People always ask me what 1909 1977 means. This video tells the story very clearly. 1909 is the year the Futurist Manifesto was written. Futurism is essentially Art Punk from long ago. Snarling Italian reactionaries smashing the history that threatened to strangle their nation. 1977 is the year Punk really echoed around the world. Snarling English kids smashing the stagnant Rock & Roll bloat that had set upon the world in the 70s. Shocking grannies with bright colors, nasty attitudes & fast, cheap & easy to produce pop trash culture. Punk was the only really revolutionary form of music to be introduced, even if it drew heavily on old rock & roll, in intention & execution, it wiped a bit of the slate clean, clearing the way for something like a pop single from Afrika Bambaataa (Hip Hop Zulu Futurist) & Johnny Rotten (True embodiment of the Punk spirit) about armaggedon. It is important to note that what was contained in these two movements was the dynamic seed, violent energy, unrestricted creativity, unrelenting passion, when one tries to recreate the movement, the point is lost. The dynamic energy is the important thing.
DEATH DISCO by PIL
PLANET ROCK by AFRIKA BAMBAATAA & THE SOULSONIC FORCE
BUFFALO GALS by MALCOLM MCLAREN (SEX PISTOLS IMPRESSARIO)
All of this made way for the KLF.
3 AM ETERNAL by THE KLF
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5 comments:
Great post, and awesome tunes. I'm a huge KLF fan, wish they were still making music.
I found a copy of that Time Zone video on an old tape with Night Flight. It was mixed in with stock footage of bomb explosions and other crazy shit. I need to copy it to the computer so I can upload it to youtube.
Are you a fan of Greil Marcus, Sean?
I'd love to see that vid Aeron. Noah, i've read Greil Marcus' earlier columns & collections of his columns, & the only thing i really got from them is that he thinks that Bruce Springsteen is Punk (!?!?!) & he introduced me to the awesome Japanese underground comix artist Muddy Wehara. Marcus doesn't seem to "get it"... he is also an overly intellectual/theoretical music critic, which i can't deal with! That whole world really does nothing for me. As far as music/subculture/ideas people go, Malcolm McLaren is my favorite.
You might try Lipstick Traces, Sean. It's all about the connections between the European avant-garde and punk. He's more into dada than futurism, but the basic idea is pretty similar.
Yeah, i've read Lipstick Traces, that's the one that has the Muddy Wehara comic in it! He goes into it a bit, but there have been other books that say it better & more clearly. McLaren was very much into the Situationists & i agree to some degree about DADA, except that Futurism is more like Punk, because it is snarling. New Wave is more like DADA, because it is more wacky. Like DEVO & all that. That said, it's all similar. I'm not sure if i would have made the connection if i hadn't actively read all of these theoretical books at a youngish age. I recently tried to read MArcus' "In the Fascist Bathroom" which is a terrific title, but i found it largely unreadable. The best book i've read about English Punk was "England's Dreaming" by Jon Savage.
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