Iberico in Westbourne
Park but in fact this old school had already been squatted by a bunch of
elderly Spanish anarchists – all the difficult work had been completed
before the punks were invited in. I know this to be so for I was one of
the young teenagers involved in this dubious enterprise. But at these
and many other events, there was almost always trouble, usually in the
form of invasions by skinheads.
Anyone born after 1980 will not know what a skinhead is so permit
me a brief digression. The original skinheads were a coagulation of all
the brainless dross from the late 1960s who used to be mods but while
their peers grew their hair and became hippies, this bunch preferred to
opt for big boots, braces and beer, liberally watered by heavy doses of
fascism. In the early 1980s, there was a mercifully brief skinhead
revival as social misfits too inadequate and unintelligent even for the
punk circuit, went to Carnaby Street and decked themselves out in Levi
501’s, Ben Sherman shirts and Dr Marten boots. The British National
Party rubbed their hands with glee as a new gang of brainless cannon
fodder was provided for their rallies. The radicalisation of the Asians
in British society combined with a new pride (fuelled by hip hop lyrics
and proto-gangsta rap outfits) exhibited by young West Indians (or black
British as some of them like to be called), informed a popular rebellion
that rendered the mere existence of these fascist thugs untenable. By
the end of the 1980s it was simply not realistic to be a skinhead if you
wanted to celebrate your next birthday. I have no problem with this.
So, the punks were usually unable to police their events when
gangs of skinheads invaded. The woeful diatribe of pacifism prevailed
among the punk scene and this allowed cowards an escape clause: ‘it is
wrong to commit acts of violence so I will not fight back or defend my
colleagues when some mindless thug assaults him with a crowbar.’ In
all the raves I attended, I cannot recall any major incidents of
violence. There was the occasional minor fracas but what do you expect
when 200 teenagers are crammed into a squatted warehouse in Essex? What
surprises me is how little violence and trouble occurred in the
circumstances. Curiously, a major reason for this is due to the choice
of drugs. Ecstasy requires an increased intake of water but it
absolutely does not mix with alcohol. When you have dropped an E or two,
even the thought of alcohol is anathema. It is unnecessary and
irrelevant. Ecstasy encourages friendliness and gentle euphoria. Alcohol
is a depressant that also encourages aggression. In the chill out rooms
of our raves you would occasionally (but not always) smell the caustic
aroma of marijuana fumes. I hate the stuff but one fact remains: you
never see a group of people loiter outside a club spoiling for a fight
after they’ve had a few spliffs: even if they wanted to cause trouble,
they simply couldn’t be bothered.
There was a further advantage both The Chemical Brothers and The
Prodigy exhibited over any of their punk forefathers: a refusal to
countenance the childishly immature hostility to purveyors of other,
older music genres. For example, the album Surrender by The Chemical
Brothers features guest appearances by Noel Gallagher of Oasis (on Let
Forever Be) and Bernard Sumner of 1980s group New Order (on Out Of
Control). That would be like The Clash featuring, say, Phil Collins as a
guest vocalist on one of their numbers – which would have been
interesting. Had they done so then at least one number by The Clash
would have been sung properly. The attitude of the punks toward other
genres and cultures was that of a group of children who prohibit anyone
different from joining their gang. There were even punk records released
in the 1980s with lyrics that brazenly insulted rap and hip hop even
though such an assault was utterly unprovoked; I have never encountered
a rap record that gives punk rock a verbal kicking. (If there is one,
then I want a copy!) Anyway, this was another reason why the punk scene
stultified and died a death so quickly.
Perhaps an additional contributing factor was the social scene at
the time. The 1980s, after all, is the only decade in the history of
popular culture when there was actually no pop music of any worth, value
or relevance to what was happening. The whole decade can accurately be
dismissed with this pithy summation: crap politics, crap fashions and
crap music. In fact this only applies to Britain. In America only the
first half of the decade was similarly afflicted for in 1985 the
nations’ youth culture was saved by the birth of hip hop, house and
rap. However, white teenagers who were not interested in this music had
little else to celebrate.
As one of my numerous digressions, notice that the two major
British youth cultural phenomena of the 1990s, Brit Pop and Rave
Culture, were of little interest to most of America. In fact, the
majority of American teenagers expressed virtually no knowledge of, or
particular interest in, groups like Oasis or The Chemical Brothers.
Instead they had the Seattle scene with groups like Nirvana and R.E.M.
to keep them amused. Such was the quality of these groups that it is
quite possible American youths felt no need for the import of oddities
from the UK. I use the word ‘oddities’ deliberately for both Brit
Pop and Rave Culture were essentially British phenomena even though many
of the techno and rave outfits included samples from American house,
garage, R&B and rap in their repertoire. In fact it was in mainland
Europe that the rave scene became really popular and where techno
records achieved high sales figures.
So by 1999 the rave scene had dissipated and become characterised
by small, isolated underground groups of people who continued to party
but the original vitality (and commercial viability) had evaporated. It
is therefore hardly a coincidence that The Prodigy released the superb
album The Fat Of The Land in 1997 and then remained largely silent until
their next record, the single Baby’s Got A Temper in 2002. Their next
album, Always Out-gunned, Never Out-manoeuvred, only appeared two years
later in 2004. These records reveal an increase in rock music samples
and a decrease in the techno music style that characterised their 1990s
recordings. The same is true for The Chemical Brothers. Their 1999 album
Surrender is far more gentle and introverted than their previous
records. Their next album, Come With Us, witnessed a return to form
perhaps but it still sounds a little reticent compared to the all out
assault that informs Dig Your Own Hole, their second album which was
released in 1997. It is interesting that the best albums by these two
outfits were released in 1997, the same year that three of the most
famous and respected Brit Pop bands The Charlatans, Blur and Oasis
suffered a marked and evident decrease in originality, vitality and
urgency in their own records. It appeared that dance and techno had come
of age while Brit Pop had begun to lose its direction. However, as we
have seen, this was soon to spiral into second rate repetition or
obscurity within a couple of years.
When I purchased Push The Button by The Chemical Brothers in
March 2005, I admit I expected to be largely disappointed. That this
album is actually as vibrant and interesting as their mighty 1997 opus
is a tribute to their skill and imagination. However, this is not really
a dance album. Like The Prodigy, they have moved on and started to
incorporate less techno and more rock / hip hop into the mix, with
convincing results. That there is virtually not a single weak track on
the album is a testament to this. However, this poses an intriguing
question: how relevant are The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy to
teenagers in 2005. How many teenagers know who these groups are? I
purchased Push The Button on Saturday morning on my way to work (in a
Chinese youth club). As a result, I had the CD with me when I entered
the Chinese Centre. Now, Chinese teenagers display musical tastes that
are often rather curious and frequently old fashioned or else they adopt
the same tastes as their black, West Indian peers.
The Chemical Brothers are regarded, like The Prodigy and Oasis,
as a product of the 1990s, being the kind of music to which their older
brothers and sisters listened and raved about. Consider the elapsed time
between The Fat Of The Land and Baby’s Got A Temper, for example: 5
years. In popular culture that is a long time indeed where much can
change. In 1963, The Shadows and The Beatles enjoyed top ten hit
singles. By 1969, The Beatles were history, King Crimson, Deep Purple
and Jethro Tull were the flavour in favour and it would have been
unthinkable to have been seen walking into school with an album by The
Shadows. The same can be said for a later period: in 1975 you were
‘cool’ if you had the latest albums by Hawkwind, Manfred Mann’s
Earth Band, Yes and Genesis in your ‘pad’. By 1980, if you still
owned any of these records then you kept them hidden somewhere more
secure than a Swiss bank to make damn certain your friends never found
out.
There is a difference between previous generations and the
current scene, a difference I find especially enervating: it is now
quite difficult to be considered ‘uncool’. If you own a progressive
rock recording from the early 1970s you are likely to be considered
‘into retro’, that is, you are interested in historical rock music.
It is no longer embarrassing to like music from previous generations and
genres. You can own a box set of 1940s recordings by Louis Jordan and
this is quite acceptable. In fact, the only certain method to ensure you
are treated with derision is to proudly boast a love of current chart
fodder such as Hearsay but a year from now, of course, no-one who reads
this will know who Hearsay were – such is the ephemeral nature of
commercial pop fashions.
The insular nature of the punk scene in Britain is evident by the
fact that even today, in 2005, there are actually people who still want
to make and listen to punk rock records. Most of these people are sad,
middle aged types who lack imagination or originality but, worse still,
there are even teenagers who consider punk rock ‘cool’. This is so
bizarre that I no longer even find it sad. This is like a sixteen year
old in 1971 forming a skiffle group and trying to find an audience for
it. The difference here is that if you form a punk band in 2005, you
will be able to find an audience for it although it is very small,
elitist and oozes with inverted snobbery. Groups who display technical
proficiency are treated with considerable suspicion. Groups who play
more than one style of music are actually regarded with contempt. Also,
if you seek to succeed in the UK punk scene, it is essential that you
are white, able bodied and preferably heterosexual.
If anyone should accuse me of invention, I can state a direct
case very close to home: our group, Unit. Over the past two years we
have been attacked, ridiculed and insulted but only by purveyors of punk
rock. This is for three main reasons. First, because we include purely
instrumental works in our repertoire and we use flute, clarinet,
saxophone, keyboards and vibraphone as regular instruments in our group.
In punk rock, you are only allowed to use shouted vocals, electric
guitars and drums. Every number has to be short, fast, in 4/4 time and
vocal. Again, in Rave Culture, diversity was celebrated. We wanted to
hear unusual instruments and novel vocal techniques. Punk rock is all
about obedience to a strict and confining set of rules. When I read what
some of these punks say about groups like ours, they sound just like my
dad.
Second, although we hardly ever include brazen, empty displays of
virtuosity in our music, it is apparent that 4 of the 5 members of Unit
are technically accomplished musicians with formidable degrees of skill.
Now, it does not require much skill or ability to play punk rock. This
does not invalidate the music. On the contrary, it is important that
there are kinds of music in which everyone can participate. Other than a
decent knowledge of a good computer programme like Q Base, it was not
essential for the purveyors of techno and dance music to be skilful
musicians. So I do not seek to ridicule a group simply because they did
not attend the Royal Academy of Music. But we were actually attacked
because we dared to display our obvious technical ability! One little
punk fanzine, Fracture, tried to be crafty and, irritated by our
ability, criticised us for being ‘hopeless’ and ‘crap’. The
public must have been rather bemused, then, when no less than seven
other magazines, two of them punk zines, remarked on our ‘superb
musicianship’, our ‘obvious skill’ and ‘evident ability’, even
though the two punk zines in question otherwise really didn’t like our
style of music despite our musical ability. To quote one of them:
‘bands like this are obviously very capable musicians and their music
is clearly very clever but that’s probably why I find it so boring.
Give me a good dose of hardcore thrash any day. What’s the matter with
not being a virtuoso?’ To answer this question: there is nothing wrong
with not being a virtuoso but there is plenty wrong with refusing to
exhibit any imagination, originality or intelligence. There is a whole
world out there – why be so narrow minded and ineffably conservative?
It’s time for another of my digressions. I mentioned above that
4 out of the 5 Unit members are highly skilled musicians. In case you
wonder, I am the one who is not so adept but then I do have an excuse: I
was born with severe dispraxia which means I should not even be able to
play a musical instrument at all. There are some (like the writers of
Fracture and Idwal Fisher, two notoriously right wing fanzines who want
everyone in the world to be just like them) who will insist that I still
can’t play music to save my life (and they may have a point there, to
be honest) but does that mean spastics are forbidden to participate in
pop groups? Are we forever supposed to sit at home and marvel at what
everybody else does but never have a go at playing music ourselves?
Well, stuff that! I have as much right to release records as anyone else
and I won’t have anyone tell me I can’t, least of all a bunch of
elitist has-beens who are still stuck in the eighties. Is it too much to
hope the UK punk scene will one day wake up and realise the world has
moved on since 1977? Probably.
Third, successful punk bands in the UK are white, able bodied and
heterosexual. That is partly why they are able to sell so many CDs: they
are acceptable to the majority. When we played concerts in London,
Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh and even Brighton, we were subjected to
racist taunts from audience members who dressed like punks – so I
assume they were indeed punks. It is perfectly understandable that such
people should find our complex and varied music irritating. It is
absolutely not acceptable for these same people to subject us to
racially motivated abuse simply because we do not play punk rock. (Why
should we? After all, we are not a punk band.) I have lost count of the
number of times I have been threatened and insulted for being a queer,
for playing ‘faggot rock’. Now I am aware that European and American
readers will find all this most disturbing and strange. I should add
here that, to date, while there are plenty of American punks who clearly
don’t like most of our music, we have yet to encounter even one who
has ever actually insulted us and certainly they have never ever
resorted to racial or homophobic abuse. What does this say about
Americans? What does this say about the British?
Were there no decent, interesting punk bands, then? I could be
churlish and state that the previous question contains a blatant
contradiction in terms, like ‘military intelligence’ or ‘caring
conservatives’. How can I possibly give a fair answer to that
question? I don’t like punk rock; the genre does not interest or
inspire me at all. There must surely be many decent and interesting
individuals who are involved in the punk scene, some of whom are in punk
bands, but their sloganeering, bombastic rhetoric for lyrics, coupled
with their noisome, tediously predictable racket for music, means I am
unable to tell one punk band from another. There was a band called Total
Chaos from Gateshead in Newcastle. They broke barriers and infused
their brand of punk rock with elements of folk music and the avant garde.
They achieved this in a thoroughly convincing manner even though they
were not what you might call technically accomplished musicians. They
utilised their limitations with consummate skill so that only another
musician might realise they were not top of league for virtuoso ability.
They released two 7” records, one 12” record and a track on a
compilation album. After that they vanished into obscurity and to date
none of their works have ever been reissued on CD.
America has been served rather better for interesting punk bands.
There are the two F words for a start: Flipper and Fugazi.
These two bands prove what can be achieved if a group refuses to obey
the intense conservatism of the punk rock code. There was also an
amazing band called Artless who were easily as musically
competent as ourselves and almost as catholic in their tastes. They
released an album in the 1990s called Crassdriver that remains one of
the most inventive albums by a punk band ever released. This, too, has
never been reissued on CD as far as I am aware. (If I am wrong here and
it is available on CD then would someone please let me know how and
where I can obtain a copy? You can contact me via U-J on our e-mail
address.)
There is (was) a liberating aspect of Rave Culture that was never
properly addressed by the punk scene. How many people can afford to
spend £200 a day in a small recording studio to record an album?
Radiohead spent £100,000 to record their first album, Pablo Honey. Fair
enough, they were backed by EMI, their record label. But prior to the
Techno and Dance revolution, the only means by which one could release
an album of decently produced music (regardless of the quality of that
music itself) was to book a recording studio, not for as long as was
necessary but for as long as one had sufficient funds. The rave scene
liberated us from all that. Once one had paid the initial expense of
purchasing a decent computer with the requisite software (which would
require around about £1,000), any further expenditure was negligible.
One could spend how ever long was necessary to perfect a track and then
burn each CD privately if necessary. If the CD proved really popular
then it was financially feasible to pay for a batch of discs to be
copied professionally.
I am not old enough to recall this from personal experience but I
am informed that these days, the punk scene has changed from the
ideology it once represented. Now the most respected punk bands use the
most expensive instruments and it is the most professional production
jobs that receive the most laudatory reviews in punk fanzines. As I
always suspected, punk rock is still for little rich boys to shock their
parents and impress their peers with how much they spent on producing
their latest single. At least, this is true in the UK. Their lyrics
about third world poverty are sung into microphones that cost enough to
feed a family from Somalia for a month. I find the political posturing
of punk bands so tediously pompous. You know that most of these snotty
nosed oiks will buy and sell on the stock market ten years from now or,
if they are successful, they will sign up to Polydor or CBS and claim
they were never really punks in the first place. Are we having fun yet?
Can you now understand why every member of UNIT is proud to say that we
are not punks, have never been punks and never want to be punks? I am
aware there are people in America, Europe and Japan who like and support
UNIT, who also call themselves ‘punks’ or who identify with the punk
scene and who may therefore find my remarks unnecessarily hostile. To
all these people I say only this: the members of UNIT live in England,
Great Britain; my sentiments are the direct result of the treatment we
have received from the punk scene here. No overt criticism is directed
here to any of our American, European and Japanese colleagues.
To conclude my defence of the innovation, originality and
intelligence of the rave scene as opposed to the elitism, pomposity and
extreme conservatism of the punk scene, perhaps I should be fair and
admit that the dance is dead. We had a laugh and a giggle during the
1990s, despite the fag-end of Thatcher and the miserable grey fog of
Major but the Blair witch hunt regime, which is far worse than anything
Thatcher could have invented in even her most volatile fantasies, helped
to kill off the last fragments of hope. Fleetwood Mac played at the
Jimmy Carter election party; Blair and his cohorts tapped their feet
along to records by Oasis at their first party conference after they
were elected. The government were never able to co-opt a rave outfit for
any of their sordid little functions. I am grateful for that at least.
Where do we go now? The Libertines – The Strokes – The White Stripes
– is that it? Is that really the future direction our popular culture
is to go for the next ten years? Oh, please, let there be more than
that.
Not apparently relevant to this review but a last desperate
attempt to end on a note of optimism, we must congratulate Helen Steel
and Dave Morris, the two people who, unaided by any organisation, single
handedly took on the might of MacDonalds and won! After a 13 year
struggle in the European human rights court, they won their appeal
against the original British justice decision that initially ruled
against them for their campaign of leaflets and propaganda against one
of the most vociferous exponents of global capitalism in the world. It
is the story of how it is possible for two ordinary people to take on
one of the largest multinational fast food chains in the world and win.
Name me one punk band that can claim a similar achievement.
Andy
Martin (c) 2005.
