Another Tuneless Racket: Punk And New Wave In The Seventies, Volume One: Origins

by Steven H. Gardner

From the perspective of pop music, the Seventies are too often regarded as the weak sister to the Sixties. But those of us who followed the punk and new wave explosion of the last four years of the Seventies don’t buy this assessment. Just because those late Seventies bands didn’t get airplay and sell records like the Sixties bands, and in their later years didn’t become the establishment as the members of the Sixties generation did, it doesn’t mean the punk and new wave bands were any less artistically valid or less fun to listen to. If you could pull your ear away from consumer-oriented rock bands of the era and were willing to exercise a little independence, you could hear exciting and boundary stretching music from a legion of groups from around the world, all of them inspired by an idea whose time had come. The volumes comprising the Another Tuneless Racket series of books is the story of that idea and what thousands of innovative and intriguing people were able to make from it.

Despite the common view of punk as nihilistic and destructive, the reality was that to be a punk in the Seventies demanded creativity and the courage to try to do things that you weren’t supposed to be able to do. Patti Smith “This is the era when everyone creates”, and truer words were never said. It was an era where people took chances, where they ignored demands for professionalism, where they learned to play on their own using the bare minimum of equipment, where they built their own scenes, launched fanzines, record labels, and venues, where they went around barriers of major label contracts, distribution channels, and tour circuits. Punk demanded activity; you had to get involved and make things happen. When people said something couldn’t be done, you did it anyway. The only way to fail was not to try.

This volume one, subtitled Origins, attempts to explain how punk evolved out of the fading embers of mid-Seventies rock’n’roll. It covers the pioneering bands that, starting around 1975, reclaimed rock music for a new generation. It provides long, detailed chapters on Dr. Feelgood, The Dictators, Patti Smith, The Modern Lovers, The Real Kids, The Ramones, Graham Parker and the Rumour, Little Bob Story, Deaf School, The Count Bishops, Eddie and the Hot Rods, Blondie, The Saints, Television, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, The Damned, Ultravox, and the Stranglers, setting the stage for the next volume to cover the big name punk and new wave bands that followed rapidly in their footsteps.

Another Tuneless Racket is an attempt to give something back to the music author Steve Gardner has loved best. Gardner turned twenty years of age in mid-1975, and followed punk music religiously during the Seventies. In 1980 he launched the highly regarded fanzine, Noise For Heroes, publishing twenty-three physical issues before switching to a web format in the 1990s (Noise For Heroes is compiled in three volumes, also available on Amazon). Later Gardner contributed to the Big Takeover, the Bob, and several other music fanzines. In writing Another Tuneless Racket, he has drawn from resources including a large personal collection of punk, new wave, and rock magazines of the period, and research from the British Library in London, the State Library of New South Wales in Sydney, and the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne.

472 pages, Paperback

Published April 13, 2020

Reviews

[Ray Smillie · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all, I was pleased that Ultravox got a mention. The John Foxx version. One of my favourite all time bands whom I saw in their second last UK gig. Secondly, the author shows some excellent knowledge of the UK scene for an American. Don't always agree with his opinions, mostly re the Stranglers, but this has obviously been a labour of love for Steven H Gardner and very well researched. Got this and the two sequels for my birthday. Very much looking forward to reading books two and three.