Talk:Pub rock (United Kingdom)

Blockheads
I'm very nervous about changing articles these days, especially one with a source, but it would have been impossible for the Pistols to have supported The Blockheads (in '76 i think is the implication) - the band was not fully formed or named until the Stiff package tour of '77 and didn't release a record under that name until What A Waste in '78 - the Pistols did support an Ian Dury band (Dury confirms this in his TV documentary On My Life, amongst other places) but it's more likely they supported Ian Dury & The Kilburns - an intermediate band between Kilburn & The Highroads and The Blockheads that did contain Blockheads members like Chas Jankel and Davey Payne, which could have lead to the confusion (i see the 'source' is Johnny Rotten's No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs - not a very reliable book) - though they could have been using the name Kilburn & The Highroads still/again. It's a little thing, but annoying. Can i get a more authoritarian Wikier's go-ahead to change this some time? Thanks - 9/9/11  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.56.27 (talk) 23:53, 8 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Sounds like you're on to something. If anyone has a source for the Blockhead formation dates we should refine Rotten's claim to the support gig with an annotation. Silverwood (talk) 19:15, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Overhaul
I've re-written this article using sourced quotes from the original wherever possible. Unfortunately I had to cut the long list of bands considered to be Pub Rock. These sorts of lists are not suitable to Wikipedia. However, I recognise that this means lots of people's favourite Pub Rock bands don't get a mention so I've pased the list below to keep it alive. P.S. I took the liberty of removing Slade, though, they really don't belong here and I couldn't resist.Silverwood (talk) 22:11, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Notable acts

 * The 101er's
 * Ace
 * Bees Make Honey
 * Blast Furnace and the Heatwaves
 * Bazooka Joe
 * Brinsley Schwarz
 * Burlesque
 * Chas & Dave
 * Clancy
 * Cock Sparrer
 * Elvis Costello (as D.P. Costello)
 * The Derelicts
 * Dr Feelgood
 * Ducks Deluxe


 * Eddie and the Hot Rods
 * Dave Edmunds
 * Eggs over Easy
 * Help Yourself
 * The Inmates
 * Wilko Johnson
 * Mickey Jupp
 * Kilburn and the High Roads
 * Kokomo
 * The Kursaal Flyers
 * Nick Lowe
 * Man
 * The Motors


 * Nine Below Zero
 * John Otway
 * Graham Parker and the Rumour
 * The Playmates
 * Plummet Airlines
 * The Records
 * The Smirks
 * Sniff 'n' the Tears
 * Squeeze
 * The Stranglers
 * Wreckless Eric

Punk Rock
Could this article become a subsection of Punk Rock?


 * Strongly disagree punk rock is probably too long already for other sections to be merged with it, if anything it needs to be broken down into seperate articles, not merged, plus pub rock is a completely seperate musical genre, even if pub rock was to some degree an antecedent of much of the early UK punk rock scene quercus robur 22:33, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I quite agree with my learned friend. Punk rock sounds nothing like pub rock.83.32.231.20 17:23, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Seconded - though there are obviously crossovers - clear distinction at the time even when punk came along, because people like Feelgoods and Kursaals were still going in parallel with punk. Although they and punk acts would often appear at the same venues, like the H&A, some people would go to one sort of gig, some to the other or some - like me - to both. But everyone knew which was which. So removing merge notice now, it's absurd... Tarquin Binary 19:17, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
 * To say nothing of The Stranglers, who, though listening to them now, they sound nothing like Punk, were considered part of that movement; probably because they came up through the same Pub Rock tendency.
 * In this connection, I was amused by the irony of this quotation: while pub rock harked back to early rock and roll and R&B, punk was iconoclastic. And they wondered why John Peel liked Punk so much!
 * Nuttyskin (talk) 23:16, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Death of the Scene
As far as I can tell, if you do what the author didn't and remove your head from the enormous .... ahem.. sandpit (would use stronger language, but..) that is London, knocking down well known pubs or turning them into houses isn't so much of a fashion as there isn't the same crazy population density or clamour for space - and the pub rock scene, though slightly morphed in flavour to fit the times, is still alive and well. Come to the midlands and give Birmingham (the centre, and the slightly further out regions, where such pubs with function rooms abound), Leicester, Peterborough, Coventry, etc a try. (pet hate is media types and entertainments writers getting hoodwinked into thinking there is no world and no life outside of the m25, when the majority of the uk population has never set foot inside it.. what if such a mindset had stifled the rise of merseybeat, or the madchester scene?)

of course, it's not the biggest thing going as it might have briefly been in the mid 70s, but that's arguably the entire point - its a very personal, up close "communion" kind of experience. it's been a long time since i've been able to get my act together and go out an enjoy a night in one of these places, but i'd certainly enjoy the opportunity to do so again, particularly with at least one favoured internet-based cottage-industry folky type band is doing the midlands pub rounds right now (as an exception to the above statement, i fear a previous haunt - the old railway, in duddeston (b'ham) - has probably been bulldozed to make way for the metal-and-glass white elephant that is the Millennium Point science centre and iMax cinema. If i'm lucky, it's still there nestled alongside, serving up choice cuts of local punk, metal and hard rock bands. long may it's dodgy acoustics distort on, if so)

82.36.132.148 00:54, 3 February 2006 (UTC) cheers, Tahrey


 * In your eagerness to slag off London, you have totally missed the point of the article. Yes, people go to gigs in pubs in London, just as they did. But firstly the piece is about the short historical phenomenon that was Pub Rock (geddit, caps? - note, not 'music played in pubs'). Pub Rock was a London/Essex creation, so your comments are utterly irrelevant. This is not to slag off your region (extraordinarily enough, Londoners are quite aware there is a world outside London. I find the petty-minded parochialism starts when you get outside the M25 - you're showing a lot of it, re-read what you wrote.)


 * But the conversion of good old pubs, many of which were great venues in the southeast, is a matter that concerns us down here, amusing as you may find it. Anyway, I would use stronger language about the 'sandpit' that you seem to be firmly rooted in, but I think prolonging a regional slagging match is quite unprofitable. In fact, I do regret not being able to give the Pub Rock venues in southern Essex in the late 70s enough credit - it needs someone who knew the Essex Pub Rock scene there to do that. Tarquin Binary 01:16, 3 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Not to say Pub Rock didn't exist outside of London - I'm thinking of the Steve Gibbons Band and Ricky Cool and the Icebergs from Birmingham.
 * There must have been a Pub Rock scene in the north east as a lot of the well known Pub Rock acts from down south ended up as guests on local TV show The Geordie Scene from Tyne Tees TV (as featured on Sky Art's Guy Garvey From The Vaults)...would they have bothered going all the way up to Newcastle for a show probably only shown in the TTTV and Border regions if there wasn't the prospect of a gig or two. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.173.247 (talk) 13:36, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 14 March 2016

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved. It has no sense to continue as there may not be supporting comments. Pub rock will be a DAB page. (non-admin closure) ©   Tb hotch ™ (en-2.5). 19:09, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Pub rock (United Kingdom) → Pub rock – Already redirects here. Unreal7 (talk) 01:45, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose "pub rock" was originally the Australian topic, now located at Pub rock (Australia), and was a disambiguation page for 10 years. It should return to being a disambiguation page, instead of favouring UK or Australia. -- 70.51.46.39 (talk) 07:14, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose the primary article is in fact Pub rock (Australia) and if anything the redirect should be to that topic not Pub rock (United Kingdom). Dan arndt (talk) 08:15, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose no indication that this topic is primary over Pub rock (Australia); return redirect to disambiguation page. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 10:52, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose and make the base page a dab page, no obvious WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  11:30, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose There is no obvious primary topic here. Pub rock had 61 incoming links, many of which should have linked to the Australian article or which require disambiguation because they are primarily from US articles that don't properly fit either the Australian or UK version. It's fairly clear that editors have been linking to pub rock without realising that there are multiple versions. Pub rock needs to be returned to being a disambiguation page so that these incorrect links can be picked up, and that should be an outcome of this RM. -- Aussie Legend  ( ✉ ) 04:00, 15 March 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Pub rock (United Kingdom). Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20100717115322/http://www.nostalgiacentral.com:80/music/pubrock.htm to http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/music/pubrock.htm

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- Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 00:54, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 18:46, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

"rejecting huge stadium venues"
Re first paragraph ... "was notable for rejecting huge stadium venues and for returning live rock to the small intimate venues".

Firstly, it's not in the original source. Secondly, who is the author kidding? None of the bands would have been invited to nor been able to fill a "stadium". This would appear to be an Americanism creeping its way in.

Also, I don't think "returned" live rock to small venues, it just where they always played. I mean, where else would they? Does the author think bands just hop from their bedrooms to playing Wembley on a whim?

Chopped. --82.132.227.193 (talk) 15:05, 18 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Plus stuff like this is fuggin' embarrassing, "Bands looked menacing and threatening". No they didn't, they just looked like their audience or mates. There wasn't a "look", a dress code or identity, people just came out in wearing whatever they went to work or drink in. --82.132.245.26 (talk) 15:12, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, but people tended to dress more formally in the 1970s, even just going out for a drink. The fact that you would deliberately go out to the pub, and get up on stage with a band, while not dressing to the nines, was the culturally shocking thing about it. Nobody ever went in for "dressing down" in those days.
 * Nuttyskin (talk) 23:25, 24 June 2024 (UTC)