Member-only story
I Was a Teenage Anarchist
“But Sidney’s more than a mere bass player. He’s a fabulous disaster. He’s a symbol, a metaphor, he embodies the dementia of a nihilistic generation. He’s a fuckin’ star.”
-From the movie 1986 Film, “Sid and Nancy”
It’s easy to surmise that when punk rock impresario Malcolm McLaren created the Sex Pistols, he was looking for a way to market rebellion. While on the surface that may be true, McLaren wasn’t just a punk rock carnival barker, he was also a member of the Situationist International, an organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals and political theorists.[1] A key part of Situationist theory was the concept of the “spectacle”, something McLaren mastered during his tenure with the Sex Pistols.
I’m not here to pass judgment on the music of the Sex Pistols nor do I plan to extensively critique the non-organic nature of their creation. However, I do think the manufactured idea of what they represented visually and sonically both defined the first wave of U.K punk music and later came to inject a snotty anti authoritarian attitude and sound into the hardcore punk scene in the U.S.
The Making of the Punk Moment
The Presidency of Ronald Reagan in the US and the Premiership of Margaret Thatcher in the UK — born out of rising inflation, a weakening economy, a deteriorating job market coupled with a war on labor -, were in many ways the perfect catalyst for punk’s musical moment.
“When she talks, I hear the revolution
In her hips, there’s revolutions
When she walks, the revolution’s coming
In her kiss, I taste the revolution!”
Rebel Girl — Bikini Kill
Despite the economic precarity that was the reality for many in the late 70’s, in the US, the culture of glamour was still pervasive. It was an era in which large corporate rock bands selling millions of records, playing to packed out arenas, and traveling by private jet prevailed, while the alluring cocaine-soaked beat of disco dominated the music charts. But if there was to be an antithesis to the ascent of Reagan and the culture warriors of the Moral Majority, it was bands like Black Flag, Bad Brains, Flipper, and The…
