The Communities

The thriving 70’s and 80’s ‘alternative’ and ‘punk’ music scene’s in the Home Counties area centered around Luton, UK Decay’s home town. The second and third generations followed the original ‘punk rock’ explosion of 1976. This heralded many spin offs that blossomed in the subsequent years such as  ‘post punk’, ‘new romantic’, ‘positive punk’, ‘goth’, ‘hardcore punk’, ‘anarchist pacifist’, ‘industrial’ and ‘electro, ‘art rock’ , ‘ska’, ‘mods’, ‘reggae’ and ‘dub’ etc.

Almost all these towns on the below map had their own bands and music scene, or eagerly migrated to a nearby town to catch their favourite bands. UK Decay was but one of many bands that existed within this map. Other major featured bands from this time and area included Bauhaus, Chron Gen, Furyo, In Excelsis etc and Kajagoogoo!

Whilst Bauhaus from Northampton played Top Of The Pops and left our area for fame and fortune , UK Decay who treated their home patch seriously, between 1979 and 1983 became one of the most popular bands within this region at a time when the audience took their punk seriously. Their gigs within the region were often contentious with other ‘tribes’. But the band became successful seeking out folk with ‘like minds’ looking for something different to the ‘oi oi’ and basic ‘anarco-pacifist’ types at the same time bringing punks together with a slightly more thoughtful and sometimes ‘darker’ approach. Their fanbase in this area ballooned  in between 1980 and the end of 1982, featuring at major events such as at the legendary ‘Friars’ in Aylesbury, or at Stevenage Bowes Lyon or St Albans City Hall. However, the bands gigs at two Luton Carnival’s and at Bedford Bunyan Center ended up in full scale riots!

Bauhaus and UK Decay from Northampton and Luton became major early pioneers of the emerging ‘goth’ or ‘gothic’ music scene’s and helped to create a major world wide sub culture that still flourishes today. more

Map of Luton Communities Area

Map of Luton centered UK Decay Communities heartland

Spread about the website there are resources that have been built up over the last decade detailing punk culture events, individuals, bands, poets, artists, venues and other happenings that have contributed to making the seventies and eighties in our area a unique colourful, memorable and climactic experience for a whole generation.

This website has received literally millions of hits from all over the world in the last decade, with many singular articles having multiple ten’s of thousands of reads. All in all it has played a part in placing our time, our culture and our town and area on the world map.

There is no other web resource like this for this important geographical area, please feel free to look round our galleries, pages and forum’s.

Introduction
Why UK Decay Communities were created

Luton Area Punk 1977 – 1989 Gallery
Thousands of Punk Faces, Bands, Flyers, Posters, Scrapbooks, Record covers and press clippings

The Anti Nirex Compilation
A mid eighties Luton protest Compilation article and stream

Luton Punk Venues
A collection of live music venues from the period – where they are now

Fanzines
A collection of scanned Fanzines from the period

UK Decay Today Webzine
UK Decay Communities downloadable webzine from the mid noughties

UK Decay Communities Forum
Literally thousands of topics post’s relating to the people and bands of the time and era

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“Film and Video after Punk”

THIS IS NOW POSTER

THIS IS NOW POSTER Saturday 21st November 2015. Leighton Buzzard Library Theatre 2pm – 11pm. Free Entry and Bar

I will be attending a question and answer session at the festival…

“Dumping It On Parliament Revisited”

Dumping It On Parliament 2015 Live Presentation

Dumping It On Parliament 2015 Live Presentation

I am helping host a fiesta of protest, a host of bands covering tracks from the original 1986 “Dumping It On Parliament” and also presenting their own contemporary original protest songs to ‘Dump On Parliament ‘ today…

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