In an attempt to foster some kind of meaningful discussion regarding the relationship between local music and the world at large I thought I’d respond to the angry letter (did the band in question in fact write it themselves to keep the literary ball rolling?!) which came as a response to Sandman’s Les Flames feature, and in particular, took offence at the assertion that “the most punk rock thing in the world is terrorism” because “punk rock is about destroying stuff.” My first impression of the article itself was “that bloke Noah from Baby food wrote this feature, he knows the band and I smell a rat!” Then I saw the ‘infamous quote’ (just to grant Les Flames their obviously so fiercely sought after feeling of infamy!) and thought “what an obvious attempt at being controversial, they could have done better than that surely!” Then I pondered this and concluded no they couldn’t really be any more controversial because the world’s a fairly sick place and much about the way it is run seems pretty disgusting to me. In short, it’s hard to be shocking these days when so much of what we see is so shocking that a natural reaction is to block it out.
Maybe the band are, in a sense, deriding the way in which the state and the media effectively govern us through fear by focusing our attention on the evil we can’t see rather than the one that’s staring us right in the face – the established corporate status quo that credible punk acts have always sought to challenge. Putting my awful leftist propaganda to one side, I understand why so and so (don’t have his name to hand) was offended – part of me was too – but that’s the point, what’s going on in the world is as offensive as scabby c**t. Now perhaps Les Flames should have come up with a slightly more advanced analysis of the geo-political situation but people just don’t seem to want to hear that stuff. Perhaps they should have taken more care not to be quite so inappropriate in their transparent pursuit of being controversial but it should also be noted that this kind of behaviour has been going on a while and we really should be used to it by now – the advent of punk, for example, saw some of its stalwarts wear the swastika precisely in order to provoke a reaction. The Les Flames feature has done just that, it’s inspired thought and, in turn, the cementing of that thought in print.
Despite nobody noticing, I thought I was being controversial by buying, not one, but two Simply Red albums from the charity warehouse whilst wearing a cardigan (I just don’t give a f**k) but whether you’re describing terrorists as punk, invoking the Fuhrer by wearing Nazi insignia or cheaply succumbing to the debateable charms of Hick Mucknall the ginger vocal ninja, you may well of course come to realise that it’s not necessarily big and it’s not necessarily clever. However, punk’s never been about doing what you should do as far as I can see and it’s never been about accepting society’s norms and preconditions regarding what one should say and how it is to behave responsibly - it’s more been about challenging convention. Whilst terrorism generally seeks to change the world through horrific acts of violence, good wholesome punk employs thought, music and fashion in order to subvert people from the mundane nature of their everyday thoughtlessness. There in lies the difference. After talking with lead singer Neil a couple of times and hearing comments such as ‘The Beatles were s**t’ and, again, referring to the Fab Four, ‘don’t you think we could have done the job much better’ you should realise the kind of mentality we’re dealing with here - he’s assessing where people’s general allegiances lie and trying to upset the apple cart. Either that or he’s knows very little about politics or music and should learn to keep his cheeky little gob shut! That aside, Les Flames have at least made two people take some time out of their day to consider some interesting questions!
Will Gray
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