THE SPIRIT OF ’ 77

PUNK IS A VOLATILE, SOMETIMES SELF-DESTRUCTIVE, WORK

IN PROGRESS THAT YOU MAKE UP AS YOU GO ALONG.

Scientists). In New Zealand there were the Scavengers, Suburban Reptiles, and the Enemy (led by the slyly deranged Chris Knox). Spain had the inexplicable new-wave costume pop of Kaka De Luxe; and in Germany, punk was the sole province of the most awesomely named Big Balls and the Great White Idiot.

It was like a deafenin g revolution on a tiny transistor radio.

“Punk was tolerant, it took in groups of people who were alienated, but then there weren’t enough of the kind of people involved with punk to change the music press and the industry for the better. My recourse was taking speed.”

—Writer Jane Suck, in Jon Savage’s England’s Dreaming

Of course, it’s true that punk’s favored image of itself as a misfit refuge—where men, women, blacks, Latinos, gays, art-school dweebs or shit-job thugs, political zealots or apolitical wise-asses, conniving junkies or thieving strippers could come together and hop like enlightened cretins—was, ultimately, a pretty hippie-ish pipe dream. And when the media played the violence card, the utopia became a testing ground for straight white dudes who simply wanted to establish their manhood. In the hardcore-punk ’80s, as the times became more threateningly conservative and restrictive—with Reagan, AIDS, and the religious right—it got downright Iron John. But there were moments.

Like when ’ 77’s secret star, X-Ray Spex’s braces-wearing singer Poly Styrene, said she’d never be a sex symbol, and if somebody tried to turn her into one, she’d shave her head. (So Britney Spears’ meltdown was a punk tribute?)

Or learning after the fact that the Ramones, who I first thought seemed like a bunch of sullen, dopey-clever geeks in the right place at the right time, were a

profoundly strange conglomeration. Guitarist Johnny, a.k.a. John Cummings, was a baseball-card-collecting Republican businessman. Towering, golemlike singer Joey, a.k.a. Jeff Hyman, was a sweet, obsessive-compulsive recluse who once went by the nickname Jeff Starship. Bassist Dee Dee, a.k.a. Douglas Colvin, was an Army brat who grew up in Germany, a former hairdresser, and a switchblade-packing fiend who actually turned tricks on “53rd & 3rd.” Surviving original drummer Tommy, a.k.a. Tamás Erdélyi, is a Hungarian expat and bluegrass fanatic. And somehow they were one of the most gifted songwriting teams in rock history.

Punk, by nature, is a volatile, sometimes self-destructive, work in progress that you make up as you go along, with no expectation that your band or scene will even exist in a year. It’s about the moments when somebody does something that embodies how fucked up the world is, but makes it funny, noble, and poignantly shot through with darkness and light.

That’s the spirit of ’ 77, at least for me, and I still look for those kinds of moments. One I’ll never forget was in the early ’80s, driving to a show at Atlanta’s 688 Club, when I saw a familiar local figure standing in the middle of an empty Arby’s parking lot. It was sunset and there was a glare, so I stopped and turned around to check. Sure enough—it was RuPaul. About six-foot-five in combat boots, he wore denim Daisy Dukes, a torn T-shirt, and a fluorescent yellow mohawk (this was well before the “sashay, shante” drag success). He was all alone, feet firmly planted, just staring off into the distance. Why was he there?

For some reason, I was transfixed. Maybe it was that seeing a gay black man in the South, claiming this sad patch of processed-beef-stench asphalt—like a sublimely pissed-off Sly Stone declaring, “Fuck you for letting me be myself again!”—was just about the most punk thing I’d ever witnessed. So I watched, until he finally turned and started striding down the sidewalk, mohawk held high.

Never mind the bollocks, that’s a sex pistol.

SEPTEMBER 24
“No More Heroes”
becomes the Stranglers’
fourth British chart
single (and the third to
go Top 10) of 1977.

OCTOBER 11
Joan Jett and the Jam’s Paul
Weller join a panel on NBC’s
Tomorrow With Tom Snyder to
discuss punk. Weller argues
in favor of the “new wave”
sobriquet. Jett agrees that
punk is “a media term.” Snyder
shrugs it all off, saying, “From
what I’ve read, there’s no music.
It’s just chords and ranting and
raving and putdowns.”

OCTOBER 28
Never Mind the Bollocks,
Here’s the Sex Pistols is
released in the U.K.

DECEMBER 17
A last-minute replacement
for the Sex Pistols, Elvis
Costello is the musical guest
on Saturday Night Live. After
singing a line and a half of
“Less Than Zero,” about
English fascist Oswald
Mosley, Elvis yells “Stop!”,
says, “I’m sorry, ladies and
gentlemen, there’s no reason
to do this song here,” and
rushes the Attractions into
“Radio Radio.”

OCTOBER 2
The Electric Circus in
Manchester, England, closes
with a show featuring the Fall,
Buzzcocks, Magazine, John
Cooper Clarke, and Warsaw,
soon to change their name
to Joy Division. The show is
recorded and documented on
the Short Circuit ten-inch.

NOVEMBER 23
Singer Darby Crash,
emulating Iggy Pop, cuts his
bare chest with a broken beer
bottle during a Germs show at
the Masque in L.A.

DECEMBER 10
In advance of the Sex Pistols’
ill-fated (and, ultimately,
fatal) January ’ 78 American
tour, Never Mind the Bollocks
enters the Billboard album
chart. (It peaks at No. 106.)

DECEMBER 31
The Ramones record their
New Year’s Eve gig with the
Rezillos and Generation X
at the Rainbow in London
for eventual release as
It’s Alive, the band’s first
(but by no means last)
concert document.

⁵⁸ OCTOBER ²⁰⁰⁷ WWW.SPIN.COM