Inspiring Older Readers

posted on 25 Oct 2015

Punk! An A - Z  by Barry Lazell with a foreword by John Cale

In many ways this is an odd choice to make as an entry in this beautiful book section. It's a rather straightforward selection of photographs from the punk years of the late 1970's and features bands from US and the UK. It was published by the Hamlyn company that specialised in cheaper, popular books which were constructed from content that had already found their way into the public realm and so were inexpensive and printed in large numbers.

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There are, however, some great, even iconic, portraits of  punk's most celebrated stars and plenty of individuals and bands that pretty much no-one think of as punk - which is fairly typical padding in these kinds of publications. The cover, which has no paper wrapper, came in at least two different variant colours - pink and acid green - but there may also have been others I'm just not aware of.

And the book does what it says - it provides a representative band, publication, album or venue from each letter of the alphabet. The essay by the punk 'godfather', John Cale of the Velvet Underground is unexceptional and the written entries lack real substance and offer nothing much that would be new to anyone who knows anything about punk.

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So why have I chosen it as a beautiful book? Three reasons really:

  • Some of the photos are great: it's nice to have them all in one place and they do manage to capture some of the excitement of the time.
  • The overall tawdriness of the book is somehow ideally fitted to its subject. Punk as a philosophy is, accidentally I think, perfectly encased in this anti-lovely book.
  • For me, this is a perfect time capsule - a chance to time travel to a period that was probably the most formative of my life.

I was in my early 20s when punk happened to me in 1976 and for 18 months to 2 years I spent most of my time in a dingy club in Birmingham called Barbarella's where I saw most of the punk bands on the circuit. I never did see the Sex Pistols but I'm sort of happy that I didn't because I think I might have been disappointed - I'm happy with the legend.

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I go back ocassionally to leaf through the pages of the book and it's always a bit like a journey through my own back pages.

The book can be bought second hand for a few pounds from internet dealers. If you're curious about punk there are better books but if you want punk trash this is the book for you.

 

Terry Potter

October 2015

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