FROM ROCK 'N 'ROLL TO HARD CORE PUNK - UKZN ...

43
57
If you make a jigsaw puzzle, you've got to put in the
outside pieces first. As soon as you've got the
outside you can build. We've always had our own style.
No one has ever said we sound like other punk
groups.44
As in Britain the Durban punk bands were often condemned by the
press, and other conservative members of the public. One of the
main criticisms of the punk musicians was that their punk stance
was hypocritical since their social circumstances differed
greatly from the British punks. The fact that two members of Wild
Youth, (Johnny Teen and Skid Soles) were university students
added further fuel to the criticisms levelled at these punks.
Punk musicians expressed anger at these sorts of accusations:
We've been ripped apart by people who've never even
spoken to us. They see us play and they go back to
their typewriters and try to make up an imaginary
story about how we claim to be what we aren't. But we
don't claim street credibility and they'd like to
think that we do. 45
In the light of the assertion by Skid Soles that Wild Youth had
'always had [their] own style' (see previous page), the following
quote from Durban's correspondent for the Rand Daily Mail
regarding the transfer of punk and punk culture to Durban is
problemmatic:
This is not average apathetic Durban. Wild Youth do
the whole British slob with a bad temper bit and the
kids are pogoing away at the front like crazy. Nobody
here is bothered about just how unlikely this style of
music is in the context of white S A society. This is
just another fashion idea to them, and the lithe girls
43 Johnny Teen, 1978, newspaper unknown.
44 Quoted from Skid Soles in a local newspaper (publication unknown) in
1978. Cutting obtained from a scrapbook lent to me by Rubin Rose.
45 .
Quoted from Johnny Teen In a local newspaper (publication unknown)
in 1978. Cutting obtained from a scrapbook lent to me by Rubin Rose.