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15 u 2 The Pistols Strike Again! On the Function of Punk in the Peninsular “Generation X” Fiction of Ray Loriga and Benjamín Prado Paul D. Begin The Clash, the Ramones, and the Sex Pistols, especially Sid Vicious—these are just some of the references to 1970s British and U.S. punk music that have made their way into Peninsular Generation X fiction of the 1990s. If this penchant for 1970s punk seems strange, contrived, or even “inauthentic,” it is because these groups are often linked to a specific time and milieu. Meanwhile, these groups and their music are often examined as tightly bound subcultural units, whose subversive practices can be localized and explained within their specific contexts . Dick Hebdige’s seminal study, Subculture (1979), is instructive in this respect. Now, however, these groups, representing as they do the “origins” of punk, are internationally recognized, commodified, and thus no longer constitute a “threat” to the status quo. Accordingly, a subcultural lens is not entirely helpful when considering the use of punk within a contemporary Peninsular context. Given the current “post-punk” context and the location (Spain), a more productive point of entry will be to examine how punk informs Generation X in general and how this confluence is manifested within Spanish cultural production . Specifically, this essay explores the intersection between punk, Generation X, and Spanish youth culture in two novels, Lo peor de todo (The Worst of All) (1992) and Benjamín Prado’s Nunca le des la mano a un pistolero zurdo [Never Shake Hands with a Left-handed Gunman] (1995). What one finds in these 16 PAUL D. BEGIN works is an ad hoc appropriation of certain aspects of punk (its “blank” quality, the social critique, its negationism and nonconformity), qualities which speak to the more diffuse, international, and apolitical attitude of Generation X. Punk, of course, is not a new phenomenon in Spain during the 1990s; it was already an influential force throughout the movida.1 However, the movida’s appropriation of punk was selective. For example, one of punk’s most significant impacts was on music and the music industry itself, but this did not transfer to Spain, since the state of rock was (and remains) significantly different than in the U.S. and Great Britain. Rock and roll is generally considered an “import” to the Peninsula, and John Hooper writes that, “in the field of pop and rock . . . Spain lags” (352).2 Hooper is not alone: music critic Jesús Ordovás writes that the changes in taste in Spain are directly (albeit slowly) influenced by the popular styles in Europe and the United States (354). In the early years of rock in Spain, it was the Dúo Dinámico (Dynamic Duo) who introduced to the music of Paul Anka and Elvis, but these were covers, not even originals inspired by Elvis or others (Ordovás 355). Los Bravos had some international impact with their hit, “Black is Black,” but the presence of other Spanish groups on the rock charts has been fleeting if at all. The only autochthonous rock to come out of Spain and have any impact are the hybrid forms of flamenco rock and flamenco pop, with groups such as El Último de la Fila (The Last in Line), Triana, Ketama, and La Terremoto (Earthquake). But apart from this, British and U.S. music is what controls the charts (Ordovás 359). In other words, Johnny Rotten’s famous declaration—“The Pistols finished rock and roll. That was the last rock and roll band. It’s all over now. Rock and roll is shit. It’s dismal . Granddad danced to it”—would have had little meaning to participants in the movida (quoted in Szatmary, 237). What did translate well into the movida was punk’s do-it-yourself attitude toward art and its employment of an avant-garde style bricolage without the political overtones. Mark Allinson observes that Spanish youth culture in the 1980s followed punk’s playful and corrosive attitude toward art, but that it “is distinct in that its emergence from the heady excesses of a suddenly liberated post-Franco Spain deprives it of the social signification as deviance or resistance often associated with youth subcultures” (“Construction” 265). Punk, in effect, became primarily an aesthetic influence throughout the movida. Alaska is an important figure in this respect. In comparing Spain’s 1980s manifestation of punk with the British version, Allinson observes: The position of Madrid’s underground version...

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