With apologies for the title of this piece to those pillars of post-punk The Alarm, 1976 was a long hot summer full of discontent, and a musical revolution that changed everything. A year in which Pete saw his dreams come true, though that didn’t make him a hero, just one of the lucky few…

Oh sorry that’s The Alarm again…

Strange as it may seem that song, about the spirit of 76, the summer of Punk, of The Damned’s New Rose, Of the Sex Pistols sing God Saves the Queen, of safety pins, bondage trousers and mohawks… Refences decidedly unpunk Beetles and the Cavern club. The song was however part of the sound track of my youth, and one of the first singles I ever bought when it came out in 1985 a decade after the birth of punk. I am, you see, too young to have been a punk. In the summer of 1976 I was 6 years old, playing on a beach, and had no idea for the turmoil been created in the emerging Punk scene in London and elsewhere. Which considering it was laying the seeds for much of the music of my own rebellious youth is something of a shame.

Over the decades since I got to see a lot of the bands of the punk era first hand, Stiff Little Fingers playing Alterative Ulster at Leeds Poly in the late 80’s, The Damned, having morphed into their Goth pomp at St Georges Hall in Bradford, The Stranglers several times, Siouxie Sioux no where near enough times. And even a Sex Pistol…

The sex pistol in question was why I started out talking about the punk by mentioning The Alarm, because the only time I have ever met a sex pistol was at the bar after a gig at a relatively small venue in Leeds where ‘Dead Men Walking’ had been playing, A band that consisted in its first incarnation of The Alarms Mike Peters, Kirk Brandon of Spear of destiny, Pete Wylie of the Might Wah (no I don’t know why either, neither did he really), and The Sex Pistol, the legend that is Glen Matlock.

In the least spirit of punk way, I thanked Glen for a great gig, then I struggled back to the table we had grabbed at the back of the pub with three pints of lager and a packet of crisps (actually two pints of Guinness and a glass of coke for my cousin who was driving, and no crisps… but what are you gonna do..)

Glenn smiled, gave a nod of the head in response and took his own pint back to the table by the stage where the roadie was stripping down the PA, Peters was laughing with a bloke in an Alarm T-shirt and Kirk Brandon was talking loudly with the ever annoying ‘Spear’ fans. I have no recollection of where Pete Wylie was, I am not sure he did either.

Anyway that is that, the entirely of my ‘I met a Sex Pistol’ story… Thrilling wasn’t it..

The next time I saw dead men walking there were a still a four piece but the void left by the departure of Pete Wylie had been filled by a guitarist wearing trademarked plastic sunglasses, another 76 legend, the Captain himself… But moving on from this rather niche music journalism… To the reason you are reading all this… Which is the fault of a somewhat more accomplished Music journalist, who probably owns even more guitars than I do, and can undoubtedly play them better than I. Stephen Palmer, who has written A History of Punk: Punk and Pistolry, a book all about the heady days of 76 and 77, the birth and death of first wave Punk.

As an aside, the last time I talked about one of Stephen’s books it was a book about the constellation of taurus and the spiritual associations of Bulls through out human pre-history and beyond. Before that it was a trilogy of ‘steampunk adject’, novels. He has range, that’s all I am saying…

I was too young to have been a punk when it was rebellious to be so, my musical awakening consisted of Big hair, eyeliner and the merciful release label. But goth, new wave, post punk, industrial and new rock wearing splendor only happened because Punk turned the world upside down in 76-77 and reinvented music. Just how much they changed the music world. All my heroes started out on indie labels, all my heroes were influenced by ‘the spirit of 76’ not the Alarm song but the spirit of punk.

I know the music, As I said earlier I have seen many of the bands over the years, or at least later incarnations of them, but I don’t doubt that while the later versions were probably more polished musically, and the audience as enthused as ever, an audience of middle aged, balding men, trying to pogo like they did in their teens to bands that are no longer rebelling but remembering when they did, is not really the same as being at the 101 club when a pre-pistols Sid Vicious drummed for Susie before she was Siouxie…

Stephens book is a window into the heady days of punk, set against the politics and life in Britain at the time. Not just the music but the fashion and anger that surrounded it. The attitude, venom and the characters that made it such a unique moment in British Musical culture. Stephen knows his music, and clearly loves the music of the era. His passion for the subject is obvious throughout, making this an insightful joy to read.

The insight is to a world long passed, almost half a century passed in fact since the opening barrage of John Lydon sneering out ‘God Save the Queen’ with all the revile and venom he could muster caused outrage. But for all the outrage, for all the establishments anger, the musical world was never going to be the same afterwards. The pistols were inspired by the Ramones, the pistols in turn inspire pretty much everyone else to one extent or another.

This book is a window on an era, a moment in musical history, a moment of social change and upheaval. The beginning of the end of post war establishment Britain. Punk had arrived…

Its a great read for anyone, even those born too late to have been there …