Julie Burchill, Ari Up and John Lydon

Artrockers,
I've always been a fan of Julie Burchill, that's ALWAYS. For me she's never put a foot wrong and exists, rather like Mr Clarkson, to prick our liberal concensus and take the righteous piss out of the self righteous. She is, even now, rock'n'roll to the core, if your definition of rock'n'roll is; upsetting the apple cart, pissing on the establishment and holding a mirror up to pompous prats . It's not a matter of 'everything she says is right', but it is a matter of applauding the fact that she has the guts to say it. And where does she say it these days? In The Independent, natural home to the waffling-class - and it drives the readers nuts! Each week she gobs on a sacred cow or two and the Indinista go blue with anger - some of the comments reveal their nasty tempers and expose their hypocrisy. So I wasn't surprised to find that the comments section has been removed from her coulmn in it's on-line manifestation - not surprised but saddned, largely because I thoroughly enjoyed reading the bile that readers flung at her, exposing themselves as bigots and potential fascistic censors ('she souldn't be allowed to say that'). Today she has something to say about Lauren Booth's conversion to Islam - have a look here.

I have similar feelings about Ari Up. As a member of The Slits she had no time for cant and posturing, in fact the bare-breasted cover of Cut sent the sisterhood into a rage - too blinkered to realise that this was an act of REAL emancipation. She, and the other Slits scared the willies out of me. It was the honesty that did it, a prime component of Punk that people often over-look, shared by Ms Burchill. If you asked a dumb question you got the answer you deserved - an attitude shared by John Lydon et al. I once asked him; 'Where did it all go wrong John?'
He glanced at the double brandy I'd just bought him, then at me, laughed and walked off to climb into his limo. I learned more about Punk that night than Jon Savage could communicate in a hundred books.

Tom Artrocker