No Future For You, Significant Other

Marketing is a relentless practice these days, fuelled by the explosion of new media channels, but the appearance of a dating site for punks is a minor surprise. If there's no future, why do you want to hang out with a partner? Maybe nihilists do need love and if punkmatch.com had existed back when Sid was around, he wouldn't have ended up with Nancy.

Pistols will fire

Old farts they might be and they're definitely in it for the money, but the Sex Pistols are still a damn fine band, as Julien Temple's new DVD will show. I missed this show by a matter of days. Watch the trailer:

My Top Ten Beats Your Top Ten, Punk

Ultimate Guitar has posted their list of Punk Rock’s Mightiest Guitar Gods. God knows what I'm doing reading things like that online.

These lists by faceless writers are generally filler material or an excuse for Rolling Stone to print a nostalgia issue to exploit the ageing nature of the segment of their demographic that’s otherwise not hopelessly fixated by fashion. Provided you don't take them seriously, these lists aren't generally harmful to your health.

Here’s the Top 10 and the signature tunes that Ultimate Guitar thinks gives them deity status:

1. Lou Reed – Sister Ray
2. Johnny Thunders – Personality Crisis
3. Lenny Kaye – Radio Ethiopia
4. Johnny Ramone – Sheena is a Punk Rocker
5. Steve Jones – God Save the Queen
6. Mick Jones – I’m So Bored With The USA
7. Tom Verlaine/Richard Lloyd – Maquee Moon
8. Robert Quine – Blank Generation
9. Ricky Wilson – Rock Lobster
10. Billy Zoom – The Hungry Wolf

Rather than debate the issue pointlessly on an international scale - e.g. Lloyd is more punk than Verlaine, The B-52s were a trash '60s kitsch pastiche and not punk, ther L.A. X sucked - I thought I’d spend about 30 seconds to reel off an Australian list from the initial wave of “punk”.

If I’m out by a year or so or change my mind next week, shoot me. They’re in no special order either.

Leave your flames/remarks in comments:

Ed Kuepper (Saints) – I’m Stranded
Rowland S Howard (Boys Next Door/Birthday Party) – Shivers
Deniz Tek (Radio Birdman) – New Race
Steve Lucas (X) – Degenerate Boy
Mark Taylor (Lipstick Killers) – Hindu Gods
Brad Shephard (Fun Things) – Savage
Chris Masuak (Radio Birdman) – Hangin’ On
Kim Salmon (Scientists) – Swampland
Ed Wreckage (Leftovers) – Cigarettes and Alcohol