Punk & Post-Punk - Volume 11, Issue 2, 2022

This article traces the evolution of punk’s do it yourself (DIY) ethos from an emphasis on individualist-contrarian to collectivist-participatory forms following its initial commercial period (c. 1977–80). The focus is on 1980s American hardcore as locus of shifts in music content, media production and distribution, and venue infrastructure, which together developed and ultimately linked local punk scenes into a national and international network. The article identifies ‘punk comradeship’ as the mechanism of social enculturation that reorients punk into an inclusionary, activist endeavour working in its own interests rather than those of the culture industry. The contemporary relevance of punk’s commitment to institution building is considered in the context of increasing dominance of biopolitics and reformatting of the DIY ethos as the entrepreneurial curation of individual selves.

This article discusses the underground cinema of the German Democratic Republic during the 1980s in regard to its contributions to the arts and the avant-garde. While scholars including Claus Löser and Katrin Frietzsche have contributed greatly to the remembrance of the East German underground cinema, its influences have been disregarded by film studies, not least within the anglophone field. As a result, little to no research has been conducted regarding its contributions to the avant-garde or through the scope of other art movements as the political aspect continues to be emphasized. This article draws upon multiple art developments such as dada, surrealism, performance and body art as well as Eastern European-specific movements. Therefore, it evaluates how the East German underground interprets those influences and further contributes to them. Significant works by Cornelia Schleime, Gabriele Stötzer, Thomas Frydetzki and Tohm di Roes are subject to analyses to reveal anarchist feminist tendencies and surrealism with anarchist aspects. It concludes that the East German underground must be seen as a contribution to the less-researched necrorealism as an art movement paralleling the constitutional socialist realism. As such, political implications cannot be subtracted altogether but shall rather be viewed alongside the emergence of anarchist surrealism during the Cold War.

What does it mean to be punk within the Canadian music industry? This article offers a close reading of the band PUP’s politics, grassroots partnerships and personal interviews to argue that they not only skew punk in genre terms, but also embody a punk ethos. Furthermore, this article will confront the ambivalent politics of punk as it becomes entangled with cultural nationalism and national identity-building through institutional arts funding and awards. If punk is about resisting the establishment, how might we reconcile PUP’s reputation as a definitively ‘Canadian’ band with their outspokenness around issues ranging from anti-Black racism to police violence to ongoing colonialism? In what ways might PUP’s leftist politics be absorbed into Canada’s national identity through their receipt of institutional recognition, funding and awards? To make sense of these entanglements, we draw on Tavia Nyong’o’s punk or punk’d theory, which responds to the apparent reification of queer theory and calls on scholars to cultivate a punk spirit. Following Nyong’o and other punk scholars, we ask: is PUP punk’ing the Canadian music machine?

The 1980s was a time of discontinuity in the United Kingdom as the country was restructured through an extensive reconfiguration of economic, social and political relations. This shift towards what would subsequently be termed neo-liberalism included the deliberate dismantling of organized labour as a political force, privatization, deregulation, cuts to the welfare state and a belief in the pre-eminence of the market as the most effective processor of information. Test Dept formed in 1981 and evolved politically in the socio-economic context of the early imposition of neo-liberalism. Test Dept’s visual art practice contested neo-liberal representation and discourse, opening up space and providing resources for alternative identities and the perpetuation of models of identity based around collectivism and solidarity. This article explores Test Dept’s practice, focusing on three aspects of identity that neo-liberalism attempted to restructure: class, gender and national identity.

Review of: Electric Wizards: A Tapestry of Heavy Music, 1968 to the Present, J. R. Moores (2021)

London: Reaktion Books Ltd, 480 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-78914-448-2, h/bk, GBP £20.00

Review of: Red Days: Popular Music & the English Counterculture 1965–1975, John Roberts (2020)

Colchester and New York: Minor Compositions, 197 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-57027-364-3, p/bk, GBP £18.00

Review of: PUNK! Las Américas Edition, Olga Rodríguez-Ulloa, Rodrigo Quijano and Shane Greene (eds) (2021)

Bristol: Intellect, 394 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-78938-415-4, h/bk, GBP £80.00

Review of: Directions to the Outskirts of Town: Punk Rock Tour Diaries from Nineties North America, Welly Artcore (2021)

Ticehurst: Earth Island Books, 316 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-83835-674-3, p/bk, GBP £14.99

Review of: Faster! Louder! How a Punk Rocker from Yorkshire Became British Champion Fell Runner, Boff Whalley (2021)

Bradford: Great Northern Books, 232 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-91210-129-0, p/bk, GBP £9.99