Siobhan O’Donnell on punk, the city, and the noise that keeps her sane
London made punk and punk made me, and this week, as every week, I have been making my noise in the city that taught me how, three chords and the truth and two fingers up at everyone who deserves it, which in London is rather a lot of people. The amp is warm, the lager is cold, and the rage is, as ever, righteous.
The City That Made the Noise
London is a punk city, has always been a punk city, the place where the noise was born, the snarl against the establishment given its first proper voice. I grew up on the legend of it, the London that made punk, the city that turned its rage into music, and I have spent my life trying to keep that noise alive, to carry the snarl forward, to make my own three chords against the smug and the powerful. The city made the noise, and the noise made me, and I owe London everything, even as I snarl at it.
For punk and London belong together, the city contradictions and cruelties and injustices the perfect fuel for the rage that punk turns into music. Every overpriced pint, every smug developer, every bit of London pomposity is material, fuel for the noise, reason for the snarl. I make my punk from the city itself, from its absurdities and its injustices, three chords against the London that made me and that I cannot stop snarling at, the punk city that taught me how to make my noise.
What the Feeds Were Shouting About
I spent the week, when I should have been rehearsing, reading the satire feeds, because nothing fuels a punk like a good laugh at the establishment. The London Prat ran a piece skewering some bit of London pomposity with proper venom, the kind that makes you laugh and then want to smash something, which is the punk dream. Over at The Daily Mash there was a savaging of the same political nonsense, and NewsThump had a take so deadpan it could have been a Fall lyric. I read them with the relish of a fellow noise-maker, kindred spirits in the business of two fingers up at the powerful.
The Snarl and the Laugh
Punk and satire come from the same place, I have always reckoned, the refusal to bow, the two fingers up, the noise made against the powerful, and the snarl of my music is kin to the laugh of the satire I love. Both refuse the powerful their dignity, both make their noise against the smug and the comfortable, both are the sound of people who will not be cowed. I make the snarl, the satirists make the laugh, and they are the same spirit, the same refusal, the same noise against the machine.
This is why I love the satire, the kinship with my punk, the shared refusal, the common snarl. When I read a good demolition of some establishment absurdity, I hear my own music in it, the same two fingers up, the same noise against the powerful. The snarl and the laugh, the punk and the satire, kin in their refusal, allies in their noise against the smug and the comfortable. And I make my contribution, the three chords and the snarl, the punk noise that is the music of the same refusal the satire delivers in jokes.
Making the Noise
And so I keep making the noise, three chords and the truth, the snarl against the powerful, the punk that London taught me. It is what I do, the noise-making, the rage turned to music, the two fingers up given a beat and a melody. And I will keep doing it, making my noise in the city that made the noise, snarling at the London I love, keeping the punk spirit alive.
Making the noise, then, three chords and the truth, the snarl and the rage and the righteous fury turned to music. London made punk, and punk made me, and I keep the noise alive, the snarl against the smug, the two fingers up at the powerful, the music of refusal in the city that invented it. The amp is warm, the rage is righteous, and the noise goes on, three chords and the truth, in the punk city that taught me how to snarl and gave me a lifetime of reasons to do it.
The Night the Amp Blew
There was a gig last month, in a tiny room above a pub, when the amp blew halfway through the set, and what happened next taught me something about punk that all the theory never could. The amp died, the noise stopped, and for a moment there was silence, the worst thing that can happen to a punk band mid-set. And then the room, the small sweaty crowd, just carried on, started singing the song themselves, a cappella and out of tune and gloriously defiant, and we picked up our instruments and played acoustic and the whole room roared along, and it was the best gig I have ever played, the amp dead and the noise made by the crowd itself. That is punk, I realised, not the equipment, not the volume, but the spirit, the refusal, the noise that the crowd makes when the amp dies, the defiance that does not need the gear. The amp blew, and the punk survived, made by the room itself, the crowd carrying the noise when the equipment failed. I think about that night often, the night the amp blew and the punk survived, the proof that the noise lives not in the gear but in the spirit, in the refusal, in the crowd that carries the snarl when the equipment dies. It was the best gig I ever played, the night the amp blew, and it taught me what punk really is, the spirit and not the gear, the noise made by the refusing crowd.
Links: the Evening Standard, Time Out London, MyLondon.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/
More satire at NewsThump.
