Stiofán,

thank you for that link.

Very bizarre that the 'punk' year zero architects would demolish Corbusian dystopia, thereby doing as much damage to our cultural heritage as anyone previously

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2004/mar/15/architecture.regeneration

But punk always was a lot of johnny come lately drivel, catching the coat-tails of NYC art terrorists, sanctifying the mob behaviour that had previously only infected concerts by The Faces and Thin Lizzy. I remember seeing Hawkwind supported by Dr Feelgood before the whole punk nonentity gained traction. It was beyond hilarity as the smoking heads tried to adjust their wavelength. Stacia might have turned them on with her pendulously hanging headlamps, but Dr Feelgood blew their minds. To be fair, many joined me that night in raising the roof in appreciation.

Devoto was right on the architectural underpinnings of punk and right to abandon music as a lost cause. I hope he got a pension fund from his brief comback last year.

As a disturbed 16 year old I began working in The Bier Kellar on New Street. Upstairs was Bogarts' music club where the Sexy Pissers supposedly played and there was a riot, allegedly. I'm sure I'd have heard about this apocryphal event. It didn't happen, at least they didn't generate any more or less reaction than any other of the heavy metal hopefuls who auditioned there.

S'funny that the punk rock buy-to-let overleveraged slumlords may be facing a financial bankruptcy to match their original artistic one. Maybe they should plead for help to their local ganglord to off a few legal eagles foreclosing on them! I'm still listening to The Hissing Of Summer Lawns. Still listening to The Modern Lovers first album. That was 'punk rock'. Everything else was a pale imitation. Still effortlessly resisting the siren sway of endless noise nihilism posing as rebellion. I remember being in Barbarellas and being 'dissed by some punk fools. One of them actually spat at me. I wonder if they ever got out of Friday night in out-patients alive?

I once worked for a housing regeneration trust, we knocked down tower blocks and built lo-rise in East London, innit. These renewals in Manchester look delightful, but I bet the yoof still carry cold steel knives.

When I saw 3 out of 4 Leonard Cohen apparitions at the Manchester Opera House I stayed at the YHA on Potato Wharf so I could get stociously drunk on vintage wine and walk back to a bed within 10 minutes. And also meet some interesting young people in the dorm. Which I did. Potato Wharf is now another yuppie dungeon on the road to Wigan pier, just the same as 'Brindley Place' has desecrated The Grand Union Canal in Brum. Dirty Old Town, etc. You've missed out Sport City!

No doubt there will be a similar trawl through the black sabbath architecture of Birmingham when I arise from hell, descend from heaven @20:12, 20/12, 2012. that's if I can be bothered to actually unleash my 'future systems' Gesamtkunstwerk on this space-time-reality matrix.

You're very quiet Kate2828, I hope you're well, feeling strong against the haters. As MJ said "It's all about Love. L.O.V.E. This is it!" It ain't a dress rehearsal. Morrissey was was John The Baptist to Mooney. From Manchester to Birmingham. To Jesus in Disguise, etc *rollseyes* *smirks* *sighs*

PS: I see that MJ is on the 'Loops' cover. As always, the good die young, and his posthumous hagiography is being feverishly written by the same fools who missed him when he was actually a resident of this planet. Morrissey missed MJ. He also missed Sabbath and Kurdt, also missed....if you're going to pontificate on cultural choices, you need to be a pontiff. Like me. The Pope of Pop.

PPS:

Manchester = Style
Birmingham = Substance.

Please God, don't let them build that high-speed train link so Brum and Manchester become part of the Tokyo-Yokohama, London-Birmingham Metropolis sprawl, spawn of the Devil.....

What's left of the Chamerlains' Birminghams original plan