46 Years Ago Today
"Is she really going out with him?"
On this day in 1976 (in a scene shamelessly stolen for ‘Challenge 69’) I really did have a rendezvous in the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys Art Room, Mark (bassist from On/Off Knob and the Amplifiers) really did play his freshly purchased copy of the first ever punk single to a group of invitees, and things really did change!
I still love this song, and it proved just the first of many great singles released over the next couple of years (before punk itself ran out of steam and become a bit cliched).
The movement’s true legacy though, the reason I still maintain Mark was correct that punk did, “change music forever,” was the DIY ethos it unleashed. Rock had backed itself into a ‘progressive’ cul-de-sac, in a very middle-class suburb, where the entry level largely depended on mummy and daddy stumping up for a few piano lessons.
Punk destroyed such elitism overnight. Suddenly anybody who could get their hands on the cheapest of second-hand guitars could start a group (and did so in their droves). It didn’t even really matter that much if they could play the guitar, the attitude was all.
So, while punk itself was relatively short lived, this DIY attitude persisted, enabling so much great music to emerge that may otherwise have stayed in the shadows (and still does so to this day). Let us take just half a dozen of ‘Challenge 69’s favourite musical maverick groups: The Cure, Joy Division, The Smiths, Pulp, Nirvana, and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, you wouldn’t label any of these punk per se, but it’s highly unlikely any of them would have turned out the way they did without the kick up the backside punk gave to music, with ‘New Rose’ getting the first boot in!
To best celebrate punk’s birthday therefore, I am going to ignore any further mention of the movement’s titans; no Pistols, Clash, or Buzzcocks, and concentrate instead on a few footnotes on some of those DIY enthusiasts who never got the job completed!
On/Off Knob and the Amplifiers didn’t make it out of Cambridge. They had some great handmade badges though (a few of which I hung on to for years, but now regretfully seem to have mislaid) and what I still regard as one of the great punk band names. I’m not sure their singer would agree though, he inevitably became known as ‘knob’ for short.
The school’s music community did however (after becoming a mixed sixth form college) spawn one group who became famous, for Warhol’s fifteen minutes at least. Dolly Mixture got themselves a record deal, released a few singles, and ended up as Captain Sensible’s backing group (see the ‘Happy Talk’ video). Within a couple of years, Dolly Mixture went from supporting on ‘On/Off’ at a school concert to headlining a London gig where they, in turn, were supported by some unknown, up and coming, Irish group called U2. Wonder what happened to them?
Meanwhile, in deepest, darkest Neath, something was stirring! For our final DIY punk footnote, I’d like to celebrate Jeff B (a ‘Challenge 69’ reader now resident in Berlin) and his old band The Tunnelrunners. They only ever recorded ten songs, spread across two EPs, but as the attached YouTube footage of ‘Plastic Land’ suggests the group were surely cruelly overlooked. Let’s see if we can get this video to go viral and force Jeff and his bandmates into a long overdue reunion tour!!
The Tunnelrunners - 'Plastic Land'
Not sure I can follow that, so I’ll send a separate ‘final reminder’ post tomorrow giving more detail on ‘Track 5’ (which is due out on Tuesday).