Still coming down from our recent long weekend in Manchester and the magnificence of the Southern Cemetery, and following on from my Joy Division cemetery trail, I have one more Manchester related post to make for now.
This post also acknowledges the sad demise of the punktorrents site, a source of some great audio and visual unofficial material.
It was now 38 years ago that ITV (I think it was) put together a TV programme to mark the 10th anniversary of punk. In the summer of 1986 I was 17 and very receptive to this music, some of which I was familiar with, some of which I was hearing for the first time. Certainly I had heard of all of the bands as a lot of them were still active in 1986 and still enjoying a degree of popularity (Siouxsie & The Banshees, The Stranglers and Elvis Costello), other bands such as The Jam has called it a day within the last few years. The Clash whilst split were still very active individually (Joe Strummer was playing as were Big Audio Dynamite and Havana 3AM). What was new to me was some of the footage.
The footage that featured in this new anniversary compilation drew together live footage and interview clips from the Granada TV arts and entertainment magazine show, 'So It Goes' that ran for two series between July 1976 and December 1977. As such it spanned the full lifetime of the first wave of British punk. The music part of the programming was presented by Tony Wilson, who used his influence at the station to get the 'new music' on to television and into young people's homes, whether the parents liked it or not. The Granada cameras couldn't have been better placed to capture the energy and exuberance of that first wave, warts and all (or should that be gob and all).
The programme that I saw (and subsequent rehashes) featured some of my favourite punk footage of all time, The Clash performing 'What's My Name' under a monsoon of phegm (always one of my favourite Clash songs), Buzzcocks with 'What Do I Get? ('Don't gob at me!') and of course the first TV exposure for the Pistols with a blistering studio rendition of 'Anarchy'.
In the intervening years since 1986, the footage has appeared in various forms, both officially and unofficially. An official VHS video entitled 'Punk' was released in 1992 featured The Stranglers performing 'Something Better Change' and 'No More Heroes' at the Hope & Anchor, as well as alternative tracks from Siouxsie and The Jam for example.
The two disc version included here was obtained from Punktorrents and has been brilliantly authoured with menus by Bandit999. The set features all six episodes that formed the 'Anarchy In Manchester' series. This series was newly compiled with narration from John Cooper Clarke and broadcast in 2014 on Sky Arts.
It cannot be considered to be the definitive collection because quite a few additional performances appear on different DVD/VHS variants, but it is pretty damn good and the quality is excellent.
The big surprise here, given that it is all about Manchester and 'So It Goes' was Tony Wilson's baby is that the compilers of this latest collection omitted to include the Joy Division appearance on the show where they performed 'Shadowplay'.
See what you think.
Disc 1 image: https://we.tl/t-yyR5LMFbsq
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-sHb0QguhC4
Disc 2 image:https://we.tl/t-eSUFy0VpZl
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-P2qCHTrIu8
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Thanks again.