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Manchester: It Never Rains...: A City Primed for Punk Rock
Early Manchester Punk Scene - Book - by Gareth Ashton
(2021)
Although it didn't originate there, Manchester was transformed by
Punk Rock in a more thorough and long-lasting way than anywhere else in
the world. In 1976 it was a post-industrial city once renowned as a
behemoth of international trade and a centre for world class arts and
entertainment that was struggling to find a new role for itself. Yet
events in that year would help lay the groundwork for the city's
rennaisance.
Here Gareth Ashton concentrates on the 18 months or so
that the Punk boom lasted, tracing its roots among teenagers in the
David Bowie and Roxy Music fan clubs of a few years earlier before
examining the arrival of the Sex Pistols in the city to play a series of
incendiary gigs during 1976 and the subsequent shockwaves that opened
up fresh possibilities for a new generation.
The Do It Yourself
ethos was perhaps the Punk movement's most valuable gift to a city shorn
of self-confidence. Over the next few years Punks would design their
own clothes, record, publish and distribute their own music and start
writing and photography careers in a series of fanzines launched in the
movement's wake. Early adopters would go on to fame and fortune but
perhaps most importantly a substantial majority would not just depart
for the capital as previous generations had done, they would do creative
things in their own city under their own rules giving Manchester a head
start on the rest of the country by at least a decade prior to the Acid
House boom.
'Manchester: It Never Rains' is a the definitive account
of how the city started the journey from provincial after-thought to
cultural capital.