LONDON’S BURNING

Animated recollections of punk rock’s meteoric ascension in 1970s London.

In 1976, Thompson (I Hate New Music: The Classic Rock Manifesto, 2008, etc.) was a teenager on the brink of finishing boarding school who spent most of his free time attending small rock shows and scouring local record shops for new singles. That May, American Patti Smith’s incendiary deconstruction of Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe” on the BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test, followed by live performances in London, ignited the British punk movement, which the author fervently followed. Thompson’s history finds its backbone in the legendary antics of the Sex Pistols, whose arc of success corresponds loosely to the 16 months covered here. A large supporting cast surrounds the central story, notably the Pistol’s shrewd manager, Malcolm McLaren, and the band’s stiffest competition, the Damned. The author, who attended a seemingly endless number of shows during this period, lovingly recounts the history, music and performances of many acts, including the Stranglers, the Adverts, the Maniacs, Rikki and the Last Days of Earth and many more. While punk enthusiasts may note a few omissions—there’s relatively little on the Clash, almost nothing on Wire—this is a personal history, and the highlighted acts are specific to Thompson’s life and tastes. Throughout the narrative, he deftly interweaves his own experiences, from life on the dole to violent race riots, to ground readers in the depressed cultural soil from which punk’s rank flowers grew. Reggae and American punk also make appearances via rich descriptions of concerts by the Ramones and Iggy Pop, as well as a frightening narrative of the Mighty Diamonds’ failure at England’s famed Reading festival.

The wealth of detail becomes somewhat tiresome, but fans of the genre will relish this chronicle from an insider’s perspective.