1977
Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2005 7:05 amI've had an urge to write about this for a while now, so it may as well be here.
Thrash me for being a nostalgic old fuck if you want.
I've always been a music freak. Go back to The Beatles, The Who and The Stones and The Kinks, Led Zep, Hendrix, from the early 60's on, if it was rock, I listened to it.
And I loved all those bands and more.
But in 1977, living in Boston, I heard the Sex Pistols and the Jam and the Clash and the Buzzcocks and a lot of other bands that changed the way I listened to music, changed the way I looked at others, changed the way I thought.
Suddenly I was in the middle of a lot of people I understood. I hadn't experienced that before. Sure, a friend here, a friend there, but not a common mentality with a large group of people.
I was 25 and for the first time I felt like I belonged somewhere. I'm going to fail to convey how it felt because I don't know if words can do it.
But I'll try.
We had our uniforms, we liked to think we didn't, but the leather, safety pins, ripped t-shirts and buttons were a uniform of a sort. But they didn't matter that much, many of us just wore jeans and t shirts or whatever.
Hundreds of us out almost every night. We didn't always know each others names, but the faces we did. And we knew where we wanted to be.
And it wasn't the happy hippie shit of Deadheads or Phish fans. There was definitely an undercurrent of anger, but not at each other.
And yes, we had our share of idiots and troublemakers. But they never had a great affect on most of us. Even the idiots got along well.
Yeah, there are plenty of club scenes etc. that can be said the same of. But I've seen them over the years between now and then and they just aren't the same.
I'm not knocking anyone else's experiences, but I still go to clubs to see bands and it's different.
I remember all of us waiting on pins and needles for these bands to come to town or for their next record. It was heady stuff for an entire community of people to be almost of one mind about something like music.
When the Sex Pistols toured they skipped Boston and I still recall hundreds of us networking to find ways to Birmingham, AL or Texas to see them. It was insane.
I saw most of the bands from that time, the Clash, the Pistols, the Jam. And if you missed them you were an object of sympathy.
Bands popped up among us, people who had no experience playing music suddenly picked up guitars and began to play.
And it didn't matter if you were any good or not, what mattered was you had something to express, you were inspired.
I still follow music closely. I love a lot of music that's come out in the years since and much of it means quite a bit to me.
But no bands since that time have had my stomach churning waiting for more.
Hundreds of people's stomachs churning.
A little over a year ago Joe Strummer died. I remember Hendrix, Lennon, Morrison dying. All their deaths saddened me, but I never shed a tear.
But when I heard about Strummer I suddenly found myself crying like a baby. Joe was my age when he died. I'm still not sure if I was crying for the times, for Joe or for myself. But I think it seemed like the end of an era to me.
Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade what I have now to return to then or to have that feeling again. I've been blessed with children I love and good things in my life.
But.
I dearly miss that time in my life.
I miss the unity of thought and purpose even if we didn't exactly know what our purpose was.
I miss belonging.
Thrash me for being a nostalgic old fuck if you want.
I've always been a music freak. Go back to The Beatles, The Who and The Stones and The Kinks, Led Zep, Hendrix, from the early 60's on, if it was rock, I listened to it.
And I loved all those bands and more.
But in 1977, living in Boston, I heard the Sex Pistols and the Jam and the Clash and the Buzzcocks and a lot of other bands that changed the way I listened to music, changed the way I looked at others, changed the way I thought.
Suddenly I was in the middle of a lot of people I understood. I hadn't experienced that before. Sure, a friend here, a friend there, but not a common mentality with a large group of people.
I was 25 and for the first time I felt like I belonged somewhere. I'm going to fail to convey how it felt because I don't know if words can do it.
But I'll try.
We had our uniforms, we liked to think we didn't, but the leather, safety pins, ripped t-shirts and buttons were a uniform of a sort. But they didn't matter that much, many of us just wore jeans and t shirts or whatever.
Hundreds of us out almost every night. We didn't always know each others names, but the faces we did. And we knew where we wanted to be.
And it wasn't the happy hippie shit of Deadheads or Phish fans. There was definitely an undercurrent of anger, but not at each other.
And yes, we had our share of idiots and troublemakers. But they never had a great affect on most of us. Even the idiots got along well.
Yeah, there are plenty of club scenes etc. that can be said the same of. But I've seen them over the years between now and then and they just aren't the same.
I'm not knocking anyone else's experiences, but I still go to clubs to see bands and it's different.
I remember all of us waiting on pins and needles for these bands to come to town or for their next record. It was heady stuff for an entire community of people to be almost of one mind about something like music.
When the Sex Pistols toured they skipped Boston and I still recall hundreds of us networking to find ways to Birmingham, AL or Texas to see them. It was insane.
I saw most of the bands from that time, the Clash, the Pistols, the Jam. And if you missed them you were an object of sympathy.
Bands popped up among us, people who had no experience playing music suddenly picked up guitars and began to play.
And it didn't matter if you were any good or not, what mattered was you had something to express, you were inspired.
I still follow music closely. I love a lot of music that's come out in the years since and much of it means quite a bit to me.
But no bands since that time have had my stomach churning waiting for more.
Hundreds of people's stomachs churning.
A little over a year ago Joe Strummer died. I remember Hendrix, Lennon, Morrison dying. All their deaths saddened me, but I never shed a tear.
But when I heard about Strummer I suddenly found myself crying like a baby. Joe was my age when he died. I'm still not sure if I was crying for the times, for Joe or for myself. But I think it seemed like the end of an era to me.
Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade what I have now to return to then or to have that feeling again. I've been blessed with children I love and good things in my life.
But.
I dearly miss that time in my life.
I miss the unity of thought and purpose even if we didn't exactly know what our purpose was.
I miss belonging.
