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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Contemporary popular music > Rock & pop > Indie
When punk first broke in the UK in 1976, music journalist John
Ingham was on hand to document the very heart of the scene. Struck
by the music, fashion and sheer iconoclasm of a little-known outfit
called the Sex Pistols, Ingham conducted the first interview with
the band, partied with its members and even bailed Sid Vicious out
of jail; he also witnessed and documented the group's evolution at
legendary gigs shared with other pioneering punk bands in their
earliest days, including the Damned, the Clash, Subway Sect and
more. The result is Spirit of 76: London Punk Eyewitness, a
revelatory collection of photography and fly-on-the-wall reportage
showcasing the punk movement from its most raucous, bewildering
beginnings. Containing the only color photos from British punk's
first wave alongside Ingham's inimitable prose, this volume
constitutes a rare from-the-trenches report on the UK punk
explosion from one of its original participants. Here is the story
of a year made up as it happened, lived with excitement and the
belief that you could make the future whatever you wanted it to be.
The first book of its kind in English, Beyond No Future: Cultures
of German Punk explores the texts and contexts of German punk
cultures. Notwithstanding its "no future" sloganeering, punk has
had a rich and complex life in German art and letters, in German
urban landscapes, and in German youth culture. Beyond No Future
collects innovative, methodologically diverse scholarly
contributions on the life and legacy of these cultures. Focusing on
punk politics and aesthetics in order to ask broader questions
about German nationhood(s) in a period of rapid transition, this
text offers a unique view of the decade bookended by the "German
Autumn" and German unification. Consulting sources both published
and unpublished, aesthetic and archival, Beyond No Future's
contributors examine German punk's representational strategies,
anti-historical consciousness, and refusal of programmatic
intervention into contemporary political debates. Taken together,
these essays demonstrate the importance of punk culture to
historical, political, economic, and cultural developments taking
place both in Germany and on a broader transnational scale.
Arising from the street corners and underground clubs, Rebel Music:
Resistance through Hip Hop and Punk, challenges standardized
schooling and argues for equity, peace, and justice. Rebel Music is
an important, one-of-a-kind book that takes readers through fun,
radical, educational chapters examining Hip Hop and Punk songs,
with each section addressing a particular social issue. Rebel Music
values the experiences found in both movements as cultural capital
that is de-valued in the current oppressive, standard, test-driven,
rule-bound, and corporate schooling experience, making youth "just
another brick in the wall." This collection is a "rebel yell" to
administrators, teachers, parents, police, politicians, and
counsellors who demonize Hip Hop and Punk to listen up and respect
youth culture. Finally, Rebel Music is a celebration of radical
voices and an organizing tool for those who use music to challenge
oppression.
Arising from the street corners and underground clubs, Rebel Music:
Resistance through Hip Hop and Punk, challenges standardized
schooling and argues for equity, peace, and justice. Rebel Music is
an important, one-of-a-kind book that takes readers through fun,
radical, educational chapters examining Hip Hop and Punk songs,
with each section addressing a particular social issue. Rebel Music
values the experiences found in both movements as cultural capital
that is de-valued in the current oppressive, standard, test-driven,
rule-bound, and corporate schooling experience, making youth "just
another brick in the wall." This collection is a "rebel yell" to
administrators, teachers, parents, police, politicians, and
counsellors who demonize Hip Hop and Punk to listen up and respect
youth culture. Finally, Rebel Music is a celebration of radical
voices and an organizing tool for those who use music to challenge
oppression.
Global Punk examines the global phenomenon of DIY (do-it-yourself)
punk, arguing that it provides a powerful tool for political
resistance and personal self-empowerment. Drawing examples from
across the evolution of punk - from the streets of 1976 London to
the alleys of contemporary Jakarta - Global Punk is both
historically rich and global in scope. Looking beyond the music to
explore DIY punk as a lived experience, Global Punk examines the
ways in which punk contributes to the process of disalienation and
political engagement. The book critically examines the impact that
DIY punk has had on both individuals and communities, and offers
chapter-length investigations of two important aspects of DIY punk
culture: independent record labels and self-published zines.
Grounded in scholarly theories, but written in a highly accessible
style, Global Punk shows why DIY punk remains a vital cultural form
for hundreds of thousands of people across the globe today.
Performing Punk is a rich exploration of subcultural contrasts and
similarities among punks. By investigating how punk is made, for
whom, and in opposition to what, this book takes the reader on a
journey through the lesser-known aspects of the punk subculture.
If you know what it is, punk is everywhere nowadays - in fashion,
in TV ads, in loads of books and in retro mags. And as the
characters aren't waxworks but in many cases living beings, some
have staggered, tramped or even rocketed back into public life.
It's a bit tricky to sort the crap from the class but this unusual
book deserves the latter tag. If your world was influenced by
Crass, the Levellers or Adam & The Ants, Let's Submerge is for
you (Berger has written the definitive work on Crass and also a
biog of the Levellers). The anthology is more than memoir - it's a
personal take on punk and its place in Berger's life. Built on a
superb, rangy interview with Crass linchpin Penny Rimbaud and
including in-depth talks with mavericks such as Mark Perry, Marco
Pirroni, the late Steven Wells and Spizz, it seeks to unearth what
the movement/phenomenon was about and how its protagonists fit with
the Berger view that punk was "a place where misfits could be
accepted and conformity didn't rule." His choice of subjects might
make consensus likely but that is not the point as an unflinching
style gets the best out of his interviewees. A key passage in the
Mark Perry interview has the priceless line: "My old mate Danny
Baker, erstwhile Sniffin' Glue colleague] did an advert for Daz
They're a major corporation Give us a break They're destroying the
fucking world - why are we working for them? I'm not a particularly
political person . . .." Perry also tells a great tale of how he
was asked to appear on Baker's edition of This Is Your Life and was
chastised by his ma for turning it down. "Even people I respect
didn't understand. I don't live by those rules." Wherever their
careers have taken them, all have consciously avoided settling in
the mainstream. Berger's writing career took him to 3am (not the
Daily Mirror column, but 3ammagazine.com - "Whatever it is, we're
against it") and the pieces he contributed are to me the hard core
of Let's Submerge. They are a riveting set, composed with passion
and spiked with insight and humour, covering an unexpectedly wide
terrain - drinking at the Ritz, flag-waving nationalism, the
virtues of Jeffrey Archer, Crass redux and voting among others.
There's also an equally spiky and humorous memoir of a spell of
horse-drawn life in Ireland, and quite a bit more. In conclusion,
an illuminating interview with the author puts the foregoing into
historical perspective. The impression is that while Berger wants
to "draw a line" rather than march on as a modern-day torchbearer,
the light is unlikely to go out.
As noted in the description of the first volume of this book, every
punk book seems to be about the bands, about the 'faces', about the
music. Volume 2 of All The Young Punks brings you more stories from
the frontline, from the trenches. Stories from the foot soldiers
who made punk what it was without turning it into a career. Born
too late for the inner circle, but shining like a thousand comets
nonetheless - this is the story of the punks. "It felt like pure
energy - like a Sherbet Dip, when you have the first mouthful and
your face scrunches up" "Punk Rock had saved me and I dedicated
myself to it's glory" "there was music I could relate to for when I
was feeling sad, happy, funky or whatever, but nothing for when I
felt angry... until THIS." "Then there was the day a bunch of us
painted my mate's Woolworths acoustic guitar white then set light
to it in the local park while another mate filmed it with his dad's
Super 8 Camera as a 'Dada-ist Performance Piece'. Unfortunately we
didn't tell the bloke who's guitar it was, and when he found out we
had to go into hiding for a couple of weeks as he recruited a bunch
of local 'hard nuts' to 'sort us out'...." "Records with swearing
in " "It was like a story with no pre-ordained ending. I still get
a electrical twinge when a band hits that first note or chord, what
will happen next." "bum flaps fashioned from an old kilt of my
mum's, black bondage trousers with the baby reins I had worn as a
toddler attached behind, hastily marker penned anarchy armbands."
"I remember buying a white catering jacket (on which I pinned a
Crass badge with the 'broken gun' image in day-glo orange on white)
that I fancied looked a bit like the tuxedo that Sid wore in the My
Way video. Margate being a seaside resort, though, I was always
being asked if I'd got a job as an ice cream seller." "Its naive to
think that society could change, but to a certain extent, in the
early years and with the optimism of youth I believed it could
happen." "I still had long hair and was wearing a 'Tales From
Topographic Oceans' teeshirt. The guitarist of Slaughter came up to
me after the gig and said "Do you like Yes then?," I very nervously
mumbled "Er I suppose so," to which he replied "Me too mate,
fuckin' great band " "It came along just at the right time though
and gave me somewhere to belong, which was a lifesaver." "I'm still
in awe of the sex, style and subversion that the original Punk
Explosion thrust upon unsuspecting England and if I'm not out
smashing the system then I'm doing my bit to resist it's clammy
clutches." "He said, "This album can't be any good. It's got 14
tracks on it." I love that quote."
New Wave: Image is Everything traces the evolution of the often
neglected pop music genre, new wave. Using artists from Elvis
Costello to Cyndi Lauper as illustrations, the book argues that new
wave was among the first flowerings of postmodern theory in popular
culture.
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