The current St. Cloud book display is themed “Punk Music.”
Punk Productions: unfinished business / by Stacy Thompson / 306.1 THOStacy Thompson's Punk Productions offers a concise history of punk music and combines concepts from Marxism to psychoanalysis to identify the shared desires that punk expresses through its material productions and social relations. Thompson explores all of the major punk scenes in detail, from the early days in New York and England, through California Hardcore and the Riot Grrrls, and thoroughly examines punk record collecting, the history of the Dischord and Lookout! record labels, and 'zines produced to chronicle the various scenes over the years. While most analyses of punk address it in terms of style, Thompson grounds its aesthetics, and particularly its most combative elements, in a materialist theory of punk economics situated within the broader fields of the music industry, the commodity form, and contemporary capitalism. While punk's ultimate goal of abolishing capitalism has not been met, the punk enterprise that stands opposed to the music industry is still flourishing. Punks continue to create aesthetics that cannot be readily commodified or rendered profitable by major record labels, and punks remain committed to transforming consumers into producers, in opposition to the global economy's increasingly rapid shift toward oligopoly and monopoly. – from back cover
Cinderella’s Big Score: women of the punk indie underground / by Maria Raha / 781.66 RAHFrom Patti Smith and the Runaways to newer stars, veteran rock scribe Raha introduces "the women . . . instrumental in shaping punk and indie underground music," members of "a community which proudly rejects the societal and cultural norms." Contending that "punk rock as a movement has changed the face of music forever," Raha dissects women's involvement in it, including the often-unwanted roles sex and appearance play in the perception of women in rock. The Runaways resembled the Monkees and the Sex Pistols, what with manager Kim Fowley calling the shots and band members chafing under them; Raha compares their career and those of the likes of L7, the Butchies, and Tribe 8, whose forthright lyrics and sonic assaults are more feminist than feminine. She shows that the Cramps' Poison Ivy is a mover and shaker in her own right, like such others as Exene Cervenka, Debbie Harry, and Wendy O. Williams (of the shaving-cream-shirt wardrobe malfunction). Raha lets them all tell their stories in a treasure trove for pop-music and punk-culture cognoscenti. – Booklist
Rip It Up and Start Again: postpunk 1978-1984 by Simon Reynolds / 781.66 REYIn the reactionary wake of 1970s punk rock came postpunk, a more complex, fragmented brand of music characterized by stark recordings, synthesizers and often cold, affected vocals. Postpunk stands as "a fair match for the Sixties," argues Reynolds, both in terms of the amount of great music created as well as the music's connection to the "social and political turbulence" of its era (the early 1980s). Seeking to address a gap in music and pop culture history, Reynolds (Generation Ecstasy) has penned an ambitious, cerebral effort to establish a high place in rock history for bands such as Joy Division, Devo, Talking Heads, Mission of Burma and, of course, Public Image Limited (PiL), fronted by former Sex Pistols singer John Lydon (Johnny Rotten). Reynolds, an energetic writer, especially captures the postpunk ethic in telling the story of PiL's short journey from record company darlings to utter oblivion. Unfortunately, by the time he gets to bands like Human League and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, his passion is undermined by his subject. Reynolds succeeds in depicting the icons and the richness of an era that clearly manifests itself as a primary influence among a new generation of musicians. – Publishers Weekly
My First Time: a collection of first punk show stories / by Chris Duncan 781.66 DUN
My first time. Who doesn't love to reminisce about a more innocent time, about an event so awe-inspiring its memory only grows stronger with age?
The punk movement has permanently altered youth culture. Today's art, politics, and aesthetics wouldn't be the same without the hundreds of thousands of young people who have embraced punk over the past thirty-odd years. What does each of these recruits have in common? They all remember their first time. Hear what it's like straight from the fans, bands, and fanatics.
Whether it was The Clash opening up for The Who, The Dead Kennedys in Berkeley, The Dickies at CBGB's, Gang Green in Boston, The Circle Jerks in the West Village, Neurosis at Gilman Street, The Decline of Western Civilization in Venice, Fugazi in Chapel Hill, The Avengers in Oakland, Stiff Little Fingers in London, Sick of it All in DC, The Undertones in London, or their goofy friends at a party, these fans recount the inspiration, the embarrassment, and the redemption of their first time.-- Publisher
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