Pure Punk Picks
Whips & Furs – The Vibrators
This song busts out with a blast of urgency and aliveness that is gritty, real and pulsating- you might say, vibrating, plus tuneful and in your face and ears and possibly, lower regions.
This song buzzes and cruises along suggesting a warm, summer night driving in a convertible with the top down along a highway connected to a beach or an ocean, with a cooling spray of midnight air shocking your face.
“You can take a chance on us, one more chance on love.”
The vocals slide effortlessly into a catchy, vibrant melody while the guitars cut prime meat cuts of sounds, like expert sushi chefs expertly preparing up their appetizers. As the rhythm section rocks solid and energetically behind it.
“Life will last, life will last, life will go on and on.”
The Vibrators may not be one of the best, early British punk bands- but I still will clutch them dearly to my man breasts, whilst bestowing loving kisses on their furrowed brows.
While, of course, staying safely- six feet apart.
“She drives a black Cadillac, whips and furs in the back.”
These last words allude to the famous S & M novel, “Venus In Furs”, that the Velvet Underground chose to create one of their best songs with the same title.
“Taste the whip in love not given lightly,” is my favorite line from that Velvets songs. The best song, I feel, ever written about dominance and submission, a subject I have a great interest in, as it involves a relationship I’m currently in…but I digress.
The Vibrators were an already established band, from what I gather, that jumped upon the punk band wagon in England in 1977, where they conceived a record contract and success could be had for them, and they were right.
There were several great “punk” bands that did this at the time, and many of them created great music such as The Stranglers, Ian Dury & The Blockheads and this band, as well.
And the tone of this band suggests reckless release, wild abandonment, riding dangerously and destructively into the night and also, expresses the nihilistic, freedom and detachment from society reflected in the early punk scene.
“‘Cause if you dance to the music, dance to the music, life will last, life will last, life will go on and on.”
Memories fade as well as memories of bands and their music. Very few bands and songs last the tides of times.
But the passion and emotion and ideas of a movement, can and will have lasting effect, will not die out with the wild nights of its birth that follows with the coming of the dawn and the days that will follow.
So if The Vibrators fade from sight- The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Damned will last a bit longer and, more importantly, the best ideas of the movement will, just as life- will go on and on, so will what the music stands for.
Yes, life will go on and on. At least, if you’re still breathing and at last check, I somehow, still was.
And the passion and the power, the realness and true art, and all that I’ll continue to believe in, that resides in this term called “punk” will never die off, but grow stronger.
And as I write the last few words of this review- I wonder, how many more words will I get to write in life? How many more days do I get to express what I feel, what I think, what I believed in?
My life won’t last, my life won’t last, my life won’t go on and on.
But the music will or, at least the feelings that created it. All the truth and passion, all the excitement and energy, all the joy that I’ve believed and experienced will continue. I have no doubt of that.
And now is the time for me to write an ending to this piece. That’s what I’m supposed to do here.
And I guess I could quote the lyrics of this song about life going on, but instead I’ll leave you with this.
Take a chance on what you love, on what you believe in, always.
You won’t lose.
(Slimedog)