Naked '76 by Kevin Brooks

Author:Kevin Brooks [Brooks, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fiction-Young Adult, Young Adult Fiction, Band, Band Dynamics, Bands, Boyfriend, Drug Abuse, Family and Relationships, IRA, Irish Republican Army, Kevin Brooks, London, London England, Love, Music, Musician, Musicians, Naked, Naked 76, Naked '76, Punk, Punk Band, Punk Bands, Punk Music, Punk Rock, Punk Rocker, Punk Rockers, Punks, Relationship, Relationships, Rock and Roll, Rock Band, Rock Bands, Rock N Roll, Rock 'n' Roll, Romance, Sex Pistols, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Teen, Teenager, Teenagers, Teens, Young Adult Readers
ISBN: 9781512404852
Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group
Published: 2016-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

Our gigs were coming thick and fast now. Two, sometimes three, a week . . . the venues were getting better all the time, the crowds getting bigger, the buzz getting louder. The punk scene in London was really starting to take off, with more and more bands emerging all the time. At the beginning of July, the Ramones played two nights at the Roundhouse, and on the night we went to see them, everyone who was anyone was there, including just about every music journalist in London. The same month saw the debuts of the Clash, the Damned, and the Buzzcocks. The music press was still divided over how good these new bands really were—some of the papers hated them, others quickly fell in love with them—but, either way, punk music was beginning to get a lot of media attention. The Ramones’ gigs in particular were huge events. And as a result of all this publicity, the record companies were gradually starting to show some real interest in punk . . . some of which was coming our way.

It wasn’t much yet—mainly just rumors and vaguely promising possibilities. Jake was forever telling us that he’d spoken to so-and-so from Polydor or A&M or whoever, and that they were “seriously” interested in us, or that they were coming to see us at our next gig, and a deal was “definitely on the table” . . .

But, so far, nothing had come of it.

We were getting fairly regular coverage in the music papers too—reviews, reports, interviews—and the overall feeling among most of the journalists was that while we were undoubtedly a punk band, at the forefront of the burgeoning scene, we weren’t quite the same as all the other bands. Yes, we were loud, and sometimes really fast. And, yes, we embraced and embodied the punk sensibilities. But we didn’t just do the 1-2-3-4, bam-bam-bam stuff. And while that occasionally led to accusations that Naked weren’t a punk band at all—which I always thought was a pretty pointless thing to say—it mostly worked to our advantage.

“If you want to get noticed,” Jake said once, “it’s no good being exactly the same as everyone else, you have to be different. You have to stand out from the crowd.”

We’d also been together a lot longer than most of the other bands—the Pistols excepted, of course—and, musically, that gave us an edge too. We knew what we were doing. We were tight. We were good.

What more could a record company want?

We had great songs.

A unique sound.

We had Curtis, who was born to be a rock ’n’ roll star.

And we had William.

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