 |
 |
|
|
 |
 |
| Eighteen year old SHANE MACGOWAN was a north London barman the first time he saw The Sex Pistols in the spring of '76. Supporting Joe Strummer's 101-ers, The Pistols epitomized the anger, frustration and sheer boredom of recession-hit Britain. "There was a band that just got up there and made a really horrible noise and didn't give a shit. They were all our age and had dyed hair and wore brothel creepers, and it was just a question of, 'Yeah, I hate everything and they're actually doing it.' I thought they were brilliant; the best group I've ever seen." Like Paul en route to Damascus, SHANE dumped his cap sleeve T-shirt and baggy trousers in a dustbin and headed for the nearest barber's. |
| "One thing that's got to be pointed out about the original punk scene is that it was extremely elitist; like the mod scene in the early '60s. The whole thing was basically created by the beginning of 1977 and anyone who got into it after that was just a pile of shit, in terms of the way that people thought. "Half of it was working class 'disco kids' and the other half was art students, but London is like that you, get a mixture of the two; The Pogues' audience is like that as well. There was a genuine working class thing in it-that's why it got so big in the end - but it was the hip working class." |
| that people used to do. I haven't got a clue now why I did it or why anyone would do it but that was how teenagers got their kicks in London if they were hip! "Anyway in the end she went a bit over the top and bottled me in the side of the head. Gallons of blood came out and someone took a photograph. I never got it bitten off - although we had bitten each other to bits - it was iust a heavy cut. "But it was incredible: a week later we were at another Clash gig (that was all there was to do in town at the time, or the occasional Damned gig, 'cause The Pistols had already |
| an opium pipe. So at the end of the day you were left with a load of old brothel creepers, a lot of hair gel, a couple of bottles of crazy colour and the dole. That happened to loads of people, some got out of it and others didn't. Lots of people I know from that time are dead and I iust happen to be one of the lucky ones at the moment. |
| The whole scene was the antithesis to the established pattern of Saturday nights out at wholesome groin exchanges like Tiffany's or Top Rank. "It was based on gigs at places like the ICA and going to nightclubs that stayed open all night. Taking loads of speed and drinking pernod, as opposed to going out to a disco with your mates drinking beer, getting in fights and picking up some bird. The punk scene was completely asexual so you'd get both sexes hanging around together, staying out all night and dancing in clubs that were originally lesbian clubs. "Like the biggest club going at the start was Louise's which was originally a lesbian club in Saho; that was the first really good nightclub in my living memory of London, but that all ended after a while." |
"AT THE TIME LONDON WAS A VERY VIOLENT, VERY STRAIGHT PLACE AND IT WAS NO JOKE WALKING AROUND WITH REALLY SHORT HAIR AND WEARING TROUSERS WITHOUT FLARES. ANYWHERE YOU WENT WAS AN INVITATION FOR A FIGHT, SO YOU REALLY WERE MAKING A STAND FOR YOUR OWN INDIVIDUALITY." |
| SHANE MACGOWAN ON '76 GRANUAILLE STEALS HIS DIARY. PHOTO M. SCANLON |
"BUT I NEVER WOULD HAVE THOUGHT ROUND TO THE WAY THAT I THINK - THE WAY THAT THE POGUES THINK - IF IT HADN'T BEEN FOR PUNK. I'D PROBABLY BE SOME DRUNKEN SHITHEAD BARMAN BY NOW, RUNNING MY OWN PUB; ALTHOUGH I'M A DRUNKEN SHITHEAD ANYWAY." |
| By the summer of '77 the 'folk devil that was punk had been neutered and mass produced to such an extent that it couldn't possibly pose a threat. "Speaking as one of the great trendsetters of the movement (laughs) the minute that anybody turned up looking a bit like you then you changed. But in the end there were loads of people walking around with anarchist signs and hair spiked out dyed green, and wearing leather jackets, doc martens and jeans; iust like Sid." (Adapting a sociological head) If punk was iust another teenage subculture then we should expect the Class of '76 to have outgrown it within a couple of years and gone on to find a 'stable' niche in society. In fhis case the chaotic spirit of punk has been re-channelled into the heart of the Pogues. And, just as the new-wave punks couldn't begin to understand the style of the originals, so it is in '86 with The Pogues a cosmos apart from The Boothill Foot-tappers, Boys They Couldn't Be Bothered To Hang, et all. OSCAR WILDE PUT IT BEST: JANUARY 1986 ZIG ZAG |
"THERE IS NO ART WHERE THERE IS NO STYLE, AND NO STYLE WHERE THERE IS NO UNITY, AND UNITY IS OF THE INDIVIDUAL." |
| After the recent HIGHLY RATED reformed NIPPLE ERECTORS gig at Londons 100 Club I thought it would be interesting to revisit Shane MacGowans January 1986 viewpoint on PUNK and how it saved his life. Reprinted from ZIG ZAG magazine January 1986. |
 |
| AND THE FACTS OF THE FAMOUS EAR FABLE: "I was up the front at this Clash gig at the ICA and me and this girl were having a bit of a laugh which involved (cracks up at the memory) biting each other's arms 'till they were completely covered in blood and then smashing up a couple of bottles and cutting each other up a bit. That, in those days, was the sort of thing |
"IT WAS INCREDIBLY ELITIST: IF YOU WALKED INTO A CLUB WEARING THE WRONG THING YOU'D BE LAUGHED OUT THE PLACE; YOU'D HAVE TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY!" |
| stopped playing) and Neil Spencer came up to me and said, 'You're going to be in our paper next week. There's a picture of you when you had your ear bitten off'. "People used to stop me in the street and say, 'You're the guy who had his ear bitten off; you're great man!' " "Cause already fhat's what it had turned into. It's like fhe old story about the bloke who catches the fish, he says that it weighs this much and it's that big and within a couple of days it's a whale." For the Class of '76, then, punk was either a temporary distraction or a major turning point: "At the time we thought, 'This is it, we've got it sussed' but, looking back, we were just a bunch of teenagers and the dreams disappeared like smoke out of |