On the front pages of the tabloids and
in the music press grainy photographs of the punk scene in London's King's Road
looked like something from a different planet when compared to the streets of
Derry in the late-1970s. Bombs, gun fire, rioting, barricades, army checkpoints,
stop and search and raids were the backdrop against which people lived out their
everyday existence. It is hard to convey how threatened and cut off Derry felt
at this time.
Despite all this there was a youth culture and the fashion trends followed elsewhere were picked up just the same. There was however limited tolerance of anything really different and off beat. Making a spectacle of yourself (the sin of pride) would most likely be met with a fierce verbal slagging and/or violence on the street. In Derry deciding to leave the house wearing drainpipe jeans and cropped hair threatened to turn the world upside down!
We were dependent
on the music papers and John Peel's show to find out what was going on elsewhere
and if you wanted to see a serious band you had to go to Belfast or Dublin.
. It was difficult to get hold of records and when someone did we looked on
the covers with awe. Our DIY musical education involved reading everything
we could and making connections between the New York Dolls, Velvet Underground,
MC5, Dr Feelgood T Rex and the Monkees! As the new wave of punk bands broke
on the scene we soon had our own very firm likes and dislikes. And nothing
could take away the fact that during 1977 on a Friday/Saturday night the Undertones
were playing the Casbah Bar. Everything seemed to revolve around it. This
was our own little Vortex, Marquee, Roxy, 100 Club etc where a variety of
'lost souls' began to meet.
Excited by
what I had read in the music press I left for Manchester in early September
1977 thinking that punk would have taken over the city. I had always paid
attention to what was happening in Manchester because I supported Man City.
June 1976 give me another reason to think about what it must be like to live
there. The Sex Pistols had played the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester
inspiring Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley to form The Buzzcocks and kick starting
the Manchester punk scene. Even today nothing sounds like the 'Spiral Scratch'
EP released in early 1977!
In
between attending classes at Manchester Poly I spent my first weeks trying
to track down all the clubs, bars and pits that I had read about in Paul Morley's
reviews , going to any band (good, bad or awful) that was playing, seeing
the Buzzcocks as many times as possible and buying fanzines, records and clothes
from second hand shops. The sheer number of bands playing in Manchester in
the winter of 77 and 78 reflected the fact that both nationally and locally
punk was thriving. 
It was incredible to be able to read reviews of bands that you had seen live,
watch 'So it Goes' and 'What's On' on Granada TV, behold punk becoming 'new
wave' and post-punk in the form of Joy Division, Magazine, the Fall and John
Cooper Clarke, and connect with reggae and the bars and clubs associated with
Manchester's gay scene. Although by comparison with Derry Manchester represented
freedom to do what you wanted, you still had to be careful. There was still
abuse on the streets and the very real threat of violence linked to Manchester's
various youth tribes. The conflict between the mental street punk of Slaughter
and the Dogs and the experimental bands connected to Manchester's art and
music schools didn't help matters!
Going
home to Derry meant carrying back new records and fanzines and watching the
scene and especially the Undertones develop. The band was by now perfecting
their own songs, playing different venues and building up a loyal set of fans
and a reputation as a great live band. The sense of identity was very different
to the punk bands that dominated the Pound and Harp Bar in Belfast. But in
both cities, despite public hostility, punk created an important cultural
space that just wasn't there before. Finally in September 1978, after I got
back to Manchester 'Teenage Kicks' was released and John Peel picked up on
it immediately. I spent my time pestering the Virgin record shop in Manchester
to stock it and DJ's in various clubs to play it. For me Manchester and Derry
finally came together in late 1978 when the Undertones played their first
tour of England. 
The lasting difference between the two places
is perhaps best illustrated in how people responded to the success of their
bands. The appearance of the Undertones playing 'Teenage Kicks' on Top of
the Pops generated even more public hostility in Derry, whereas when Manchester
bands performed their concerts would be packed out when they next played home
territory. It would take Derry many years to come to terms with what the Undertones,
punk and the Casbah represented.
