For more than 25 years, Punk77.co.uk website has been an important and fascinating historical resource for anyone interested in punk. An impressive labour of love for its creator Paul Marko, the site has recently been given an upgrade to spruce it up ready for the next 25. Vive Le Rock had a chat with Paul to find out more about the site and about his own influences and inspirations...
What's your background in music and the punk scene?
I first got into punk as a very angry 13-year-old kid post a messy parents' divorce and sent to school in the North of Scotland. I’d caught The Stranglers video for 'Straighten Out' on the TV one afternoon and my cousin who was a DJ put together a tape of bands like The Stranglers, Sex Pistols, Dr Feelgood etc. He fucked up the tape and it had a horrific buzzing sound through one channel but I played it to death. My best mate at school introduced me to Eater, The Drones and Ian Dury and told me tales of the clubs and people. I was instantly hooked by the anger and the energy and it started my love of music that branched into psychedelia, reggae, disco, rockabilly, jazz the lot. But Punk was my first love.
What made you get the Punk 77 website together in the first place?
Way back in 1998 when Facebook, What’s App and mobile phones were still just waiting to be thought up the internet was getting going. I found a really basic application on the computer I had that enabled me to hand build pages. I loved the punk picture covers and thought I’d just put a few up of them to show people how good they were. There weren’t even digital cameras back then; I would go to Argos, buy a camera on their 15 day money back and take pictures of singles laid out on the ground and then take the camera back! I think I then contacted Knox from The Vibrators and we did a short interview and it just snowballed from there. The bands always wanted to get involved. From there the ethos of the site developed – it was always to focus on the smaller bands and fans and give them their due and respect for what they’d done and showcase punk rock. It was also my way of giving something back to punk because it had played such an important part in my formative years. The site was originally called Nasty! Nasty! in tasteful Comic Sans but then I moved to Punk77 and bought the domain.
Did you ever play in any bands? What was the first real punk show you went to?
It pains me to let this kind of blackmail information out but I desperately wanted to make music and the first thing we did at school was me singing while my mate played piano so you had some horrific versions of 'No More Heroes' and 'Wasted Life'. I think I later made a hacked demo using two tape recorders of a song called ‘I Hate School’ played on two acoustic strings and two chords (there’s a lot of two's in this story) and then me overdubbing drums played with pencils on boxes. Sadly this has been lost in time through numerous squat moves.
First real punk show wasn’t until 1979. I went to school in the remote North of Scotland so not many bands played Inverness back then. When I found out the Loch Lomond festival was on I bought a ticket, told my dad I was staying with a friend and just went to the festival on my own in my school uniform. I had a sleeping bag that I hid in a ditch. I was adopted by these Glasgow punk nutcases who were swilling Buckfast and looked after me and probably couldn’t believe what they saw. I saw The Skids, The Dickies, Dr Feelgood, Third World, UK Subs and, headlining the lot, The Stranglers, and I got right down the front. Afterwards I went back to my ditch, it started raining and I barely slept a wink but I was just buzzing.
There's so much information on the site, you obviously put a lot of passion into it all?
After 24 years it does build up lol! Because I’ve kept it up, it's built and built. With this full revamp I took the opportunity to build up the fashion section as I found the whole thing fascinating and as crucial to punk as the music and still reverberates today and influences. I’ve also built up the Fanzine section so its even more complete. The thing about Punk, as opposed to Mod or Skinhead, is there is just so much to document and still learn from and be inspired.
Does it take up all your time?
Ha ha, I work full time and have a wife and two kids. I wonder how I do it but it comes together. Like yourselves at VLR, you get very fast at taking something from an idea to execution because you know the ropes. The difference with Punk77 is while other sites trawl the internet and quickly create a page, we have a large archive plus interviews and supplement from Facebook, etc and try and from that build a story and credit the sources.
Do you have a favourite classic punk act?
It was and always will be The Stranglers – playing their early music still gives me the shivers... like I’m almost 16 again – so lucky they are still going and delivering the goods. After that it would be Rottin’ Klitz or The Worst. Never recorded but their attitude and the backstory is so punk rock it hurts!
And you recently wrote the rather excellent Menace book, Menace: Prog, Punk, Skinheads & Serendipity'...
Yes, that was fun and got me back into wanting to do the website. Met and interviewed some great characters. It sold out of its first run, and we’ll do another to help top up Noel’s retirement fund lol. Next up is a reprint of the Roxy Club book with an extra chapter which bizarrely got published in Italian a short while back,
What's next for the Punk77 site?
From the start Punk77 has stayed independent and runs no advertising nor makes any money. In fact, it costs me money and time but that’s never been the point.
So we’ll keep expanding the information there and improving it as a destination site for punk rock to learn from and be inspired. The funny thing about the internet is there’s more info out there than at any other time but its now atomised across a million Facebook and Insta pages and websites. Punk77 pulls together the story in one place to give it all context.
Now the site is more interactive the hope is that people will comment and add detail/disagree with the pages. But the aim is also to do more reviews of live gigs and records and to start trying to support newer bands. Soooooooooo… if anyone fancies contributing to the site (young or old) get in touch - punk77@tiscali.co.uk – doesn’t matter if you’ve never done it before – just give it a go!