I HAIGHT THE RICH
If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some spikes in your hair. The Bay Area may be known for hippies, but it was also a punk hotbed, and the 70s scene’s releases are increasingly sought-after. Richie Unterberger knows why…
When the Sex Pistols took the stage for their final show with Sid Vicious at San Francisco’s Winterland on the 14 January 1978, it seemed the most unlikely place in the world for the most notorious punk band of all to play their not-so-grand finale. But at a time when many sizeable US towns didn’t even have a pair of punk bands within their city limits, the Bay Area was bubbling over with punk acts. Two of them, The Nuns and The Avengers, opened the Sex Pistols concert with scabrous album-length sets (now available to hear for free at wolfgangsvault. com). “Ask not what you can do for your country, what’s your country doing to you!” yelled lead singer Penelope Houston as The Avengers launched into the chorus of their classic opening number, The American In Me.
Outside of New York and perhaps Los Angeles, no metropolis in North America had a more active punk scene in the late 70s than the San Francisco Bay Area. No US punk scene, other than New York’s, was more diverse, with standard bash-it-out three-chord wonders sharing space with early synth-punk and post-punk pioneers, punkish power poppers, and proto-hardcore outfits. Yet the very uncompromising idiosyncrasy that was its distinguishing trademark limited its commercial and international impact. Virtually none of the bands landed …
by Richie Unterberger
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