At this time of year it is fitting that as we look ahead, we look back also. And even a Splenetic Auld Shitebag like masel cannae help but get a little sentimental & dewy-eyed at times. So it was ah found masel welling up at the end of 'The Wizard of Oz,' which was televated across the airwaves just the other day. Luckily, for my hard won reputation as a hard nosed proponent of Objectivity, I was alone ; my inner slushy old sap could remain hidden behind the bluster of Withering Marxist Dialectical Analysis and Unflappable Spock-like Rationalism with which I rebuke, rebuff and refuse to give countenance to the various Distortions, Deceptions, Falsehoods, Frauds, Hokum & Hogwash which the World sees fit to lay before me! And B'Jaysus there's a bloody mountain of it!!
Anyway, after wiping my watery eyes and knocking back a few more tawny ports and mince pies I thought I'd give this new 'youTube' thingy a wee go......and soon I found myself enthused by Gene Kelly on rollerskates and Donald O'Connor bursting balloons with his dazzling, dancing feet! One thing inevitably leads to another and another.....and so it was I stumbled upon a gem marooned in a vast digital sea of crap. A virtual Easter Island in a boundless Pacific of Absurdity & Twaddle! And being one who has long held a desire to cut a Christmas album, I can't tell you how much of a sheer delight it was to happen upon 'Black Christmas' sung by none other than Miss Poly Styrene.
Seeing Poly in action, so sexy and vibrant, was made all the more poignant by the fact that she is sadly no longer with us. Of course, we're all here to go so I'm no here tae give you any crap about lives cut tragically short. I'm not here either tae give you a potted biography of her life, it's all out there in Computerland. I'm just saying that Poly Styrene was one helloffa gal!....and if you've never heard 'Germ Free Adolescents' get out NOW and rectify that situation immediately! Its place in the Stoned Holy Top Ten Essential Punk Rock Albums is indisputably assured. In Lyrics, Voice and Style it perfectly captures what punk rock was supposed to be about - Individualism! There's a worn and scratched copy of it in the Stoned Holy Library and what an object it is. Just by looking at the cover you begin to suspect you're onto something. And when you pull out the inner sleeve with its bubble wrap imagery and lyrics printed in full you kinda already know that this is gonna be remarkable....and all this before you've heard a note! Watching on youTube or downloading an mp3 file can't come close to the excitement of finally placing the needle in the Glorious, Metal, Screeching, Exhilarating, Polypropylene, Art-I-Ficial Grooove!
Punk Rock, I'm here to tell you, Ruined Ma Life! It promised so much....and delivered so little. Furthermore, without it's raucous encouragement I might've been saved a life of Ploughing this Lonely Furrow as a Stoned Holy Roller! But what was a working class boy from a council housing scheme on the south side of Nowheresville gonna do with his life anywayz? So what the hell, that's the way the dice rolls. But lets call it straight and face it - Punk Rock was a Blip, a tragic case of Donkeys led by Lions! Shine an interrogative light on its mohican styled orthodoxies and bubblegum revolt and 95% of it is revealed as brainless, worthless shit...but it's the 5% that shines out and reverberates still, decades on, as Vital and Inspiring that makes it all worth the admission fee! And its Promise, its Inspiration, it's Fire, its Intelligence and its Triumphant Snotty-Nosed Two Fingered Salute to all the forces and agencies that seek to Contain, Explain & Restrain, Confine and Define your life for you, can be best summed up by a couple of lines that introduced the debut single from X-Ray Spex. They were penned by a wonderful 20 year old Marianne Elliott, soon to be known to the world as Poly Styrene, Punk Rock Chanteuse!
"Some People Think Little Girls Should Be Seen And Not Heard....
But I Think.....
OH BONDAGE, UP YOURS!"
Aw shucks, It's enough tae bring tears tae a glass ee!.....especially an auld, sneering punk rock dog such as masel.......I'm welling up again, folks.....I better get the hell outta here......Sayonara Pop Pickers!! Oh, dinnae tell me the port's finished!!.......
...almost forgot, here 's the link tae 'Black Christmas'
