The Suburbs

catalog

Well-known member
Ballard obviously.

But also punk ('bromley contingent') and dubstep (croydon).

David Lynch's white picket fences.

Yearning for the City, but not the City. You can see it, that's what creates the imagination.
 

catalog

Well-known member
like if you go to manchester victoria in the morning, like first train, 6am, 7am, you might see a little crew of goth/EMO kids, they're off back to rochdale or maybe even halifax, they've been out all night, they're freezing cos they dint bring coats, theyve got those big boots on, they cant walk properly, make up gone to shit, theyre pleading with the barrier guy to be let through, cos theyve no money.

these people give me hope.
 
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Leo

Well-known member
lots of cities are playgrounds of the rich, regular kids don't grow up there. they're in towns/suburbs, get bored cuz there's nothing to do there, create their own scene or latch on to one.
 

chava

Well-known member
lots of cities are playgrounds of the rich, regular kids don't grow up there. they're in towns/suburbs, get bored cuz there's nothing to do there, create their own scene or latch on to one.

I guess you are aware of the cost of living in cities nowadays? This is not 1990.
 

Leo

Well-known member
I guess you are aware of the cost of living in cities nowadays? This is not 1990.

not sure I understand. I said cities are expensive, most kids don't live there. most of them are in the suburbs, where they create their own things out of boredom.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
not sure I understand. I said cities are expensive, most kids don't live there.
Or the kids that live there are generally pretty wealthy, which is not the seedbed from which vital youth subcultures and new music scenes usually arise.
 
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chava

Well-known member
not sure I understand. I said cities are expensive, most kids don't live there. most of them are in the suburbs, where they create their own things out of boredom.

Sorry, brainfart. Agreed then!
 
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martin

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I grew up in a suburb of NW London, though never felt isolated from the city as there was a tube station nearby and Camden/Kings X were only 20 mins away on the Northern Line. Aunt and uncle lived in Stratford and we saw them often, it was cheap/easy to get around.

Then I ended up in Luton, though is that technically a 'suburb'? I dunno... anywhere north of Camden, east of Liverpool St, south of Waterloo and west of Fulham is 'the suburbs' to me. Liverpool, Newcastle = the suburbs.

If Luton and Houghton Regis qualify...actually, it wasn't that bad. Boredom can lead you to some funny places. You tend to get weird sub-subcultures too; there was this brief trend in Luton for kids in Hawaiian shirts and bermuda shorts, the gaudier the better, to walk around with sticks and target anyone who wore straight-leg black jeans. Loads of dirtbike gangs. Dunstable had a wicked jungle 12" store too around '94-'95 - seriously, it rivalled any of the London ones, and the bloke who ran it, who looked like a skinny Bob Mills, was sound. Also had the biggest concentration of BNP skinheads I've ever seen.

It's easy to soap up your hair and bleach your jeans and walk down Camden High St in your fancy Discharge T-shirt, where nobody bats an eyelid - but it takes dedication to do it at 11pm outside the suburban local, as a bunch of psychotic ex-Falklands vets with 'taches stagger out and start noising you up. There's also LOADS of pervy stuff that goes on behind the net curtains that'd put your average, 'edgy', 'urban' Dalston dullards, sitting on the balcony of their £500k maisonette and talking about open relationships, to shame. The suburbs gave you dogging, for example. 🐶🎆👍
 

catalog

Well-known member
is that technically a 'suburb'? I dunno... anywhere north of Camden, east of Liverpool St, south of Waterloo and west of Fulham is 'the suburbs' to me. Liverpool, Newcastle = the suburbs.
this is probably a useful definition but i would say that the very inner core of, say, manchester and leeds, are NOT the suburbs. perhaps not liverpool and newcastle as they are not really proper cities anymore.
 

catalog

Well-known member
It's easy to soap up your hair and bleach your jeans and walk down Camden High St in your fancy Discharge T-shirt, where nobody bats an eyelid - but it takes dedication to do it at 11pm outside the suburban local, as a bunch of psychotic ex-Falklands vets with 'taches stagger out and start noising you up. There's also LOADS of pervy stuff that goes on behind the net curtains that'd put your average, 'edgy', 'urban' Dalston dullards, sitting on the balcony of their £500k maisonette and talking about open relationships, to shame. The suburbs gave you dogging, for example. 🐶🎆👍

David Keenan: it's not easy being iggy pop in airdrie - you might like his book 'this is memorial device'.

But, truth be told, you've actually expressed it a lot better than he did in that book.
 
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