In 1977, Chelsea released Right to Work. As with the term “public school,” “right to work” has opposite meanings in the US and UK. In America, it means the “right” of the government to override closed shop agreements between unions and employers, a contractual agreement companies should support. Except, since closed shops benefit unions, pro-market advocates don’t support it, and hypocritically call for state regulation. (More…)
In a Maximum Rockn Roll column in 2005, Felix von Havoc stated that we’re in the” throwback era” of music. Try as I might, I can’t escape the feeling that Havoc’s insight has been one of the more salient observations made in the past decade. It cuts to the core of a very important issue. Most music, mainstream or underground, is nowadays judged in terms of what it is a “throwback” to. Has rock reached a cultural cul-de-sac? (More…)
In their guises as 2manydjs and Soulwax, Belgian brothers and prolific audio/visual bricoleurs David and Stephen Dewaele set the standard for this century’s digital cut-up pop media scene. Nowhere is this more evident than in Hardcore or Die, their impressive visual take on that most unruly of 20th-century analog pop genres, ’80s American and European hardcore punk. (More…)
If the mission of ’77 punk was the resuscitation of rock & roll’s antisocial roots, postpunk amounted to an unfettered exploration of the musical and cultural spaces that punk had made possible. In England’s Dreaming, Jon Savage noted that as early as 1978, punk had fractured into two camps: The social realists on one side (The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers) whose fans would become the street punk, Oi!, and hardcore movements. (More…)
Burnt Cross are a pretty new band in the punk scheme of things. But you wouldn’t know this from hearing them. In fact, the four year-old duo’s songs often evoke the “instant classic” quality you immediately recognize in songs like Crass’s Banned From the Roxy, Conflict’s mid-eighties rants, and the perennial “some-band-you-know-from-the-
The grown ups weren’t happy. Following violent protests against university fee hikes in London last year, a screed against the musical tastes of the demonstrators was circulated on a number of prominent discussion lists. Not only was the music played at the demos unchallenging. There wasn’t that much of it either. What had happened to today’s youth? Were their iPods suddenly empty? (More…)
Twenty minutes into 1991: The Year Punk Broke, Dave Markey’s ragged documentary of a European tour featuring Sonic Youth, Nirvana and assorted other “alternative” acts, Thurston Moore conducts an impromptu interview with a group of fans. They appear to be in the 18-24 range, what Americans call “college age.” (More…)
A three-day music festival like Outside Lands is hectic and exhausting no matter how you approach it. So, I try to pare down the wish list, not rush from stage to stage to see every single band I’m interested in, and let the festival vibe take care of whatever other decisions need to be made. Recapping the experience without running over the itinerary isn’t much easier. But paying attention to what isn’t on stage is a start. (More…)
Rooms are very useful. Especially if you’re not into being outside. Sometimes a room is like a bowl, in which flour, eggs and sugar become a tasty cake. The room I have in mind is located in Landau in der Pfalz, a small town in the southern Rhineland Palatinate, best known for its wine and climate as the Tuscany of Germany. (More…)
This is a piece I recently rediscovered while transferring audio from old DAT tapes. It first developed as a guitar practice exercise in 1988. I was rehearsing non-standard time signatures, while listening to 4/4 rock beats. What evolved was a little figure in 7/8 that sounded similar to a tune by one of my favorite groups, Massacre (Fred Frith, Bill Laswell, Fred Maher.) This riff may have developed while trying to learn how to play Massacre’s Killing Time. What emerged from this exercise was a Massacre pastiche. (More…)
Punk bands never die. They just turn into H&M t-shirts. Or, in the case of the field recording below, supermarket sound system fixtures in southern European immigrant neighborhoods. If Joe Strummer were still alive, he’d delight in the specificity of the product placement. (More…)