fumbling about for something to have on in the background while messing around with such esoteric concerns as GS1-128 barcodes and the west coast trucking crisis I stumbled across a pair of what I think were German TV documentaries on punk from the 70s on thee Hulu. It’s always nice to see something from a totally different perspective on an area you thought you were familiar with. Even better if it’s something that had seemed as petrified as the history of punk. First up was Punk In London from 1977, which teases at the existence of Generation X (The band) several times, but never delivers them. There are a couple clips of X Ray Spex in there I had never seen. Some people will watch this for the images of 70s Brit punk zines alone… also Mark ‘Sniffing Glue’ Perry smacking a friend’s bare ass. I got a look once from an old friend who does a long-running zine that starts with the letter C, when I told him I sold off my old copies of Sniffing Glue, that would pretty much wilt a douglas fir. This was magically followed by “Punk in England: Women in Rock” from 1978, which had a lot of awesomeness in it. Not least of which was a lot of coverage of the Slits. I have to think a normal reaction to the declarations about punk opening up music to anyone to get up there and rock it will feel immediately intimidated by the presence of Ari Up from the Slits and her damn big hair and overwhelming voice. Hopefully you are hooked up in whatever way lets you watch this… not too sure how all that works.