Riding the Satellite - 50 Year of Punk!
- Grae Wall
- 6 days ago
- 7 min read
I’ve been putting together a gig to celebrate 50 years of St Albans Punk & New Wave. The Satellite event will happen at The Pioneer Club (in collaboration with St Albans Arts Team CIC) on Friday September 18, and I have pulled together a great line up. The three live bands will be Many Bats, Tetsu and The Imitation Zone, whilst the guest DJs for the night will be Eddie from Empire Records and Kev Saunders from The Kevolution. Any profits on the night will go towards supporting our local arts projects, and I think it’s going to be a pretty special celebration. Here's the ticket link - https://wegottickets.com/f/23513
Back in 2011, I curated the Satellite exhibition at the old St Albans Museum – at that time, marking 35 years since The Sex Pistols came and played their second ever gig at St Albans College of Art & Design (then re-booked by the great Shanne Bradley). The Damned also played there, whilst The Clash brought their White Riot revue to St Albans City Hall. The legendary Phil Smee set up Waldos Records, releasing singles by The Bears, The Tea Set, The Bodies, The Manic Jabs and Clive Pig & The Hopeful Chinamen.
There were DIY Cassette releases and fanzines, thrift store fashion and youth club gigs and a real sense that we were part of a revolution, even if we had different ideas about what we were rebelling against. It was an inclusive scene in that we utilised the cheapest of instruments, the charity shop boutiques and the xerox machines in our workplaces when the boss wasn’t looking. The invitation was open, jump on board and create or just lose yourself on the dancefloor – heady times.
That sense that anyone and everyone should be able to participate in the creative narrative of their district remained with me and lay at the heart of my jobs as an arts professional, with The Youth Arts Service, Arts Council England, Attitude is Everything and for the last 20 years with St Albans Arts Team, that focus on inclusion, creative opportunity and development, diversity – it was all informed and inspired by that late 70’s sense of freedom and adventure.
My artistic practice too - The poetry, Lomography and music – fundamentally built on the premise that you don’t need expensive tools to create interesting art. From my Tiny Acts of Rebellion to my poetry book ‘The Sound of Revolution’ through to the garage and alt infused output of Los Chicos Muertos and Skull Puppets – the energy and anarchy still burn somewhere inside. At our occasional beat-punk poetry ‘n’ blues outings with my comrade Richard Earls, we sometimes close the set with a beat-punk-blues rendition of Anarchy in the UK – some young audience members at a recent Paris gig asking us about the song as they’d never heard it before.
I like that the energy and attitude of those times have seeped into arts, culture and politics as the kids of that generation grew and carried their muse into all sorts of realms and spheres – but still seems crazy that it is now half a century back in time that those torches were lit.
That torch has been taken up and carried by all sorts of kids in the generations that have followed from guerilla filmmakers to offbeat authors and poets and of course musicians – go listen to The Bobby Lees if you want to hear something fresh and exciting that is somehow informed by that old-school ethos.
If you are around on September 18 then do come along and join us at what I’m sure will be a suitably anarchic party – the blank generation marches on!
I think some albums have dated better over the passing of time, so for a bit of fun I thought I’d give you 11 punk/pre-punk/post-punk/New Wave albums that I still return to on a regular basis – what would be on your list?
1. The Clash – London Calling. Maybe the most important album of the period as it was a real cultural signifier that it was all about attitude – not a particular sound or look (as other acts were forming around the idea of some uniformed concept which for me missed the point entirely). Referencing reggae, rockabilly, ska and more, this album kicked open the door to so much that was to follow.
2. The Ruts – The Crack. Their politically charged take on reggae, dub and punk was a blast of fresh air when it burst on to the scene in 1979. Despite the tragic early demise of frontman Malcolm Owen, the rebooted Ruts DC continue to be one of the finest live acts out there – still writing and recording great albums.
3. Talking Heads – Fear of Music. Whilst I do go back to all the early Talking Heads albums, this for me is such a gem of anxious art-punk, the band experimenting with cool new directions and David Byrne at his paranoid best.
4. The Stranglers - Rattus Norvegicus. Taking their cue as much from The Doors as from the classic garage-punk influences, this has to be one of the finest debut albums ever. Songs like Hanging Around, Get a Grip on Yourself and Peaches remain some of the genuinely timeless cool-dirty anthems of the time.
5. Téléphone - Crache ton Venin. I was in Paris in 1979 and browsing the racks of a record store on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées I spotted this album and was just taken by the cover. The band’s clothing is printed on a transparent outer sleeve, and as you pull out the inner sleeve you discover them to be naked! I fell in love at first listen, a cool urgency and outsider sensibility permeating every track along with a cool Stonesy finesse to the playing – a real gem.
6. Iggy & The Stooges – Raw Power. With Bowie on production duties, this is the album that cranked the Stooges up to 11 and set the template for so many, and the bar well high. It still sounds cool, crazy, wild and untamed – from a whole other planet. The godfather of punk continues to perform like a panther on heat whilst releasing amazing albums.
7. X-Ray Spex - Germfree Adolescents. Featuring St Albans own Paul Dean on bass, Poly and the band explored themes of consumerism and the shackles of contemporary dayglo culture. With those abrasive sax parts and Poly’s anxious howls this remains relevant and wholly essential.
8. The Sound – Jeopardy. I saw The Sound supporting labelmates Echo & the Bunnymen at St Albans Civic Hall around 1980. Whilst The Bunnymen were great, and I still love them, I was particularly taken with The Sound, and I ordered this debut album the next day (I was working in a Record Shop at the time). There is a fragility and darkness to Adrian Borland’s lyrics and delivery that remains both haunting and magnetic. Adrian suffered with severe depression and schizoaffective disorder throughout much of his adult life and sadly took his own life at the age of 41. Much like his contemporary Ian Curtis, it is all too clear in retrospect that Adrain was channelling his angst into his work that resulted in some truly amazing recordings backed by the frantic and edgy sound of the great musicians around him.
9. Steel Pulse – Handsworth Revolution. I was lucky enough to see Steel Pulse at one of the big Rock against Racism carnivals back in the day (and again decades later at Glastonbury Festival). For me they remain one of the foremost UK reggae acts and one who’s sound and attitude were informed by their punk brothers and sisters and whose sound and style influenced and inspired so many of the punk bands around them from The Clash and The Ruts to The Members and The Slits. This album still stands as an important call to arms.
10. New York Dolls – New York Dolls. I was listening to the John Peel show one night, and he came out with something like ‘Now two tracks from a band who have been cited as influences on The Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. This is The New York Dolls’. As Personality Crisis and Looking for a Kiss blasted from my transistor radio I fell instantly in love with a band that by then had already split up. I went out the next day and got this double album that consisted of both of their studio albums and have continued to play it regularly ever since. Whilst many have tried, no-one has ever really managed to equal their glam-trash-down ‘n’ dirty street soul rock ‘n’ roll, and I doubt anyone ever will. Bowie went to see them a few times in New York, and you can hear their influence on the Aladdin Sane album. Thanks to Morrissey who pulled the surviving members back together when he was curating Meltdown Festival at The Southbank Centre, we did finally get to see a reformed version of the dolls (shortly before the sad death of bassist Arthur ‘Killer’ Kane). Simply one of the greatest gigs I have ever witnessed – it was emotional!
11. Patti Smith – Horses. Melding poetry and garage rock ‘n’ roll, this became a blueprint for the new punk-beats. Immaculate in style and content, from that androgynous Robert Mapplethorpe cover to the opening lines – ‘Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine’. This goes way beyond just being a great album – it’s one of the finest artistic statements of the last century – simple as.
Some honorary mentions for a few that didn’t make the list today but probably would another time; Sid Vicious – Sid Sings (contentious I know but I actually return to this album more than I do Never Mind the Bollocks), Siouxsie & The Banshees – The Peel Sessions, Bad Religion – The Process of Belief, The Bobby Lees – Skin Suit, Joy Division – Still, The Ramones – It’s Alive, Blondie – Plastic Letters, Patrik Fitzgerald – Grubby Stories, The Lords of the New Church – Is Nothing Sacred, The Damned – The Black Album, Richard Hell & The Voidoids – Blank Generation, Bikini Kill – The Singles, The Buzzcocks – Razor Cuts (bootleg), Elvis Costello – My Aim is True, Stiff Little Fingers – Hanx, 999 – 999, The Modern Lovers - The Modern Lovers, Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers – LAMF, XTC – White Music, The Cramps – Gravest Hits, The Vibrators – Pure Mania. I could go on, but that’s probably enough for today!
Stay Kind, Stay Creative!
Grae J.
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