July 1978. I’d just turned 16, was a schoolkid on day one of a family fortnight in Berwickshire. I’d conked after a long day of unfamiliar sun exposure. Over the road a party was kicking-off. The music was mainstream chart stuff – The Eagles, Dr Hook, Bonny Tyler. But suddenly the Hi-Fi cranked up and the sound of stomping jackboots shattered the sleepy fishing village. Then came Steve Jones trademark Les Paul riffing, and Johnny Rotten’s strident sneer. It was the Sex Pistols ‘Holidays in the Sun’, opening track of ‘Never Mind the Bollocks’. They partied to the entire album, right through to ‘EMI’; then they flipped it over and started again. This went on all night. Sounds magazine had described the Pistols as a big, bad, beautiful noise. And that was exactly what I was listening to: exhilaratingly incendiary rock and roll. As I lay there, shivers rippled down my sun-burnt spine.

At home my bedroom walls revealed someone whose tastes hovered between the vibrant ‘New Wave’ and loyalty to the Old. Kiss posters nestled uneasily beside The Stranglers. I’d been aware of punk since 1977, through airplay (John Peel, obviously, and Jay Crawford’s Edinburgh Rock show on Radio Forth). I’d also followed the antics of bands like The Damned, The Jam, The Saints, Magazine, et al as I devoured my weekly Sounds magazines (having been an avid collector since October 1977 when The Clash adorned the cover, on tour in Belfast, scowling beside British squaddies). And the appeal of Top of the Pops had been eclipsed by ATV’s Revolver, where a chainsmoking Peter Cook would harangue the studio audience before disinterestedly introducing a succession of young, loud and snotty bands, from Generation X to the Rich Kids to X Ray Spex, who polluted the airwaves with some glorious rabble-rousing.

That Sex Pistols album had been released 8 months before, against a climate of court action over its title, and ongoing press vilification. The Mirror and Sun had declared them pariahs. This, despite the fact that punks were the ones being razored by Teddy Boys old enough to be their fathers; despite other aspects of the 1970’s - industrial unrest, Ulster’s sectarian madness, the western world having only just emerged from Vietnam’s napalm-fuelled hell. Middle England was more upset by a working class voice muttering a couple of ‘fucks’ on TV.

The furore surrounding punk characterized a reactionary past almost unrecognisable (unless you live in America’s Bible belt). Yet you can’t help but feel if the Pistols were to travel through a timewarp and appear as another video in the MTV conveyor belt, their addictive hook-driven guitar music - itself a homage to everything from the Stooges, MC5 and T-Rex to the Small Faces they began their act by covering - would sound just as contemporary. Today, that provocative image would be endearing, and attract the attention of Celebrity Big Brother producers, rather than transform pompous prudes into frothing morons. But surrounded by novelty pop, vacuous disco, wallowing progressive rock and misogynist Heavy Metal, punk rock was more than abrasive music played fast and punctuated by swearing. It was a pivotal moment. The Pistols, and the scores of bands who clutched their safety-pinned coat tails, injected passion, not just to the dreary music scene, but aspects of culture, fashion and political awareness. It seems trite to repeat punk’s oft-quoted defence that it opened the door for people who would never have been inspired to make their own music (and a fair amount of three-chord bilge was produced by unimaginative wannabes) but it is true that releasing records was no longer seen as a privilege. Females, previously the groupie fodder of the Old Wave, found a platform to express themselves as equals. Punk’s DIY spirit persists to this day. The record industry moguls no longer control the charts – power has shifted to anyone choosing to download or click through myspace’s maze.

As I listened to the Sex Pistols album that hot summer night, just about everything else in my record collection was rendered obsolete. To a teenager from Shandon, Edinburgh, it was electrifying, dangerous, and volatile in a way that bands like Yes and Genesis could never, ever be in a month of Sundays. I have never voluntarily listened to Uriah Heep since. Compared to ‘Pretty Vacant’ or ‘Bodies’, ‘EMI’ or ‘New York’, it would be as much fun as listening to root canal treatment.

Mark Fleming lives in Portobello, Edinburgh. His writing has featured in diverse outlets: poetry anthologies, football fanzines, iD magazine, Cutting Teeth, Scottish Child, The Big Issue in Scotland, Flamingo Scottish Short Stories, Shorts: The Macallan / Scotland on Sunday Collection, The Picador Book of Contemporary Scottish Fiction. He also has stories at www.LauraHird.com As well as writing, Mark plays guitar with The Axidents who recently released a 5-track CD, ‘Rejoice’. He lives with his wife Karen (whose website he designed) and their daughter Elise. To read Mark’s story, ‘White Gloves’ on the showcase section of this site, click (here.

© 2007 Laura Hird All rights reserved.