Culture Clash
I grew up with punk rock. My first concert ever was The Clash here in the Berner Festhalle my mother took me there. I was way impressed by way Joe Strummer was rocking the stage. Coming home from school my mother used to listen to "the Stranglers" and "PIL".
But when I became a teenager I was more into Nina Hagen and " Neue Deutsche Welle"
It was dub who made me listen to punk rock again. Reading Bass Culture made me realize the close link between dub music and punk rock. But why did all the teds like to go to reggae parties? What made uk working class kids listen to dub?
Don Letts, son of black immigrants has been there right from the beginning. Reading his book Culture Clash gives you insight into the time when punk rock happened.
Letts worked as a DJ in the Roxy, a London nightclub during the original outbreak of punk in England. As few bands of that era had yet recorded, there were limited punk rock records to be played. Instead, Letts included many dub and reggae records in his sets, and is credited with introducing those sounds to the London punk scene, which was to influence The Clash and other bands. As a tribute, he is pictured on the cover of the album Super Black Market Clash.
Culture Clash: Dread Meets Punk Rockers by Don Letts
Don Letts is Grammy Award-winning film-maker, celebrated DJ, co-founder of Big Audio Dynamite, British black icon. As a first-generation British-born black, Don Letts quickly learned to assimilate aspects of Jamaican culture into inner-city urban London life. Leaving school, he gravitated to Chelsea's King's Road, inhabiting the fashion world alongside Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren. As resident DJ at the fledgling punk club The Roxy, Letts pumped a roots-reggae soundtrack to a predominantly white audience that included members of The Clash and the Sex Pistols, forging a link between the two clashing cultures. A chance meeting provided him with a Super-8 movie camera, the result of which was released as "The Punk Movie" and set Letts on a career resulting in over 300 influential promo videos featuring Sex Pistols, Pil, the Slits, The Clash, Bob Marley, and even the platinum-selling "Musical Youth", and most recently Franz Ferdinand. His feature films include "Dancehall Queen", the Grammy Award-winning "Westway to the World" - his documentary on The Clash - and Clash on Broadway. He recently directed feature documentaries for the BBC on Sun Ra and Gil Scott-Heron. Alongside The Clash's Mick Jones in Big Audio Dynamite, Letts pioneered dance culture and sampling techniques, hanging out with Africa Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, and the cream of the New York City hip-hop scene. Admired by Fellini, a friend of Bob Marley and John Lydon, and a documentarian of The Clash, Don Letts has never pigeonholed himself. This book is a firsthand account, told in Letts' own words - it's highly visual, revelatory, irreverent, entertaining, and staunchly individual.
once into the London of the 1970 you can also read these two books, both highly recommendable:
Human Punk by John King
Vintage; New Ed edition
The antihero of Human Punk is Joe Martin: poor white trash from the council estates of Slough. In the novel's first third, set at the "arse-end of the 70s", Joe is a teenage no-hoper into cheap booze and cheaper girls. He's also into the new punk music that has finally percolated down to the Middlesex hinterlands.
Stories we could tell by tony parson
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
This is a book about growing up and being young, about sex and love and rock and roll, about the dreams of youth colliding head-on with the grown-up world. Sometimes you can grow up in just one night...It is 16th August 1977 - the day that Elvis dies - and Terry is back from Berlin, basking in the light of his friendship with legendary rock star Dag Wood. But when Dag arrives in London he sets his sights on a mysterious young photographer called Misty, the girl that Terry loves. Will the love of Terry's life survive this hot summer's night? Ray is the only writer on the inky music weekly "The Paper" who refuses to cut his hair and stop wearing flares. On the eve of being sacked, Ray finds comfort in the arms of an older woman called Mrs Brown. But John Lennon is in town for just one night and Ray believes that if he can interview the reclusive Beatle, he can save his job. Can John Lennon and the love of an older woman really save a young man's soul? Leon is on the run from a gang called the Dagenham Dogs who have taken exception to one of his bitchy reviews. Hiding out in a disco called The Goldmine, Leon meets Ruby - the dancing queen of his dreams. But will true love or the Dagenham Dogs find Leon before the night is over? Tony Parsons goes back to his roots for this deeply personal book - the story he has been waiting to tell.
