Punk & Post-Punk - Volume 12, Issue 3, 2023

The purpose of this study is to understand the subcultural and commercial overlap that exists in the physical signifiers conspicuously co-opted by attendees and artists at Fest, a punk rock festival held in Gainesville, Florida. Contemporary punk rock does not exist in an insular space, shielded from the influences of popular culture, current events and mass media. Rather, this intersection of subculture and popular culture offers valuable perspective on how punk fans’ relationship to commercial culture remains a significant influence in this space today. This participant observation study investigates the co-opted and reinvented signifiers evident in this subcultural space at the 2022 festival, looking at a range of festival elements such as band merchandise and performances as evidence of this phenomenon.

Born in Singapore, Chris Morton moved with his family to England as a young child, settling in the north-east in the early 1960s. His passion and talent for drawing was reflected in his love of comics and animation, later with a combined interest in music leading him to underground magazines and posters associated with the hippie counterculture. After having to leave art college early in 1975, he found himself in the right place at the right time and was commissioned to create a graphic identity for a new independent record label based in London – Stiff Records. Still running a design studio in Newcastle, he discusses punk, new wave, typography, print technologies, humour, parody and graphic design with Russ Bestley.

Review of: Beyond the Streets, Roger Gastman (Ed.) (2023)

London: Beyond the Streets and Saatchi Gallery, 585 pp.,

ISBN 978-0-57846-883-9, h/bk, £70

Review of: I Want You Around: The Ramones and the Making of Rock ’N’ Roll High School, Stephen B. Armstrong (2023)

London: Backbeat Books, 394 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-49306-449-6, p/bk, $22.95

Review of: Silhouettes and Shadows: The Secret History of David Bowie’s Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), Adam Steiner (2023)

Essex, CT: Backbeat Books, 282 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-49306-564-6, p/bk, $24.95

Review of: On Minimalism: Documenting A Musical Movement, Kerry O’brien and William Robin (2023)

Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 449 pp.,

ISBN 978-0-52038-208-4, p/bk, £30

The Names of Minimalism: Authorship, Art Music, and Historiography in Dispute, Patrick Nickleson (2023)

Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 253 pp.,

ISBN 978-0-47203-309-8, p/bk, $29.95

Review of: Life’s a Gamble: Penetration, the Invisible Girls and Other Stories, Pauline Murray (2023)

London: Omnibus Press, 192 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-91317-270-1, h/bk, £25

Review of: Now That’s What I Call a History of the 1980s: Pop Culture and Politics in the Decade that Shaped Modern Britain, Lucy Robinson (2023)

Manchester: Manchester University Press, 376 pp.,

ISBN 9-781-52616-725-5, p/bk, £14.99

Review of: Best B4 1984: Fanzine & Flyer Images from the Anarcho-Punk Underground, Chris Low (2023)

London: Lowthario Press, 98 pp., p/bk, £25.00

Review of: Hardcore Research: Punk, Practice, Politics, Konstantin Butz and Robert A. Winkler (eds) (2023)

Bielefeld and London: Transcript Publishing, 278 pp.,

ISBN 978-3-83766-406-5, p/bk, €39.00

Review of: In Search of Tito’s Punks: On the Road in a Country That No Longer Exists, Barry Phillips (2023)

Bristol and Chicago, IL: Intellect, 256 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-78938-731-5, h/bk, £29.95