LONDON LIFES 12
SAVAGE CLINKING

Savage Clinking is a punk-historian, and is the author of almost two books on the music and politics of the era, featuring random use of capitals and some photos of Sid Vicious falling over.

So, farewell then, Hammersmith Palais, venue of PUNK Legends. Long may you ROT in peace! I was there when THE PISTOLS told THE QUEEN to shove it up her annus horriblis! I was there when JOE and THE CLASH city rockers contracted Hepatitis B from a stage-bound tsunami of SPIT! And it was at the Hammersmith Palais, watching Lydon’s PIL in ’78, amidst a tidal wave of pogoing punks, cheering, shouting, jerring, and LIVING in the MOMENT for THE NOW, that I realiseed that what PUNK really needed was to be carefully documented using accurately cited references to the major cultural, social and political movements of the 20th century in a seven or eight hundred page academic book with copious footnotes and appendix of essential recordings, retailing at £12.99.

By now the bulldozers are already levelling The Palais, where my generation fought THE PUNK WARS in a blitzkrieg of warm beer and hot sweat so that you could be FREE from PROGRESSIVE ROCK and FACISM. And how did you repay us? By buying Radiohead records and electing BLAIR. I wasn’t battered senseless by HIPPIES and TEDS, admittedly, (I ran away, and that’s not easy in BONDAGE trousers), but if I had been, it wouldn’t have been so you could turn back the clock to 1975. ARE YOU ENJOYING THE LIFE YOU HAVE CHOSEN FOR YOURSELF? That is my QUESTION to YOU!

We were born in the 50’s. Our FATHERs bent over our cradles and told us they fought World War II for us. “Well, Dad, I got news for you,” I said to him in ’78, as he lay dying on his hospital bed, “I’m fighting a war too, a war against FLARES and MELLOTRONS and DISCO music. And I got a uniform too. Not a uniform like yours, like a soldiers. A uniform of bondage trouser and TATTERED t-shirt. And the war I fight, weekly, at The Hammersmith Palais, is more important than anything you did in France and Germany.” And my Dad died with those words ringing in his ears, and to this day I don’t regret it.

Even when PUNK was over (Summer of ’78, don’t let anyone tell you any different) The SPIRIT OF PUNK still pervaded the Palais. It was in the walls, like smacked-out woodworm, or a load of amphetamine-addled cockroaches, and it wasn’t going to ley go. For that last few years The Palais’ big draw was School Disco, a night where accountants and estate agents from West London who had recently graduated from former polytechnics got to dress up in their old school uniforms from three years ago and dance to DISPOSABLE POP MUSIC of the 80’s and 90’s. Had The Palais betrayed its punk heritage? No. NOTHING could be more PUNK than a grown woman dressed as a SCHOOLGIRL dancing to an EAST SEVENTEEN single? NOTHING! And if you don’t understand why then I refer you to THE SITUATIONIST MANIFESTO of Guy Debord.

And now the wrecking ball batters the walls of The Hammersmith Palais, temple of PUNK. Don’t look back. Don’t get sentimental. In the words of Captain Sensible – “SMASH IT UP! SMASH IT UP!”. The Hammersmith Palais, venue of legends, is gone. Yet Hammersmith Carling Apollo, venue of hypnotists, lives on. Say it LOUD. Hammersmith Palais is gone. But Buckingham Palais is still standing. Where’s the JUSTICE in that?

Savage Clinking was talking to Stewart Lee