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 A Cultural Dictionary of Punk: 1974 - 1982
Nicholas Rombes (Continuum)
Right, first things first, if you are actually looking for a definitive dictionary of punk then this is probably not the book for you as whilst it leads you to believe it is indeed a dictionary – it is after all set out like a dictionary, beginning with the Adolescents and ending with the Zero’s - it only takes some random flipping to reveal Hermans Hermits filed under H, ‘Most Absurd Year In The History Of Rock ‘N’ Roll, The’ filed under M and Jim Jarmusch filed under J (not that we’re taking exception to the positioning you understand, just questioning the subject matter in relation to the stated title). So we’re not talking an encyclopaedically researched tome here - which, let’s be honest, would be bloody dull - what we have instead is a scattergun clatter through Rombes personal musings on punk in both the US and the UK, some of which are spot on, some miles wide of the mark but pretty much all immensely enjoyable reading and any dictionary which includes entries on X Ray Spex Germ Free Adolescents alongside Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow just has to be worth a read. And it is. And you should. Read it that is.
The Oracle
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 Rip It Up and Start Again
Simon Reynolds
(Faber)
In the shape of his evocative sortie through rave and dance culture, Energy Flash,
Simon Reynolds has already made a contribution to the sparsely-populated bookshelf of great music
books. Now he’s gone and done it again, as Rip It Up and Start Again achieves the considerable
task of pulling together innumerable strands of creative pop music after the solar flare of punk had
burned itself out. Concentrating on the British and American manifestations of post-punk, Reynolds
analyses the peak work of bands – Talking Heads, PiL, Devo, Throbbing Gristle et al – who often had
little common ground creatively, but who were inspired by punk’s failure to give artistic boundaries
a good kicking. The constant stream of record titles and potted biographies that this kind of book
demands can easily be rendered dull, but Reynolds’s scrupulous research is matched by a delicious turn
of phrase; Cabaret Voltaire’s ‘Fuse Mountain’, for example, conjures up for the author the image of
“a crosslegged circle of hippies playing flutes and recorders on a slag heap outside a steel mill”.
Rip It Up... is so compelling that the only downside is likely to be a hefty tab at Amazon
as you plug gaps in your collection
David Davies
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this book from Amazon
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