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"The Ramones weren't punk" says Estate Agent
There's a strong piece on Stereogum this evening, which not only dissects John Lydon's tiresome "aaah! what a quixotic type I am" Spin interview (neither The Clash nor The Ramones were punk, apparently) but also digs out this:
Yes, that's Lydon on Judge Judy. Let's use that as our calibration point as we measure his words on The Clash:
I never liked any of the Clash stuff, though ... And I never considered the Clash punk. Joe was alright. He was very sweet-natured. But he came from a different music background. He'd already tried the pub-band circuit, so he hopped onto punk.
The best thing about the Judy piece is the caption which explains who Lydon used to be underneath his name.
3 comments:
"But he came from a different music background. He'd already tried the pub-band circuit, so he hopped onto punk."
I don't see what relevance that has. Punk gave many people a chance to reinvent themselves - that was part of what it was about. Someone should remind Lydon that before Punk he was a Hawkind fanatic with hair down to his arse.
I've always felt Lydon's vitriol toward the clash - which seems to have diluted since Strummer's death - was primarily due to the petty jealousy of the Pistols being completely eclipsed by Strummer and the boys.
But he's so funny to watch though, like a cartoon character or something!
I heard the Sex Pistols' Grundy interview in full for the first time this morning (it's on that spiffing Interviews CD the Guardian gave away on Saturday). The scary thing is I've never heard it in full from start to finish before, but soon realised I'd heard every single line of it, mainly from chopped-up clips that I've seen on 'Top 100' TV list shows.
Hearing it in full was a whole different experience; Clip-shows usually focus on the fact that it was noteworthy because somebody swore on teatime TV, but what I found more interesting was the way in which it descended from typically bland introduction into drunken cage-rattling carnage in about 60 seconds. In edited highlights, the group come across as shocking. In full though, they just seem bored. The most shocking part wasn't someone saying 'dirty fucker' at 6.30pm, but the way that the prime-time interviewer dealt with the situation (after, bizarrely, admitting to being drunk). He went from cosy chatshow host to sub-Jeremy-Kyle bear-baiter within seconds. I suppose today's equivalent would be Adrian Chiles handing Pete Doherty another syringe on the One Show and saying "Go on, stick this one in your scrotum. Dare ya"
Curse you Kate Thornton, why did you never point that bit out to me?
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