Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: The best kind of villain there is

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  • Simon Grigg,

    Yeah Chrissie Hynde stole her chops from Sandie but the '60s siren kills her everytime.

    One more, audio only:

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg,

    Can I get the first Annual Malcolm McLaren Award For Media Manipulation for this?

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • 81stcolumn,

    HMV record token for your effort perhaps......?

    Nawthshaw • Since Nov 2006 • 790 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    Get to 8 posts at once and then we'll talk..

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • recordari,

    I had most of those Sandie Shaw versions.

    Was there some comment I missed where we can't post actual McLaren tracks? This is cheesy, but I used to like it.

    Oh, and I don't want to start something I can't finish [ref.], but this by the Ramones from 1974.

    AUCKLAND • Since Dec 2009 • 2607 posts Report Reply

  • recordari,

    Oh, and while I love Sandie Shaw, I also love Billy Bragg's version.

    And while we're here, here's him doing Back to the old house. Wow, I hadn't heard this before. It's one of my all time fav' Smith's songs.

    AUCKLAND • Since Dec 2009 • 2607 posts Report Reply

  • B Jones,

    I'm not usually one to wade into the pop culture discussions here, but I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this, the music of which Malcolm McLaren was at least partially responsible for, along with Delibes, Yanni and goodness knows who else.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report Reply

  • Keir Leslie,

    I don't for a moment think he did.

    Well, exactly. Next up, Chinua Achebe: you didn't say ``things fall apart'' first, did you?

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • recordari,

    Bloody hell. I just watched that Unknown Reggae song. Think I'm gonna puke. Even ironically it is all kinds of bad. I used to love her, but...

    AUCKLAND • Since Dec 2009 • 2607 posts Report Reply

  • Robbie Siataga,

    I tried vogueing but couldn't grow a big enough pair to do it in public. It still didnt stop me from wearing tights, doc martins, frilly pirate shirts, lace gloves and pouting the odd pose...

    ...but maybe that was a post nu romantic hangover laced with some adam ant and a splash of prince

    Still, i could watch these guys do it all day. On watching this vid again, theres a line early on about 'the challenge of substituting dance for fighting'. That would make vogueing b -boying for gay black kids ?

    I think i'm going to do a Malcolm memorial t shirt design now. So whos got some early House of McLaren styled pics of themselves looking erm...punkish, hiphoppish, vogueish ?

    Since Feb 2010 • 259 posts Report Reply

  • recordari,

    I can safely say I never wore jean shorts, or Lycra cycle shorts, in a club. As to vogueing, I'm taking the 5th. Cod pieces? Well you gotta leave that to the experts...

    AUCKLAND • Since Dec 2009 • 2607 posts Report Reply

  • Robbie Siataga,

    Codpieces ? You can feel it when you walk, even when you talk it takes over...

    ...the uh conversation. I'lll see your codpiece and raise you an eye patch ?

    I wonder if there's a Kevin Bacon, 6 degrees of separation for musical artists linked to Malcolm McLaren.

    Since Feb 2010 • 259 posts Report Reply

  • Robbie Siataga,

    Since Feb 2010 • 259 posts Report Reply

  • Rich Lock,

    and let’s not forget that America didn't really get punk at all until they found Nirvana who were able to offer a nice corporatised version of it for the masses.

    By 'get', you really mean 'become big enough nationwide to really be thought of as pop', though, right?

    The San Francisco scene was pretty big, or at least that's my impression (for example, wiki tells me that the Dead Kennedys formed in 1978).

    And this cut a little too close to my funny bone. My laughter was tinged with more than a shade of unease.

    "Punk is more than just a Mohawk hairstyle," Tolbert said. "For us back in the '90s, punk was a way of life. I see these kids today hanging around Gilman Street in their leather jackets with their wallet chains, and I just want to say to them, 'You think punk is a costume, man?' Back in'93, it was about so much more: It was a rebellion against outmoded belief systems. It was a cry of outrage against the repressive authority of the Clinton Administration."

    "I saw some kid wearing a Sex Pistols T-shirt the other day–he couldn't have been more than 9 when the Pistols did their Filthy Lucre reunion tour," Tolbert said. "I was like, 'You can listen to the music, you can wear the T-shirt, but I was there.' I had fifth-row seats at that goddamn stadium, man, right up front, close enough to see Johnny Rotten's wrinkles. Did you see an original member of The Clash play during Big Audio Dynamite II's last tour? Did you see two of the four original Ramones play at the KROQ Weenie Roast in '95? You did not, but I did. I swear to God, they're like a joke, these people." .

    Ouch….

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report Reply

  • 3410,

    Ha.

    These kids today have no sense of history. They don't know about Pennywise.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2007 • 2618 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg,

    By 'get', you really mean 'become big enough nationwide to really be thought of as pop', though, right?

    No big as in getting any traction beyond a niche and a media response. There were big niches and underground scenes in many cities but, unlike much of the rest of the world where punk caused huge change in the mainstream musical landscape after 1977, the closest the US got to that before Nirvana provided an, acceptable to FM and college radio, half way point between stadium rock and punk was Billy Joel putting on a narrow tie.

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • Rob Hosking,

    In October 1961 Leggy Mountbatten, a retail chemist from Bolton, entered their lives... Leggy hated it. He hated their music, he hated their hair, he hated their noise: but he loved their trousers.

    Yep.

    And he made them bigger than Rod.

    South Roseneath • Since Nov 2006 • 830 posts Report Reply

  • chris,

    No big as in getting any traction beyond a niche and a media response. There were big niches and underground scenes in many cities but, unlike much of the rest of the world where punk caused huge change in the mainstream musical landscape after 1977, the closest the US got to that before Nirvana provided an, acceptable to FM and college radio, half way point between stadium rock and punk was Billy Joel putting on a narrow tie

    I'm not so sure whether this was specific to the US Simon. Firstly Whip it was a huge international hit (how punk it is is debatable). Secondly that's the only 'punk' I heard for the subsequent 10 years growing up in provincial New Zealand, excluding that 'Should I stay or should I go' jeans ad. And that's definitely not for want of trying to find fresh music. We were simply smothered by classic hits and easy listening.

    Obviously having not been born in time to enjoy it, it's hard to grasp the crossover, with only literature and output as sign posts. Certainly can't hear the seachange.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shaggs

    Mawkland • Since Jan 2010 • 1302 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg,

    Firstly Whip it was a huge international hit (how punk it is is debatable)

    It was a novelty, and there were a few..B-52s etc, but not really what I'd call a part if the ethic of '77 even if both bands worked their way out of Ohio with help from two UK indies (Stiff and Island respectively) but, no not really punk.

    And even in the provinces in NZ the rock music coming through in 1981/2 had its roots in punk: Screaming Meemees and Dance Exponents were both massive provincial crowd pullers and both post punk. The Clean had a huge hit across NZ: indie and post punk. In America you got Foreigner and Kansas

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • Robbie Siataga,

    GG allin...punk enough for ya ?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GG_Allin

    I would imagine if there were bands, they had to have an audience and possibly because of the ethics and aesthetics of punk in appealing to the southern cracka ass skinhead bootboys, they would have been suppressed/oppressed by the mainstream media so a lot of 'honest' american punk bands wouldn't have made news here.

    Since Feb 2010 • 259 posts Report Reply

  • chris,

    Foreigner and Kansas? Michael Jackson. I was thinking more The Beastie Boys number 1, 9 million unit selling 'Licence to Ill', a band which seemed to take a bunch of leaves from McLaren's book.

    The Dance Exponents seem like Cindy Lauper comparatively.

    Mawkland • Since Jan 2010 • 1302 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg,

    I was thinking more The Beastie Boys number 1, 9 million unit selling 'Licence to Ill', a band which seemed to take a bunch of leaves from McLaren's book.

    Just because they were white and making hip-hop records doesn't really make them the philosophical or stylistic heirs of Malc, surely, because I can't see any other connection.

    Mclaren was an opportunist, the Beasties were anything but having batted for years before they broke.

    The Beasties lineage was NYC, albeit hardly street, they were signed to Def Jam, produced by Rick Rubin, managed by Rush who managed Run DMC and half the hip hop world. They had hardcore punk roots but Licensed to Ill was primarily a hip hop record, never seen as punk at the time, and doesn't counter the fact the US album charts and FM radio were dominated by mainstream pomp and arena rock throughout the eighties.

    The point about the Exponents is, as pop as they might have been, they came out of a thriving punk and post punk scene in Chch. Like The Mockers, we remember them as pop but the were a punk band first (and their, The Mockers, first two indie singles were killers).

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • chris,

    All excellent points. Is it ok if I email you about something related to this?

    Mawkland • Since Jan 2010 • 1302 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg,

    Yes of course, Chris.

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • philipmatthews,

    I would imagine if there were bands, they had to have an audience and possibly because of the ethics and aesthetics of punk in appealing to the southern cracka ass skinhead bootboys, they would have been suppressed/oppressed by the mainstream media so a lot of 'honest' american punk bands wouldn't have made news here.

    I was thinking about this. Back in the 80s, a lot of American punk did have a pretty big following here. There was student radio play, you could get the records easily on import. Groups like Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Minor Threat, Minutemen, Naked Raygun, Butthole Surfers. American punk, and labels like SST, Homestead and Alternative Tentacles, was a lot more exciting and innovative than British punk through that era, which was mainly right-wing Oi stuff, unlistenable but well-intentioned anarcho punk like Crass and the cartoonish mohawk bands like Exploited and Anti Nowhere League.

    Anyway, a lot of the American stuff I mentioned was completely against the mentality of southern cracka skinheads you mention, and probably more politically left than most British punk bands. It doesn't mean they didn't draw that skinhead crowd who were looking for some of that aggression, but the bands weren't courting it. New Zealand punk and post-punk in the 80s had the same kind of skinhead problem.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2007 • 656 posts Report Reply

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