Punk clubs

In the mid-1970s punk began by sending messages from an underworld—posters that aped the style of ransom notes, gigs in Soho strip clubs, and a two-night “festival” in the 100 Club (a bleary basement off London’s main shopping boulevard, Oxford Street). The two main London clubs for punk were the Roxy (in Covent Garden) and the Vortex (in Soho), both belowground sweat pits. Tellingly, the Live at the Roxy album (1977), which documents the period,...