What even is post-punk?
Post-punk was once a thing we could all get behind in 1978 (those of us who were there then). It was the bits that were left over once punk had had its say and shuffled off. Well, not quite shuffled off entirely. There were some tired originalists recycling the same 3 chords left over; a radical left starting to use punk as a tool to express anarchist sentiments; and a (mostly US) cohort starting the process of converting punk into the hardcore strand of the early ‘80s.
The tribe who evolved out of punk though were a similarly motley crew, who themselves started fissiparating into a further kaleidoscope of factions. This was based on the fact they all had different record collections, frequently within the same group.
This tendency didn’t last as long as many of us would have liked, and was replaced by the New Romantics en bloc some time in late 1981.
Post-punk then disappeared underground for the best part of twenty years before re-emerging like a river which has been bricked over in New York at the turn of the century and hanging around for rather longer this time.
Now it seems to have come back to stay. The remaining problem is, then, as stated at the top – what is post-punk? Like postmodernism it’s turned into anything you want it to be, more or less. So in compiling this episode I’ve taken the view that this is the music I would have been pleased to hear on the John Peel Show in 1978 or 1979. And, I genuinely think none of it would have been out of place.
Refreshing in this episode is the unique Australian interpretation of post-punk. Hybridisation was always a core element of what kept post-punk fresh: a good example is the song Country by Good Morning which takes the Go-Betweens heritage and crafts it onto an endlessly repeating chord sequence in the approved repetition, repetition, repetition style. We get a lot of post-punk-on-post-punk now: in this episode the echoes of the Banshees and the Human League, the DIY ethic of 1978 and the Dunedin Sound of the early ‘80s.
And while we’re foregathered, let’s hear it for the debut on any broadcast medium (as far as I know) of the legendary Underwater Jesus. If you weren’t there when they were at their peak at the Espy in St Kilda ten years ago, you’ll have to settle for this document. Don’t bother looking on Spotify, they’re above such nonsense.
I am indebted to a conversation and a playlist provided by David Pisker from which I curated this list. If anyone knows this scene, David does.
Tracklist:
Fem chem, Nice Biscuit
The land of the fire, Power Supply
Low desk : high shelf, The Green Child
Nets, Sachet
Into the void, Buzz Kull
Far from ideal, Divide and Dissolve, feat Chelsea Wolfe
Country, Good Morning
Taken away, Underwater Jesus
Eternally, Mere Women
Double negative, Love of Diagrams
Keep on, Loose Tooth
Back to you, Twerps
Best and fairest, Primo!
Floored, Delivery