Punk arrives
As Saigon fell, completing our defeat in Viet Nam, with the economy here and UK in the toilet, the anti-establishment Punk disease spread. Seymour Stein signed The Ramones and Talking Heads to his Sire records, re-branding it as stylish “New Wave.” Inspired by the Lower East Side infestation, British sex shop owner Malcolm McLaren flew back to infect England, forming the Sex Pistols with lead singer Johnny Rotten (so named for his rotten teeth and attitude). And soon there was Cherry Vanilla, Teenage Head, The Undertones, The Boomtown Rats, The Runaways, The Screamers, and who could forget Throbbing Gristle? Now I understood how Don felt when rock replaced jazz. He loved my analogy that jazz was ‘gourmet’ to rock’s ‘fast food.’ Now Punk was just ‘bad food.’ And the new generation was eating it up.