NEW "Punk, Politics, and the Production of Illegibility"
by Ben Parker
I would like most of all to ask a question about political aesthetics, and more specifically, about the politics and aesthetics of punk rock. At no point in this discussion will it be possible to digress into the interesting sociological aspects of punk, nor will there be space for the enjoyable diversion of conjecturing about what actual persons think. That is to say, this is neither an anthropology nor a statistical survey. It is, as I said, a question, posed here to a cultural product, in the manner of a critique (an exploration of its possibility).
Japanese Noise-Core Records
The plan for the next ten weeks is to publish one short piece a week on each of the top ten Japanese noise-core records (all of which are 7"s, most flexis). The list is based on my own personal taste, many years of listening to these records, and endless conversations with other enthusiasts. I published a list of the top five in 2002 in Game of the Arseholes #5, which was a dry run for this article. The intervening years have made the music much more obtainable, with reissues and scumbag bootlegs aplenty as well as the more benign file-sharing and MP3 downloads. I will include sound files for most, if not all, of the records on the list. It’s true that most of these records are rare and getting rarer, and I cannot deny that I believe the most authentic and rewarding listening experience comes from the original vinyl housed in the original sleeve, but there is no reason to think this list is meant as some sort of exercise in the dread elitism that is so often associated with rare records. Nope, pure Japanese noise-core socialism here, comrades.
Paisley Punk & Groucho Marxist Records
by Mike Clarke
Punk, initially a London phenomenon, was by Summer 1977 filling the pages of the three main English weekly music papers, Sounds, Melody Maker, and NME. As the infection spread countrywide in successive waves through the late 70s, its provincial sproutings were often written off in dismissive terms within the review pages of these mags.
"When Punk Came out to Confront the Idiots in Power"
The Birth of Punk in Argentina and the Story of Los Violadores
By Federico Gómez Levitanas
A selective summary and review of El Nacimiento del Punk en la Argentina y la Historia de los Violadores, Cavanna, Esteban M., Interpress Ediciones, Buenos Aires 2001, 144 pages.