Punk: Attitude is a surprisingly brilliant documentary by Don Letts, featuring insight from the likes of Henry Rollins, Jim Jarmusch, Mick Jones, John Cale, Jello Biafra, Chrissie Hynde, Thurston Moore and many many more.
Much of it reinforces the idea that punk was more of a media construct and catchall term for something which was essentially a shared spirit more than some fashionable pose or belief system (which is how its often historically and quite bafflingly misconstrued to have been). I found it quite interesting hearing more about the transatlantic disparity and confusion, especially when Chrissie Hynde, who points out how seriously us Brits took it all - and some, sadly, continue to do so, slurping on the dregs of it, fag ash n’ all…
Henry Rollins makes one of his wonderfully adroit points about the moment when punk changed from saying ‘Fuck You’ to the ‘Fuck Yeah!’-types chugging away at guitars.
Only slight gripe with the documentary was the way the 90s-to-now were condensed into simply: Nirvana happened, corporate major labels got involved (The Clash were signed to Sony, etc, etc), and then we had Limp Bizkit, Blink-182 and Sum41. Shame they didn’t look at how the likes of At the Drive-in, Rage Against the Machine, Refused and many more evolved the genre, whilst being inspired by the imaginative scope and also keeping to the anti-establishment, pro-individual, politically-charged potency which was at the heart of punk-rock. Or how the history of punk-rock shouldn’t be confined to guitar music…. but I digress, as it was actually a good documentary, far better than a lot of others I’ve watched and much less of the overstated ‘then The Sex Pistols did this, then they did this’ in England’s Dreaming.
Find the other 8-parts on youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/user/seanquietus#p/c/759A6FE2CE040B63/1/NDM4OUAKR00
Makes for a nice follow-up to the McLaren obituary which is now up on the iPlayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s7vvl although, to be honest, it’s a bit of a beginner’s guide, don’t go expecting to find out the exact moments of epiphany which helped Malcolm formulate the blueprints which became the elixir of ‘cash for chaos’.
And after that fire up 4OD and watch The Ghosts of Oxford St http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-ghosts-of-oxford-street/4od
And then read his diary for the FT http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/bc554950-7d60-11de-b8ee-00144feabdc0.html
