From the 13th May until the 2nd October 2016, the British Library is hosting a free exhibition titled Punk 1976-78. Looking at punk in its early days, and how it affected music, fashion, print and youth culture . This event is a part of Punk London, a year long celebration of punk, triggered by the 40th anniversary of the Sex Pistols’ debut single, Anarchy in the UK. Punk London includes gigs, exhibitions, films and more.
The library has put together a huge collection of punk memorabilia for the exhibition, making the event a shrine to punk. Punk fans can look forward to being transported back to the glory days. Things you can expect to see there are a range of fanzines, flyers, record sleeves and recordings from the library’s collection. Also, rock journalist Jon Savage has donated raw material from his archive in Liverpool’s John Moores University.
Andy Linehan, the curator of popular music at the British Library raves about his excitement for the event. He says how the exhibition is focusing on the initial burst of punk, and looks at the way it continuously influences our culture as time goes on. Linehan talks about how he actually lived through the punks’ defining era and looking at all of the items in the exhibition is a crazy flashback to his youth. He explains how punk is “not an easy thing to define”, but he does talk about the huge impact punk made on the way people think. As he says that punk was “the birth of the independent label”. One part of the exhibit Linehan says he’s really excited about is a very rare, unreleased A&M copy of God Save the Queen, which was donated from a huge Sex Pistols collector, who was happy to share his collection.
