Old fart music and the arrival of punk rock...

If you were a teenager like me in the mid-70s and were going to gigs around 1976/77, you would have found that bands who were previously always touring  suddenly broke up. This continued through till 1979. In UK, this was because of the arrival of punk rock. It was only popular with a few kids at school but it was very fashionable and crucially, for some reason it attracted girls who came to school with heavy black eyeliner and spikey hair and out of school, drainpipe trousers. I liked this very much despite the fact I was more interested in UFO, musically.
But we lost so many great bands as venues followed the fashionable route and stopped booking most long hair bands. Some groups cut their hair and made a supposed ‘new wave’ record. It was usually unconvincing. Others just packed it in unless like Genesis, Yes and Pink Floyd, they were big enough to survive. My favourite Genesis album is Trick Of The Tail and you should have heard the mockery I got for liking old fart music. Same with Animals by Pink Floyd ironically as it was as angry and vitriolic as the most punk record.
So many of the bands in what you might call the second division, went by the wayside. Bands that were popular enough to play Middlesbrough Town Hall but only be the support at Newcastle City Hall. Bands like Rough Diamond, Dave Byron’s band after Heep, Snafu, featuring a pre-Whitesnake Mickey Moody, Lone Star with a UFO bound Tonka Chapman, Ace who never followed up on ‘How Long’, Tiger, with studio legend Big Jim Sullivan and Samson-bound Nicky Moore. From America, Detective came along at the wrong time, though signed to Swansong. Budgie had to take a break and cut their hair. Even the very hippy Steve Hillage changed direction a bit.
Some adapted better than others. Tangerine Dream, for example slowly mutated into ambient soundscapes but kept ploughing the analogue sequencer route on Encore, Cyclone and Force Majeure. Hawkwind seemed to embrace the changes, Caravan on the other hand, like Camel, found themselves out of fashion, replaced by the likes of Siouxsie and the Banshees in the art rock stakes. The Clash filled the airwaves, though sounded like classic rock to me then as now. Widowmaker released two albums but no one took much notice.
Wishbone Ash were coming down off their Live Dates peak. Man packed it in for a few years, SAHB were losing energy and yet somehow I thought of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers where new wave. It was a time of great change, you had to pick your battles, and take sides. I went back to the 60s keen to avoid reality, finding it harsh and ugly.

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