punk is dad

This made me chuckle 

This made me frown 

I'm still enough of a believer to find it defiling to have a version of "Sex Pistols" treading the boards without Johnny Rotten....  

Other bands that go the prosthetic singer route, I'm not so bothered.

Well, there's one and half others on the same Glasgow punkstalgia lineup that are doing that - The Stranglers, sans Hugh Cornwell, with a younger-than-the-others singer (younger-than-the-others - what am I talking about? Only Jean-Jacques Burnel remains from the original line-up, what with Jet Black and Dave Greenfield now departed).  

And then Buzzcocks are the 'half'  insofar as Diggle (I assume) is singing the Shelley-sung songs as well as the smaller number of numbers he originally sang. 

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Talking of "punk is dad", I had a "rave is dad" experience the other night - went to see Orbital in LA. They were playing the first two albums - with an intermission in between - and so if you think about it that would necessarily largely draw a crowd who remembered those records from the early '90s - thirty years ago. So we are talking fiftysomethings for the most part.

Wasn't quite Cruel World levels of haggard, but yes a lot of baldness, bellies, and time-creased faces on show.  You sensed a lot of memory-rushes triggered but that not being quite enough to galvanize manic dancing in the old style.  

Some of the bar staff and the sound guy behind the mixing desk seemed on the grizzled, elderly side too. Perhaps veteran promoters and rave-scene people

Surely in their early '60s themselves, the brothers Hartnoll were great -  well, some of the material back then was a tad middling, but the killer stuff, fantastic. Triffic lights and lasers and projections too - that is something that has advanced in leaps and bounds since back in the day. They got a very warm reception and seemed to be touched by it. 

This must be the fourth - or possibly fifth - time I've seen Orbital live, but the last time would have been back in the mid-90s.  

The very first time - when they were then almost alone in being able to play techno live - was the late 1991 rave conversion experience that I describe in the intro to Energy Flash. Well, the whole night really as opposed any specific deejay or group that played - the audience's dancing and demeanor as much as the music and lights. But Orbital certainly were a component of the baptismal immersion in a new culture. 

Then the following year, I traipsed down to Sevenoaks for an interview and they showed me my very first glimpse of the silver box - I don't think they let me twiddle the knobs myself but they showed how to work the 303. 

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Punk-gets-parental is not really news - I can remember when we were still in NYC and Kieran was little (so early 2000s), some of his pre-school friends's mums had a hobby band, playing punk rock. And then a few years later, at my brother's kids's elementary school in Silverlake, at a school fair or fund-raiser, a there was this band of dads entertaining the assembled with punk cover versions. 

And of course there's that thing of tiny T-shirts with the Pistols or Ramones or Clash that the parents would get their kiddies to wear. 

Just watched Blitz (ooh but it's clunky) and there was the surprise of Paul Weller playing the little evacuee boy's grandfather - silvery hair swept back in the 1940s style, face lined with ridges. He looks distinguished, though, as an old gent,