...and they didn't seem angry about much, except for maybe not being able to afford drugs.

The Commenter Who Ignores the Post Topic says...

In the Punk Era the punks often wore safety pins to hold their ragged clothing together. So safety pins were like the punk version of a zipper, possibly.

Spacemen 3 weren't a punk band, they came after that era. And while their songs had simple structures, like most punk songs, they were even simpler, and they didn't seem angry about much, except for maybe not being able to afford drugs.

Punk made you jump around and slam into people; Spacemen 3 made you loosely sway, or nod off, depending on the drugs you had access to.

They didn't follow punk fashion, either. On the cover of one of their best albums, 'The Perfect Prescription', the founder is wearing a V-neck sweater over a collared shirt. And despite being drug hounds they look fairly schoolboy in that picture. They did get shaggier, though: drugs eventually get into the way of hygiene matters.

But I think my punk safety-pin / zipper comment is on point.

I am Laslo.