The Postpunk Panel, convened at the Boogaloo to celebrate the launch of Simon Reynolds's new book 'Rip It Up and Start Again', saw Richard Boon (ex-Buzzcocks manager), Gina Birch (ex-The Raincoats), Paul Morley (journalist and Zang Tuum Tumb founder) and Jon King (Gang of Four) join Simon for an hour or so's mostly decorous discussion of everything postpunk. Proceedings began with a completely unwatchable due to technical problems "screening" of a probably quite good music video with The Fall, New Order, Joy Division, The Pop Group, Dexy's Midnight Runners and many others.

A few highlights of the discussion itself:

Pretentious, moi?

In talking about the book, Paul Morley said that it was "odd to read it as it was" and, in responding to Simon's accusation, that "I reject your accusation of pretention, yet I accept it."

Mini-gangsters

Richard Boon explained how the first recordings by Buzzcocks came about: "it's not that difficult to press 1000 vinyl... you just need to borrow some money!"

Jon King explained why Gang of Four signed to EMI: "Small labels were generally run by mini-gangsters who didn't pay. It was entirely obvious (that we should sign). Fast Product was not a good idea. We never got paid. It was incredibly funny." King also explained how it helped that GoF owned outright all their recordings and that this enabled them to licence them to all and sundry.

Gloomy Blackpool Disco

Paul Morley put forward the notion that all records should be wrapped in sandpaper ("why isn't the new Rolling Stones wrapped in sandpaper?") and explained how he had been banned by the NME from writing about releases from Factory Records after endless reviews of "gloomy Blackpool disco".

-

Hi to James (thanks for the dvd), Graham and Andy.

Labels: Factory_Records, Joy_Division, New_Order

- - - -