Why punk is just as relevant as ever in London

Punk is dead. Long live punk.’ So read the graffiti on the wall outside The Roxy, Covent Garden’s iconic (now defunct) music venue. Contradictory, provocative, stylishly obtuse, it was left by the band Crass after a gig in 1977. With its inherent perversity, it could be seen to sum up the punk movement as a whole.

In 1976 the Sex Pistols roared on to the scene with a series of riotous gigs, a wholly modern and anarchic approach to music, and an outrageous, ‘anti-fashion’ look characterised by unruly hair, piercings and deliberate dishevelment. Soon they were joined by The Clash, The Damned, Crass and others. To young people struggling to forge a future amid sky-high inflation, strikes and a post-recession jobs market, they were inspiring. ‘It seemed to be an expression of London at that time,’ says Jon Savage, punk chronicler and author of England’s Dreaming, the seminal history of the movement. ‘There was a sense of “we won the war”, but the punks were saying “no we didn’t really — because look around at the state of everything”.’ It became a phenomenon, encompassing music, fashion, politics, art and film.

But that slogan scrawled on to the Roxy speaks of something else. Since its inception, the death of punk has been constantly proclaimed — and then denied. Four decades on from the famous Anarchy tour, which saw the Sex Pistols and The Clash play gigs across the UK, punk’s architects are approaching retirement age. Men in studded leather adorn postcards, John Lydon advertises butter. What relevance can it have now?

‘Punk in the 1976 sense is historical,’ says Savage. But, he contends, the movement was more than its physical manifestations. Punk spirit existed independently. ‘It’s an idea in itself — that’s the strength of it.’

What’s meant, then, by punk spirit? ‘Punk,’ says Dame Vivienne Westwood, ‘planted an attitude: Don’t Trust Governments. Ever’. The then girlfriend of Sex Pistols manager, Malcolm McLaren, she was at the vanguard, designing clothes inspired by bikers, fetishists and sex workers. ‘It was a stand against the mismanagement of the world and the corruption of power.’

In this sense, it seems as potent now as ever. Matthew Worley, author of the forthcoming No Future: Politics, Punk and Society, 1976-84, argues you can find punk spirit in the revival of far-left politics: ‘You can draw a line from bands like Crass to the anti-capitalist protests today.’ Likewise the refusal of hacking group Anonymous to kowtow to anyone’s rule of law. ‘Cyber hacking wasn’t a term in 1976 but the impulse is the same,’ says Worley.

Coupled with this was a defiant, DIY approach, driven, says Savage, by the idea that ‘you don’t have to wait for anybody’s approval — you can go ahead and do what you want’. Fanzines flourished (Sniffin’ Glue was the most famous, while Savage wrote and published London’s Outrage). Records were put out on indie labels such as Stiff.