14:

Buzzcocks. There has to be a punk moment, and this is it. I could have picked almost anything from this time, but there's a story attached to this. We didn't really do punk properly in Aberdeen. We were a bit too far out of the loop. I mean, we had the expected furore when the Sex Pistols were banned from playing in Aberdeen, but I'm not even sure there was a serious suggestion that they were coming. There were Clash and Damned albums in the Year Area, and the odd safety pin - in lapels, mind, not in faces. We did enjoy the supposed anarchy and rebellion, but I think we were a bit half-hearted about it really. And we got it all several weeks after the fact, too - the latest new band were established chart artists by the time we actually got to hear any of the music - everything moved so fast in 1977 - ans I think that a little of the thrill was absorbed by that. And I can make no real claims to being a punk in any meaningful way; I liked the music I heard, but I didn't own any of it.

The only way I could hear it, other than the occasional radio play, was good old fashioned seven inch singles. In later years, there was a record player in the Year Area - I wonder whose it was? We queued up to put on our singles during lunchbreak particularly, and some of my fond memories are of almost entirely forgotten singles - Flying Lizards, Lemon Kittens, Spizz Energi, Regents (anyone remember "Seventeen"?) The other place where records might be played was in the dressing room of the Drama Theatre - there was a lot of free time between Highers and the end of term, and we were trying to put on a couple of plays to the accompaniment of various loud pieces of music, including, from somewhere, the Buzzcocks single 'What Do I Get?' Now, not particularly controversial (not compared to 'Orgasm Addict', anyway), it wasn't even particularly new - someone presumably had brought it in in a job lot of things to listen to. The other side, however, was charmingly, and challengingly entitled 'Oh Shit'. No-one dared put it on (hey, we weren't that rebellious) until one day, yours truly, bored or forgetful, or something, flipped it over and the room emptied. There was a first year drama class going on in the theatre, and apparently they could hear it all perfectly... I think it was my only act of teenage rebellion, and I can't even be certain that I meant it. Pass the pipe and slippers....