Slamdance in the No Time Zone: Punk as Repertoire for Liminality

Popular Music

The emergence of punk in Britain (1976–1978) is recalled and documented as a moment of rebellion, one in which youth culture was seen to challenge accepted values and forms of behaviour, and to set in motion a new kind of cultural politics. In this article we do two things. First, we ask how far punk's challenge extended. Did it penetrate those political, cultural and social elites against which it set itself? And second, we reflect on the problem of recovering the history and politics of moments such as punk, and on the value of archives to such exercises in recuperation. In pursuit of both tasks, we make use of a wide range of historical sources, relying on these rather than on retrospective oral or autobiographical accounts. We set our findings against the narratives offered by both subcultural and mainstream histories of punk. We show how punk's impact on elites can be detected in the rhetoric of the popular media, and in aspects of the practice of local government and t...

Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 383-394, 2006

2019

This essay explores the punk subculture in the UK, and examines the extent the subculture was dependent on music (particularly the genre of punk rock). It analyses the different ways music impacted the subculture; considering both the role of music within the media and society, and the music itself. By reviewing literature between the 1970s, to the present day, it seeks to understand the different components of music, and how these represented the members of the subculture and the overall representation of punk. This study aims to measure the degree of musical influence on punk, and which elements of music had the most impact. It will focus on the subculture’s formation and demise, and how music affected both. It will also look at the music of punk rock in depth, and how musical expressions can represent subcultures.

Popular Music and Society, 2020

Some dismiss the first-wave English punk bands that formed in the Sex Pistols' wake simply because they came after. But as Don Letts (the Clash videographer photographed before a line of police officers at the 1976 Notting Hill demonstrations) notes in this book's foreword, "The Pistols would make you want to smash your head against the wall, but the Clash gave you a reason" (viii). Letts's simple noting note establishes a starting point for the analysis that fills Samuel Cohen and James Peacock's collection. With The Clash Takes on the World, Cohen and Peacock offer a curation that should excite readers; as the title indicates, it is a collection of scholarly essays on the Clash which advances a transnational view of the band, and it is the first to do so. As such, it operates from three central question. First, "in what ways might The Clash be considered a 'transnational' band and how does such an appellation increase our understanding of their work?" (6). Second, "what is the relationship between regional, national and transnational identity in a study of The Clash?" (16). And third, "how might interdisciplinary studies of a global phenomenon like The Clash make a worthy contribution to transnational studies more widely?" (17). Gabriel Solis's "Punk Politics, Blackness, and Indigenous Protest: The Clash's Australian Tour, 1982" helps address the first central question. Solis captures the year 1982, right after the release of Combat Rock, when the Clash began their one and only Australian tour. The band were joined by aboriginal activist Gary Foley who spoke at each show during the song "Armagideon Time." Foley's speeches touched on aboriginal settlement of the Australian continent, the oppressive nature of white Australian political life, and encouraged crowds to "participate fully and actively in the struggle for rights and justice" (171). This may not surprise readers who are familiar with the Clash's career. But to appreciate this, one should recall that punk was a predominantly white phenomenon, especially in the UK. Additionally, the Clash were "committed to black music, and to a kind of class politics" and to "truly revolutionary anti-racist politics more broadly" (174). For Solis, then, the Clash choosing to tour with Gary Foley "was an understandable extension of their political engagement with blackness in the UK" (175). By addressing the collection's first question, this essay depicts the Clash as a transnational band and illuminates their work since the Clash's Australia tour showcased "how race and class intersected for this mostly white subculture in post-industrial England. .. and how its politics evolved as it became a worldwide phenomenon" (167). Justin Wadlow's "The Last Gang in Town: The Clash Portrayed in New York and Paris" attends to the editors' second question regarding the relationship between regional, national, and transnational identities. Concerned primarily with punk's visual legacy, Wadlow posits that the Clash were a group with a double identity due to their depictions in New York City and France (203). Specifically, Wadlow claims that the different depictions of the band in these two places led to their portrayal as both "working-class heroes" and "magnificent dandies" (203). As for specifics concerning the Clash's image, Wadlow begins with a brief history of Punk magazine, mentioning early covers featuring Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Blondie, the Ramones,

Trans-Global Punk Scenes: The Punk Reader Volume 2, 2021

<NP>There are hundreds of books charting the evolution of punk in the mid-1970s or celebrating the cultural importance of famous participants in the scene, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom (Savage 1991; Lazell 1995; McNeil and McCain 1996); an 'official history' that is broadly uncontested beyond the critical notion of excluded voices and identities. After all, no one seriously denies the impact of the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood, Jamie Reid and dozens of other celebrated individuals in the early days of what would come to be known as punk rock. These narratives have become accepted and embedded in the mythology of punk, with longstanding fans re-articulating variations of the same story, often through a nostalgic lens centred on personal experience and memories. This chapter interrogates and unpacks the relationship between contemporary punk scenes in the United Kingdom, with an emphasis on a network of small-scale local activities, tours by longstanding or reformed punk bands on the revival circuit and a number of large-scale punk music festivals. <TEXT>Looking back on a scene that resonated with his youth, Portsmouth punk fan Trevor Paviour recalled the personal impact of punk: <EXT> Punk threw the shite out, opened up the real world good or bad. And wrote a new chapter in British music, giving a much-needed FUCK OFF for the real talent to shine. You were proud of your record collection and still are today, if you're one of the lucky ones who didn't sell them when you were skint. The clothes you wore were you and you couldn't give a shit about what people thought or any comments they made. In fact the more comments only made you more determined to wear them. The music came from THE WORKING CLASS KIDS, LIVING IN RUN DOWN COUNCIL ESTATES. ALL WITH ONE THING IN COMMON. DEFIANCE, DETERMINATION, and NOTHING TO LOSE, but the lyrics came from the heart. <SRC>(Eckersall and Paviour 2019, original emphasis) <NP>As Paviour's comment indicates, the standard narrative of the punk 'revolution' has been internalized by a generation of fans, embodying heroic tales of legendary performers and a conveniently ambiguous suggestion of an 'underground' or 'alternative' culture that has remained intact and largely unchanged for more than forty years. Maker jn 2000, with sales declining rapidly over the following decade. It was relaunched in September 2015 as a free glossy magazine, before finally ceasing print publication in March 2018.

2015

a stage. Meanwhile, audiences and performers made connections between the music and the civil rights movement. One chapter is devoted to what Fosler-Lussier calls the 'double-edged diplomacy of popular music ' (p. 143). For the officials in Washington, the problem with pop was that it was 'pure entertainment', and as such it could do 'nothing'. This concern was mitigated by the association that could be made between popular music and protest. This meant that the State Department favoured the blues -Junior Wells and Buddy Guy were presented to audiences in Africaand folk -The Phoenix singers visited Egypt. Rock music, too, featured towards the end of the programme. Blood, Sweat and Tears played gigs in Eastern Europewhich earned the band the ire of the Yippies. This response delighted the State Department who, because they were also getting criticised by the political right, could claim that BST represented the political centre ground. Meanwhile, the music itself served to excite audiences behind the Iron Curtain, where 'the West's popular music was both more commonly heard and more stringently forbidden than was its art music' (p. 170). The story told by this book is based on primary sources, and vividly captures the thinking of the government officials and diplomats in the countries that were visited. It also documents the experiences of the musicians and their audiences. For some who heard the music, this was their first ever encounter with an American; some of the musicians actively embraced their role as ambassadors. Fosler-Lussier argues that, while the USA's ambitions might look like top-down imperialism, 'if we look from the bottom up . . . we see an intensive process of negotiation and engagement' (p. 7). While there were imperial ambitions at work, there was also a developing globalisation. The book makes this case convincingly. In doing so, it has much to say about the values and meanings to be attributed to music, and about how its performance does things (both political and social) to the world in which it circulates, and how, in turn, music's involvement with government changes it. Fosler-Lussier talks, for example, of how the State Department's use of jazz facilitated its 'institutionalisation' and its inclusion in the canon (p. 100). She also notes that, while it might have been supposed that popular music evoked and inspired ideas of freedom, this was not what the State Department wanted or how it evaluated its programme's success. Rather, Washington was more interested in the music's acceptance. And towards the end, Fosler-Lussier wryly notes: 'The US embassy in Moscow routinely reported to Washington on the vicissitudes of Soviet musical judgements as if they corresponded to other political matters' (p. 185).

2015

www.zaglossus.eu 2. "To Sir with Hate": 29 A Liminal History of Queer-Feminist Punk Rock "We're punks. We should be taking the piss out of the past. " 30 This chapter gives an overview of the last three decades of queerfeminist punk bands, zine writers, record labels, events, and other cultural productions. It shows that queer-feminist punk was signified through anti-social politics, and the politics of queer-feminist negativity from its emergence in the 1980s onward and that the movement is still informed by such politics. Considering the vast number of bands, communities, productions and artwork, as well as their sometimes short-lived existences or rootedness in specific localities, this collection is by no means complete. However, the chapter provides a view of a broad spectrum of activities and people, by highlighting some of the most interesting cultural 29 The title To Sir with Hate was the title of the first LP of the band Fifth Column in 1985 (Bruce LaBruce qtd. in Rathe 1). Fifth Column was a feminist, anti-patriarchy hardcore punk band from Toronto. The band members included G.B. Jones and Jena von Brucker. The term fifth column refers to clandestine groups who try to undermine, deconstruct and sabotage social institutions like nations from within. The term was often used to refer to anarchist groups during the Spanish Civil War (Encyclopedia Britannica. Web. 10 May 2012. <http>). 30 This quote is from Carolyn Keddy's punk column "Bring Me the Head of Gene Siskel" in Maximumrocknroll 347 (April 2012). Keddy urges the contemporary punk community to critically reflect on the forms of oppression and hegemonies in and throughout past punk communities.

International Review of Humanities Studies, 2018

Society associates “Punk” with a music genre, backed with a very distinctive look, recognizable from the hair style, make-up and overall outfit. Other than their outward ‘fashion’ appearance, many also associate “Punk” with a group of young people who do not characteristically blend with their social surrounding. All of these factors tend to have them portrayed as an aggressive circle, and being associated with ‘anarchy’ has driven people to be weary of them. With a compact study through the history of “Punk” and the society in which it emerged, this journal will dig into Punk’s origins and unveil if society’s idea of Punk movement and society’s weariness against them is justified and fairly grounded. It will also attempt to uncover if Punk has any other social significance besides the aggressive genre of music that the public has known it to be.

2017

A symbol, embodying the madness of a nihilistic generation. This is how Malcolm McLaren, 1 former manager of iconic punk band the Sex Pistols, is said to have once described punk figure Sid Vicious -the bassist who couldn't play bass. His claim to fame, aside from his deranged behaviour and annihilating heroin dependency, was not based on talent or musical prowess; the icon of Sid Vicious came down to an almost schizophrenic preoccupation with fragmentation and instability, an 'art' which focused on the participation, performance, and style, rather than anything cultivated or authoritative. It's interesting how the character of 2 Sid Vicious, as well as many other aspects of the 1970s punk movement, draws a distinct parallel to David Harvey's work on the condition of postmodernity; in its broadest definition, postmodernity arrived as a 'cultural explosion,' counteracting a period where oppressive hierarchical structures and overarching metanarratives dictated society and everyday life. This prior construction of society enforced an ideal of mass conformity, where societal norms became an almost totalitarian force of ensuring adherence to the expected and the traditional.