I ran into Generation X's "One Hundred Punks" and bam!, for a split second it felt like the summer of '78. That was when the punk scene in San Diego really started to catalyze. In the nine months leading up to that summer there were a scant three local punk shows. That summer of '78 was the Abbey Road summer. Abbey Road was a teen disco. Previously closed on Mondays, rented out on the cheap for a succession of weekly shows. Quite a few great bands played: the Zeros, the Crawdaddys, the Last, the Avengers, the Screamers, and the first Non (Boyd Rice and Robert Turman) show ever. It was a tiny venue and at the time the whole punk scene was about a hundred punks, hence the association.
Okay, if I was around in 1978, that makes me kinda old right?
Let it pass. The reason I bring that up is because I remembered that I
did a short interview with Billy Idol back then and it's online. In fact
the complete second issue of my fanzine Substitue
is online. It's not the greatest writing but looking at it today it
does have some cool things in it, considering how little technology
there was. Everything was by snail mail, long distance land line phone
calls or in person. There's the interview with Billy Idol (Gen X days, a
few years before he went solo), a Zeros interview, a thing on Poly
Styrene (done by phone), a postcard from Boyd Rice, an a diary of five
days on the road with the Elvis Costello tour, which included Nick Lowe
and Mink DeVille. The writers were all people in the scene, only one an
actual "writer".
After re-reading some of the fanzine (it had been a while) I went looking for old Generation X videos to try to pin point when exactly Billy Idol jumped the shark. I ran into a collaboration I'd never heard about. Billy Idol and Tony James from Generation X and Steve Jones and Paul Cook from the Sex Pistols. They called themselves Generation Sex, those cheeky rascals. The live set from 2018 was a mix of songs from both bands' catalogs. In the middle of it they do "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle". I really, really wanted to be critical. As I sat there watching an expanded gut version of Steve Jones (closest to the camera), while the song starts to close, they're singing "rock 'n' roll" over and over, It was at that point that my cynicism lost. Fuck, all four of the guys were from ground zero of the London punk scene in the late seventies. They've been musicians and friends for over forty years. They're OG punk rockers, singing about a swindle they are now living. Big fucking deal. ALL rock 'n' roll is a swindle. Idolatry has its price. At the end of the day, it's really just about fun.
After re-reading some of the fanzine (it had been a while) I went looking for old Generation X videos to try to pin point when exactly Billy Idol jumped the shark. I ran into a collaboration I'd never heard about. Billy Idol and Tony James from Generation X and Steve Jones and Paul Cook from the Sex Pistols. They called themselves Generation Sex, those cheeky rascals. The live set from 2018 was a mix of songs from both bands' catalogs. In the middle of it they do "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle". I really, really wanted to be critical. As I sat there watching an expanded gut version of Steve Jones (closest to the camera), while the song starts to close, they're singing "rock 'n' roll" over and over, It was at that point that my cynicism lost. Fuck, all four of the guys were from ground zero of the London punk scene in the late seventies. They've been musicians and friends for over forty years. They're OG punk rockers, singing about a swindle they are now living. Big fucking deal. ALL rock 'n' roll is a swindle. Idolatry has its price. At the end of the day, it's really just about fun.
~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
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