European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 19, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse Monday september 19, 1977 the stars and stripes Page 19 modern living pinning Punk stranglers Jean Jacques Burnel onstage Dave Greenfield after show. Story and photos by Dan a Garfield is entertainment editor nce there was this cartoon which i think was on the joke Page in boys life about 15 years ago in which a grim character with a Shotgun was using his weeping teenage daughter s Elvis records for skeet practice. Rock n Roll threatened All that was right with the world. To the Sinatra generation it did t sound like anything they d Learned to think of As music. The posturing and pronouncements of the musicians were at Best crudely suggestive often downright lewd. You could t understand the words the music was far too loud fistfights broke out at concerts and to make it worse the kids dressed up funny so that decent people crossed the Street when they saw them coming. And nothing could Stop it. There was a message in the music that was too insistent to be ignored by the new generation. Rock became the popular music of the English speaking world and Many Points beyond. In the process Rock became Musi Cal respectable mature Standard fare on the vegas Axis. And irrelevant to people who were in Dia pers or younger when Elvis crooned and their commas swooned. Last week a British band called the stranglers came to Frankfurt to open the Punk Rock invasion of Germany. Their performance did t sound like what i would in stantly Call music they talked dirty and dressed Down on stage the words were mostly incomprehensible. And so on. The new wave a widespread blossoming of approaches to Rock pioneered by people like Lou Reed and the m.c.5, is being vaunted by Many in the press and the music business As the next stage in develop ment of mass Appeal music the Savior of Rock n Roll. The first wave they say was generated by the bore Dom of growing up in the Eisenhower years and personified in e Lvis. The second wave was triggered by the mass discovery of chemical stairways to heaven and found expression in bands like the beatles and the Jeffer son air plane. This third wave is the outgrowth of Nei new wave Punk artist Jet Black. Ther ennui nor ecstasy however but of despair. The anxious mums and dads who fear the worst for civilization when Junior prepares for a Date by installing a brass safety pin in his nose May be quite right. Some want to believe the record companies Are at fault but they Are no More than flashy midwives looking for a Way of strengthening what they Call a soft the executives remember How Elvis and his contemporaries changed what was comparatively a Nickel and dime Novelty business into a Mulli million Dollar Gold mine. The beatles and their contemporaries boosted the Cash flow. The new wave has already submerged the u.k., Holland and France and will hit America in a big Way soon if you can believe the pop culture pundits who claim to know. It s already big in new York Chicago Cleveland and is gaining popularity in other Urban centers. The Point about the Punk new wave phenomenon is that whatever it is and whether you like it or not it s be coming a Strong Factor in the Day to Day life of a lot of teenagers and Young adults. It is just beginning in Germany. About 300 people showed up for the stranglers on opening night in Frank Furt and quite a few walked out in disgust or dismay shortly into the set a few others some Complete with Punk regalia such As torn to shirts and random bits of Chain went wild losing themselves in the High Energy music. About half of those in attendance neither left nor started dancing but just stood and watched and wondered. We got a lot of that in England at first said Organ and synthesizer player Dave Greenfield after the gig. They had played the night before to a wild crowd in an overflowing Amsterdam club and the lacklustre response in Germany was quite a letdown but give it six months. Now we can hardly go out on the streets for fear of being recognized said Greenfield. Greenfield and i drifted into Sachsenhause Frankfurt s late night drinking and dancing District talking about everything under the Moon As i tried to figure out what it was All about for Greenfield. He is a congenial Chap in his late 20s who has been working As a musician for a decade much of that in Ger Many playing military and civilian clubs. Do you Call yourselves Punk Rock i Don t like new wave that s their album rattus Norv Ericus in has sold More than 250,000 copies a huge figure for the u.k., and has been in the British top 10 for weeks. It is named after the furry Little creatures that brought us such social innovations As the Black death. Greenfield said the music is meant to be a Finger Point ing at a crumbling social order. We re complaining about what is wrong with the political situation. We Don t have any program for change. We just want to Wake people up to what s happening in he said he expects some kind of a revolution in eng land sometime soon probably though not before Sev eral More years of muddling through the current depression in that country. In the meantime things Aren t going so badly for the band. Record royalties this year have imposed the Novelty of income taxes on Greenfield and he fears the rates will be in the 90 per cent plus bracket. I never made enough Money before to have to pay any the new wave is associated with violence in England to the Point of physical assault several times in recent months members of other new wave groups have been attacked with knives and blackjacks by strangers who despise them. And Many local officials refuse to allow the music in their towns. Eleven or 12 councils have banned us just on what they read in the National the sex pistols one of the most notorious of the new bands have taken to playing secretly under assumed names on the condition that if word of their plans gets in the papers they won t appear. A lot of the negative publicity about the new wave comes from overeager journalists but some of it is generated by the bands themselves or their record Compa Nies. Much of the outrage Over the sex pistols followed a live to show in which Lead Singer Johnny Rotten mouthed a string of obscenities on the air while the commentator egged him on. A German to producer last week cancelled a pro posed feature on the stranglers after seeing a or photo of the band that represented them As ritual murderers. One of the Stag front fans at the stranglers concert began spraying Beer at Lead Singer Hugh Cornwell 27, apparently having read that one throws things at the band at a Punk show. Cornwell picked up his own bottle of Beer and drenched his assailant. Cornwell once a research chemist and schoolteacher vanished from the stage during a live German to show earlier this year when a Stuffy producer who apparently had read that new wave band members Are All surly illiterates gave him a Long string of orders without explanations come m through this door stand on this Mark talk when the Light comes on. Cornwell just went out Down the Back stairs. It was All great fun. Greenfield and i and a couple of old friends from his German Days were in the Irish pub in Sachsenhause quaffing stale guinness while the rest of the band three reporters from a japanese Rock Magazine the promoter and the Man from the record company were out trying to get a meal. They had a reservation in a Frankfurt restau rant but news of their Socal apostasy had preceded them and they were All refused service. They made the Man Ager Call the police then left to find a quieter place to eat. Meanwhile a Grey bearded folksinger in the Irish pub began to sing a tune called streets of London a song that chides the listener for thinking he s bad off and de scribes several examples of the human suffering that can be found in the Corners of a big City. Greenfield stopped talking to listen to the tune a me Lodic bit of Folk Ness that would seem to be completely at Odds with the noise and raving of new wave Rock. "1 really like that song he said and he smiled and raised his Glass to the troubadour. Sex chemist teacher Cornwall
