England’s Dreaming
Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock and Beyond
“England’s Dreaming” was first published in the UK in 1991 and in the US during 1993. It has never gone out of print. It has since been translated into Italian, Polish, French, German and Japanese. In 2001, Faber & Faber published a second edition with a new introduction and an updated discography.
“England’s Dreaming” was researched and written between 1988 and the end of 1989. At that time there were comparatively few books about Punk and certainly none that had captured how it felt at the time. The book’s focus was first wave British Punk – centred around the Sex Pistols – between the years 1975 and 1979.
Although I had been a witness and a participant in the period, I wanted to avoid too much autobiography. One of the points of Punk was the fact that all these very disparate people got together and created something extraordinary and I wanted to capture the diversity of voices and experience.
I wrote about Punk at the time, as a journalist for “Sounds”, and have written about it on and off ever since. This section contains extra data from “England’s Dreaming”, as well as Punk related articles from the last three decades. For more, including several reports from 1977, go to the Journalism section.
- Punk Etymology (unpublished)
- Tracing the word ‘Punk’ through time.
- Pre-Punk – Ugly Things #26, Winter/Spring 2008
- Was 1976 Year Zero? Was there Punk before Punk?
- 430 King’s Road
- An essay in the book “Punk Couture: Clothes for Heroes”.
- Punk London – Frieze, April 2006
- West London in 1977
- The Clash
- Revisiting the first punk group I saw.
- Punk and the Pistols – The Guardian
- A process piece written for the August 1995 “Arena” broadcast of Paul Tickell’s “Punk and the Pistols”.
- Los Angeles Punk, 1978
- Observations on a visit to the West Coast in August/ September 1978
- The Prefects, Live 1978: The Co-Op Suite Birmingham – sleevenotes, 2006
- A pure punk moment.
- The Secret Public
- The Manchester Scalpel Workings, 1977/78
- A Seance in Finsbury Park (review) – Spin, August 1996
- The Sex Pistols first reunion show in the UK.
- Q&A, 2005
- Email interview about Punk conducted for a Portuguese fanzine.
- England’s Dreaming (Trikont compilation CD)
- Sleevenotes for the compilation produced by Trikont Records in 2005.
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The England’s Dreaming Interviews
England’s Dreaming contains material from well over 100 interviews. These range from New Yorkers like Legs McNeil and Syl Sylvain through the Sex Pistols to other musicians like Joe Strummer, Pete Shelley and Jah Wobble.The transcripts from some of these interviews will be published by Faber and Faber in June 2009.
Here are some of the interview transcripts that will not be in the book (for reasons of space). More will be added shortly.
The England’s Dreaming Archive at John Moores University, Liverpool
The great bulk of the research materials that went into “England’s Dreaming” – including hundreds of contemporary photographs, fanzines and handbills – now resides at the John Moores University in Liverpool. The materials are in the process of being worked on but anyone wishing to view the archive should contact Emily Burningham, Information Officer for Art & Design / Special Collections and Archives at the Liverpool John Moores University.