Postpunk :S. Reynolds piece in Uncut

Uncut Magazine: Simon Reynolds Post-Punk article and a bizarre NME advert

I bought the new Uncut Magazine today - definately worth buying alone for Simon Reynolds analytical article on post-punk: including a roll call of Cabaret Voltaire, PIL, This Heat, Gang of Four, The Pop Group, ACR, The Fall, Orange Juice, Josef K, Joy Division and Scritti Politti. [There are some excellent photographs too: John Lydon on stage, Cabaret Voltaire looking gloomy, A Certain Ratio on stage in shorts, Orange Juice looking innocent, Scritti Politti looking arty and from another planet, Gang of Four getting angst ridden on stage and a picture of PIL in 1979 looking pensive]

My only complaint is that the following bands/artists were not mentioned:

XTC, The Stranglers, The Sound, The Comsat Angels, Modern English, Matt Johnson, UK Decay, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Dif Juz, Durutti Column, Magazine, Passions, Rudimentary Peni, The Ruts, early Simple Minds, Young Marble Giants, Virgin Prunes and New Order's Movement.

and these artists were reduced to a few mentions: when they should have been expanded on:

Killing Joke, The Cure, Bauhaus, Section 25 and Wire.

Simon Reynolds has listed as coming soon on his website Independents Day: Post-Punk 1978-81 (one day, honest!) - which will probably be an extended version of the Uncut article. I look forward to it!

Judging solely by DJ Martian's comments, I think Reynolds' roll call is spot on. But I shall immediately now hunt down the article. May have more comments another day.

It looks like he concentrated on the experimental end of things -- hence no XTC, Stranglers, Killing Joke, etc.

Edna, you mentioned this to me the other day and I thought then as I think now: this is a Reynolds gag. Of course, having not read the article, I don't have the benefit of context, but then neither do Reynolds gags, generally. Then just pop up and then scurry away, and you're left thinking 'was he trying to be funny there?'.

Its a terrible overview of the period, skipping chronology to make some sort of false unifying theme when the exciting things was the lack of unifying themes. The Human League were on the same record lable as the Gang of Four and often played gigs with them. You got to be a fan of both too - I was. There was no 'post punk' versus 'ska/2tone' either.

Reynolds writing is much better as individual career guides for some of the main bands he focuses on but without exception he messes up even that when he tries to plug them into his useless grand unified theory. Each of the four bands he focuses on (Pil, Gof4, Pop Group, Scritti) would have been better served by having an article unshackled by his too-tidy, faux-linear, cause and effect re-writing of the history.

The description of regional scenes is bitty and especially frustrating given his insistence of how important they were, listing a few names didn't give much of an idea of the lack of a unified sound, indeed it does the opposite - Josef K are lumped with Associates by geography and attitude, but they WEREN'T close in terms of music.

At the end of the article he has to explain how C81 became new pop and his crumbling argument needs to rest on Green Gartside having to rest up after an illness. He states that all post punk had as off limits influences "almost all of the sixties and early 70s" which is just dumb. He describes that bands embraced the major lable system after Scritti signing, having happily skipped over Gof4 being on EMI for most of the period.

There are loads of interesting music turning up in this period and a lot of it doesn't fit into Reynolds thesis, Magazine and Simple Minds (up to I Travel) have already been mentioned. It might have been conveinient to ignore the rise of U2 but it looks like willful avoidance in Reynolds piece.

I still dislike Reynolds' writing, I dislike his simplistic and compartmentalised history even more.

Surely a joke? Quite a good one too. What is Edna on about?

anyway I'll read it on his site since I don't have a strong opinion on the subject matter. Still, I am getting tired of these look-backs at scenes, more a case of making sure everything becomes meaningless than exciting reinterpretation (surely due to very personal state of mind, it all feels dead, re-issued to fuck.) Now a reinterpretation of Continental Techno Pop 1979-1982: that would be a breath of fresh air. Can't escape the feeling Reynolds has been moving towards this piece for awhile, as a result of his love for Radiohead. He seems to almost want to *will* a post-techno scene into existence around Radiohead, modelled after the post-punk scene (probably he mentions it in the article, yes?). I don't see it happen, these things never form following old models. Besides England seems to have other things on its mind if I'm not mistaken. Still, I'm very much in favour of pipe dreams. ;)

2. Pinefox clone - how?

3. I have to say, I'm with Edna on demystification. It's a 'joke', but - a very poor 'joke', no?

omar is right that if you reassess a defined scene all you do is asset-strip it for the present marketplace: what actually needs to be done is for all of rock from c.1952 to 2001 to be properly reassessed. Of course i cd have acheved this long ago if I hadn't spent a year killing a year on ILM.

baby steps, baby steps.

I also think that the whole of literary history from c.dot to 2001 need to be *expertly* - and also *carefully* reread. So does the history of cinema - that urgently needs to be *diligently reviewed*. As for the history of food and cook-books, they need to be *crunched anew*, in the *full glare of the Oven-Light of Enlightenment*.

SR buying old music papers from 1980s surely = best image in ages.

also as I have mentioned before you can visit the National Sound Archive library in London to browse through decades of old copies of NME, MM and Sounds etc.

It's hard to think of anything more depressing.