Pretty Vacant: A History of UK Punk

by Phil Strongman

London, early 1976. Oxford Street is a sea of long hair and flared jeans; prog rock prevails. But Ron Watts, the 100 Club’s “rock night” manager, has witnessed the impromptu and chaotic gigs at High Wycombe College of Art. He invites the Sex Pistols to start a residency in central London, and over the next eighteen months, everything changes.

            Unlike many writers, Phil Strongman was actually at the 100 Club punk festival in September 1976 and witnessed punk’s violent and dramatic rise. After tracing its underground roots in New York and Detroit, Strongman shows how the Sex Pistols and the Clash, along with their confreres, took rock ’n’ roll closer to the edge than any band before them. But after the outrage over the Pistols’ legendary outburst on Bill Grundy’s TV show catapulted the band into the center of a press feeding frenzy, it was swiftly eclipsed by the blossoming of a new movement in time for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. Punk had traveled from the underground to the mainstream in the space of six months.

            Based on new interviews with Malcolm McLaren, Jah Wobble, Glen Matlock, Roadent, and many more, Strongman vividly re-creates the punk eruption and charts its spread across Britain and to the West Coast of the United States. Thirty years after its inception, UK punk has found its definitive account in Pretty Vacant.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Punk, Cultural, History

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting book about punk but was still stuck in the US origins of the genre for ages

[Manny · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wrote a long review on a certain event that was brought up in this book. I realized it was confusing and a bit rambly, so I decided to scrap it and keep it for myself. What I'll say here is that: the book was a decent overview of punk music but did not go into as much depth as I wanted. There were also some incidents in the book that only presented one side of a story. When, in real life, there are multiple conflicting viewpoints. I would have liked the author to at least mention the existence of these conflicting viewpoints to give a well-rounded version of what happened.

[Stephen McQuiggan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid, if narrow, history of punk, picking up speed (ahem) at the 100 club and CBGB's before exploding 26 months later in death, murder, and cries of sellout. Not as pretentious as some books on the subject and whilst covering the more well known aspects of the story also manages to throw in some lesser known vignettes; Lydon trying to conjure up Satan in Highgate cemetery for instance. Strongman also states, as if fact, that Rockets Redglare was the killer of Nancy Spungen, and offers up evidence to back his claim. But where are Crass? Why are they constantly written out of punk history when even The Dickies get a namecheck here for godsake.

[Steve Fenton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thorough exploration of the the twisted roots and ripples through time of punk. Captures and contrasts the hope and the tragedy of it all.

[Steve Loft · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice read, few things in it I was unaware of, but lost one star due to no mention of Crass who were key as outliers in the movement and true anarchists.

[Mayowa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every Christian needs this for a Christian home. Well done.

[Steven Vinnicombe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Punk / warts and all.

A very good read cataloging the rise of punk rock .
Some interesting insights into an influential musical genre and movement.
Well worth reading.

[Roz · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting, if narrow and shallow, history of late 70s punk, Pretty Vacant is a decent read about the times when the Sex Pistols grabbed newspaper headlines and sparked riots in clubs. His book is more or less about two of the most successful bands to emerge from the scene - the Pistols and The Clash - but it occasionally touches on other scenes, too: proto-punk acts like the MC5, The Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop and (somewhat oddly) Dr. Feelgood.

And that's one of the biggest weaknesses to this work. As a genre, punk is a pretty limiting scene, but as a concept it's much more encompassing and important in the history of pop music. It opened doors for bands on both sides of the Atlantic: Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson and The Talking Heads, not to mention the movements it inspired, like hardcore, ska or the entire 80s underground. But here Strongman's book focuses so much on just two bands (and mostly on the Pistols at that), it's easy to miss his quick references to these bands, who often appear only once or twice. Hell, The Damned actually released New Rose before the Pistols' first single and they're barely mentioned at all.

But here also lies the book's strengths: Strongman's not only a fan, he's someone who had been around the Pistols since almost the beginning, having seen their gigs at the 100 Club. The book's best parts are the ones where he recreates the scene of 1976 and 77, when the Pistols played chaotic live gigs, swore on TV and were treated with huge newspaper headlines like "THE FILTH AND THE FURY!" While the book loses a lot of steam in it's last, post-Pistols chapters (The Clash's London Calling is all but washed away in a few lines) and there isn't a ton to be learned from it that isn't related elsewhere, it's still an interesting read from someone who was there and unlike many of the people quoted or referenced, is still around to tell us about it.

[Spiros · Rating 3 out of 5]

A useful overview of UK punk, starting with a brilliant, two chapter summation of Leg's McNeil's PLEASE KILL ME to explain punk's genesis in New York, then giving an account of the pub-rock bands of the early 1970's, then progressing through the careers of the Sex Pistols and Clash, with quick side trips to the "Bromley contingent", Manchester, Birmingham, Dublin, Belfast, Australia, and even LA and SF. Altogether, a valuable Cliff's Notes guide to punk.
Where the book runs into problems: a tendancy to go backwards and forwards chronologically, which becomes a bit precious; the fact that, bizarrely in a book on punk, all the swear words are "bleeped" out; and the irritating foible that the author doesn't seem to know which songs are on which Clash albums (to be fair, I read an advanced reading copy, so perhaps those inaccuracies were corrected in the trade release, but still). Strongman presents a plausible case that Rockets Redglare killed Nancy Spungen, and a somewhat less plausible case that he supplied Sid with his fatal overdose; I'm not sure that Rockets had the juice to get "98% pure" heroin in "drug starved" New York, and both Eileen Polk and Eliot Kidd, in PLEASE KILL ME, mention "some English guy" who supplied Sid with the dope. Also, Strongman states that Ann Beverley scattered Sid's ashes around Heathrow, whereas Eileen Polk, who was there, states that Ann scattered Sid's ashes on Nancy's grave in Philadelphia.

[Surfing Moose · Rating 2 out of 5]

First, the book was good and insightful, hence it would have received a 3 star rating. Second, copy editor, copy editor, copy editor, why oh why is not more time and money spent on a good copy editor. Quite a few sentences needed to be reread to make sure I read what I read. Third, my copy was censored! All the nasty words where censored thusly, f--k. You still get the point but it is a book about Punk. It is just wrong. Dropped to a 2 star.

[Ed Wagemann]

Why Everything You Think You Know About Punk Is Completely Wrong:
http://generation-add.blogspot.com/20...

[Mellissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really, really light read about UK Punk. It's a good taste of UK punk if you just want to know a little about the Sex Pistols, Debbie Harry etc. It gives you a good definition of who really started out as punk. But if you want a deeper look into punk I think individual bios are in order!

[Julián · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although it certainly is an UK-Centric history of punk, Pretty Vacant has two merits. One: It was written by someone who was there and Two: It manages to debunk some long-standing myths about punk and also provides a convincing theory regarding the death of Nancy Spungen.

[Cody · Rating 1 out of 5]

blecch.

[jessica jaworski · Rating 3 out of 5]

very nice, concise history of the beginnings of UK punk. it all started with the sex pistols. good history of the punk movement from its inception to its petering out to its revival.

[Alejo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Falla en algunos datos, y se concentra demasiado en los Sex Pistols.

[Francisco Munive · Rating 5 out of 5]

un excelente libro