luka

Well-known member
i think also of adventure playgrounds. the mad ones made of painted timbers, all turrets and elevated walkways, built on old bomb sites where the wild children used to play
 

luka

Well-known member
we could drift among the ruins and repurpose its scrap. the springs and cogs, bent nails and lengths of pipe.

 

luka

Well-known member
as you say this atmosphere lingered on through the 80's and we sought for its last gleamings into the '00s which is why the Lea Valley and Bow Backs were so seductive.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
as you say this atmosphere lingered on through the 80's and we sought for its last gleamings into the '00s which is why the Lea Valley and Bow Backs were so seductive.

That's all true, but I also mean that scarcity of physical objects and access to media, I think that started to change in about 1986. More and more people have video players and Japanese gadgets. Fashion magazines got filled with greater quantities and better quality images. It was one of the effects of Thatcherism in this country, a faster and faster deluge of things to buy and look at.
 

luka

Well-known member
They must have had books, at least? I can't believe you didn't grow up in a house with books in it.

my uncle, who's American but has been marooned in New Zealand since the '70s talks about the end of the 'bad old days of socialism' when New Zealand, like the UK, went neoliberal and all of a sudden you could buy stuff. stuff that is, that you might actually covet and lust after. when, as craner says, images became available. when capitalism regained its power to seduce.
 

luka

Well-known member
k-punk was loyal to the '70s because the depression was a socialist depression. everyone was depressed together, in solidarity.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
the '70s is a depressive episode.
Sure, there was literally a major economic depression around the world, and it's become a cliche to call the decade a "comedown" or "hangover" from the 60s. The Labour party made itself electable again in the 90s by persuading the country it wasn't going to drag us back in time 20 years.
 

luka

Well-known member
I like the shabbiness of grim britannia. it has a certain charm thats largely missing today

i think we all feel massive nostalgia for the period, despite not having lived through it. we did grow up among its ruins.
 

luka

Well-known member
i think you get that in The Fall too. that these were worlds from which capital had retreated and that you could repurpose. build forts out of the refuse. establish a band of wild boys and roam the rubble.
 

vimothy

yurp
the neoliberal era has this seductive sheen, but it seems a bit devoid of character. there's glamour, but its slightly pathetic and limited
 
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