All language subtitles for BBC.Punk.Britannia.1of3.Pre-Punk.1972-1976.720p.HDTV.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org

This programme
contains strong language

As you can all
quite well imagine,

the letters that get
themselves printed

are only the tip of an iceberg.

The iceberg in this case

seems to be one of a
particularly threatening nature.

In fact, it is an iceberg that
is drifting uncomfortably close

to the dazzlingly lit, wonderfully appointed
Titanic that is big-time rock pop -

tax exile, jet-set
show business.

Letter after letter
repeats the same thing.

You all seem to have had it
with The Who and Liz Taylor,

Rod Stewart and the Queen,

Jagger and Princess Margaret,

paying three quid
to be bent, mutilated,

crushed, or seated
behind a pillar,

all in the name of modern,
'70s-style super rock.

The aforementioned
iceberg cometh.

And that iceberg,
dear readers, is you.

Everyone that was involved
in punk was a child in the '60s.

So we grew up with rock music

at the centre of the universe,
and as a medium for social change.

# It's all right now... #

And what we got,
when it was our turn,

was the feeling that we
had kind of missed the party.

We had grown up too
late to be a part of that.

The whole country had this
feeling that there's no innovation,

there's nothing happening,
definitely not for us.

When you looked at all the
great music that had happened,

you really felt, "Well,
what are we going to do?"

You really didn't have a future.

No matter how well you
achieved academically,

it's like, "Why bother?
Know your place."

We didn't want any bullshit,

we didn't want to have
an older generation's views

put upon our shoulders.

We didn't want to
have to toe the line.

You've created
somebody who has nothing.

And, out of nothing, I'm going to
build a whole new suit of clothes.

Out of nothing, I'm
going to look great.

Out of nothing, I'm going
to terrify your children.

In London, it felt as
if a great ashen cloud

had fallen over everything.

The great idealistic
issues of the hippie era,

gender politics, issues of race,

issues of authority,
were not listened to.

In fact, I had gone to
the Home Office and said,

"We have been arguing with
you, and if you don't listen to me,

"my generation, the next generation
is going to come at you with knives."

This is the evolutionary story
of the birth of British punk...

..the underground London scene
that came before the fabled ground zero

of the Sex Pistols'
Anarchy In The UK.

Over time, punk has been
mythologized and reduced

to a barrage of swearing,
spitting and safety pins.

The foundations of
punk were actually forged

by a gateway generation

sandwiched between the
'60s hippies and the '70s punks.

They were the big
brothers of punk,

already themselves on a mission
to take rock back from the jet set.

This generation paved the way

but would ultimately be
wiped out by punk's new dawn.

And the very first stepping
stone on the road to punk

was laid by a group of enterprising
young American long-hairs

at the beginning of the '70s.

# Well, I'm riding
on an airplane... #

One day, in May 1971,

a Californian honky-tonk
trio, Eggs Over Easy,

knocked on the door of
a north London boozer,

looking for a place to play.

I don't know what they
were doing in England,

but they went to see the
landlord. There was three of them.

And they said,
"Could we play here?"

And the guy said, "We kind of
play jazz. What do you play?"

And they said, "Kind of R&B and
country and rock and pop. Everything."

He said, "Give us a
lunchtime, and see how it goes."

And that's what they did.

And it took off.

# We're going to
have a little party

# It's going to last
for a week or two. #

They were authentic Americans,
and we were really excited by that.

Draft dodgers, I think.

I'm not certain about that,
maybe that was just a myth.

And they had a
massive repertoire.

They were like a living jukebox.

It wasn't your regular
rock crowd. I can remember

a Sikh bus conductor with
his uniform on, dancing,

dancing with his wife or with
someone else's wife, I don't know.

All kinds of people. It
was really, really shaking.

The simple idea of a rock
'n' roll band playing in a pub

was something of a eureka moment
for Nick Lowe's band Brinsley Schwarz

and their new manager, ex-Jimi
Hendrix roadie, Dave Robinson.

Against the early '70s
backdrop of super rock and prog,

rootsy country rock
bands like the Brinsleys

had trouble finding
places to play.

When I saw Eggs
Over Easy, it was like,

"I've got the model.
Come down and see -

"this is what I'm telling
you you should be doing."

They were the kind of
musicians we were aspiring to be.

So we started appropriating
quite a lot of their act, you know.

And when they went
back to America,

we're appropriated
their gig as well.

# Falling in love again

# Falling in love again... #

Having seen the light,

the Brinsleys settled in to
a residency at The Tally Ho

and their enterprising manager set out
to make the most of his new opportunity.

Finding kindred spirits,

and finding kindred bar
managers, became what I got up to.

MUSIC: "All Right Now" by Free

I'd been working for David
Bowie in the very early '70s.

After the Ziggy
Stardust tours were over,

there was no job for me
then with David Bowie.

So round about the same time,

Dave Robinson and myself spent
our evenings looking for venues.

We literally used to
drive around London

in my old Morris 1000 traveller.

Every time we passed a
big pub, we'd stop and go in

and ask the landlord if he had a
big room he wanted to rent out.

It was a bit of a
crusade, really.

# Now, don't you
wait Don't hesitate

# Let's move before They
raise the parking rate. #

PIANO PUB MUSIC

These pubs didn't always offer
a warm welcome to new faces.

Pubs weren't very
appealing to young people.

The vast majority of them
were run by Irish men,

with an aggressive attitude!

Almost none of
them served meals.

There wasn't a gastro... The word
"gastropub" hadn't been invented then.

It was still the older guy

escaping from his wife,

the place they would
brag and booze,

and talk about football.

Nothing had happened in
pubs for about 30 years, really.

ROCK 'N' ROLL MUSIC

All of a sudden, London's
pubs were happening.

Brinsley Schwarz were joined on
the scene by groups like Ducks Deluxe

and Bees Make Honey,

and the capital's landlords warmed
to what they now called pub rock,

and the thirsty
crowds it attracted.

# Caledonia, Caledonia... #

A circuit gradually evolved.

The Tally Ho was the first one,

because Eggs Over
Easy were playing there.

The Hope & Anchor became a
bigger venue, round about 1972.

Also another pub in
Hammersmith called The Red Cow.

Then this place, The
Nashville, came along later.

It became the main means by which
new acts were exposed to the public.

The great thing about the
London pub rock scene was

you didn't need a
huge PA system.

You didn't need a tour bus, and
you didn't really need a road crew.

Four or five guys,

put it in the car, go down The
Hope & Anchor or The Kensington,

set up on beer
crates, virtually,

and play for an hour or two.

There were no bells and
whistles at a pub rock show,

and this chimed with the bands'
preferred style of stripped down music.

Not for them the
pomp and peacocking

of the prevailing
forms of rock in 1972.

It was a very strange
time, that '71, '72 period.

# And I-I-I-I, I love you. #

In the pop world, you had glam.

T Rex and Slade, and those guys.

I went to see Ziggy Stardust
and the Spiders from Mars. Please!

# Oh, honey, watch that man.

# Well, he talks like a jerk

# But he's only taking
care of the room. #

COMMENTATOR: 'It is said Bowie will
soon be the world's number one beat singer.

'He'd be the first superstar of pop
to wear shorty dresses on stage.'

It was just too cosmetic for me.

I couldn't swallow that.

# Watch that man. #

You also had this
appalling... HE LAUGHS

..this appalling thing
called prog rock.

Yes, King Crimson,
Family, Genesis.

Jethro Tull, Super Tramp.

You know, prog rock. I hated it.

SYNTHESISER SOLO

Too much light shows,

too much people playing
keyboards like this,

and all of that business.

Not just the music
that people played,

but how audiences reacted,

which was to sit on the
floor, with their eyes shut

listening to this wondrously
complicated music.

It had gone a long, long
way from rock 'n' roll.

Humdrum daily life for
youngsters in the early '70s,

played out to an extended
soundtrack of earnest virtuosity

and mutton chop pop,

was in dire need
of something new.

Pub rock's answer to this
was to dig out something old.

The pub rock bands started
looking back to Chuck Berry,

early blues artists, early
soul and R&B artists.

# I'm going coast to coast

# I'm going coast to coast. #

Classic rock and R&B from the
'50s and early '60s played fast,

and, washed down with
generous amounts of ale,

was pub rock's
response to boring Britain.

Unbeknownst to them, their
retro leanings set British rock

on a course that
would eventually lead

to the short sharp
shock of punk.

ROCK GUITAR INTERLUDE

The Ducks were just crazy.

We just had so much energy.

We just piled it in there.

We played at 150 miles an hour.

Sean Tyla had a very
aggressive, kind of rough attitude,

which I rather liked.

He was fabulously abusive
to audiences, for one thing!

HE LAUGHS

And, you know, that was
a bit of a mixed blessing.

# I'm going coast to coast. #

I often used to get people
come up to me at the end of a gig,

and say, "You really
pissed me off tonight."

I'd say, "What have I done now?"

He said, "You didn't
tell me to fuck off!"

So I'm not coming to your gigs
if you don't tell me to fuck off.

I said, "All right,
OK. Fuck off!"

HE LAUGHS

Ducks Deluxe were like a
punk rock group in the making.

But a few excess
kilos and facial hair

was all that stood between Ducks
Deluxe and punk rock legend, really.

By 1973, pub rock gigs had gained
a reputation as a good night out

and were proving popular
with legions of Londoners.

ROCK GUITAR

The crowds were coming. These
pubs now suddenly were full.

The landlords were banging
me on the back, saying,

"Dave, this is happening,
what are you drinking?"

We understood it was
fundamentally about entertainment.

Paul, our singer, very quickly
adopted this persona of, like,

an Arthur Daley-type character.

You know, with a
moustache and the cigarette

and the sort of sleazy patter.

# You know, I went to
a party the other night

# This certain chick
was out of sight

# Now, we got talking... #

One of the things that pub rock

is the fact that everybody
is in the front row.

Because it's so small,

you are so close to the band.

You are all a part of it.

And the band gets
that feeling as well.

# So I slapped a little
cash down on the desk... #

It broke down the barriers
between the audience and the artist.

If you went to the Hammersmith
Odeon to see Mott The Hoople,

chances of bumping into
Ian Hunter - extremely remote.

Come down The Hope & Anchor,

chances of bumping into Ian
Dury - ten to one. You know?

# Pocket money,
ooh, pocket money

# But you know
it's true, baby. #

If Ian Dury was at the
bar, he'd be hard to miss,

especially with his band
Kilburn & The High Roads in tow.

The Kilburns were an
entirely different phenomena.

It was like seeing a kind
of demented Gene Vincent,

you know, with a deformed
drummer and a dwarf bass player,

and it was like the
circus had come to town.

# Woke up this morning
in a state of shock... #

Unlike the punks
who would follow,

or the glam acts their
younger sisters liked,

most pub rockers didn't
believe in having a look.

Only the Kilburns, who met
at Canterbury College of Art,

had their own unique aesthetic.

# And the cocktail rock

# They did the mumble rumble

# And the cocktail rock... #

It was a rather strange band.

It wasn't quite a rock 'n' roll
band, that's what we thought.

It was like this...
We were Kilburns.

# I climbed out of
bed and I call a doc

# Don't need you, oh!
Cocktail rock, whoo! #

Kilburn & The High Roads were
just so far ahead of everybody else

in look and in...punk feel.

Ian Dury was wearing
a razor blade in his ear

years before the punk movement.

# And the cocktail rock. #

All right, Keith, on the
guitar, you want to play a little?

More important than his
earrings, Ian Dury wrote songs

depicting real life
on London's streets

at a time when most pub rockers sang songs
about life south of the Mason-Dixon line.

# Mumble, mumble rumble

# And the cocktail rock. #

The Mumble Rumble.

He liked people like Max
Wall, Norman Wisdom.

He was very much into the
stagecraft of that kind of thing.

And he was almost like a Dickensian
figure, as well. Very English.

And I think people loved
that we were talking about

Kilburn High Road
instead of Memphis.

The Kilburns used to come

to Hornsey College
Of Art and do gigs.

Songs like Rough Kids by
them - that was a great song.

I think Rough Kids was one of
the first punking sounding songs.

You know, very London.

The Kilburns gave a glimmer
of hope to the odd teenager

craving tunes that
reflected their own lives.

But the pub rockers themselves
didn't have youth on their side.

You'd have, like, a lead
singer that looked really good.

You thought, he's got the slightly
Bowie haircut, and a T-shirt,

but they were wearing flares, and
the guitarist would have long hair.

It was really, you know, beery
blokes playing Chuck Berry tunes.

Even the Whistle Test
could see that pub rock

wasn't quite going
to save rock 'n' roll.

Richard, how much impact
do you think the pub rock circuit

is having or is going to have
now on the musical situation?

If you go round and look
at a lot of pub rock bands,

or a lot of bands
playing in pubs,

you find that most
of them are over 25.

It's really recreating the music
of the '50s and the early '60s,

and out of that kind of thing a
revolution is not going to come.

The next big influence on rock is going to come
from 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds, 20-year-olds.

Pub rock established a live
music scene and uncovered

the rock 'n' roll roots that would
form the sonic template for punk.

This appetite for raiding the
past in search of fresh sounds

was being passed down to even
younger kids by two record traders,

Ted Carroll and Roger Armstrong.

We're in Golborne Road,
we're outside number 93,

which in 1971 was a flea market.

I had a record stall in the back, and
that's where I started my Rock On empire.

This place was the first place
you could buy rock 'n' roll records

from the '50s, '60s,
and even the '70s,

as well as rhythm
& blues and soul,

so it used to attract a lot
of journalists, musicians.

Joe Strummer bought a copy
of Brand New Cadillac in here

and then recorded
it with The Clash.

So there was all that kind of stuff
happening all the time, you know?

Well, Ted Carroll
and Roger Armstrong,

we liked them, because
they were introducing us

to music that I
hadn't heard before,

early blues and jazz
and all that kind of stuff.

They were big instigators of
having the product to turn people on.

Just down the road in Chelsea,
rag trade maverick Malcolm McLaren

had also picked up on this
revival of rock's teenage past.

Malcolm, he was selling
'50s rock 'n' roll stuff

and I used to sell
him a lot of records.

When everybody was walking
around dressed in BacoFoil,

like Gary Glitter
or Anthony Price,

he had a Teddy Boy shop.

If you had to begin in the '70s,

you had to begin your life with,

well, what was the culture
that really moved you?

So we would dig up the
ruins of what was the 1950s.

We were going to rescue these
ruins, we were going to polish them,

dust them down, pull them up.

# Well, it's one for the money

# Two for the show... #

McLaren's shop kitted out a
growing number of teenagers

who, fed up with the present,
were looking for the future

in the depths of their
parents' vinyl collection,

or the back of their
wardrobe, for that matter.

American Graffiti was a very influential
thing for a much younger age group.

ARCHIVE: American Graffiti.
Baby, what's that? It's a movie!

Can you dig it? Can you
dig it? Go back in time!

It's one of those great old movies
about romance, racing and rock 'n' roll!

Those teenage kids, they
used to call it graffiti music.

Graffiti music, they called it.

We were far enough away
from the '50s, in a sense,

for it not to be just
about nostalgia, in a way.

They were just listening
to it, and it was great music,

and it was sort of simple
and straightforward,

and it was the antithesis of the
grandiose stadium rock kind of things.

Though, funnily enough, it was
a stadium gig that, in a sense,

also helped trigger it, which was
the Wembley Rock 'N' Roll Show.

# One, two, three
o'clock, four o'clock rock

# five, six, seven
o'clock, eight o'clock rock

# nine, ten, 11
o'clock, 12 o'clock rock,

# We're going to rock
around the clock tonight... #

It was Bo Diddley,
Chuck, Jerry Lee...

Bill Haley. Bill Haley.
Little Richard. Little Richard.

And guess who was also there,
with a job lot of retro T-shirts to sell?

ARCHIVE: Bill Haley large?

It's Malcolm McLaren with a pop-up
version of his Kings Road store.

Why is rock coming back?
What? Why is rock coming back?

Well, it never really went
away, did it? No, definitely not.

Large Jerry Lee Lewis.

Revisiting the teen tribes

and three-minute hits of the '50s
was a signpost on the road to punk.

But, 40 miles
south, down the A13,

those pioneering days of rock 'n'
roll had definitely never gone away.

In Southend, of course,
we had the famous seafront

and the Kursaal Amusement Park,

and the longest
pier in the world,

and so there was a bit of
a fairground atmosphere.

All the amusement arcades and
the piers and so forth had jukeboxes,

and it seemed like rock 'n' roll
records were for ever spinning.

MUSIC: "Boogie Chillen"
by John Lee Hooker

Canvey was a bit of a
backwater, and I'd got into this

rhythm & blues music and
that, and naturally I'm thinking,

"Oh, man, I wish I lived
in the Mississippi Delta."

And of course - a
jolly obvious thing -

you do live in
a delta, actually,

and you do live where there
are people living in shacks.

# Well, my momma didn't allow me

# To stay out
all night long... #

So you could indulge these kind
of fantasies, and the whole thing

lit up by the lights and
fires of the oil refinery.

# I didn't care what
she didn't allow

# I would boogie-woogie
anyhow... #

Yes! Got the blues.

Wilko was joined in his
fantasy by three other local lads

in a group they
called Dr Feelgood.

# If there's
something that I like

# It's the way that woman walks

# And if there's
something I like better

# It's the way she baby talks

# She does it right

# She does it right... #

Actually, what we were doing was
slightly old-fashioned or something.

The local rival bands used
to look down on us a little bit,

you know, because we
weren't wearing frocks

and singing about going to Mars.

# And when she
gets back to her seat

# Mmm, all the
people cry for more #

# She does it right... #

Rock 'n' roll's not about The
Hobbit and things like that,

that's for girls, you know.

Children's music.

This is for people who
want to have a good time.

Having shown the pubs and clubs
of the Thames delta a good time,

before long, the
Feelgoods set their sights

on the London pub rock scene.

We went up to town to The
Torrington to see a couple of bands.

I was there with my
brother, and we got in there,

and this band were... I
remember saying to my bruv,

"If this is the top
band in London...

"..we've got it made."

# I wonder who it could be.

# It was so dark I couldn't see

# But I know it wasn't me

# When I tell you it ain't right

# I know you've
got to agree... #

Suddenly, these oiks
come from Canvey Island,

just going berserk up there,
and people were loving it.

# Roxette

# I didn't need to seek you out

# You know the
music played so loud

# But I could hear
you through the crowd

# You was telling everyone

# About a new
guy you'd found... #

The combination of the Feelgoods' musical
assault and their working-class geezer image

grabbed the pub scene
by the throat and, crucially,

also grabbed the attention
of a younger crowd.

Lee Brilleaux
looked like he would

punch your head in
given a moment's notice,

and Wilko Johnson was just this
mad, speed-freak looking kind of guy.

Wilko, for me, was the first
sort of guitar hero of the '70s,

the first person I could really relate
to. Didn't like all the widdly-diddly...

The sort of poodle-cut American
stadium rockers didn't mean nothing to me.

They're slightly forgotten
in the roots of punk,

but, actually, they are
the British roots of punk,

they're sort of the first
British punk rock group.

I think the line between pub
rock and punk rock is straddled by,

not only Dr Feelgood, but
by Eddie & The Hot Rods.

Get Out Of Denver, baby!

It was fast, and it was urgent.

# Still remember it was autumn
and the moon was shining

# 60 Cadillac was roaring
through Nebraska whining

# To hit 120, Man, the
fields was bending over

# Heading for the mountains
Knowing we was trailin' further

# The pipes were blazin' and
the screamin' wheels turnin', turnin'

# Had my girl beside me,
brother, she was burnin', burnin'... #

Hailing from Canvey Island,

Eddie & The Hot Rods were
direct descendants of Dr Feelgood.

They were steeped
in the same R&B roots,

but were a few, crucial years
younger than their Essex elders.

The Feelgoods are now,
not at the peak of their career,

but they're really about
as big as it can get.

Eddie & The Hot Rods kind of
came and snuck in under that.

They were younger, and
they had a younger following,

and they were a very
high energy band.

And they went straight into
pub gigs that were ready-made.

They had an
almost meteoric rise.

The other bands in the early
days, like Ducks Deluxe, Brinsleys

and bands like that,
were fantastic in their right.

We put a burst
of energy into it.

I was quite fit in those
days, so it was just...

To let go of the energy I
used to go mad on stage,

running around,
swinging from the rafters.

There was no-one
else like us at the time.

The punk generation had reached the legal
age and begun to infiltrate the pub scene.

Faced with a front
man of their own age,

they adopted Eddie & The
Hot Rods as one of their own.

You went to see people like
Eddie & The Hot Rods, '75, '76,

because they were playing a
very basic, punky type of R&B.

You know, it was music that
you felt you could identify with.

Their eyes were bulging,
they looked the part,

they were playing at a tempo
that no-one in LA was playing at.

And they were ours.

The Rods cranked
up the energy on stage,

but their set still relied
on American rock covers.

What would soon set punk apart
was a voice with a vision of Britain

as it felt and smelled to
the kids it had set adrift.

# I was saying let me out of
here before I was even born

# It's such a gamble
when you get a face

# I belong to the generation but

# I can take it or
leave it each time... #

It was still that sort of
hangover from the '60s

that went on into the mid '70s,

where people were still walking around
in massive great big flairs this big,

and your dad wearing pasty
kipper ties and matching shirts

and all that sort
of gear from C&A's.

# Kisses for me

# Save all your
kisses for me... #

They were getting into
the flower power thing,

but like six years
later or something.

# Don't cry,
honey, don't cry... #

And if it wasn't bad
enough having to suffer

the bad taste
hangover from the '60s,

the Britain this generation had
inherited was also looking worse for wear.

I can only give
you one gallon, sir.

That'll get you to
your nearest garage.

So the South Wales miners have
decided to turn the screw further.

Their latest action... Huge piles of
rubbish after the demonstration...

CROWD SHOUTING

Ferguson? Here.
Gottley? Sir. Green? Sir.

Chambers? Sir. Londale. Sir.

Linda Ayre?

Anyone seen Linda Ayre?

Because of that attitude absolutely
rampant in the education system

of telling you you really
didn't have a future,

that you had no job prospects,

no matter how well you
achieved academically.

It's like, "Why bother?
Know your place."

The situation in Britain
sort of produced us.

It sort of give us
a place, in a way,

because that lack of things meant
that you had to do something for yourself.

For me, that was music.

Music was just as important
to the punk generation

as it had been to their
parents in the '60s.

But the characters they would
become had been nurtured

by a very different set
of sounds and images.

# She's faster than most

# And she lives on
the coast Uh-huh... #

There would be no
punk without glam.

Bolan was this outright,
straight-in-your-face

"I'm going to be a pop star,
I'm going to have all your money,

"all your girlfriends,
you've had it."

And I remember
watching Top Of The Pops

and Bolan was doing Hot Love,
and I'd never seen anything like it,

these girls were just,
like, whacking off.

And I thought, "That's
what I want to get stuck into."

The flamboyant gods of glam
divided Britain's male population.

The blokes, who inhabited
the pub rock scene,

were wary of their
gender bending ways.

But for the younger generation,

Ziggy Stardust was an
exotic beacon of hope.

# Poor Jean Genie

# Snuck into the city

# Strung out on lasers

# And slash back blazers... #

It was the first thing
that had appeared

on Top Of The Pops for
years that your dad didn't like.

It was shocking and it
was sexually ambiguous,

and he was thin and
he was charismatic...

# Jean Genie loves
chimney stacks

# He's outrageous He
screams and he bawls

# Jean Genie,
let yourself go... #

Rock music still had the power

to flaunt the gap
between the generations.

And another potent
new ingredient in the mix

had swaggered across
the Atlantic in 1973

in the form of the
New York Dolls.

# Jet boys fly Jet boys gone

# Jet boys stole my baby... #

The New York Dolls
appearing on Whistle Test,

that for me was like,

"Whoa, I'm not going to go
to work in that fucking factory."

It was like, "Whoa!
I want to be that."

# My baby... #

New York Dolls
were the first band

to be insulted on The
Old Grey Whistle Test.

An American group
who are to the Stones

what The Monkees
were to The Beatles -

a pale and amusing derivative.

Bob Harris said
afterwards, "Mock rock,"

as though, "This is just a joke,
we can't take this seriously."

Mock rock.

One man in particular
begged to differ with Bob Harris.

By the mid '70s, Malcolm
McLaren had begun to lose interest

in the Ted revival and the
Dolls became his new obsession.

New York Dolls were in town
and they went into Let It Rock

and Malcolm kind of
fell in love with them.

He went to New York to
manage them for a while,

and that all fell apart.

He came back and
decided he'd do a UK band

that were confrontational
and rocking in the same way.

In 1974, McLaren overhauled
his Kings Road shop, Let It Rock.

Sex would be its
provocative new name.

The new thing we decided
to do was far more subversive

and far more
overtly sexual for us,

and something that we felt we
had suddenly arrived in the '70s.

Sex, and McLaren's
British take on the Dolls,

would be fresh,
new and shocking.

I used to go in there when it was Let It Rock,
which was basically a second-hand Teddy Boy shop.

Then it was Sex, and
Sex was a scary shop.

You wouldn't just go in Sex,
it was rubber and leather,

and Jordan was in there and she was
very intimidating. That was the idea of it.

Alongside Jordan, and in
amongst the gimp masks,

was Saturday boy and
aspiring rock star Glen Matlock.

The shop was at the wrong end
of the Kings Road and it attracted

all these nut-case weirdos and
Steve and Paul would come in as well.

I think it was to try and nick stuff
and it was my job to stop them.

Steve Jones and Paul Cook
also shared Glen's ambition

to form a band.

I guess we were
looking for something

that kids like us could go and
see, cos there was nothing like that.

There was a kind of pub rock
scene going around at the time,

which was the only
thing happening

and we thought we could
jump in on the back of that

and make our own
scene, if you like.

Encouraged by McLaren,

keen to extend his new
brand to the music business,

all they needed
now was a frontman.

Everybody had long hair -

your bank manager, your
milkman, they had long hair,

slightly over the ears,
and flared trousers.

If we saw somebody in the street
who had short hair and tight trousers

we would just say, "Do you
fancy yourself as a singer?"

Up until that point
of joining the Pistols,

I'd never even
conceived of singing.

So unsinging became
kind of oddly enough

the most appropriate
approach to the Pistols.

We invited him back to
audition in front of the jukebox

and we put a
couple of records on,

one of them being
Eighteen by Alice Cooper.

He liked Alice Cooper. He
just sort of took the piss out of it,

but the way he
took the piss out of it,

there was something about him.

In 19-year-old John Lydon

the fledgling Sex Pistols had
happened upon a kind of visionary.

He shared their
interest in music,

but also had a burning desire
to tell the truth of his generation.

I couldn't play an instrument,

so the boys were great there.

But they couldn't actually
write songs, any of them.

If they were going be the
songwriters in that respect,

it would end up being
versions of other things

and Johnny came in with a
completely different attitude to that.

There was a bit of
tension about that,

but I think I proved my point.

You know, the written
word, you know,

it's an incredibly
important thing

and I think up until the Sex
Pistols, everything was a lie.

Alongside Johnny Rotten,

one other man would become known
as the voice of the punk generation.

But in 1975, Joe Strummer
was just one member

in a band of
refusenik post-hippies

taking refuge from '70s
Britain in a West London squat.

# Johnny is a
wanderer tied to a guitar

# Thinks he's going
to change the world... #

There wasn't much money about

and a lot of people just needed a
place to live, very much like today!

The 101ers was a squatting
band. They came from the squatters.

It was named, not after
the George Orwell room,

but 101 Walterton Road
where they were squatting.

# Johnny had a
temperature Saw a pretty face

# Tried to walk it on a lead

# Counted out his money,
Charged them to his health...

I think the seeds of what we
would now term punk mentality

were there in that house.

You know, you could be
on your way to the kitchen

and suddenly become
the bass player.

Having started out playing for the
amusement of their fellow squatters,

the 101ers soon graduated to their
local pub, The Elgin in Ladbroke Grove.

At the time the 101ers
still had their goal -

being a band like the Feelgoods

and being one of the, if
you like, top pub rock bands.

Almost overnight, this
modest ambition was realised

and it was the lead
singer Joe Strummer

and his high octane performance
that people came out to see.

You came into
the store and said,

"Saw this band at
Dingwalls last night.

"The lead singer's an absolute star.
We've got to do something with them."

And so, we then, a couple
of nights later, went out.

Remember it was one of those student
gigs...? South London. Barely a stage.

He played like he was playing in
front of 20,000 people, you know?

The guy's energy
was just ferocious.

Watching him, he was
like amphetamine person,

just going completely crazy.

It was just like veins
bulging out of the neck.

There was an anger there.

It was clear that Strummer's charisma and
conviction were set to outgrow the 101ers.

One night at The Nashville,

a new support act would set
him on his road to Damascus.

I was working with the
101ers and the next night,

they were playing The Nashville and
the Sex Pistols were the support act.

I walked into Nashville

and I got to the back and Joe
was watching the Sex Pistols.

I kind of felt this atmosphere when
I walked in there, really different.

I remember putting my hand
up like that and going to him,

"Do you feel that?"

And he went, "Yeah." I said,
"There's something different in the air."

There was a magical time,
from maybe the beginning of '76

through to late '76,

where you genuinely felt
something was going on.

You could feel something
like punk coming.

You could feel a change coming.

You weren't quite
sure what it was.

April, 1975.

The Americans evacuate Saigon.

For me, the end of the '60s.

Although it's 1975,
Vietnam was the...

central rallying
point of the 1960s.

It's what we protested against.

We went to Grosvenor
Square, shook our fists.

It was Beatles and Stones,

Mick Jagger and Tariq
Ali and Vanessa Redgrave.

We were angry about Vietnam.

Vietnam finished with the
American surrender - sorry, guys -

in 1975, April,

evacuated by helicopter
from the Embassy in Saigon.

November '75, a band
called the Sex Pistols

did their first gig at
St Martin's art school.

So somewhere between
April and November

was where that generational
baton was handed on.

Richard "Kid" Strange
was the cosmic leader

of psychedelic proto-punks,
the Doctors Of Madness.

They had many of the
hallmarks of what became punk

and were on the road
to success by 1976.

We got a call from our agent,
this must have been May, '76,

saying, "There's a band you might have
heard of, they've caused a bit of trouble.

"You know who I'm going
to say. It's the Sex Pistols.

"They want to support
you. Is that OK?"

I thought, "Yeah, fine,
bring it on," you know.

We arrived and the Pistols
were sitting in the auditorium.

They were naughty,
but not excessively so.

They looked like they were kids
bunking off school, you know?

They were that bit
younger than us.

We'd sort of been led to believe
that they might be armed, you know!

As harmless as they
may have appeared,

the Pistols were armed with
something so violently new

that any act with so much as a
whiff of the old regime about them

could now consider
themselves the enemy.

They opened the show and I
was watching from the wings

and I thought,
"It's all over for us."

The reaction that they
garnered was just extraordinary -

devotion to the point of evangelical
prostration in front of the stage.

# We're so pretty

# Oh, so pretty... #

Or, "What is this abomination?
It's not music." You know?

And, of course, in a
way, that was the point.

It was much better than music, it
was something to upset your parents.

# We're so pretty Oh, so pretty

# Vacant... #

You just thought...

"I'm two years too old."

And then, to compound
the whole thing,

by the time we came off and
got back into the dressing room,

the Pistols had been through our
pockets and nicked our money as well!

# And we don't care. #

Punk's time had come.

The iceberg had cometh

as Britain basked in record
temperatures in the summer of '76.

Its roots run deep and a diverse cast
had played their part in setting the scene,

but British punk's true birth,

the spawning of this
visceral, ugly, enticing beast

to be loved or hated
but impossible to ignore

can only be traced
to your first time -

the first time you
saw the Sex Pistols.

These four characters
stumbled onto the stage

and they played these songs

and they were just like nothing
else I've ever seen or heard before.

Wow. They played a Stooges
song, they played No Fun,

and they played Watcha
Gonna Do About It,

the old Small Faces
song, but instead of,

"I want you to know that
I love you, baby," it was,

"I want you to know that
I fucking hate you, baby."

I thought, "That is cool."

Actually, they were
sort of...very beautiful.

They were like fairies, really.

Fuck me. It's the only
language I can use.

I mean, it was a
cultural ground zero.

You know, the sort of fairies at the
bottom of one's garden. And young.

I mean, I actually couldn't
hear what John was singing

but there was an energy and an
intensity that you could not deny.

What was so different
about the Sex Pistols early on

was they were quite
aggressive to the audience.

It was the eyes, it was just the
eyes, looking at the audience.

He'd look at them
with such hatred.

He was sat there, scowling,
and I felt really drawn to that.

I just loved the contradiction and I
just had never seen anything like it.

It just inspired me
to leave college,

split up with my
missus and go for it.

It was an event. Not so much a
musical event, but a cultural event.

Even then, you could see this
was different, this was important.

The electrifying message of
the Pistols was spreading fast

and Johnny Rotten was becoming
the oracle of the punk generation.

I knew that it would catch on

because I knew the
minute I saw Johnny Rotten

that he was exactly
the kind of poetic figure

that was going to inspire
a whole generation of kids.

The word "punk" is
as old as Shakespeare.

Although I knew that none of
the musicians of that generation

would particularly
like to be called punks,

when you're spreading the word

and writing it down, you
had to have this term.

Suddenly, Caroline Coon
labels the Sex Pistols punk

and me the king of punk.

King Johnny went forth
to address his subjects

and declared war on his enemies.

What's this thing you've got
against hippies? They're complacent.

We're not supposed
to know nothing, us.

But it's them what did not
know a thing. How ludicrous!

And that was their
revolution, you know,

they were the
hangovers from the '60s.

I always knew the
'60s wasn't a revolution.

It really just was a bunch
of university students,

with somewhat wealthy
parents, having fun.

Condemned for
their lack of ambition,

overnight, the long-haired
older brothers of Britain,

including those pioneering pub
rockers, were yesterday's men.

The Pistols inspired
their generation

to write their own future.

You wanted to get involved, man.
You didn't want to be just a fan.

And it was about that kind of
empowerment and reinventing yourself.

I mean, Strummer
told me as much.

He said after he
saw the Pistols,

101ers was like
yesterday's newspaper.

Joe Strummer had been courted

by guitarist Mick Jones on the hunt
for a lead singer for his new band.

Struck by the Sex Pistols,
Strummer realised he was, in fact,

a punk trapped in
an pub rock band.

He ditched the 101ers,
jumped a generation

and signed up to The Clash.

In those days, it
was very quick.

You'd be in a
group for two weeks

and then you wouldn't
again, or you may be.

Sounds like a load of
shit. Sounds great to me.

'I think you're really lucky'

if you find the right people,
you know what I mean?

Then it just becomes
more than just the individual,

it becomes the
chemistry between...

You're very lucky to find that,
the right people and the right time.

It comes along once in a while.

We didn't have any agenda,
real agenda, it was just like,

we just want to play some tunes
and have a good time, you know.

The Clash didn't have
an agenda? Well, I didn't.

I mustn't speak for the others.

What sort of things do you write
about? What's going on at the moment.

Like what?

Like what? Career opportunities.

They're sort of like...

all the kids are supposed to
be like factory fodder, you know?

You don't learn nothing.
All you're working for

is just to go into a factory

which is round the corner,
or something like that.

# Police and thieves
in the street... #

What the new generation
did so successfully

was to create a
new British identity

where artists as musicians

are writing about their own
experience from the streets,

their own tragedies,
their own splendours,

in an English, British voice.

# White riot I wanna riot

# White riot I wanna riot... #

Tell me about White Riot,
what's it about? Notting Hill Gate.

You know that riot they had?
We was down there, me and him.

And we got searched by
policemen looking for bricks.

Later on we got
searched by a Rasta

looking for pound
notes in our pockets.

All we had was
bricks and bottles!

# White riot I wanna riot... #

The Pistols and The Clash
spearheaded the nascent punk movement

with a two-pronged insurgency
aimed at the powers that be.

They tapped the mood of violence

simmering under the
surface of boring '70s Britain

and would bear witness
when it spilled over.

Without this
conflict at its heart,

punk would have been little
more than noisy pop music.

But almost as important
in defining this new art form

was the chaotic and
often comical theatrics

surrounding life in a
fledgling punk band.

The Damned led the
way in this department.

# A distant man can't sympathise

# He can't uphold
his distant laws

# Due to form on that today

# I got a feeling
then I hear this call

# I said neat, neat, neat
She can't afford a cannon

# Neat, neat, neat She
can't afford a gun... #

You had Vanian looking
like some fucking vampire,

Captain, once he
got called Captain,

he changed from being
quite a meek Ray Burns

into this
clown-cum-raving idiot,

where you didn't know what
he was going to dress in next.

It could be a bloody tutu,

a ballerina's tutu, or a
nurse's outfit, or whatever.

Yeah, I've always liked
dressing up, it has to be said.

The back of the first album
cover, I wore a nurse's uniform.

The funny thing was, I actually
found I was quite enjoying wearing it.

# Neat, neat, neat She
can't afford a cannon... #

It allowed everyone
to live their fantasies,

which is a wonderful thing.

The Damned taught a generation
that they weren't stuck with their lot.

They called themselves names
and revelled in their grotesque image.

They WERE the damned.

Punk was reflecting the
ugliness of Britain back at itself

and if you didn't get
this, you'd be left behind.

What was marvellous about
it all, what was so hilarious

was that, of course, the major
record companies thought,

"This can't be
real! This... What?

"We're going to have to
put this music out shortly?

"What? This is going
to be in the charts?

"I hate it, it's disgusting!"

It was said at the time

that you could hear the sound of
record company executives' bodies

hitting the pavement
from the high buildings.

Having transformed London's
live music scene a few years earlier,

the entrepreneurs behind pub
rock now saw an opportunity

to embrace and enable
the punk generation.

Here is a musical movement. All
these kids want to buy something.

They can buy a
few one-off little bits

but they want to buy something
big to show their badge of credibility.

Stiff put the
records out quicker.

We were quicker, we were
faster, we were brasher,

we were noisier and
we were the best.

There was a real vibe to it.
There was no big office for them,

they were just in an old
shopfront on Alexander Street.

And it was like, everyone was
bagging records and doing it -

everyone was
mucking in doing stuff.

It had Nick Lowe
as a house producer.

It had Dave and Jake, who
knew how to market records

in an original, innovative way.

A band like The Damned was
almost tailor-made for them, really.

Stiff signed The
Damned in late '76

and put them straight in the studio
with house producer Nick Lowe,

of pub rockers
Brinsley Schwarz fame.

I made quite a lot of records
up there in that little place.

Occasionally - and I
can think of on one hand -

we did something in there
which you could not believe.

It was the first time I'd ever
been in a recording studio.

I'd seen Let It Be and I thought,
"This is going to be great."

And then we got into this sort
of cupboard with a tape recorder.

What they created that day
in those modest surroundings

would encapsulate the
pure essence of punk

and become the very first punk
single to be released in Britain.

We could not believe it.
We could not believe it.

It seemed like it was
almost unsettling.

It's a cracking riff, yeah, it's a
cracking riff. Absolutely watertight.

He played it back and there was
something that was just totally exciting.

It was like a genuine rush.

You know when you're walking
out in the country somewhere

and suddenly an F1
jetfighter screams above you

and it just whaaaa...

# I got a feeling inside me

# It's kind of strange
like a stormy sea... #

There's something so
fundamental about it.

That's what made
it startlingly original.

It's an ancient story somehow
told in a brand-new way.

You've got to be made of
bloomin' wood not be touched by it.

# I never thought this
could happen to me

# Something strange
Oh, what should it be?

Another first in true
Stiff Records style

was the DIY filming of
this video for New Rose

at the bastion of pub
rock, The Hope & Anchor,

drawing a direct line
to punk's humble roots.

I mean, that was
two run-throughs

with a camera at
two different angles,

maybe three, and that was it.

Edited that night and we
had the video in the morning.

# I've got a new
rose I've got her good

# Guess I knew that
I always would... #

People have asked me over the
years, "What's New Rose about?

"Is it like a love story?"

I've got a feeling that it's
probably, as much as anything,

about what was happening
with the punk scene.

The New Rose was
this developing thing.

I've never been
that much into lyrics,

I'm more of a guitar
player, you know.

The same month The Damned's
New Rose was released,

the Sex Pistols inked a deal
with music business old farts, EMI.

And their debut signal,
Anarchy In The UK,

hit the streets in November '76.

It was time for punk
to go above ground

and into direct contact with
those it was designed to offend.

I've done everything humanly
possible to ban this thing and to stop it.

1977, the year of punk,
was just around the corner.

Go on, you've got another five
seconds. Say something outrageous.

You dirty bastard. Go
on, again. You dirty fucker.

What a clever boy(!)
What a fucking rotter.

Well, that's it for tonight.

# I am an antichrist

# I am an anarchist

# Don't know what I want
But I know how to get it

# I wanna destroy the passer-by

# Cos I wanna be

# Anarchy... #