Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

Lots of great singles in a Nuggets / Pebbles kind-of-a-way but very little evidence of extended creativity unless you count Art Rockers like Wire and Pop Group and Go4. But they were not Punk.

4 Can could play, Magic Band could play, Blockheads could play, Cheap Trick could play, Television could play, Pere Ubu could play. The list is endelss and none of them could have made the music they made without being able to play. Virtually anyone with a career stretching beyond one album can play. Being able to play should be the minimum requirement.

Taste is the key issue not techncial facility but learning to play gives you choices that the whole monkey-with-typewriter thing does not.

That's exactly is what got lost in the shuffle when Peel was championing all those no talent, can't sing, can't play, can't write indie acts in the early 80s. A monkey with a Telecaster could get in the Festive 50 circa 1984.

It's like everyone took the most reductive and easily Xeroxed aspects of The Velvets, The Fall or The Smiths tried to make a career out of it without having an iota of the intelligence or charisma. As the classic heckle of the time goes "practice at home".

If only they had.