How 1977’s punk boom gave an already-active London band a platform
“This is a record company’s idea of new wave. Clichéd heavy metal riffs and someone shouting in a cockney voice. This is a con and I hate it”.
Notwithstanding that it would be a record company’s idea of things as just such an organisation was putting the record out, Geoff Travis, of the Rough Trade record shop, was unequivocal in his view of Cock Sparrer’s crunching debut single “Runnin’ Riot” for Record Mirror in July 1977.