JJ BARRIE – “No Charge”
I was aware of this song long before I heard it – as a young boy it was quoted at me by my Dad should I ever object to tidying my room. Since my room was rarely tidy, I became very familiar with the central notion of “No Charge”. Like my Dad, I can find immense amusement and pleasure in this style of song – talking country with a sentimental edge – but this is far from a great example.
You might think, at first, that the style stands or falls on the strength of its concepts: not so. “No Charge” has a fine concept – mawkishness and moralising are assets here! – but where JJ Barrie falls down is on development and details. Once our young entrepreneur has presented his list, and been slapped down by Mom, the track has nowhere to go, and explores that nowhere thoroughly for two minutes. Contrast it with something like “Teddy Bear” by Red Sovine, where tears are ruthlessly jerked right up to the final words. Barrie, on the other hand, adds no new details and just repeats himself. This is partly because “No Charge” is a cover version, and you can hear what I assume is the original melody being hollered in the background: it sounds rather as if it’s trying to escape.
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Tom in FT /Popular • featured content/Pop • 6,305 views
mike i would say kent (ex-frendz, stones and dolls fan) and csm (ex-kids-oz, ramones-fan, bluesman) are who i’d cite as as examples of circumspect support — i think precisely bcz they were extremely invested in related not-quite-core-punk factions (so this claim depends how widely you draw the circle, and the distinction vanishes once it became a largescale thing)
DJ P #171 I remember seeing that on a recent show actually about TV’s maddest moments, as soon as you described it with the armed forces behind him it all came to me. It was very scary indeed.
Certainly from those of us reading at the time who didn’t know about Kent’s involvement with the Sex shop and so forth they seemed slow to come forward and say an unqualified YES to punk – with CSM that doesn’t really happen (from the Brit side) until his “God Save The Queen” Single of the Week review (May?) and even then it was co-Single of the Week with “Roadrunner.”
Meanwhile “Anarchy” was DISASTROUSLY given by NME to Cliff White to review and he said bah humbug Who ’66 revisited give me James Brown as any wise editor would already have known.
haha i love cliff white HE WAS RIGHT
Re. “Stand Up And Be Counted” – the payoff line (“For God’s sake Britain – WAKE UP!”) was used as an intro to Genesis P Orridge and Richard Norris’ Jack The Tab echt-Acieed album in ’88.
Actually I agreed with Richard Williams in the MM in Nov ’76 who said that “Anarchy” was way too slow and ploddy and that “New Rose” was the real future and that Rat Scabies’ drumming sounded like Sunny Murray.
Punctum @165: The feminist issue wrt women in punk (and women in rock in general) is an enormous kettle of worms that I need to think through in greater depth but here is my gist anyway – unfortunately the prevalent idea that ‘punk = poor musicianship’ can often lead to “punk is the only way those inferior lady musicians can get involved with rock”, which eventually ends up with “ladies can only be successful if they flash their bits at Terry Christian” etc etc. Obviously an enormous amount of GOOD came out of punk in feminist terms (esp in the media and resulting punk canon) but there’s still this overhanging shadow of “women will only ever be independently* successful in alternative/specialist music” that is often ignored when the Women In Punk Hurrah discussion arises. Also, progress for women in music has ground to a halt since then, save for the brief spell of tampon-throwing in the 90s.
*And there’s the rub…
I really don’t see the link between A and B; does that mean that they shouldn’t get involved in the first place and doesn’t the tits/Terry Christian thing go all the way back to Jane Russell/Howard Hughes and beyond in any instance? Seems to me rather self-defeatist and would you rather that no door had been opened up at all?
Above all, where does this leave Madonna?
‘punk = poor musicianship’ BUT ‘something to say’
leading to
punk = ‘message more important than the music’
and so on…
So what did Cliff White make Single of the Week in the week of ‘Anarchy’?
…and then we go on to the issue/definition of “poor musicianship” in general where e.g. the Eagles’ immaculate fingerings are abominable musicianship because they say nothing whereas Pete Shelley’s two starway notes on “Boredom” >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all of Hotel California.
(and of course with the Eagles, since they copped their entire schtick from watered down Burritos you can go back and say Gram’s fumbled notes on “Hot Burrito #1″ >>>>>>>>>>>>> technically faultless Glenn Frey etc…)
I can’t actually remember what Cliff picked as his SOTW which may be significant in itself. It could have been “Sideshow” by Barry Biggs but don’t quote me on that and I can’t find it online either.
If that’s true, then Sideshow >>> Anarchy In The UK, anyway. Good for Cliff!
No that’s getting too Paul Burnett for my liking.
#104 (I think)”Re:#98- how many contributors were actually aware of punk at this point? My dad always says he remembers with clarity the exact time he first heard Presley in ‘56- was it the same w/ punk 20 years later or more a gradual growing awareness?”
I rmember exactly when I first heard punk rock for the first time. I was at the Maryfield Youth Club disco, and the DJ announced that it was “time for some punk!”, having been indoctrinated by my older brother that punk = a very bad thing, I was fully expecting to hate it. The DJ played New Rose by The Damned and I was just blown away. Still am.
I’d seen Eddie & The Hot Rods on Lift Off with Ayesha (or something) and been properly impressed, but this was something else.
I wasn’t being very clear, apologies – the fire alarm went off at work halfway through! Er, yes where was I: the door definitely needed opening, but both good and bad things came out of it (achieving message over method, the DIY ethic etc) vs the stereotyping I mentioned above. Both are interesting topics!
I’m not solely pointing the finger at Big Evil Patriarchy here: this could be the fault of a) women failing to capitalise on the acheivements of punk (incl ‘having something to say’) b) male record execs deciding/realising that there was no market for female bands* that concentrated on music rather than sex appeal (assuming there was for male bands?) c) Julie Burchill spoiling it for everyone etc.
I admit b) is a massively rockist beef to have and of course music is about much more than how well you play the guitar, but the other ingredients of pop (personality etc) fall into place much more easily if you’re not having to worry about whether you’re playing the right note. Which is good for musician and listener both.
So I agree it’s a depressing outlook but from a musician’s perspective I still think the women-in-punk thing is worthy of discussion minus rose-tinted specs. Probably not on Popular though, seeing as we tend to focus on consumption rather than production here. As you might have guessed this is a pet topic of mine :)
*Female solo singer/songwriters have historically taken better control of their destiny, cf Madge/Bjork/PJ Harvey. This is most likely down to a combination of a) and b) I think! Though I often wonder how good a drummer Madge was back in the Breakfast Club…
Rob M: “Here’s one of those ‘What if’ questions. Apologies if I seem to be playing devil’s advocate here.
The Pistols only appeared on the Bill Grundy show because Queen dropped out at the last minute and EMI wanted to put another band on the show. How would punk have broken in the tabloid and mainstream press if Queen had appeared on the Grundy show instead and simply promoted whatever their contemporary single was?”
Anarchy In The UK was at #38 when it was pulled. They would have been able to complete their tour, be played on the radio, appear on TOTP and do all the normal things that groups do to promote themselves when they’re not banned by hysterical councillors and villified by the national press. It might have taken a bit longer, but there’s no reason to think punk wouldn’t have broken without the Grundy incident.
I rather doubt that the Pistols would have been invited onto TOTP or indeed the R1 daytime airwaves to perform “Anarchy,” Grundy or no Grundy.
They had already appeared on “Nationwide” which would have had more of an effect, um, nation wide.
EMI would have been able to make unlimited editions of “Anarchy” and the record would have made top twenty.
Punk would have been a slower grow, the rest would have happened anyway.
Did Grundy help crystallise the perceived public idea of punk though – new vs old, young vs old, punk vs establishment, rather than (say) DIY or just having a rock’n'roll piss-up?
Why not? It wasn’t banned until after the Grundy incident, and before that they were just another band with an unsavoury (not nationally outrageous) reputation. Peel would have had a session, too. Probly Kid Jensen/ Mike Reid as well). They were just another band (if a bit smelly/yucky) before the Grundy thing.
After all, we’d just been through glam, they weren’t *that* bizarre.
The above aimed at #193 DJ Punctum, btw.
“Perceived” is the word since the programme was only broadcast in London and thus everyone else in the country relied on the perspective of the press.
Even with the post-Christmas sales lull the single only managed to climb from 43 to 38 and it’s unlikely it would have gone much further even if it had remained available.
Can you really see Edmonds or Travis playing a record which cites the IRA and ends with the words “get pissed, destroy” to the housewives? Non-daytime airplay at that time counted in terms of album sales only.
#198 ToTP usually requested that iffy words were changed (see Gang Of 4′s At Home He’s a Tourist). Remembering that a lot of the versions on ToTP were re-recorded due to union regs. Either way, lack of airplay wouldn’t have hindered them (although I’m pretty sure Peelie was able to play it uncensored at least once), given the way they seem to have galvanised any audience that saw them at the time. They would have been huge eventually, either way.
slower growth = yes there would have been a rock subculture called punk, not at all so obvious it would have been the catalyst and symbol for the year-zero-ey split appearing in pop culture: some ever tabloid scandal might have been that catalyst and symbol, and things fallen out in quite different ways
i think the general post-60s sea-change was acheing to happen, and would have in some form, but this unplannable perfect-storm moment is what annointed the pistols as its vessel, and specific elements in the pistols set-up — including a will to amplify the effects rather than tamp them down — meant that everything happened fast, pulling all the rest of the brooding cultural stuff into the same vortex
slower evolution — a different catalyst than the pistols on grundy — might have ended in a much less polarised, more pluralist cultural ecology (in fact this is what came eventually anyway)