2,052 words
Abortion is one of those topics which need to be thought through before you start flapping your gums. It’s like Israel, the death penalty, and assisted suicide. Don’t go to the meeting unprepared, and don’t take rash and emotive stupidity to an intellectual gunfight. Always remember that you can lead an ass to reason, but you can’t make him think. (more…)
2,136 words
Albertine was one of those who took on too much in order to remain perpetually dissatisfied with herself. — Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past
We were trying to write great pop songs, but ended up creating something new by accident. — Viv Albertine, Clothes, Boys, Music (more…)
43 words / 12:50
Jim Goad has produced a short film to accompany his latest essay, “The Punk Rock Roots of Punching Nazis,” on how punk went from toying with Nazi imagery to becoming intensely anti-fascist — and becoming a lot less interesting in the process. (more…)
1,946 words / 12:43
Blacks make up nearly a third of United States postal workers, and I don’t care if someone tries to punch me for suspecting that this is one of the main reasons our postal service is going to hell.
I make part of my living by selling my books through the mail, and skyrocketing postal prices combined with plummeting postal service means that no matter how meticulously I package the books I send out — they’re lovingly cocooned in a bubble envelope that is cradled inside a rigid cardboard mailer — sometimes they wind up damaged, anyway. (more…)
John Foxx
John Foxx
2,632 words
Listening, they were listening. — John Foxx, The Quiet Men
Ultravox! were a band out of time. — My brother
Genres in music, like genders elsewhere, keep multiplying. But there is one which seems particular to England: art-rock. Founder members of bands often met at art college, if they weren’t getting together at Pistols or Bowie gigs (which often meant they were already at art college), and the results of visual arts students transferring their visions to a musical canvas produced a rewarding school of rock music. (more…)
The Clash at the 1983 US Festival.
The Clash at the 1983 US Festival.
2,812 words
On Memorial Day weekend, 1983, The Clash held their final concert. It was a meaningful one aside from that, given that it was part of a four-day festival in San Bernardino, California that featured some of the most popular music acts in the world at the time. The Clash headlined what was called New Wave Day on Saturday, May 28, and played to perhaps 100,000 people in the stifling heat. (more…)
Sonny Weems of China’s Guangdong Southern Tigers, who was recently called a word that rhymes with figure after a game by some native Chinamen.
Sonny Weems of China’s Guangdong Southern Tigers, who was recently called a word that rhymes with figure after a game by some native Chinamen.
2,812 words
Ever since Donald Trump used the racist term “China virus” to hatefully misrepresent a virus that came from China, many black Americans interpreted it as a dog whistle to begin beating the shit out of Asian-Americans on the streets. In case you didn’t get the memo, blacks suffer from an internalized whiteness that makes them think it’s okay to pummel non-whites, whereas Asians are plagued with an internalized whiteness that makes them score well on standardized tests, earn high incomes, and commit far fewer crimes than blacks. (more…)
Steve Albini, back when he was interesting.
Steve Albini, back when he was interesting.
2,281 words
Back in the late 1980s, when Republican strategist Lee Atwater made a grand public display of posturing as a blues musician, musicians rightly recoiled and said that he was way out of his element.
However, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a musician, many of whom seem to have trouble wiping themselves and tying their own shoelaces, who didn’t act as if they were qualified to endlessly opine about politics and the way the world should be run. (more…)
1,257 words
1,257 words
Crisis was an English punk-rock band formed in 1977 in Surrey. Their initial lineup consisted of Insect Robin the Cleaner, Phrazer, and the most famous two who didn’t have absurd nicknames: Douglas Pearce and Tony Wakeford. Crisis was explicitly a Leftist band, appearing at various Rock Against Racism concerts and collaborating with artists and organizers from the Anti-Nazi League. (more…)
1,563 words
Iggy and the Stooges released the proto-punk slammer Raw Power on this day, February 7th, in 1973. It’s a raw, aggressive record that set the tone for genres as diverse in sound and era as punk, hardcore, grunge, and metal. Raw Power is also an early example of the importance of mixing and the dangers — or benefits — of studio control being handed to musicians. (more…)
3,974 words
You would think that after more than thirty-five years in the public eye that there would be no more surprises left. You would think that now that he’s turning 60, all the youthful rebellion would be long gone. And you would think that after the last two months of the media losing their collective marbles over Moz’s red-pilled statements and his support for the Right-wing populist party For Britain, that Morrissey would be ready to lay low for a while.
2,103 words
Steve Sailer recently compared the Alt-Right to punk rock. It’s an apt analogy in more ways than one, and as someone whose adolescence was informed by that music, it’s one that I readily appreciated. I’ve long thought of writing an essay about the implicit whiteness of punk and hardcore music, especially since it’s a rather under-appreciated genre on the AltRight. (more…)