We were all looking for something to fight for or fight against
The whole punk thing was not about having money
It was not about having possessions
it was not about labels
Punk broke down that fourth wall
that said, "I am the star and you're the fan"
It was all-inclusive, man!
In the late '70s I was running a shop
on the King's Road Chelsey called "Acme Attractions"
and in those days on the King's Road there were two hip shops
my shop, Acme Attractions
and Vivienne and Malcolm's shop which was further down the road
which was called "Sex" back then
Came to London early '77
and I'd just become 17
thinking I'll dye my hair orange
and I'll make millions of mates
and of course, I didn't
Went straight to Vivienne's shop
and bought my bondage trousers
Used to sell to all the King's Road shops
and stuff that was kind of made into punk clothing
and we would sell original stuff too
My shop had a better soundtrack
Vivienne probably had better clothes
but I was playing dub reggae downstairs
They became like hip clubs, meeting places for like-minded people
and all the kind of pissed off white kids
would move between these two shops
They could see the rebel in us
and we could see the rebel in them
so there was like a mutual respect
I was already well pissed off because I was black
first generation British born black so I was having a tough time
but at least I had a soundtrack to ease my pain, which was reggae
which was very anti-establishment back in those days
It was an interesting time, the '70s
when there was a lot of unemployment and ridiculous interest rates
and so on and so forth and Thatcher was in power
Rise in the national front, three day week
and as Johnny Rotten so eloquently put it
a feeling of no future
England was a bit down at the time
A lot of striking. It was quite depressed
The whole thing of young people
expressing themselves through music and clothes
kind of came out of the whole English class system
because for many of us
the only way we could attain some kind of identity or status
was through the music we consumed, or the clothes that we wore
And punk in a way was their way of saying,
"Hey, what about us?" as it were
Popular music at the time was a million miles away
from the feeling of the vibe on the street
so they set about creating a soundtrack that was relevant to their situation
that dealt with things like how are we going to live?
And furthermore, how are we going to do it together?
So the punk and kind of black community and Indian communities
started locking together for some camaraderie
In the grass roots levels, a lot of bonds were made
because we were kind of social outcasts, the black and the young white kids
and that threw us together
We kind of found some kind of common bond
and a common enemy
and indeed a lot of the musical messages that came out over reggae
translated perfectly to the streets of London
In Jamaica, they were saying, "Chant down Babylon"
In England the Pistols were singing "Anarchy in the UK"
It was the same kind of energy, the same anger
Just destroyed the whole idea
of what clothing had been about before
and messed with the music, and it was all like DIY
It was incredibly exciting
During the punk times we were turning each other on
through understanding our differences
Not by trying to be the same
Punk was the last great movement
that was not about having money
it was not about having possessions
it was not about labels, particularly
It was just an expression of freedom and revolt
and dissatisfaction
I think those problems still exist
They've just been transposed to other people
maybe to people that are not of color
maybe to the Eastern Europeans who are trying to get work here
or the Muslims are being demonized by the media
I think there's plenty to be angry and active about
It was the attitude more than the outfit, half the time
It isn't this weird thing that happened in the late '70s
with Mohawks and safety pins and all fuck you
It has a heritage and a lineage
that predate that by hundreds, if not thousands of years
Punk rock isn't something to look back on
It's something to look forward to
People really need to understand that