I had heard the Sex Pistols of course and been mildly shocked by it , as a good Catholic schoolboy , because of the reference to being the antiChrist . Also , my sister had a copy of Crass ' s Nagasaki Nightmare EP in the early 80 ' s , given to her by a boyfriend . But my main access to punk came from a notstrictlypunk source Nirvana . I remember the exact day . It was December 5 th , 1991 . I was 13 . At that time in the UK we were coming to the end of baggy and shoegazing , the Happy Mondays and the Stone Roses had been incredibly popular in 1990 , a phenomenon called Madchester . All that was beginning to fade away and become very pass . I was bored of everything in the indie world . I briefly caught a glimpse of The Smells Like Teen Spirit video and understood that this was the next big thing but didn ' t think much about it . Then on December 5 th , Nirvana were on the Jonathan Ross show . Jonathan Ross is a sort of cutprice British version of David LettermanJay Leno who was well known for his sharp suits . The band were supposed to doing Lithium , their latest single but instead they did a frenetic performance of a song called Territorial Pissings . Here ' s the performance vzrErgBTOwWow . I was completely blown away by this . I had heard snatches of the Sex Pistols and so on but never anything like this . I realize this isn ' t strictly punk , but this particular song is definitely in the tradition of hardcore punk . Later when I heard the album , I was even more hooked . I hadn ' t really heard drumming like that , passion like that , screaming vocals like that . Almost the next day I decided to see if I could hear more music like this . But I couldn ' t find much . I went to the local record shop in the shopping centre and all I could find was the Ramones ' It ' s Alive ! live album , which I bought . I also found a Stiff Little Fingers best of and a Ruts compilation . This was preinternet days when stuff was not easily available , and most stuff was beyond my reach . It took me till I was about 17 to discover the wonderful world of mail order and independent distros , which were fairly active in the UK even then in the mid 90 ' s . There was still a tape trading network then , you could send a blank tape to some guy in Bradord and he would tape Black Flag and Angry Samoans discographies for you . I soon discovered the rich punk rock underground , a thing totally disregarded by the mainstream , and the American punk zines , Heart Attack and Punk Planet and maximumrocknroll . But that ' s a story for another time !