Russ Bestley: 'Turning Revolt Into Style' (2025): Notes on Chapters 1-2

A Gentleman and a Punk Scholar [a]

Stephen Alexander à la Jamie Reid (2025) 

 

I. 

 

Russ Bestley's new book, Turning Revolt Into Style (2025), is divided into eight chapters and an Introduction that I discussed here.   

 

In this post, I will offer some remarks on Chapter 1, which introduces the notion of punk graphic design and its core themes, and Chapter 2, which "interrogates the range of design methods that were utilised in response to these punk thematic ideals" [b]. 

 

 

II. 

 

"Punk's original premise ..." [24] - did punk ever really have such? 

 

I suppose one might regard sex, style, and subversion as a thematic slogan - and punk was as accomplished at sloganeering as it was at political posturing and posing for the cameras - but I'd hesitate before speaking of a punk premise when punk was far from being a coherent philosophy or aesthetic and "simply an umbrella term that could be applied to an eclectic and disparate range of activity" [24] [c]. 

 

Still, let's not get get bogged down with the opening three words of the first chapter and broadly agree with Bestley that punk's core themes were "provocation, individuality, novelty, directness, honesty and authenticity" [25-26] and that these things were reflected in the sound and look of punk. 

 

And let's remember that Bestley is a graphic designer, not a philosopher; i.e., he's someone concerned with a "range of physical, designed objects" including "flyers, posters, photographs, clothing, badges, fanzines and record covers" [26] rather than with language, with which he seems to have an unproblematic relationship.

 

Bestley is not a bad writer. But he is an assured writer: one for whom words possess clear meanings and are used straightforwardly to convey information as concisely and precisely as possible.

 

However, whilst it's good to think in a material manner (in terms of objects), that shouldn't mean one fails to think also in a more abstract or symbolic manner (in terms of ideas); a good writer understands that language might move beyond being merely communicative in a narrow, functional manner and become a medium in which we can construct new thoughts [d].  

 

 

III. 

 

This seems an important point: 

 

"The diversity of punk graphic design styles and aesthetics needs to be understood in relation to three loosely defined groups of visual practitioners ..." [27] - amateurs; up-and-coming designers (often out of art school); and established design professionals. 

 

If it was "the simplicity of the lo-tech, handmade flyers produced by Helen Wellington-Lloyd and Jamie Reid for the Sex Pistols, along with an underground revolution in homemade fanzines and other printed ephemera produced by inspired and enthusiastic fans [...] that kickstarted a punk design aesthetic" [28], it was, by contrast, "the hugely influential work of professional art directors and designers [...] that helped it reach a mainstream audience" [28].

 

And this, for me at least, is an interesting point: Reid's ransome note typography for his work with the Sex Pistols was not widely copied or "commonly used on record covers for other punk artists" [34], even whilst it was soon recognised as visual shorthand for punk. Bestley writes:

 

"The success - and notoriety - of the Sex Pistols [...] was a double-edged sword: on the one hand, punk was beginning to develop a recognisable set of visual styles, largely centred on Reid's work [...] At the same time, largely due to its powerful visual impact, ransom note typography [...] quickly became symbolic of early UK punk in the mainstream media and therefore a cliché to be best avoided unless the designer's intention was to make a parodic comment on the commercial exploitation of the new subculture." [37]

 

This makes me wonder about my continued use of Reid-inspired graphics as in the God Save ... poster featuring Bestley above. Is it possible for something that has been assimilated by the mainstream culture - Reid's work is found in collections all over the world, including the National Portrait Gallery and the V&A here in the UK - to be reclaimed? 

 

In other words, can the recuperated punk image be subject to a technique of détournement?    

 

 

IV. 

 

"The inclusion of a photograph of the group - standard practice in the pop music market going back to the 1950s - is prevalant in many early punk record sleeves, though the convention was rejected by some groups, including the Sex Pistols ..." [37]

 

Other punk groups displayed no such qualms with having their ugly mugs plastered on record covers and before long there was a standard picture; band members standing in a gritty urban environment trying to look menacing "and graphically treated to render a high contrast, distressed or distorted image" [40]. 

 

As punk became ever-more commodified and commercialised, "by far the most common visual trope in the depiction of a punk rock group is the band lined-up against a brick or concrete wall" [41] - see the Clash, for example, on the cover of their eponymous debut album (1977) [e], or posing as rebel rockers on the front of Sandinista! (1980).  

 

And some people still think of them as the only band that matters ...!

 

 

V.

 

"Punk was no erudite ideological critique ..." [51] 

 

Well, that's certainly true; "most punk discourse was rhetorical and performative" [51], though McLaren and Westwood may have fancied they had something of political importance to say and they provided punk with "an appropriately anatgonistic" [51] language and look drawn from various sources, promiscuously and irresponsibly "mixing symbols of insurrection and revolution" [52] with images drawn from popular culture and pornography. 

      

And better their playful politics of provocation and art school pranksterism, surely, than the militant asceticism of bands like Crass, or, on the other side of the fence, the politics of those punks who supported far-right movements and replaced witty intelligent lyrics with a grunted two-letter interjection.    

 

 

VI. 

 

And speaking of art school pranksterism ...

 

Bestley makes the fair point that "while Malcolm McLaren and Jamie Reid had indeed caught the late 1960s zeitgeist and attempted to engage with the then current ideas of the Situationists [...] while at art college [...] the suggestion of substantive links between participants in the wider punk scene and the work of earlier art groups is less convincing" [57]. 

 

That's why, one might argue, the Sex Pistols interest and excite far more than most of the artless and ideologically clueless punk bands that followed. I know many sneered at those who played along with the art school boys - including Rotten - but I don't have much time for such philistine and reactionary stupidity disguised as "working-class politics and street level 'authenticity'" [58]. Ultimately, where would we be without creative intellectuals such as cousin Kevin? [f]

 

 

VII. 

 

DIY: to tell the truth, I've always hated this three-letter initialism and the kind of people who spend their weekends in B&Q, priding themselves on being able to turn their hand to all sorts of job, even though do-it-yourself was an oft-repeated punk mantra and core ethic even among "many groups and artists signed to major labels and operating in the mainstream music industry" [59].  

 

I suppose, I've always been intrigued by the aristocratic (anti-utilitarian) idea that one attains sovereignty not by doing things for oneself, but by not doing anything and by refusing to be a useful or productive human being [g]. 

 

Knowing how to operate a photocopier or printing press does not a scarlet poppy make you ...     

 

 

VIII. 

 

The appropriation of visual material (including found images) and "the use of détournement as a subversive method" [78] is something I very much admire about punk graphic design and artwork. And so is the deployment of humour:

 

"Beneath all the rhetoric and 'shocking' behaviour, the early punk scene in the United Kingdom displayed a deep-seated ironic intelligence [...] The scene was [...] deeply self-aware and parodic, with a keen sense of the absurdity of its own rebellion ..." [84]

 

Bestley continues:

 

"Punk's embrace of parody, pastiche and irony was played out in lyrics, dress, interviews, artwork and music. These kind of strategies were not unfamiliar to artists and designers [...] The long tradition of satirical insurrection, from Dada to Duchamp, the Surrealists to the Situationist International, offered a rich resource for punk graphic designers and visual communicators to plunder." [84]   

 

As I argued in a post published on 28 February 2025 - click here - fun is not only a vital component of playfulness (i.e., hedonic engagement with the world), but it can also help one avoid what Wilde terms humanity's original sin, i.e., self-seriousness [h].  

 

I think it's crucial therefore to stress that punk was essentially a revolution for fun and that the Sex Pistols embodied a notion of the ridiculous, the most crucial aspect of which is that it solicits, incites, or provokes laughter [i]. 

 

To quote once more from Bestley: "While the notion of détournement suggests a politically charged, subversive intent, much punk graphic design appropriation was simply playful and witty ..." [86]  

 

 

IX. 

 

And finally ... 

 

One of the defining characteristics of post-punk, writes Bestley, was the fact that they attempted to operate withing "a wider and more sophisticated musical and visual arena" [99]; i.e., to "raise the intellectual bar away from 'outdated' and inarticulate punk themes and into an aspirational new decade" [99].  

 

Personally, however, I preferred Bow Wow Wow to Joy Division; post-punk pirates to post-punk miserabilists ...   

 

 

Notes

 

[a] Russ Bestley is a Reader in Graphic Design & Subcultures at London College of Communication. 

      He is also Lead Editor of the academic journal Punk & Post-Punk, Series Editor and Art Director for the Global Punk book series published by Intellect Books, a founding member of the Punk Scholars Network, and head of the Subcultures Interest Group at UAL. His research archive can be accessed at hitsvilleuk.com.  

 

[b] Russ Bestley, Turning Revolt Into Style, (Manchester University Press, 2025), p. 19. All future page references to this text will be given directly in the post.  

 

[c] I discuss the problematic term punk in the notes made on the Introduction to Turning Revolt Into Style - click here - and in a post published on 13 March 2025: click here. For me, the term wasn't quickly co-opted - it was itself the linguistic means of co-option; a way to overcode, simplify, and negate. As Bestley notes, the term punk allowed a "reflective metanarrative" [29] to develop as well as a new youth market.  

      Bestley's use of the term umbrella is perhaps more appropriate than he realises. For I would suggest that what the Sex Pistols attempted to do was cut a hole in the great umbrella erected betweeen ourselves and the forever surging chaos of existence (we mean by umbrella our ideals, our conventions, and fixed forms of every description). 

      The Sex Pistols were essentially cultural terrorists; the enemy of human security and comfort. But no matter how many times they managed to make a tiny hole in the painted underside of the Umbrella, along came other bands to ensure things were speedily repaired. And the majority of us, if we're honest, prefer a patched-up reality to the sheer intensity of lived experience; which is why we quite like those punk and new wave bands who followed the Sex Pistols. 

      D. H. Lawrence introduces this idea of chaos and the great umbrella in his text entitled 'Chaos in Poetry', which can be found in Introductions and Reviews, ed. N. H. Reeve and John Worthen (Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 107-116.    

 

[d] Am I being unfair here? Maybe. 

      But Bestley writes with confidence, clarity, and authority and these are not traits that I value in a writer. I suspect he believes that there are certain objective truths and indisputable facts about punk on which everyone who has attained a certain level of education can manage to agree. Thus, thanks to the inherent certainties of language and shared common sense, critical consensus is both possible and desirable.

      I would deny this and I would also contest the author's consciously exercised control over their own work; i.e., bring into question a writer's ability to ever fully understand their subject with any confidence or certainty.

 

[e] Bestley describes the cover thus: 

      "The front cover is based on a photograph by Kate Simon depicting the three main group members, Paul Simonon, Joe Strummer and Mick Jones in an alleyway adjacent to their rehearsal studio. Wearing suitably punk stage clothing, the musicians look directly at the camera without smiling. The connotations of the image are clear: punks are embattled urban survivors, their territory the rundown street. The photograph is reproduced in stark, high contrast black and white, with all the midtones stripped out through a deliberately heavy halftone image treatment." [94-95]

      The key point is:

"While the album cover offers several graphic references to the visual language of punk fanzines and the DIY revolution, this is a sophisticated graphic composition that sets out to play down the technical skill of the designer ..." [95]. 

      In other words, the gritty authenticity of punk is a form of artifice; the Clash were plastic punks after all.

 

[f] I'm referring here, of course, to a line from the song 'My Perfect Cousin' by the Undertones, released as a single from their second studio album Hypnotised (Sire Records, 1980). It was the band's only top ten UK hit, reaching number 9 in the charts. The track was written by Damian O'Neill and Michael Bradley. To play on YouTube - and watch the video directed by Julien Temple - click here. 

      I love the song, but I have to admit I'm sympathetic to Zanti Misfit's defence of Kevin, the perfect cousin, published on The Afterword (03/06/2015): click here. 

 

[g] This is why I've always loved the X-Ray Spex track 'I Can't Do Anything' on Germ Free Adolescents (EMI, 1978): click to play here. 

      For an interesting essay by George McKay that critically interrogates and reconceptualises the DIY/punk nexus, with particular reference to the early UK punk scene, see 'Was Punk DIY? Is Punk DIY?' in DIY: Alternative Cultures & Society Vol. 2, Issue 1 (April, 2024): click here to read online. 

      Challenging Bestley's view of DIY as being an essential component of the punk philosophy, McKay suggests the two concepts should be decoupled; that DIY needs depunking so to speak, in order that it might be liberated as a far broader (and more radical) practice.

 

[h] One recalls Oscar Wilde's line from The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890): 'If only the caveman had known how to laugh ...'

 

[i] See the post entitled 'In Defence of Fun' (3 June 2024) - click here - and the post entitled 'On the Nature of the Ridiculous (and the Ridiculous Nature of the Sex Pistols) (21 March 2024): click here. 

 

 

The following post in this four-part series on Russ Bestley's Turning Revolt Into Style, can be read by clicking here. 

 

Thoughts on Ian Trowell's Article on Heaven 17 and the Yuppie 1980s in SIG News 4 (Sept. 2025)

Ad for the album Penthouse and Pavement by Heaven 17 

Artwork by Ray Smith (Virgin Records 1981)

 

 

I. 

 

It's interesting to ask why some musicians who might have strapped themselves into a pair of bondage trousers in 1977, suddenly started wearing formal business suits in the early 1980s and subscribing to an entirely different sartorial code ...

 

One possible answer, put forward by punk stalwarts The Clash, is that new groups were not particularly worried about récupération, i.e., the process whereby the radical ideas, images, and practices of punk were absorbed into mainstream culture and commodified for the market place. 

 

Dressed for success, these new groups embraced the idea of transforming rebellion into money and laughed all the way to the bank [1].     

 

 

II. 

 

However, if that's true of many new groups who preferred to be thought of as post-punk, it wasn't true, argues Ian Trowell, of Heaven 17 ... An English band, from Sheffield, who combined "Yorkshire awkwardness, conceptualist pranking [...] and an attention to visual detail" [2] with a commercial electronic dance sound [3].           

 

Not wanting to be pigeonholed and hoping to subvert clichéd ideas of what a band in 1981 should look like, these socialist synth-popsters wore expensive-looking suits "designed to confuse the expectations of anti-conformity-conformity ushered in by a 'cookie-cutter' punk uniform" [4]. 

 

By deliberately styling themselves as businessmen - albeit with a certain youthful swagger - they emphasised that the music business is a business and that recording artists are simply cogs in a money-making machine. 

 

This idea is further reinforced, as Trowell reminds us, by the cover design for Heaven 17's debut album, Penthouse and Pavement (1981), shown above, which amusingly hijacks the visual language of the corporate world [5]. 

 

 

III. 

 

So: Heaven 17 were not real yuppies - and, in fact, Trowell convincingly argues the case that they were not even parodying the yuppie look and ideology; that this is a contemporary misremembering. 

 

For although the word yuppie first appeared in print in 1980 [6], it was then just a neutral demographic descriptor for a class of young urban professionals. 

 

It wasn't until the middle of the decade that the term became fully conceptualised in the sense we understand it today and its use became widespread in the media to refer (almost always negatively) to a "fashionable go-getter who fetishises a luxury business suit and lifestyle" [7].   

 

As Trowell also amusingly notes at the end of his piece, in a Melody Maker feature on the band from October 1981, lead singer Glenn Gregory is compared to Michael Heseltine, not Bud Fox [8].   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Récupération is a core concept in Situationist thought, particularly as developed by Guy Debord, and it is seen as one of the main methods by which dominant powers maintain control. 

      I'm referring here to lyrics (written by Joe Strummer) from the 1978 single by The Clash '(White Man) in Hammersmith Palais' (CBS Records): The new groups are not concerned / With what there is to be learned / They got Burton suits, ha! you think it's funny / Turnin' rebellion into money.

      There's an irony, of course, in being lectured on the perils of selling out by a band who signed the previous year to a major American label for $100,000.   

      

[2] Ian Trowell, 'Let's All Make a Bomb: Heaven 17 and the Yuppie 1980s', in SIG News, Issue 4 (UAL, September 2025), p. 4. 

      Ian Trowell is an independent writer and researcher who has published in the fields of punk and post-punk, fairground culture, fashion, photography and art. He recently published Throbbing Gristle: An Endless Discontent (Intellect Books, 2023). He also regularly publishes work on Substack: click here.  

 

[3] Heaven 17 were a trio consisting of Martyn Ware (keyboards, drum machine, supporting vocals), Ian Craig Marsh (keyboards), and Glenn Gregory (lead vocals). Ware and Marsh had originally been founding members of the Human League and Gregory had previously sung in a punk band with Marsh called Musical Vomit.

      The groups's name was taken from a fictional pop band mentioned in Anthony Burgess's dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange (1962). Whereas Phil Oakey's Human League went on to achieve major chart success, Heaven 17 struggled to make a similar impact. Their debut single '(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang' - taken from the album Penthouse and Pavement (Virgin Records, 1981) - was banned by the BBC but became a minor hit (reaching 45 in the UK singles chart). A remastered version from 2006 can be played on YouTube by clicking here. 

      The funny thing is, this was one of the few songs I remember taping off the radio at the time and I used to play it endlessly (even though synth-pop was never really my cup of tea and I wouldn't have considered for one moment actually buying the record).   

 

[4] Ian Trowell, op. cit., p. 5.

  

[5] Essentially, to employ another term drawn from the Situationist handbook, this is an act of détournement; i.e., one involving the appropriation, reimagining, and recontextualising of existing cultural elements in order to subvert their original meaning and expose their inherent ideology.  

 

[6] The first time the word yuppie appeared in print was in a May 1980 Chicago magazine article by Dan Rottenberg. He would later admit, however, that he had heard other people use the term and hadn't coined it himself.  

 

[7] Ian Trowell, op. cit. p. 5. 

 

[8] Michael Heseltine was then Secretary of State for the Environment in the Thatcher government; a somewhat flamboyant figure - always well-dressed with coiffed blonde hair - he had earlier enjoyed a long and successful business career. 

      Bud Fox is a fictional character in Oliver Stone's Wall Street (1987); a young, ultra-ambitious stockbroker played by Charlie Sheen.  

 

 

 

Everybody's on Top of the Pops

 

Legs & Co. dancing to 'Silly Thing' by the Sex Pistols and 'Bankrobber' by The Clash 

Top of the Pops (BBC Television, 12 April 1979 and 21 August 1980)

 

I. 

 

'Top of the Pops', by the Rezillos, is one of the great punk singles by one of the great punk bands [1]. And, in August 1978, it led to one of the great punk performances on the BBC show of that name: click here.  

But even though the band make it clear in the lyrics to their song that they are critiquing the music industry and the significant role played within it by the broadcast media - 

 

Doesn't matter what is shown 

Just as long as everyone knows 

What is selling, what to buy 

The stock market for your hi-fi [2]

 

- TOTP producer Robin Nash, simply smiled and said that not only was it always nice to be mentioned, but that being attacked in this manner demonstrated just how relevant the programme remained even to the punk generation. 

 

Ultimately, it appears that the cynicism of those who control the media and the music business trumps the ironic protest of a new wave band. 

 

 

II. 

 

As if to hammer home this point to those who still believed in the integrity and revolutionary character of their punk idols, we were treated to the spectacle of Legs & Co. dancing to the Sex Pistols on Top of the Pops just eight months later: If you like their pop music, you'll love their pop corn - click here [3].

 

Perhaps even more surprisingy, the following year Legs and Co. gyrated behind bars to the strains of 'Bankrobber', by The Clash, in a routine squeezed in between songs from Shakin' Stevens [4] and Billy Joel [5]. 

 

Worse, the somewhat sentimental punky reggae composition written by Strummer and Jones, which reached number 12 in the UK charts, was sneered at by Cliff Richard, who mockingly declared that it could have been a Eurovision winner: click here [6]. 

 

 

On the front of a television screen ...

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm being generous, of course, but it's hard not to love the Rezillos; an assemblage of art and fashion students from Bonnie Scotland, fronted by Fay Fife, who took a much more fun approach to songwriting than the Clash and described themselves as a new wave beat group rather than a punk rock band. More glam than garage - and seemingly more interested in sci-fi and B-movies than rhythm and blues - the Rezillos are sometimes compared to both the Cramps and the B-52s. 

 

[2] Lyrics from 'Top of the Pops', written by John Callis (or, as he was known whilst a member of the Rezillos, Luke Warm). This track, released in July 1978 as a single from the album Can't Stand the Rezillos (Sire Records, 1978), reached number 17 in the UK chart, whilst the LP did slightly better by getting to number 16 and is now considered something of a classic of the punk-pop genre. 

 

[3] To be fair, 'Silly Thing' is a great pop-punk track by Cook and Jones and the always excellent Legs and Co. - a six-girl dance troupe formed in 1976 - give a spirited and amusing performance, choreographed by Flick Colby. 

      The line quoted is from the cinema ad sequence in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple,1980) which correctly predicts the manner in which the Sex Pistols would be co-opted by consumer capitalism and become just another brand name to be stamped on a range of products.

 

[4] Welsh singer-songwriter Shakin' Stevens released his cover of 'Marie, Marie' as the third single from his album of the same title (Epic Records, 1980). Despite being released in July, the single did not enter the UK Singles Chart until the second week of August, staying in the chart for ten weeks and peaking at number 19 (his first top twenty hit). 

 

[5] The Billy Joel song, 'It's Still Rock 'n' Roll to Me', was released from his hit album Glass Houses (Columbia Records, 1980). It made number 1 in the US, but only reached 14 in the UK. The song conveys Joel's criticisms of the music industry and press for jumping on the new wave bandwagon, when it was merely a rehash, in his view, of older musical forms and inferior to his own brand of slightly more sophisticated, ambitious, and highly polished soft rock.   

 

[6] For those who would prefer to watch the official video for 'Bankrobber' (dir. Don Letts), click here.       

      To be fair to The Clash, they never did appear in person on Top of the Pops, unlike almost every other punk band at the time (and the reformed Sex Pistols in 1996). However, they did allow the use of videos for 'Should I Stay or Should I Go' and 'Rock the Casbah' on TOTP when these singles were re-released in 1991 (six years after they disbanded).     

What's in a Word: Punk

 'The cult is called punk; the music punk rock ...'

 

 

I. 

 

In a pre-Grundy television interview, Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten is asked by Maggie Norden:

 

"What about the word 'punk' - it means worthless, nasty - are you happy with this word?"

 

A crucial question to which he replies: 

 

"No, the press gave us it. It's their problem, not ours. We never called ourselves punk." [1]

 

It's a somewhat surprising response which every idiot who proclaims that they'll be a punk until they die might care to consider ...

 

 

II.  

 

When Rotten refers to the press, he was more than likely thinking of posho freelance journalist and photographer Caroline Coon, who, having risen to prominence as part of the British Underground scene in the 1960s, attached herself to the new youth movement spearheaded by the Sex Pistols in the mid-70s [2].

For it was Coon, writing for the influential music paper Melody Maker, who famously described this anarchic subculture held together with safety pins and bondage straps as punk - a name by which, for better or for worse, it has been known ever since (despite Rotten's disavowal of the term) [3].

 

Personally, I always think it a pity when something as beautifully fluid, ambiguous, and messed up as the scene that grew out of 430 King's Road is identified and codified; to name is to know and to know is to kill. Calling the Sex Pistols a punk band was to suggest they were not something radically new or different; that they could, in fact, be compared with other groups and to prevailing rock trends.

 

That's undoubtedly true of the Clash - the band with whom Coon became most closely associated - but it's absolutely not true of the Sex Pistols as conceived by McLaren and Westwood. And not true either of Alan Jones, Jordan, and all those others who either worked at or hung around 430, King's Road. 

 

Assuming that a collective term of reference is at least provisionally needed, what should we call this assemblage of individuals ?   

 

Perhaps the best answer to this question was supplied by cultural critic Peter York, who, in October '76, referred to the "Sex shop people" and characterised them as the "extreme ideological wing of the Peculiars" [4]. 

 

That, I think, is spot on: and very much in line with how I think of the Sex Pistols and those closely associated with them - as more funny peculiar than punk; i.e., as unusual, strange, abnormal, deviant, perverse, extraordinary, singular, exceptional, outlandish ... 

 

The photo below perfectly captures just how queer things were before being named and tamed by the media and the music business and before an army of identikit punks emerged.         

 

The Sex shop people: (L-R) Steve Jones, Danielle, Alan Jones, 

Chrissie Hynde, Jordan, and Vivienne Westwood 

Photo by David Dagley (Forum, June 1976)

 

Notes

 

[1] The full six minute interview with McLaren and Rotten - including a pre-recorded performance of 'Anarchy in the UK' - was on the tea-time current affairs show Nationwide (BBC1 12 Nov 1976). It can be found in the BBC Archive on Facebook: click here. A shorter version - without the band's performance - can also be found on YouTube: click here.   

 

[2] Acting on the recommendation of Alan Jones, then working as an assistant alongside Jordan at McLaren and Westwood's shop on the King's Road, Coon attended an early Sex Pistols gig and, like many others, she was captivated by what she saw happening both on and off stage and immediately began to document this new scene.  

 

[3] See Coon's Melody Maker article entitled 'Punk Rock: Rebels Against the System' (7 August 1976).       

      Although the word punk had already been used fairly widely for several years in connection to rock music in the US - and, indeed, has a much longer and more complex history than that: click here - it was Coon's piece that played a crucial role in introducing a slightly revised version of the term to a British audience and helping to identify a novel (but not radically new) genre of music.

      Coon obviously had a gift for this kind of thing as, interestingly, she was also the person who named the hardcore group of friends who followed the Sex Pistols as the 'Bromley Contingent'.

 

[4] Peter York, quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 329. York was writing in an article entitled 'Them', in Harpers & Queen (October, 1976).

 

 

Serge Gainsbourg: l'improbable artiste reggae

Serge Gainsbourg and his Jamaican cohorts 

(including Sly & Robbie)

 

 

I. 

 

Joe Strummer and Mick Jones of the Clash were not the only white recording artists to leave the safety of their European homes in the late 1970s [1] and travel to Kingston Jamaica in the hope of finding inspiration. 

 

Always happy to hop on the latest bandwagon and experiment with musical genres, the French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg also flew to the Caribbean island, in September 1978, with the intention of recording a reggae album with super-talented local musicians and producers Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare [2].    

 

Surprisingly perhaps, it was the 50-year-old Frenchman - whom many regarded by this date as past his prime - and not the younger, cooler duo of English punks then at the top of their game, who seemed to have a better time of it in Jamaica and fit in more easily with the scene; particularly when it was discovered that he was the man responsible for the notorious love song 'Je t'aime ... Moi non plus'. 

 

And it was Gainsbourg, not the Clash, who arguably made the more challenging album ...

II.

 

Released in March 1979, four months after the Clash released their second studio album, Give 'Em Enough Rope - a fairly standard rock record with minimal Jamaican influence, apart from on the opening track - Gainsbourg's Aux armes et caetera is a unique but genuine reggae album; i.e., one recorded in Kingston and featuring some of Jamaica's best reggae musicians, as well as vocal support from members of Bob Marley's backing group, the I Threes [3].

 

The album, which has since been remixed, dubbed, and expanded with previously unused material, is now considered an absolute classic (and I'm not sure that's something that can be said of Give 'Em Enough Rope) and has gone on to sell over a million copies. 

The title track, released as a single, is probably the most notorious; a reggae adaptation of 'La Marseillaise' that is guaranteed to offend the more conservative and reactionary sections of French society. Indeed, it provoked an equivalent amount of media-driven outrage as 'God Save the Queen' by the Sex Pistols had produced in the UK in the summer of '77 [4].  

 

Gainsbourg, however, was so happy with the album and so taken with reggae as a genre, that he recorded another album in 1981, Mauvaises nouvelles des étoiles, employing the same Jamaican musicians and backing vocalists (even though Bob Marley was less than pleased to discover that Gainsbourg had persuaded his wife Rita to sing erotic lyrics). 

 

This album too was eventually given a dub-style remix a decade after Ganisbourg's death (in 2003) and continues to find new fans, although it isn't a patch on Aux armes et cætera and pales in comparison.  

 

 

III.

 

Whether performing Aux armes et caetera live on tour was Gainsbourg's idea or his record company's isn't known, but it was Gainsbourg who insisted that they fly his Jamaican support band - the Revolutionaries [5] - over from Jamaica (sadly, the I Threes were not invited along for the ride).  

 

The short tour in culminated in a number of Paris gigs - the first of which was attended by various French artists and intellectuals (including Roland Barthes) - although it was the show in Strasbourg (4 Jan 1980) that is often best remembered, after a group of angry ex-paratroopers threatened to violently disrupt the event. 

 

Deciding to courageously confront - whilst at the same time disarm the protestors - Gainsbourg walked on stage alone and sang the national anthem, in its traditional form, amusingly obliging the soldiers to stand, salute, and sing along [6].

 

 

Photo of Serge Gainsbourg holding the French flag 

by Jean-Jacques Bernier (1985)

 

Notes

 

[1] See the recent post 'Where Every White Face ...' (11 Jan 2025): click here. 

 

[2] For the full story of this working trip to Jamaica, made at the suggestion of Gainsbourg's producer and musical director, Philippe Lerichomme, see the article by Sylvie Simmons entitled 'Serge Gainsbourg: the Reggae Years' on the Red Bull Music Academy website (26 Oct 2015): click here. 

       Ms. Simmons is the author of the first English biography of Serge Gainsbourg - Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes (Helter Skelter, 2001).

 

 [3] Aux Armes et caetera (Universal, 1979) was the first time a white artist had recorded a full reggae-influenced album in Jamaica. The I Threes consisted of Marcia Griffiths, Rita Marley, and Judy Mowatt.

 

[4] Gainsbourg received (all-too-predictable) death threats upon release of his reggae cover of the French national anthem. But, bravely, he neither backed down nor apologised. In fact, after purchasing the signed manuscript of 'La Marseillaise' at an auction, in 1981 (for a sum of 135,000 francs), Gainsbourg argued that his take was closer to the original than any other recorded version (not least of all in revolutionary spirit). 

      For full details of the reaction in France to Aux armes et caetera, see Sylvie Simmons 'Serge Gainsbourg: the Reggae Years', as linked to above. And to listen to the track, please click here, or here where it comes with an accompanying video.

 

[5] The Revolutionaries were a Jamaican reggae band, formed in 1975. Moving away from roots reggae, they created the new (more aggressive) rockers style. Over the years, numerous musicians played in the band, including Sly & Robbie (on drums and bass respectively). The Revolutionaries played on various dub albums and recorded as a backing band for many artists, including Serge Gainsbourg.

 

[6] Again, for further details, see Sylvie Simmons, 'Serge Gainsbourg: the Reggae Years', as previously linked to. To watch a French TV report from the time with footage from Strasbourg, click here.

Where Every White Face ... Remembering That Time When the Clash Went on Their Very Own Dreadlock Holiday

 

They got the sun and they got the palm trees ... 

I'd stay and be a tourist, but I can't take the gun play

 

I. 

 

As we all know, the Clash liked to pose as working-class heroes and rebel rockers, even though lead singer, Joe Strummer, was the son of a British diplomat (Ronald Ralph Mellor, MBE) and attended public school where his fees were paid for by the UK government, thanks to his father's job.

 

In other words, Strummer was a privately-educated middle class boy who went through his folk-loving and pub-rocking phases, before encountering the Sex Pistols in April 1976 and deciding to cut his hair, put on a pair of bondage trousers, and reinvent himself as a punk outlaw. 

 

Equally irksome, is the fact that the Clash also liked to wear musical black face from time to time and experiment with reggae, producing a kind of dub-inflected rock that is more Notting Hill than Kingston Jamaica; a pale imitation of the real thing, although, to be honest, I don't care too much about issues surrounding authenticity and cultural apropriation.

 

Amusingly, however, Strummer was given something of a rude (boy) awakening when he and fellow Clash City Rocker Mick Jones went on a songwriting trip to Jamaica, at the end of 1977, and it turned into their very own dreadlock holiday ...  

 

 

II.   

 

My knowledge of the long-haired English rock band 10cc is very limited [1]. 

 

However, I do remember being invited to load up with rubber bullets by them in 1973 [2] and I also remember their recounting the tale of someone having a series of unfortunate experiences whilst on a Caribbean vacation later in that decade [3].   

 

Whilst the song's narrative is essentially a lyrical fiction, it was, apparently, based on real events experienced by one of the founding members of 10cc, Eric Stewart, during a visit to Barbados, and by the band's bassist and singer Graham Gouldman, when he went to Jamaica. 

 

The former, for example, recalled seeing a white tourist trying to look cool and generally acting like a dick, go up to a group of Afro-Caribbeans who rebuked him in no uncertain terms and told him that he needed to show some respect (a concept that is central to the code of informal rules that govern behavior and interpersonal interactions amongst certain groups).    

 

In the song, having been mugged for a silver chain - given to him by his mother - said tourist retreats to the relative safety of his hotel to drown his sorrows with a piña colada by the pool, only to be approached by a good-looking young woman offering to supply him with some weed. 

Thus the track and accompanying video - whilst reinforcing several stereotypes - does at least touch upon the politics of race, tourism, and cultural appropriation (even if it's in a manner that might make many people uncomfortable today).

 

 

III. 

 

Returning to the Clash ... 

 

The opening track to their second studio album, Give 'Em Enough Rope (1978), is entitled 'Safe European Home' and it provides us with an honest admission by Messrs. Strummer and Jones that it's one thing being a white man in Hammersmith Palais for an all-night reggae gig [4], and another thing entirely cruising round Kingston after dark; a place where, according to the song, "every white face is an invitation to robbery" [5].  

 

Both men were, just like the tourist on a dreadlock holiday, out of their depth and out of their comfort zone, and so mightly relieved to get back to their hotel [6] alive - and even happier when they were finally able to return home to Blighty.   

 

Why they decided to go to Jamaica in the first place - leaving bassist Paul Simonon and drummer Topper Headon behind (much to the former's anger and irritation, as he was the genuine reggae devotee in the band) - I don't know. Probably it was one of Bernie's bright ideas; hoping they'd find inspiration in a land riven with political violence and criminal gang activity.    

Which perhaps they did: though it came also with a certain disillusionment. For ultimately there's nothing more glamorous, more radical, or more authentic about life under the Carribean sun - and certainly not when you're living in slums or shanty towns with poor quality housing and almost zero social infrastructure. 

 

One wonders why Joe never asked himself why it was that large-scale migration from Jamaica to the UK (as well as to the US and Canada) occurred in the 1950s, '60s and '70s; and why most of these people (and their descendants) really didn't want to return.   

 

Notes

 

[1] Readers might be amused to discover that I once had a job interview with Godley and Creme, in the mid-1980s, long after they had left 10cc and established themselves as successful pop video directors. The interview was held at the Cadogan hotel. I remember they offered me a spliff, to which I responded by asking in my best Rotten voice: Do I look like a hippie to you? Needless to say, I wasn't offered the job.  

[2] 'Rubber Bullets' was a number one single released from the band's eponymous debut album in 1973. Whilst not particularly relevant to this post, readers who want to give it a listen and see the band perform it on Top of the Pops can do so by clicking here.

 

[3] The white reggae track, 'Dreadlock Holiday', by 10cc, was the lead single from the band's 1978 album, Bloody Tourists (Mercury Records, 1978). It became the group's third number one in the UK and was a huge hit internationaly (with the exception of the US, where many radio stations refused to play reggae of any kind). To watch the video for the song on YouTube, dir. Storm Thorgerson, click here. The image used with this post is a screenshot taken from the opening of this video, whilst the lines underneath are taken from the lyrics to 'Safe European Home' by the Clash (see note 5 below). 

 

[4] This reggae night was on June 5th, 1977, at the Hammersmith Palais, a famous dance hall and entertainment venue on the Shepherd's Bush Road, London. It was headlined by Dillinger, Leroy Smart and Delroy Wilson. Strummer was accompanied by the dreadlocked figure of Don Letts (I won't say for protection, but so as to add to his own credibility as a reggae aficionado). 

      Ironically, Strummer was disappointed by what he saw - not rootsy enough for his tastes - although the evening did give rise to the song '(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais' (1978), which has become a fan favourite: click here to play. 

 

[5] 'Safe European Home', written by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, is the first track on the second studio album by the Clash, Give 'Em Enough Rope (CBS, 1978): click here. This line, about every white face being an invitation to robbery, may be intended humorously, but it echoes the white anxiety captured on the 10cc track 'Dreadlock Holiday'.  

 

[6] Joe and Mick stayed at the Pegasus hotel, in the heart of the business and financial district, rather than the hipper Sheraton hotel, which is where Rotten stayed when he went to Jamaica a few months later (in March, 1978), accompanied by Don Letts and Richard Branson, who picked up the bill and ensured Lydon would remain under long-term contract with Virgin. Interestingly, Rotten seemed to fit in with the local scene much better than Strummer and Jones. 

 

 

For a related post to this one on Serge Gainsbourg as an unlikely reggae star, please click here. 

 

Never Mind the Spiky Tops

All the curly young punks:

Michael Collins and Adam Ant (top row) 

Mick Jones and Me (bottom row)*

 

 

I. 

 

Short spiky hair - often dyed an unnatural shade à la Johnny Rotten - was one of the defining characteristics of punks back in the day. 

 

However, there were plenty of individuals central to the scene who, even in 1977, were proud of their curls and ringlets, including Michael Collins, for example, who was recruited by Vivienne Westwood to manage the shop at 430 King's Road.

 

One thinks also of Stuart Goddard, who abandoned his pub rock outfit Bazooka Joe after seeing the Sex Pistols, transformed his look and changed his name (to Adam Ant), but still maintained his dark curls even at his punkiest.

 

And talking of dark curly-haired punks ... let's not forget Mick Jones; he may have chopped his curls off in 1976 when he formed The Clash, but it wasn't long before his pre-punk (less militant more glam) self reasserted itself.  

 

 

II.

I'm sure there will be some readers by now asking: So what?

 

Well, for one thing, it's always good to be reminded that before it quickly became just another mass-produced fashion and media-endorsed stereotype - as well as a fixed set of values and prejudices - punk was a highly creative form self-stylisation. It was not about following trends, conforming to norms of behaviour, or caring what others thought about the way you looked. 

 

As The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle attempted to remind us: Anyone can be a Sex Pistol - even with curly hair, like me, and, of course, like Malcolm:

 

           

Photo credits: Michael Collins by Homer Sykes; Adam Ant by Ray Stevenson; Mick Jones by Sheila Rock; Malcolm McLaren by Joe Stevens. I don't remember who took the picture of me, but it's dated October 1977. 

 

 

For a follow up post to this one on punks, hippies, and the Boy in the Blue Lamé Suit, click here.

 

Rioting: The Unbeatable High (With Reference to Current Events in France)

For a note on these images see [1] below

 

 

Probably there are quite a few songs about rioting and I suppose they might be classified as a sub-genre of what are known as protest songs (i.e., songs that in some way call for social change). 

 

Here, however, I wish to discuss only two: White Riot by the Clash [2] and Riot by the Dead Kennedys [3] ...   

 

 

A Riot of My Own

 

'White Riot' was released as the English punk band's first single in March 1977 (an earlier demo version was also included on their self-titled debut album released the following month). The song was written after singer Joe Strummer and bass player Paul Simonon were caught up in rioting at the Notting Hill Carnival in 1976. 

 

Ironically, some people misinterpreted the title as advocating race war, whereas, actually, the band were suggesting that white working class kids ignore what they were being taught in school and learn from black youth about the necessity of political violence (i.e., throwing a few bricks).     

 

According to Strummer, the oppressed, the alienated, and the disadvantaged had a right (and a duty) to oppose the System and its heavy-handed policing; to demand a riot of their own and seize some of the power held in the hands of "the people rich enough to buy it". It would be cowardly, suggested the bourgeois punk rebel in his Brigatte Rosse T-shirt, to passively accept one's position and refuse to rise up and fight back.  

 

There is no denying that 'White Riot' is a great single and call to arms; one which, as Strummer rightly says, knocks spots off all the other stuff on the radio at that time. However, it's also, of course, laughably naive in its political posturing and massively irresponsible in its advocacy of mindless violence [4]. To his credit, guitarist Mick Jones would later refuse to perform the song, considering it crude.     

 

 

Playing Right Into Their Hands

 

Whilst he's undoubtedly a bit of a jerk himself, Jello Biafra is a lot smarter and politically astute than Joe Strummer. He's also a superior lyricist. So, no surprise that the Dead Kennedys track 'Riot' is a far more sophisticated take on the subject.

 

Acknowledging the visceral excitement involved in smashing windows, torching cars, looting stores, throwing bricks at the police, etc., Biafra is nevertheless quick to point out that rioters inevitably play into the hands of the authorities and end by burning their own neighbourhoods to the ground. 

 

The song closes with the repeated refrain: "Tomorrow you're homeless / Tonight it's a blast", the latter speaker sounding increasingly distraught as they slowly realise the consequences of their actions.    

 

Perhaps those rioting in France at the moment [5] might like to consider this ... 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The picture of charging police officers, by Rocco Macauly, was taken during a riot at the Notting Hill Carnival in 1976. It featured on the back cover of the eponymous debut album by The Clash (CBS 1977). 

      As for the grainy black-and-white image of a row of burning police cars, this was taken in San Francisco in May 1979 during the so-called White Night Riots; a series of violent events sparked by the lenient sentencing of (former policeman) Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk. It featured on the front cover of the Dead Kennedys' debut album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (Cherry Red Records, 1980).

 

[2] The Clash, 'White Riot', single released March 1977 (CBS): click here. Or, alternatively, click here to listen to the album version and watch the official video (with footage filmed by Don Letts).  

 

[3] Dead Kennedys, 'Riot', from the album Plastic Surgery Disasters, (Alternative Tentacles, 1982): click here.  For a live performance of the song from 1983, click here.

 

[4] Strummer's terroristic fascination with political violence is also displayed in the B-side of 'White Riot' on a track called '1977'. In this charming punk ditty in which he announces the death of the rock 'n' roll establishment - "No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones, in 1977" - he also fantasises how it won't be so lucky to be rich when there's "Sten guns in Knightsbridge".

 

[5] On 27 June 2023, Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old French youth of Maghrebi Algerian descent, who was driving without licence, was shot and killed by a police officer following a car chase in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris. Despite the officer who shot Merzouk being arrested and charged on suspicion of 'voluntary homicide by a person in authority', the incident led to widespread protests and riots in which symbols of the state such as town halls, schools, and police stations - as well as retail outlets - were attacked and over a 1000 vehicles set on fire.