Punks, Beats and Reclaiming the Streets

A large portion of this course has centered around the artistic, counter cultural movement against the corporatization of San Francisco. This understanding of the struggle to defend a city from an encroaching army of ‘yuppies,’ has provoked me to contemplate further; the similar situation occurring within my hometown-London. As a city that has been a global center for commerce and industry for many centuries, London has been tirelessly fighting a losing battle to maintain an authentic, homegrown, artistic identity. Unfortunately, I fear it’s a battle that may now be well and truly lost. Increased presence and power of banking and advertising offices in Canary Wharf, combined with the recent electoral victory for a Conservative government that demonizes the poor and dishes out tax breaks for corporations, pretty much spells out despair for young people hoping to live and create in the Capital. With a population of nearly 8.5 million, lower-middle and working class citizens are forced to live in the surrounding suburbs, whilst millionaire foreign bankers and businessman buy homes in prime, central locations and only live in them for six months of the year, killing off any sense of community and cultural vibrancy that previously existed.

In a previous post, Joanna drew attention to the connection between the Punk scene of the 70’s and the Beat movement of a few decades prior. I too would like to make a connection between the Beats and a punk band that helped to shape my understanding of the unjust, exploitative societal structure we live under. The King Blues were a folk/punk band from London who really localized issues of disparity that are evident all over the western world through their songs and spoken word. Attached below is an example of the latter- a poem that emphasizes the importance of Punk in reclaiming the City from the hands of the corporate elite, much like the SF Beats of the 1950’s. In the poem, lead singer Johnny ‘Itch’ Fox, envisages a place ‘just outside of Clapham (South London),’ where Punk never happened. It’s a place where the rich and the powerful have been given free rein to live and exploit as they please, due to the ‘hippie grunge reality, where the buildings are crumbling down with apathy.’ The end of the poem cites the importance of punk in encouraging people to harness the ‘the love and the rage that you feel in your gut’ as a means of reclaiming the streets from a tyrannical establishment.

The King Blues, like many punk bands from the same circuit, were also heavily involved in the Squatters Rights movement, with Itch Fox having grown up homeless, periodically living in the squats of London and Brighton. This also presents another example of the way in which Punk aligns itself with a reclamation of the streets that echoes the sentiment of the San Francisco Beats.