"John Robb is supremely qualified to talk about punk rock" says Mick Jones. The Gold Blade and former-Membranes frontman and respected broadcaster and journalist has compiled a facinating account of punk that leaves few stones unturned. While John Savage's acclaimed 'England's Dreaming: Sex Pistols and Punk Rock' is regarded by most to be the definitive writing on that period in music history, Robb's new book is the perfect companion, full of accounts and anecdotes from the people who made it all happen. A glace over the extensive contributors list reads like a who's who of punk rock: Johnny Rotten, Don Letts, Poly Styrene, Siouxsie Sioux, Mick Jones, Glen Matlock, Poly Styrene, Captain Sensible, Lemmy, Hugh Cornwell, Tony James, Chrissie Hynde, Jaz Coleman etc etc...
As Robb says himself in the book: "I wanted the story direct from the people who were there, I wanted their story and not the rubbish theories that were added on afterwards. I wanted the story that didn't stick to the official punk rock party line. It's a lot more complicated than that."
The following extract is taken from a chapter entitled ALL THE YOUNG DUDES: Bolan, Bowie and the Glam Rock Droogs Make the World Technicolour...
Marc Riley (The Fall; BBC Radio 1 DJ 'Lard')
T. Rex's 'Ride A White Swan' on Top Of The Pops was really important. The next pivotal moment was seeing David Bowie do 'Starman' on Lift Off With Ayshea, which was two weeks before the pivotal moment for a lot of people – seeing 'Starman' on Top Of The Pops. Like a lot of people, through Bowie I traced back to Iggy and the Velvets. I went out and bought Raw Power, Berlin, Max's Kansas City, so I found myself immediately at age of thirteen pretty well listening to what I listen to now – which is a great thing to be able to say. It was the right music at the right time, and has stuck to me all these years.
On the other hand I also liked Genesis! I saw them doing 'I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)' and I got sucked into the prog rock thing as well. The two extremes were the prog thing and glam. I hated Yes and Emerson Lake and Palmer, but I liked some of Genesis. It a bit theatrical, you know! [laughs] People who had flared jeans and desert boots and army coats with Led Zeppelin written on the back had their one scene, and we would be into Bowie and Genesis and never the twain shall meet.
Mick Jones (London SS, the Clash, Big Audio Dynamite: guitar and vocals)
In the early Seventies David Bowie came out with Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars and they were like a proper band. It wasn't like the David Bowie we all knew about, the 'Space Oddity' David Bowie. This was different. We took that seriously. We also used to go and see the Faces – Rod Stewart and the Faces, not the Small Faces. We were into Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood and we used to follow them round as well. I didn't see Mott The Hoople till later.
T. V. Smith (The Adverts: lead vocals)
I was always into David Bowie. I was interested in the pre-'Space Oddity' stuff. Man of Words/Man of Music – I was knocked out with his songwriting on that. The whole idea was brilliant, the way it was all tied up together. Roxy Music were doing the same trick on their first album, a classic: great songs, great lyrics, interesting arrangements. You open up that gatefold sleeve and see them in all those great clothes. I really liked the way it was packaged. The whole thing was better than the normal pap. I was not interested in the rest of glam rock. I don’t know why they were lumped together with these Chinnichap bands that may have got respect now but they were at the opposite end – they were completely manufactured rubbish. They were so calculated, going for the teen market.
John Lydon (The Sex Pistols, Public Image Limited: vocals)
That T. Rex/Bowie period was for very young kids. Pop with lipstick. They got bored when they grew up a little and realised what a bunch of very, very poor transvestites they were worshipping, and were desperate to look into anything else. And then Roxy Music came along and that made dinner jackets become fashionable. Bryan Ferry's depravity introduced a decadent aspect to life that was definitely interesting. San Moritz cigarettes with cheap wine led, quite naturally for me, to other things.
Marco Pirroni (Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Models, Rema Rema, Adam and the Ants: guitar)
The first music that affected me was Ziggy Stardust, and Roxy Music's 'Virginia Plain', which is one of my favourite singles of all time. The first record I remember really, really liking was 'Maggie May' by Rod Stewart. Then I liked the Faces for a while, but there was something about them that I couldn't identify with. I wasn't 100 per cent with Bowie till Ziggy Stardust. I don't understand the Bowie-as-an-alien thing to this day, but aesthetically I thought it looked amazing. I went to see Roxy Music at their Rainbow gigs. A lot of people had the clothes on. Because there were five of them there were a lot of disparate elements and you could hear all these influences in their music. For a kid, seeing Roxy Music was the height of heights. Later on when you do it yourself, and you're sitting backstage drinking cans of coke and eating crisps, you realise for them it's just another gig, that they get back on the coach and go to Sheffield or somewhere. But I didn't know that then, and Roxy Music could project this sophisticated image. They came from a slightly different scene. They were older. Bryan Ferry was quite old. He was 27! He was an old mod.
Siouxsie Sioux (Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Creatures: vocals)
At a Roxy Music gig I went to, I remember having this black taffeta skirt, which I wore with black high-heeled shoes in a Forties style, and a black double V-necked jumper with white sequins. That was my first look, which I wore with an angora-type bolero jacket that my Mum had. Once I started going to Biba on my own, and discovered rust colours for the eyes, I really got quite heavily into wearing red eye shadow, which used to make the blue in my eyes really stand out.
Poly Styrene (X-Ray Spex: lead vocals)
As well as the 'post-hippie' scene, there was this more arty thing, like Roxy Music, going on as well. I was in the Johnny Rondo Trio, a jazz quartet in Bath, Somerset. I used to DJ there as well in the local hippie pub, the Hat and Feather. I'd play stuff like 'Wild Thing' by the Troggs, or 'Diamond Dogs'. I was very much into Roxy Music. Roxy played Bath Arts Festival so I got to see these bands very early, before they were famous. They were sort of a combination of fringe theatre and music. The musicianship side was more like Brian Eno and Andy Mackay, and obviously Bryan Ferry was like a debonair actor with his image.
Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders: vocals)
I thought that in London everyone was gonna be into Iggy Pop, because I had some back issues of the NME. And then I came here, and no one had heard of Iggy Pop, so I was really bummed. But I did eventually bump into a guy at a party who had wrote the article on Iggy which I cut out... and it was Nick Kent.
John Lydon
Iggy has done more than a few excellent records. For me the thing that matters the most is the lyrics, and there are all too few really good writers out there.
Mick Jones
I went to see Iggy at the Scala, the Kings Cross Cinema all-nighter. The full-on quality of the Stooges was great, like flame throwers! It was really early in the morning. Lou Reed played as well. We were doing speed and we would be speeding off our nuts all night. Kings Cross looked like a fairy tale castle at dawn; it looked fantastic high on purple hearts! There was a horrible come down: it was always really bad, you would feel like shit. We didn't even smoke then. I didn't start smoking till I went on tour! It drives you to it.
Jimmy Pursey (Sham 69: vocals)
I was really into David Bowie, although I never got to see him play.
Lemmy (Motorhead: bass and lead vocals)
The MC5 were a great band. That's what I was trying to do with original Motörhead.
Gavin Friday (Virgin Prunes: vocals)
Dublin was very, very repressed. Lots of unemployment, the Troubles – bombs going off in Dublin as well – and a heroin epidemic. It was a pretty fucked-up country. It's turned around in the last ten years. As a kid my only salvation, because I was not into football, was Bowie and Roxy. They were the gods then. I had some idea in my head that you had to be a super genius to be in a band. I was twelve when I got into T. Rex and Bowie in 1972. I never got off on the hippie stuff, you know. Bowie led me into Lou Reed, Velvets, Iggy.
*'Punk Rock' by John Robb is out now through Ebury Press*
