nick manho

like all cultural movements punk was both good and bad. bad because it created thousands of sex pistol clones. good because it created the pistols. or was it created by the pistols?

i remember reading about this guy at the time:




imagine it: his career's down the pan, he's over in california hustling his ass around the studios for a record deal, and he gets this phone call saying, hey willie, hitch a ride back to new york city, man, there's something happening here and you don't know what it is but you could well make a few quick bucks out of it. so willie jets back to nyc and cuts the record of his life. like, the guy throws everything in, kitchen sink and velvet curtains included. great song though if you don't get too deconstructivist about the lyrics:

Mink DeVille: Spanish Stroll


yeah, willie got his big break thanks to johnny and syd but he never made much of it. spanish stroll was his swan song. other guys like willie got in on the punk bandwagon, too. some good , some bad, as usual. iggy got his second wind but creeps like elvis costello sneaked in through the cool guy window instead of pop-charting it as his nature intended.

lots of bad acts got cheap attitude from the punk explosion.

and was punk english or american? well, 70s punk was english (in fact, it was just one group), but the roots - as always - go back to america.

where did punk start? check out this guy. he got a new lease of life thanks to the pistols, too. but he'd been doing it 20 years earlier. and he'd influenced the who. and if the who didn't create the pistols then who did?

here's yer man, as the irish say:

Link Ray, 1977