Punk Britannia: Part 2 - Punk 1976-78

Three-part series about the history of punk. Daydreaming England was about to be rudely awakened as punk emerged from the London underground scene and a nation dropped its dinner in its lap when the Sex Pistols swore on primetime television. Punk had finally found its enemy - the establishment. It began to extend its three-chord vocabulary through an alliance with reggae, captured by the Clash on White Man in Hammersmith Palais. A disastrous PR stunt by the Pistols on a Thames barge marked a turning point - the darker underbelly of the summer of '77 saw race riots in Lewisham, the backdrop for a rawer, working class sound. By '78 punk was becoming a costume - the pop orthodoxy it had originally sought to destroy. For many punk ended when the Pistols split, beset by internal problems, following an abortive US tour in January '78. Those practitioners who would go on to enjoy sustained success sought to modify their sound to survive, such as Siouxsie Sioux, leading to the post-punk era