I never said I was a punk, so you can’t call me a poseur. I was never good at committing to just one “scene”, since my interests were always so eclectic, although like many disaffected teenagers I went through my skater, New Wave, punk (Ah, 1987 — the year all the Staten Island New-Wave kids went punk…) , rude-boy, and newly-out fag phases before amalgamating them all into the Sparky you all know and get fed up with today.
Anyway, the subject was punk. I went to go see The Filth and the Fury last night, the latest documentary on the Sex Pistols. Although I was never much of an angry, working-class kid, the Sex Pistols really captivated me way back when, and it was easy to see why as I watched footage of Johnny Rotten shouting and snarling into the microphone as he stared wild-eyed at the crowds. I could feel my whole body tense up with excitement. It was also surpisingly moving to hear him talk about his rage and sadness at how Sid Vicious just fell apart once he became a junkie. I guess it’s not very punk for him to get teary during an interview, but I guess he’s John Lydon now and not Johnny Rotten, so we’ll cut him some slack.
Julien Temple thankfully doesn’t take the whole thing too seriously, even though he’s trying to show a more historical view than he did in The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle. Even though a screenwriter pal didn’t think he handled the passage of time well (whatever wanky film-biz nonsense that is), I liked the way he built a context for all of it with a hilarious montage of film and video clips, including a bunch of apropos snippets from Richard III and British TV news. He also kept the contemporary Pistols in silhouette when he interviewed then, which was a deft way to not ruin the impact of all that combustible young anger by showing what they looked like all old and bitter.
To balance things out, today I’m listening to the soundtrack to Hair, surprisingly moving music of another sort altogether. (And back from the days when Treat Williams lived up to his name.)