Punk Or Northern Late 70s - Urbis Exhibition

[Derek Pearson]

As I approach my late 40s (ie nearly 50 phew!) I often reflect about my time in the mid to late 70s. As I approached my twentieth birthday in 1977 why did I choose northern over punk? I hung out in town with a wide variety of nutballs so I could have gone either way.

Now I live in Stockport I'm desperate to be educated more about the musical history of Manchester, so it was with great pleasure that I went along to the 'Punk Sex Seditionaries & the Sex Pistols' exhibition at the Urbis in Manchester last week.

Absolutely fascinating spent 2 hours there but should have spent 3 or 4.

Fascinating facts I learnt - The Buzzcocks played at the Mayflower Club, Birch st, Belle Vue. Thats just 'round the corner from me will have to check the area out.

(The punk festival was held at the famous 100 club in London Sept 76. Already knew this and have seen pictures in Record Collector. Not even the wallpapers changed hehehe).

In March 76 they tried to book the Sex Pistols to play at the Commerical Hotel in Staylbridge (eh?)

But the most interesting bit was that in November 77 the police banned The Buzzcocks from playing at Wigan Casino. I remember hearing about clashes between local punks and soulies from out of town on the way up from the train station.

That same month the Damned played at the Elizabethan Hall in Gorton!

Anyway for anybody interested in punk fanzines from this era there's an evening discussion about them on Thurs 18 Aug 6.30-8pm @ the Urbis (check www.urbis.org.uk for more details). I'll be the one sat at the front hehe

derek

If you've been following the 'Calling Dave McCadden' thread this is what he says inspired him to start his first fanzine - "There wasn't a 'Northern Soul' mag as such at the time so, inspired by punk mags like 'Sniffin' Glue', I wrote the 1st issue of 'Soul Time' in 1976".

To quote from Kegsy

"If I knew I was gonna live this long I'd have taken better care of myself"

[Markw]

I was dead lucky as a teenager in, what was in 1976, rural High Wycombe. Ron Watts was a local lad but he'd been promoting rock and blues gigs at the Hope & Anchor, Islington and the 100 Club since the early 70s. He also promoted at the Nags Head on London Road in Wycombe on Thursday nights. Went to my first gig there aged 15 in June '76. 2 months later the Pistols played (you can see me and my school mates on the Filth & The Fury standing at the front). We then had them ALL playing at the Nags - the Damned, Siouxsie, Stranglers, Clash, Elvis Costello, the Jam - it was fantastic. Then a guy a bit older than us who'd moved down from Grimsby started hanging around with our lot and he'd done Cleethorpes, Wigan, Mecca the lot. By the end of '77 punk was getting a bit mainstream and things were getting dull........he dragged me off to Yate one night. Superb.

Not much to do with soul..........but thanks for listening.

[Guest in town Mikey]

I grew up in a town where the majority of the youth were teds/bikers.

A few older lads were into Northern Soul, but once Rich Thorley left school there was only two NS fans left. There were also 6 punks. We teamed up with them every break time to help stop getting our heads kicked in, which happened OH so often.

Through these mates I got to see most of the top punk bands apart from the Pistols. Fave Punk gig was in Cheltenham where the Ruts were supported by a band none of us had heard of before. The Special AKA. ####ing awesome gig. The Punks were going nuts, with big smiles on their faces, and dancing around with the mods and a few rude boysat the front who were following the Specials around.

On the way home a group of Gloucester Jamaicans decided to beat us up, but next day at school we couldnt stop talking about this band everyone should go and see. Even the beating seemed part of the whole experience.

Lately I've seen the SLF do their stuff, and they are still absolute top drawer. The Damned are still OK, but I'd love X Ray Specs to reform.

Gert Mark, my brother, is a big punk fan too. He probably owns as many punk rarities as soul ones. But he was into some awful bands like Demob and Crass. Stuff too hard for me. I liked the punks who could laugh at life and themselves

[Guest miff]

I Saw the Sex Pistols, & The Stranglers At the Winter Gardens in Cleethorpes as a young 16 year old, Strange thing is we all went in our Soulie gear

Never could get into the Punk thing liked the misic but thorght they looked like cunts, Spiting spewing and throughing shit around never apeled to me either

[Gary]

Friend of mine has a theory on Punk and Northern, dont necessarily agree but see where he's coming from. He's into punk big time and is the same age as me (40 ish) his theory is that many into punk respect NS and vice versa as both have a basis in working class rebellion offering an escape from humdrum existence.

Probably nonsense, just thought it was interesting.