Kinks thought: Not a band that I’d rate alongside the all-time greats, but they have given birth to more than their fair share of ‘classic’ tracks that get covered by others. This alone will keep them in the public eye alongside the Chuck Berrys of this world, getting name-checked by generations unaware of many of their contemporaries.

The Clash: Never one of the key players in punk, IMHO, unless you read music mags rather than going to gigs and buying records. Your Sandanista comment sums them up nicely. No disrespect to the recently departed Mr Strummer, just that he was doing something completely different to many of his peers.

Punk generally: Music mags are infamous for writing bullshit at the time and then rewriting history repeatedly as the years goes by. I can’t reconcile the punk I lived through with the hand-me-down myth regurgitated on a regular basis by today’s generation of adolescent journalists. While I have no doubt there was an element of “anti-prog” at the time, it was barely noticeable amidst all of the vibrant new bands most of us non-hacks were going to see.

Punk was just the vehicle of the time for the guitar wielding hordes. In the same way that grunge or NWOBHM have been flags for emergent musician wannabees to rally around since. Apart from the hardcore fashion victims, I was seeing the same faces at punk gigs in the seventies as I was at Yes and Genesis concerts. It was just more music to us at the time, yet the history re-writers make it sound like The Clone Wars.

Parting irrelevant factoid: Before punk as we know it was born, a hack in one of the UK rags labelled Black Sabbath as punk rock – I’d love to be able to look at that piece now! Although the tag didn’t stick, it was obviously a label that the media didn’t want to waste…

As Not The Nine O’Clock News’ parody song said “Nice video, shame about the record”.

And that is scary.