I’ve been reading Simon Reynold’s Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984. Turns out I’m kind of well versed in some of the genre’s key players, or at least their work during that time frame, including The Fall, Gang of Four, Pere Ubu, Devo, The Slits and Joy Division. I’ve only read about a third of it though. We’ll see how well my self-education holds up for the rest.
It’s a pretty interesting book. The main problem I have is that it almost reads more like a social history than a musical one. Reynolds makes all the bands sound so self-conscious and concept-minded, the result of social factors like the decline of the steel industry’s effect on industrial cities and the rise of the conservative right in the guise of Thatcher and Reagan. He sometimes makes it sound like music was an afterthought for these people.
And then there’s his highfalutin’ writing. Dig this quote, about science fiction writer J.G. Ballard, whose writing profoundly influenced postpunkers from Sheffield, like Cabaret Voltaire:
Fusing clinically described avant-porn with Marshall McLuhan-esque insights into the mass media, Ballard probed the grotesque (de)formations of desire stimulated by media overload and celebrity worship, delineating with forensic precision an emergent psychomythology in which the deities and titans were movie idols like Elizabeth Taylor, icons like John F. Kennedy, or cult leaders like Charles Manson.
He takes a pretty scholarly approach to the subject, as you can probably tell. It can be pretty dry if you aren’t familiar with the bands he’s writing about. I stalled out for the longest time on the Throbbing Gristle chapter for that reason.
Still, there are enough music related anecdotes to keep me tuned in. I didn’t know, for example, that Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerlad V. Casale were part of the student protest at Kent State in 1970 that the National Guard opened fire on or that Casale was friends with two of the four young people who were killed.
The Rip It Up & Start Again site has some cool stuff too, including a discography and footnotes. Simon Reynolds has also put together an accompanying compilation that I’d really like to hear but there doesn’t appear to be a U.S. release. Bummer. I did find a Post-Punk Dozen that he wrote for eMusic though and will have to grab some of the releases that I don’t have. I already downloaded Teenage Jesus & The Jerks in anticipation of the No Wave chapter, which is up next.
Now you have me interested as I usually skip histories of scenes because of the focus on the individuals and groups at the expense of the social forces that formed them. My feeling is that while none of these groups were likely explicitly conscious of the socio-economic and political forces that provided their environment it is an important factor to consider since if those conditions did not exist those bands more than likely would not have came into being.
Then again, I am one dusty, dry-ass, mofo who like his writin’ learnin’ all high flautin’.
It’s about the music, man! Which is exactly why I only made it 20 pages into this thing. Maybe I’m developing ADD in my middle age…