Photo: The Damned opened 1977 at the Hope & Anchor, a pub in Islington with a history of live bands. Comfortably holding about 100 people, there were double that number crammed in. Sweat was running down the walls. 2 January 1977. Photography John Ingham.
A dark cloud swept across England in the mid-1970s, washing away the buoyant optimism of Swinging London. The bright promise turned bleak, as the recession pushed more and more people into unemployment. Couple this with strikes, power cuts, and IRA bombs, and the only fitting response was to burn the whole thing down.
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More than music and style, punk was an attitude. It gave no fucks as it seized the moment and made its way out of the art schools and on to the world stage in 1976. Journalist John Ingham, who was writing for Sounds, conducted the first interview with the Sex Pistols and got hooked on the raw energy, soul, and nerve. He began covering the scene, which accelerated rapidly as punk ignited a movement across the U.K.
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New bands like the Clash, the Damned, and Subway Sect began to appear – but no one was photographing them until Ingham picked up a camera. His photographs, which include the very first color pictures of punk, have been collected for the very first time in Spirit of 76: London Punk Eyewitness (Anthology Editions). Ingham reflects on what it was like to be in the front row of a wildfire.
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Friends and countrymen at the Sex Pistols, Notre Dame de France, 15 Nov 1976. Viv Albertine Siouxsie Sioux smoking cigarette, Steve Severin, Kenny Morris, Sarah Hall, one of the two ladies who came with John to the first interview in April. Photography John Ingham