Punk Rock

When traveling a place does not feel fully explored until I find myself lost in a musty bookshop, fingers tracing the spines of books in open prayer.  Hours can pass before I surface from the deep, endlessly hypnotic current of the written word and my wallet is always a little lighter while my bag a little fuller from the treasures I have found. 

These books collected on my travels serve as far better souvenirs than any postcard, spoon or matchbook.  The books pick me and inexplicably define, a pure distillation, the place and the trip.  Late last July I ventured briefly to the east coast with only a vague inkling of returning in any permanent capacity.  Wandering the Lower East Side of New York City one afternoon by myself I found a tiny bookstore with the perfect open invitation to browse upon its shop front.  There in the silence only a small bookshop can have the book found me and it, more than any other book found before or since on my travels, came to represent that moment and place in time.

Punk Rock: An Oral History is the only book capable of capturing that visit to New York City and the decision to cut and run from a life grown too comfortable and stifling.  Perhaps it is my deep seated love of androgynous clothing and men, diy clothing and design, years of multi-hued hair or the large punk album collection; either way the moment my eyes landed on this lengthy tome I knew it had to come home with me.

John Robb a punk luminary in his own right did the seeming impossible, he sat down and interviewed forty years worth of punk rock heroes, legends and visionaries.  The people who first dreamed of stepping outside of 60s r & b, the first person to ever cut and paste a ‘zine together and those who dressed them and everyone to benefit from these initial planted seeds is found in these pages.

Assembled under loosely organized headings to give a sense of chronology to the mixed and matched interviews Robb brilliantly let the stories unfold from his interviewees by adding in new persons as needed to fill out the sketch of events, add depth to the stories and give alternative perspectives of how everything unfolded.  The end result is a hypnotic read of youth, passion, attitude and the furtive search for something more than recession, malaise and the strict edicts of a society strangling itself.  Identification – with Ari Up, Vic Goddard, John Lydon, Rat Scabies and all the other voices tied to this narrative – is easy to come by.

The ladies of punk rock are given their due and may I just say my love of them all has increased ten-fold.  Their refusal to sit on the sidelines and of striking out and being themselves is a reminder of why it is so great to be a girl.

An unexpected and wonderful element of the punk rock history I had not anticipated was all about the fashion and the emergence and evolution of the incomparable, Vivienne Westwood.  And you will have to pardon my indulgence of photos from her Spring 2009 collection and her shop in London during the pre to early days of London punk.

Pouring through the pages of pictures and the expansive list of musicians to seek out I was filled with a sense of inspiration and comfort.  People our age, younger than us, left all thoughts of what could and could not be done, of what was or was not acceptable and what their lot in life entitled them too and just did it.  The “It” being only in retrospect punk rock.  At the time it was just creating a sense of identity and belonging in a world increasingly hostile to the outsider.

A month later with two suitcases, a record player and Punk Rock: An Oral History in my bag I left my life and started anew.  Terrified, alone and never more alive than in that moment I took my first real step towards being punk rock.

kisses,

Michelle

Mac: myspace.com, lastfm.es, speropolis.wordpress.com, killcity.net, punkmaps.com, steadydietoffilm.typepad.com, homepage.mac.com, viviennewestwood.com/flash.php, rocharchive.com, ginavivinelto.wordpress.com, buzzine.com, idollinks.bravepages.com, ramonesfanatic .altervista.org, designermagazine.tripod.com

Tweet This!

Reading: Punk Rock