‘New York’ vs ‘London Boys’: the transatlantic punk battle
In May 1976, not long after her debut Horses LP, poet and New York punk pioneer Patti Smith played two nights at Camden’s Roundhouse, which included many in London’s punks scene eager to see what all the fuss was all about. Taking the stage two days later at the 100 Club, the Sex Pistols frontman made his feelings quite clear as two of her band were in the audience: “In we go to the Roundhouse the other night, see the hippy shaking the tambourines. Horses, horses, horse-shit!”
Before Bad Boy vs Death Row and Blur vs Oasis, the two most important cities in punk’s meteoric ‘year zero’ similarly engaged in a rivalrous tug-of-war, each grudge match team boasting their own sneering anthem.
The beef largely centred between Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten and former New York Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders, London fired the first shot with their diss track ‘New York’, born from Rotten’s fatigue with manager Malcolm McLaren’s incessant harping on about the CBGB scene, plus their perceived pretension: “Everything that came out of there was poetry based and too arty. These people were much older than us and had more old-fashioned attitudes. They still do!”
Indulging in some mutual, casual homophobia, Thunders responded in kind with ‘London Boys’, gleefully upping the ante in offensive slurs started by Rotten. Originally recorded during The Heartbreakers’ LAMF sessions, the So Alone version features Pistols guitarist and drummer Steve Jones and Paul Cook, harbouring no hard feelings and probably so sick to the back teeth of their former manager that they were only too happy to lend a hand to any effort that lambasts the mythmaking Svengali.
The fact is, punk owes an enormous debt to Thunders’ former glam outfit. Landing while prog was still stultifying the rock charts, New York Dolls’ lipstick-smeared garage rock forged an essential proto-punk bridge that made the jump from Bowie to Buzzcocks that much easier. Rotten later declared that UK glam bands like The Sweet, Mud, and The Sensational Alex Harvey Band had a much greater role in shaping punk, which is certainly true for the British generation.
The Pistols themselves also have the Dolls to thank for their high-quality sound. Eyebrows were raised around the London punk circuit over the group’s impressive kit. Jones was never afraid to pinch whatever gear he could from bands passing through the Hammersmith Apollo, their spawny Fender Twin Reverb amplifier was pilfered from one of Bob Marley’s opening acts, and numerous other amps nicked from Ziggy Stardust’s Spiders from Mars while dressed as roadies.
Jones’ signature 1974 Gibson Les Paul Custom was formerly owned by Dolls guitarist Sylvain Sylvain. Despite ‘managing’ the band to near ruin, McLaren took the guitar as ‘payment’ and ferried it back to London. Jones would go on to remove its Bigsy vibrato and cover the screw holes with pin-up girl stickers and serve as his trusty guitar til the Pistols’ 1978 implosion.
In the battle between New York and London, there are no winners, and who cares? Both bands concerned were far more interesting than the mud-slinging theatre that would worm its way into punk lore.
