Sunday, January 25, 2009

We Are The Goon Squad And We're Coming To Town

Yesterday I bought some new glasses. I asked the assistant in Boots if frame fashion had changed since I bought my last pair a little over two years ago. Apparently frames have got thicker. I opted for a thin-framed pair.

I've never been fashionable. Men being fashionable reminds me too much of Robert Elms.

Elms was spouting his usual nonsense on Style On Trial: The 70s. He said that anybody who says punk was about the music doesn't know what they're talking about. Punk was about fashion and punk fashion was over in three months. When middle class kids in Doctor Martens got involved, punk was dead.

Elms always talks as if his experience of life is the only true history. Punk wasn't just about cool kids shopping in West London. It was about kids all over the country starting bands, something which hadn't happened since the golden days of skiffle. You didn't get bands like Buzzcocks, Subway Sect and The Fall dressing in Vivienne Westwood clobber. While Elms was changing out of his punk gear into his nascent new romantic outfits, punk morphed into post-punk and pop music entered a truly great phase.

8 comments:

  1. My frames are 10 years old.. they'll be back in fashion soon.
    Sx

    ReplyDelete
  2. It sounds like a classic "it was all good until the masses got involved" line.

    Bah.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Have you read 'Rip It Up and Start Again' by Simon Reynolds? I bet you have, but if not you'd like it.

    I can't remember much directly about that era, it's mostly secondhand. I remember seeing Elvis Costelloe on Top of the Pops as a kid and thinking he was the ugliest man I'd ever seen. Now I think he looked quite foxy.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Scarlet - It wasn't so long ago that frames were minimalist. Now they're bold! I didn't go for the designer frames as they all had the brand names in big letters on them. I'm a Boots own boy!

    Billy - It was the same with Spandau Ballet. If you weren't there at the Blitz Club that night you just didn't get it.

    Annie - That book's waiting for me in our spare bedroom. Elvis wasn't the ugliest man that ever lived. That was Sting!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Are you suggesting that I toss my Docs?

    You should have asked before ordering glasses..we've been ordering from zennioptical.com..
    it may be childlabour sweatshop manufacturing but you can purchase glasses in the latest styles ranging in price from $8 to $30...seriously!

    ReplyDelete
  6. He shoots, he scores! Spot on, Geoff.

    Elms was, is and always will be a king-sized bore. Anyone who thinks (like McLaren) that punk was over just because they got tired with it misses the point entirely.

    Punk's not dead in our house, although it does need a nice nap in the afternoon these days.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I posted a comment here last night - something to do with Pete Shelley committing acts of violence on Robert Elms.
    I probably forgot to press the button.

    ReplyDelete
  8. HE - I don't trust Specsavers to get my glasses right let alone somewhere I can't visit!

    Malc - One of the things wrong with the BBC is this jobs for life nonsense. Elms will be pontificating in his dotage. His wikipedia entry is very entertaining, though. I don't think Chris Morris is a fan.

    Kaz - Pete's got more style in his little finger than Elms ever had.

    ReplyDelete