Punk's Dead Knot: Reflections on an Essay by Ian Trowell - Part 2: On Big Flavour Wraps and Vicious Burgers

You pays your money and you takes your choice ...

 McDonald's Big Flavour Wraps (2016) [a]

Vs Jamie Reid's Vicious Burger (1979) [b]

 

 

I. 

 

In the second part of Ian Trowell's dead knot essay, he discusses a 2016 TV ad by the "multinational fast-food franchise" [c] McDonald's for a new summer range of Big Flavour Wraps:

 

"Whilst not all of my observations and suggestions will be intentional on the part of the creative teams associated with the instigation and production of the commercial, my own intentions are to examine the ubiquitous, neutralized and atemporal representations of punk that resonate within the images and actions." [189]

 

Having established that, let's go ...

 

 

II. 

 

Via a detailed, imaginative, and theoretically-informed analysis of each scene, Trowell is very good at relaying the anachronistic tension present in an ad that seems designed to appeal to old punks on the one hand and disorientate them on the other: 

 

"How are we meant to feel, how did we used to feel, what has changed?" [190] 

 

Of course, the assimilation of punk began a long, long time before 2016: what is The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980) if not a brutal exposure of the way in which big business indecently exploits young flesh and rapidly co-opts, commodifies, and mythologises groups like the Sex Pistols? 

 

Anyone who felt genuinely shocked and outraged by "such an unholy alliance between McDonald's and punk" [195] - or by Virgin Money's issuing of Never Mind the Bollocks and 'Anarchy in the UK' credit cards the year before [d] - clearly wasn't paying attention to what McLaren and Reid were warning about in the Swindle and clearly hadn't read their Guy Debord [e].

 

Punk - and the very word is already a misunderstanding - may have initially wished to "disrupt cultural, social and historical forms and habits through a multitude of methods" [195], but it didn't take long before the majority of punk performers were looking to build long-lasting careers in the music business. 

 

If rock 'n' roll died when Elvis joined the US Army in 1958, then perhaps we can say punk died when John Lydon decided to trust a hippie and sign an eight album deal with Virgin. McLaren and Reid fought a kind of resistance campaign operating behind enemy lines in those months following the breakup of the group - and, personally, I think the work produced in 1978-79 is some of the most provocative and amusing - but the game was basically up.         

Ultimately, no matter how much some of us wish it were otherwise, the majority of Brits like their Big Flavour Wraps [f]. And, as Trowell rightly notes, for all the faux outrage expressed from some quarters when the McDonald's 2016 campaign was launched, what we didn't hear were the voices of "disgruntled and disgusted [...] customers outraged at the linking of punk and the safe, normative environment of McDonald's" [195].

 

 

Notes

 

[a] The McDonald's Big Flavour Wraps campaign (2016) was devised by the American advertising company Leo Burnett - the home of so-called populist creativity. It featured ersatz punk imagery and also incorporated the Buzzcocks' 1978 single 'What Do I Get?', written by Pete Shelley, into a TV ad. Morrissey, like many other old punks, was not best pleased. 

      To watch the 30 second TV ad, dir. Jason Lowe, click here. For further details of the people who worked on the campaign, please click here. 

 

[b] Jamie Reid's promotional poster for the Sex Pistols' single 'C'mon Everybody', released from the soundtrack of The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (Virgin Records, 1979), featuring a photo of vocalist Sid Vicious by Bob Gruen. For more details see the V&A Jamie Reid Archive: click here. 

      The Vicious Burger was just one of many imaginary products featured in a fake cinema ad in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980): "Feeling uptight, violent, or tense? Why not take it out on a sizzling Vicious Burger; the gristle ball that gives as good as it gets!"

 

[c] Ian Trowell, 'Punk's dead knot: Constructing the temporal and spatial in commercial punk imagery', Punk & Post-Punk, Volume 5, Number 2 (2016), pp. 181-199. Page references given in the post refer to the essay as published here. 

 

[d] See the post of 12 June 2015: click here. 

[e] Debord used the term récupération to refer to a process by which politically radical ideas and subversive art works are defused, incorporated, and commodified within mainstream culture (usually with the full collaboration of the media). See the post of 26 June 2023, in which I discuss this idea: click here. 

 

[f] According to statista.com, 96% of Brits were aware of McDonald's as a brand in 2023 and 60% not only liked to eat there, but expressed loyalty to the company.

 

  

Musical bonus: Buzzcocks, 'What Do I Get?', (United Artists, 1978): click here for the remastered 2001 version that appears on Singles Going Steady (Domino Recording Co., 2003). And for the official video, which Trowell provides a nice reading of in his essay (pp. 191-92), click here.

To read part one of this post, click here. 

The Von Hell Diaries: 3 October 1982

Jazz and Kirk from the Pandemonium Series 

by Gillian Hall (October 1982)

 

 

Between 1980-89, I faithfully kept a diary; a full page of A4 written every day for ten years. 

 

The entry below - written exactly forty years ago - has been slightly edited for the purposes of this post, but it still gives a good indication of my life at this time; the friends, the feelings, the music, the late-night snacks, etc.   

 

Sunday 3 October 1982

 

Woke up at midday, which is pretty late even by my standards, but I had been up until 4am talking with Kirk [1] and eating cheese on toast after we got home from another Saturday spent dancing the night away at the Phono [2]. Told Kirk I didn't think much of his new sidekick Jim, a first year student to whom punk is simply an escapist bit of fun. Eventually, of course, K. will tire of J. and we needn't have him tagging along and following us around. 

      After breakfast, I chatted with Hess [3], whom I do like, despite the fact he's a Stranglers fan. Thought about doing some work, but listened to the Buzzcocks instead. Then Gillian [4] came over looking awful - as if she had flu or something. Decided to go back to her place. Things still tense between us following our bust-up over her ex-boyfriend Rick. When Kirk came over later on he and Gill spoke about their paranormal experiences, whilst I sat in sceptical (almost scornful) silence. Gill then decided she wanted to try out a new camera, so Kirk and I posed on the wasteland at the back of Pandemonium [5], watched by stray dogs and laughed at by the local children. 

      Gill went home. Kirk and I then discovered we were locked out. Fortunately, he was able to climb up a drain pipe and get in to the house through an upstairs window. Later, I returned to Gill's. As her room still smelt of Rick, I insisted on spraying an air freshner, which didn't amuse her. I think we both realised that things were over between us; she expressed her hope we could still be friends (and perhaps part-time lovers) [6].

      Went home with tears in my eyes and sought solace in music and sleep (after yet another slice of cheese on toast; you have to eat, even with a broken heart).  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Kirk Field was my closest friend and partner in crime throughout my student years in Leeds; see the posts entitled 'Punk Friends Reunited' (9 April 2019) and 'Autobiographical Fragment: This is the Nine O'Clock News from the BBC' (20 August 2020). 

[2] Le Phonographique - or the Phono, as it was known - was a punky-gothic nightclub located underneath the Merrion Centre in Leeds, frequented by an assortment of spiky-haired youths who liked to dress in black and go heavy with the eyeliner. I spent many happy nights there in the period 1981-84 and it was where I met the artist, model, dancer and writer Lorrie Millington: click here.     

 

[3] Mark Morris was nicknamed Hess, after Rudolf Hess, not due to any Nazi sympathies, but because he had a tiny room resembling a prison cell in the house he shared with me, Kirk, and a hippie from Cambridge called Jonathan Ashman.

 

[4] Gillian Hall, girlfriend (1981-82): see the posts 'To Hull and Back (In Memory of Gillian Hall)' (28 March 2022) and 'The Bats Have Left the Bell Tower: Reflections on Graveyard Poetry and Post-Punk Goth' (10 March 2021); the photo credited to Kirk Field is of myself and Miss Hall staging a tender moment.

 

[5] Pandemonium was the name given to the large Victorian house in Kirkstall, Leeds, that Kirk, Hess, Jonathan Ashman and myself shared from the autumn of 1982 until the summer of 1983. The front door of the house had a brass knocker in the form of a goblin - intended to signify Kirk's love of magic mushrooms - and above that a golden cupid wearing a blindfold, indicating it was a house of ill repute (in our imagination at least). 

      One of the (now faded) photos of myself and Kirk taken by Gillian is reproduced at the top of this post.

 

[6] What would now be known, of course, as a friend with benefits - a term first used by Alanis Morissette in her song 'Head Over Feet' (1995).      

And from the soundtrack of my life, here's a track by the Buzzcocks which pretty much sums up how I was feeling in October 1982 thanks to the detriorating relationship with Gillian: 'Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)' ... Click here to watch them performing the single on Top of the Pops (September 1978) - two-and-a-half minutes of punk-pop genius.

Noise Annoys: Notes on Hyperacusis and Associated Conditions

Pretty girls, pretty boys, 

have you ever heard your mummy scream ...? 

I. The Case of Schopenhauer and the Seamstress

As everyone knows, the German philosopher and arch-pessimist Arthur Schopenhauer was found guilty in 1820 of assaulting a seamstress, whom he'd pushed down a flight of stairs after she disturbed him with her incessant chatter on the landing outside his room. 

Having experienced noisy neighbours who just don't know when to shut the fuck up, or simply don't care about respecting the silence that others may find necessary for their own happiness and wellbeing, I can certainly sympathise. 

Inconsiderate bigmouths, or those who bray with laughter like asses in every sense of the word, deserve some form of comeuppance for the irritation they cause to those with heightened sensitivity to noise and/or the base stupidity that so often accompanies it.


II. Hyperacusis, Phonohobia, and Misophonia

Whilst hyperacusis is usually regarded as a debilitating disorder, I would suggest that most highly intelligent and thoughtful people tend to find repetitive noises intolerable and perhaps even painful on the ear. This can understandably result in phonophobia or even misophonia - a term coined by audiologists Margaret and Pawel Jastreboff in order to discuss individuals who are triggered into reacting by certain hateful sounds.

These noises can be mechanical in origin, such as car alarms and ringtones, or made by animals; the incessant barking of a dog, for example. But they can also include the sound of the human voice; an idiot singing along to the radio; a baby wailing its head off. Indeed, one study found that around 80% of trigger sounds were made orally by people; coughing, snoring, slurping, chewing loudly, expressing satisfaction after taking a drink by going aaah! ...

These, and many additional noises, can solicit murderous thoughts or provoke actual aggression, particularly when performed habitually by a loved one over many years (and again, I'm speaking from experience here). 

Note: unlike phonophobia, misophonia is neither classified as an auditory or psychiatric condition. Thus there are no standard diagnostic criteria and little research on how common it is or what can be done to help. 

Musical bonus: Buzzcocks: Noise Annoys - B-side to the single Love You More (United Artists, June 1978): click here. This post is in memory of singer/songwriter Pete Shelley.