England's Dreaming: Jon Savage

Product Information

To me, being 22, 23 and being new to London, reading this recent history of London, I just remember thinking this is brilliant. Now all three are being reissued next month with updated introductions from Savage, Jeremy Deller and Scott King, THE FACE sat down with the author to pick his brains on what ayear locked-up might portend for the kids of tomorrow. Also -- and this is why I don't actually read books I don't like v often -- I have to compulsively finish a book once I start it, or it really fucking bugs me. JD: As middle-aged men, we are marinated in pop music, and we need to come to terms with the fact that we are potentially doomed to obsess over Top Of The Pops performances, B-sides and album covers.

Jon Savage - Wikipedia Jon Savage - Wikipedia

I was too young for punk the first time around, but following my early teen heavy metal stage, I got into it in later years.

I immediately thought I’ve got to at least try and do something, rather than get a job in advertising, selling spaghetti hoops. Savage was there from the beginning as a teenager in Manchester and offers firsthand knowledge of his subject. Another interesting point is that the music is very working-class and masculine but the bands spent a lot of time at gay bars and with gays, lesbians, and the generally androgynous - more discussion of first-gen punk's relation with gender and sexuality would have also been interesting. Highly recommended to anyone who likes the music or wants to know more about a strand of music and fashion that changed music, the industry, society and the people involved. In these times of woeful X Factor/Pop Idol karaoke, manufactured dross I yearn for something to reset the social agenda again.

England’s Dreaming introduced me to the power of urban

When I first read this, I was reading Jon Savage writing in 1991 looking back at her refusing to look back in 1974; and to remember why this interested me, I suppose I have to look back at myself in 1997. Much of this essay is taken from the longer book, “England Dreaming: The Sex Pistols and Punk Rock,” and this is certainly an interesting introduction to that era. I realise that even the briefest of historical moments can be long and winding when written about, and I appreciated all the precursory info about McLaren and Sex, and the most enjoyable for me was middle of the book, the section about the Pistols forming and gathering momentum; punk gathering momentum. The big problem is – and I hint at this in my Teenage introduction – since 1945 we’ve been living in a post-Second World War reconstruction, dominated by America and the idea of the teenager, which is the young Democratic consumer.I knew going in that this book had a mixed reputation for being both exhaustive in its coverage while also a tedious and dull read. Riveting stuff and almost enough to make you forget that the promise of the irony in the title isn't quite realised. It's taken me a while to get through this, not because the book was dull or hard work, but because of the sheer volume of information inside, covering a relatively short time span. They fucked it up because it wouldn’t let them express themselves, and in the process destroyed all the preconditions – indulgent art schools, a decent rate of dole, a cheap London and Manchester of council flats and squats – that made punk possible. One of the interesting contrasts was how much UK punk centered around fashion, something that I was only vaguely aware of before.

How England’s Dreaming told the definitive story of London punk

Asked to work out something for the climactic dream sequence where the Jewish composer confronts his Aryan anima. I think it’s very important; that kind of “entryism” into the mass media is crucial to the Sex Pistols’ story. Jeremy Deller: It’s not often that you remember reading a book, but I distinctly remember reading England’s Dreaming. That these odd punk characters were effectively allowed to have the national stage for three minutes to address the nation makes a TV show like Top Of The Pops more like a news programme. There are stories of amphetamine use, the sheer joy of provoking a reaction, violence at early gigs and being banned from just about everywhere.Throughout the decade, Savage wrote for The Observer and the New Statesman, providing high-brow commentary on popular culture. This fascinating account of the creation of one of music's most notorious and influential bands during the economic meltdown of 70's England is one of the best music books I have ever read. JD: For me, McLaren’s greatest artwork is the game he played with the press and record companies, getting those two recording contracts in quick succession and then walking away with the money.