Bands like X-Ray Spex, The Jam, Boomtown Rats, The Adverts, and The Lurkers were coming up on the scene, and Büld got lots of good footage. From live shows at The Roxy to drop-in conversations at Rough Trade Records, Büld managed to put himself in the punk hotspots of the time. He also managed to get some good footage of Teddy Boys talking about their hatred of everything and anything punk. We even get to see a classic living-room interview with one of the dudes from The Lurkers and his parents. The tellie is blaring, his parents are proud, and he doesn't miss a chance to proclaim The Lurkers superior to The Rolling Stones and Boomtown Rats. This spirit of defiance comes across in almost every piece of film, with lots of rhetoric about the need to overturn conventional ways of making music. Büld found some good counterpoint in interviews with people close to the music that were already saying punk had lost its way, a theme that returns later with his follow-up documentary titled Punk in England.
The best moments in Punk in London are when Büld lets the camera rest on bands during charged performances. There are also great sequences where he shows the rough setting around London where these kids were growing up, and the rougher settings where they were practicing and playing. Independent music doesn't come close to describing how fringe these bands were during this period, but their stars were already in the ascendant. Crowds were gathering, Roxy was a destination on its way to becoming iconic, and Rough Trade was soon to be more than just a place to hang out and listen to records with like-minded kids. The actual interviews are mostly a jumbled mess, and Büld's narration is all in German, so not all of Punk in London holds up as well. Fans of these bands, or music lovers interested in seeing the roots of punk music, will really get into Punk in London, even with its flaws.