Punk was one of those things that made music critics tingly. \u00a0And it made people wanted to be music critics tinglier. \u00a0And among whiny adolescents and post-adolescents – like I was, in 1982 or thereabouts – that accounted for a lot of us.<\/p>\n
At the roots of Brit punk were…<\/p>\n
And after the first wave of the punks splintered and washed away, they were replaced in Britain by a new wave of kids; they replaced the pretentious nihilism of the Sid and Nancy set with a sense of…<\/p>\n
…purpose? \u00a0A sense of mission that veered into stridency and bombast that could get just as pretentious as the worst of Malcolm MacLaren’s arty nihilism?<\/p>\n
Sure. \u00a0But we’re getting way ahead of ourselves.<\/p>\n
In the wake of the collapse of punk in the early eighties came a wave of musicians that were marinaded in punk rock – but also had missions. \u00a0Sometimes very different missions. \u00a0And they were British – but not English.<\/p>\n
From Wales came The Alarm – who married manic energy and relentless hyperromanticized post-adolescent socialist “revolutionary” rhetoric\u00a0into a mix that fearlessly walked the tightwire between thrilling…<\/p>\n