Included in the series more because the critique comes from a well-informed position (SWP member conversant with Brecht etc) yet advances a stance contrary to the now historically sanctioned viewpoint (here it is arty postpunk that's deemed is the wrong direction out of punk, the diversion of energy). Instead of "rip it up and start again", it's more like "reiterate it and stay street".
Was Garry Bushell really an SWP-er? I think of him as a very mainstream Thatcherite working class Conservative. I guess the 80s changed him, as they did many people.
ReplyDeleteThanks to his pretty extensive Wikipedia entry, I learn that in the 21st century he has been more of a Ukipper than an orthodox Conservative. Opposition to the EU, and the liberal establishment in general, constituting the through-line in his evolution from the Daily Worker to the Daily Star.
DeleteBeyond politics, Wikipedia informed me that he got Twisted Sister signed to Secret Records in the UK. (Their album for Secret, UNDER THE BLADE, is actually worth a listen: thuggish, sped-up glam rock with a debt to Slade, Cheap Trick and the Sweet.)
ReplyDeleteI rather like "We're Not Going To Take It" and "I Wanna Rock" - or whatever the titles actually are. They are in the tradition of Slade / Sweet.
ReplyDeleteAlso: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-30/clive-palmer-loses-twisted-sister-copyright-case/100106262
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