Reptilian Talk

Rip It Up, Issue 5, 1 October 1977, Page 12

Reptilian Talk

Mike Chunn

Rip It Up, culls subjective info from the Suburban Reptiles. Zero, Jimmy Vinyl, Billy Planet, Johnny Volume, and Butter Stiggs. Interviewed by none other than Jilly Tweeter.

Rip It Up: A lot of people lump Television, The Damned, the Stranglers and Eddie and the Hot Rods together and call it punk, maybe New Wave. Are they right?

Buster: Na. Shit no. Animal, vegetable and mineral.

Jimmy: Eddie and the Hot Rods are revivalist, Television’s sort of New York slow stuff, the Stranglers are shit and the Damned are ... neat. People think these groups are the same ‘cause thats what they’ve been told by the radio stations.

Rip ItUp: Well, punk and New Wave; is there any difference?

Billy: Well, I suppose pu n k is New Wave, isn’t it? But New Wave isn’t punk.

Zero: Punk’s more the really rough stuff. The Ramones are punk. New Wave encompasses people like Iggy Pop and Patty Smith. They’ve been around a while but they’re starting new material.

Jimmy: Stuff like Ultravox too which

isn’t punk really but still new wave. It’s all a matterof definition really, which is difficult apart from naming the bands. Billy: I don’t know; the Sunday News seems to know what punk is.

Zero: ..because of the media there are too many connotations on the word punk. Associations with razor blades, vomiting etc.

Rip It Up: Then you don't like the way the media handles it?

Jimmy: TEENAGE SHOCK

Zero: All the time you’re asked “Why don’t you swear more on stage?” or “Do you vomit on stage?” and “If not, why not?” Billy: You know people ask if the music stands up on its own. I don’t think it does. Zero: I do. Jimmy: I do.

Both are dismissed by the priest. Billy: Yeah, but its different from anything that’s been happening in the last ten years. That’s one of the things that makes it what it is. So it’s more than just music.

Rip It Up: There’s a lot of mud thrown by groups like the Pistols etc. at the big acts that enjoy ‘continuing’ success. Do you agree with them?

Zero: To a certain extent. People like Elton John, Rod Stewart. The big names . .I don’t like their music. I get really irritated when they keep churning out the same self-indulgent stuff. Like Chicago where they’ve got 14 or 15 albums and it all sounds the same. Billy: Yeah, it’s like I hate Woodstock. This term blank generation’ seems so appropriate. People just don’t know how to react. It seems all they’ve got to relate to is Woodstock. Like those Albert Park concerts . .people just sit there embarrassed and think it’s a Woodstock. They’re really blank. I mean a place like Wellington. Hippies everywhere. Still all tassles and beads. I mean in '69-’7O it was all hippies and they were just followers. I mean this is the whole thing about ****j n ’ hippies; they’re just so ****j n ’ weak you know. I mean hippies are happening now. People are starting to wear razor blades cause it’s hip they’re just ““in’ hippies again. In the early 60’s there was a real intensity but then it just got hip to grow your hair and just sort of ....you know bloody hippies.