Vivien Goldman

2011-05-11T05:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010xy0m

Today is the 30th Anniversary of Bob's passing... but just as he wrote about Haile Selassie, BOB LIVES!
People still want to listen to and reflect on him. I am doing two radio pieces today, one for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and this one for BBC Radio2, an actual documentary on BOB IN EXILE - the London years that I cover in The Book of Exodus - presented by Original I 3, Marcia Griffiths.

Village Voice. Poly Styrene and the Grown Women of Punk

2011-05-04T12:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-05-04/music/poly-styrene-lost-found/

Very happy indeed to do this article for the Village Voice on a generation of Grown Women Punks, spiraling from the loss of Poly Styrene of X Ray Spex and the Slits' Ari Up within six months.

David Byrne article FADER

2011-04-29T11:59:00.000-07:00

http://www.thefader.com/2011/04/29/feature-david-byrne-the-artist-on-an-adventure-he-knows-will-last-forever/

Curiously this article I wrote ages ago seems to have just manifested online, according to Google Alerts anyway. One of two I did on David Byrne last year. Go figure.

Village Voice, Washington Square News & more on SUMMER NYU PUNK COURSE

2011-04-28T09:11:00.000-07:00

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2011/04/nyu_punk_class_vivien_goldman.php

This is one of the lovely articles that came out re this exciting experimental SUMMER PUNK COURSE that I am teaching at NYU. For the first time, it is open to non-NYU students.

Gary Lucas's Beefheart bash at Knitting Factory, Brooklyn Friday April 8

2011-04-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

Some Came Running - http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/

A blog about the Beefheart soiree virtuoso guitarist and Beefheart maven GARY LUCAS is hosting at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn on April 8. The lovely Hal Willner and another Goldman fave, Felice Rosser, are among the worthies gathered by Lucas for the event. I will be reading a Beefheart lyric, which will be fun! As it is very free-associative and percussive, there's a chance for drama...

2011-03-09T10:17:00.001-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uveBfb7tI4Y

I was amazed to come across this footage of the mid-80s series I used to have with the late lamented music maven Charlie Gillett on UK Channel 4, The Late Shift. We were like a musical Siskel & Ebert, and showed some fantastic music docs -- and the somewhat dodgy flick of the Pink Floyd's The Wall, too...

Interview w me on Revenge of the 80s radio

2011-01-11T14:58:00.000-08:00

http://www.revengeofthe80sradio.com/?tag=vivien-goldman

Chris Cordani's interview with me on his Revenge of the 80s Radio show, celebrates the re-issue of the first Flying Lizards LP, on which I co-wrote and sang two songs I frankly still adore, THE WINDOW & HERSTORY

Myself and key spar Isaac Fergusson feature alongside fellow reggae specialists on this Peter Tosh documentary for BBC Radio 4

2010-11-28T07:59:00.000-08:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00w1yzy/Arise_Black_Man_The_Peter_Tosh_Story/

.... here is a Guardian review of the show....

...http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/nov/24/arise-black-man-peter-tosh-review
See More

BBC iPlayer - Arise Black Man: The Peter Tosh Story
www.bbc.co.uk
Grammy Award winning film maker Don Letts explores the life of reggae singer Peter Tosh.

The Slits' Ari Up flies away home....

2010-10-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

The loss of Ari-Up of the Slits is devastating not only for those like me who got to frolic and skank with her for three decades plus, but for music. A genuinely original free spirit, Arri at 14 showed us how to be a punk. In many ways, she was the soul of the movement, specially the Punky Reggae Party people. An incredible songwriter, lyricist, style innovator and a conscious hurricane onstage.

The footage of me singing Dennis Brown's Revolution onstage with Ari and the Slits in Williamsburg four years ago (approx!) is here on the site -- thanks to Joly of punkcast.com for shooting it. I've also added a shot by Janette Beckman of when Ari came in to my punk class at NYU, five years ago. I look pretty different now, thinner and with red hair -- but Arri just kept looking like this, amazingly lithe and limber throughout her life's journey... Actually, this shot was staged for a story, hence the lack of students! But she enthralled those we coralled for the pic. I LIVICATED my last Punk class to her... so many students were excited about her, and clearly felt the loss of an inspirational punk icon.
Miss you, sister.

I was privileged to honour her in quote form in the New York Times and Daily Telegraph UK

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/arts/music/22ariup.html?src=twrhp

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/music-obituaries/8081556/Ari-Up.html

....and to talk about her on BBC Radio's Woman's Hour (this link doesn't last forever so contact me if you really want to hear it and it's vanished...)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vcqw5#p00br0mg

As one mutual sistr'en observed -- Life's going to be much more boring now.

Chris Blackwell a living legend

2010-10-12T15:00:00.000-07:00

Watch what Moby and Vivien Goldman had to say about the living legend Chris Blackwell and his book "Keep on running"

The Return of the NYU Punk Sessions

2010-09-30T08:24:00.000-07:00

For the third time I am teaching Punk at NYU's Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music, Tisch School of the Arts.
As always, the Sessions have been amazing... Perhaps best known as Patti Smith's guitarist, Lenny Kaye, gone of rock's few gentlemen and intellectuals, author of You Call It Madness, the Sensuous Song of the Croon, gave a spirited talk to us last week. Next we'll be meeting the Bad Brains' bassie, Daryl Jenifer, whose intriguing new solo CD is called In Search of Black Judas... both artists well equipped to discuss how music and culture help propel society forward... Viva Punk!

Rammelzee R.I.P. Fast Company

2010-08-18T11:50:00.000-07:00

This link leads you to my Fast Company piece on the late hiphop artist/visionary RAMMELZEE... thanks to Fab 5 Freddy for the insights...

El Pais Punky Reggae Party VG article

2010-07-25T21:28:00.000-07:00

Diego Manrique wrote this article about me in El Pais after I gave a multi-media lecture at the Museum of Modern Art in Leon, Spain. Even if you can't read Spanish, if you speak English you can probably get a sense of what he's saying... anyway thanks Diego, and the Leon experience was terrific. The lecture theatre is super-chic, paneled in glossy black, and the place was packed. The lecture was Fairytale In The Supermarket: How Punk Freed Females. Let me know if you want me to bring the show to your town.

If you have any trouble finding this l Pais article, let me know.

2010-03-10T08:41:00.000-08:00

DON'T JUDGE ME BY MY WEBSITE! It is about to have a fab facelift!

Remember the old saying about the shoemaker's kids? The ones with very chilly tootsies 'cos they have no shoes? Well, dear clients, friends and family, I'm afraid my site is suffering from that syndrome. I have been so busy writing other people's sites, bios and articles that my own internet presence could do with a polish that it will get very soon. Watch this space.

Just so you know what's happening Chez Vivien:

I am teaching my Classic Punk & Beyond course at NYU's Clive Davis Dept. of Recorded Music for the third time later this year.

There's a lot of interest in "Afrobeat Art," the book I am developing with "Fela's Artist" LEMI GHARIOKWU. Thanks to Ammo Talwar at Punch Records in Birmingham for all the faith and support.

MESSAGES OF HOPE, a track I co-wrote with my bred'ren in kinky combo Grasshopper, (the golden-voiced ANDY CAINE and producer ALEX MARSH,) was recently selected for the UK Street Beatz compilation. And of course, the songs like "Is It Love" that I co-wrote with Adriana Kaegi's TAG project, have been seriously acclaimed by the electro crowd.

We are about to send out the package for I'm A Wonderful Thing, Baby, the musical I have co-written with August Darnell of Kid Creole & the Coconuts. Our director is the fabulous JAY SCHEIB -- yes, the hunky, funky feller who was just named one of the 25 people most likely to change the face of American Theatre by American Theatre magazine. He has plays coming up at the Kitchen in Manhattan and later this year, at BAM's New Wave Festival. We are lucky to have GREG GUNTER as our Dramaturg. He helped develop many of the Disney musicals that have become an institution, such as The Lion King and The Little Mermaid, as well as having helped shape up the original Rent.

There's plenty more, too but I will save those goodies for later.

Send me a message and I will be sure to tell you when this site is re-vamped.

We'll Keep Holding On.

Adriana Kaegi's TAG album is going viral-- I co-wrote...

2009-08-12T11:33:00.000-07:00

Happily for us all, my close sistr'en and endless inspiration, Adriana Kaegi, aka dearraddy ana Mama Coconut, has released her musical project called TAG. I co-wrote a bunch of it with her, often in our pads on the lower East Side. We really ahd fun doing it I have to say and it is getting great response... # 12 in the Reverb Nation.com to name but one. Going up, too. more info http://adrianakaegi.com

Le UN -- or FRONT COVER GAGA

2009-05-06T06:38:00.000-07:00

As befits the first surge of spring, there's been much activity my end. Pollen notwithstanding. Here's some of it:

I'm happy to say that this month I have 2 front cover stories on the stands... how quaint does that sound!....one on BETH DITTO for OUT and one essay on David Byrne for FADER.... here's Beth in all her glory of every kind...

http://www.out.com/detail.asp?id=25015

I haven't got a link for the Byrne piece, but Fader's editor Julianne Shepherd encouraged a return to the old-school more free-flowing, less rigid style of writing the aesthetic I came up in in the UK rock press when it was a vibrant force and trained a whole generation of writers...

Also WORD magazine in the UK, edited by charming Mark Ellen, ran a piece on musicians lecturing and there's an interview with me plus a pic of me reading from THE BOOK of EXODUS to the audience at NY's Fillmore, before Family Man's WAILERS came onstage.... and here's a link to that reading...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y60QbvTeYNw

Special one love shout-outs to Pete Shelton, Charlie Shelton, Charles Nuckolls and Joly of punkcast.com for working with me like family to make it happen.

Book of Exodus is in the NY Review of Books

2009-03-21T07:34:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Will Sweeney for pointing this out to me. I was happy to see that writer Joshua Jelly-Schapiro had obviously absorbed every ounce of my Exodus because his piece is steeped in the book and quotes (and credits) it extensively.

In Memoriam -- New York Times

2009-01-29T14:43:00.000-08:00

It's certainly been a winter of winnowing among a certain generation; losses include old mates and colleagues Dickie Jobson and Rob Partridge, my lovely neighbour Miriam -- and now John Martyn (SOLID AIR...) who could teach us all a lesson in how to be a reveller.
I was called on to participate in the obituary Rob Kenner wrote for the New York Times about Vincent 'Tata' Forde, who was Bob Marley's mentor back in the government yards of Trenchtown; and then I wrote the NY Times obit for Gary Kurfirst, manager of the Talking Heads and Peter Tosh, among other progressives and New Wavers.
Here's the links:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/arts/16kurfirst.html?ref=obituaries
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/arts/music/04ford.html

I interviewed the super McGregor kids for the New York Times

2008-10-07T09:07:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/arts/music/21gold.html

Isaac Hayes: how Black Moses bared his soul

2008-08-14T10:44:00.000-07:00

I have a new piece up for the Daily Telegraph - check it out!

A new bit for NYTimes

2008-06-20T10:47:00.000-07:00

NYTimes.com just published my story on Caribbean Fashion Week. Check it out.

An Interview with Billy Bragg

2008-04-16T05:13:00.000-07:00

It's not bragging to say me and, Billy B, the Bard of Barking (that's a place in Essex! Billy's not barking mad!), go way back. When we got together at Vazacs in the East Village to chat about his seriously strong new record, "Mr. Love and Justice," and his book, "The Progressive Patriot," the conversation was so heartfelt we decided to bring it to you in four parts. Welcome to Part One. Having not seen each other for yonks, of course Billy and I had to talk about the past. But mainly, we focused on now and the future. In the First Punk Wave, Billy was the sort of man-of-the-people muso who'd drop by the office when I worked on the rock weekly, New Musical Express. Any time there was a front line cultural happening, like for Rock Against Racism, Billy would be there -- one man and his guitar singing of how things really are and how they could be, in the spirit of folk hero Woody Guthrie (whose lyrics he set to music.) Billy's commitment to helping change our society has only grown stronger over his twenty-something year career -- as has his command of music. If his solo singer/songwriter stuff cut through hypocrisy like a knife, the new, almost orchestrated material drops a bomb on the bad in our world -- and hands bouquets to the bright and bold. So there was much to discuss when we met on a brisk but sunny morning, including what the record's name really means, fatherhood, the work he's doing to bring music into prisons, and who William Bloke would vote for if he was a Yank.

Billy Bragg Interview: Part 1
The Punk Professor sits down with Billy Bragg in the first of an exclusive two-part interview.

Billy Bragg Interview: Part 2
The Punk Professor sits down with Billy Bragg in the second of an exclusive two-part interview.

You can also meet up with me again soon for a big ol' reasoning with Mick Jones and Tony James of Carbon/Silicon, who've been lurking in the swamps of punk since they were in The Clash and Generation X respectively. And if you want to join the conversation -- hey, you know where to write.

Glad And Sad

2008-03-17T05:28:00.000-07:00

First, the BIG Questions...

From Jay Scheib:

Dear Punk Professor,

I recently began collaborating on a performance work with the punk rock bank The World Inferno Friendship Society. I was confronted by a new world. But I ask you, what exactly does punk sound like? I often hear bands that don't have a sound that makes me automatically think of punk per se. In the case of the World Inferno it is more of a raison d'etre, or more of an energy than any particular sound (their sound is wildly diverse) but just to arm me in the future, what does punk sound like? (and since there are obviously no rules about the sound of PUNK? what makes something punk in the first place...) Surely there is much written on the subject and I could just ask... but I thought I would ask the Professor in hopes of getting a smart answer, and a deeper understanding...J

Dear Jay,

Seems like you understand more than you know. You're already feeling what I love about punk, its questioning, collective aspect, which shapes both one-bloke-with-a-guitar-touching-thousands like Billy Bragg and an ever-evolving collective like the World Inferno Friendship Society. It's fab that you're working with this highly-regarded Brooklyn crew and I hope to keep everyone posted on your performance. They wear sharp Moddish suits and do clever cabaret but WIFS somehow remind me of Crass, the great anarchist collective, whose poetic rants and stark graphics represented the movement's ideals. They also make me think of the world/fusion work the Clash's Joe Strummer was doing with the Mescaleros before he died -- cos in punk there shouldn't really be rules, and just like sounds, genders often mix it up in punk just like they do in your Inferno. Siouxsie & the Banshees also subscribed to Weimar Germany cabaret chic, with its whiff of decadence wafted about by the musical Cabaret.

Having said that, of course, the typical Punk groove convention, as you probably suspected, is of the "harder-faster-louder" school; plus with a

bass-heavy reggae, or spacey dub flavor in some cases. When it comes to post-punk, expect to hear some avant-garde trills from an off-key saxophone in an homage to free jazz. And by-the-by our producer Miss Grace says: "I've actually seen the World Inferno Friendship Society and totally dug them!!"

Several questions from Maria Catamero:

1) Is the internet killing the independent label?
It really shouldn't as the internet can be used to build a fan base besides keeping punk's DIY spirit alive. The internet's access to so much music does mean, though, that however brilliant you are, it's easy to get lost. Thus just as in the "real" world, all press is good. Here's proof: sales of "What We Want," the dance track by Ashley Alexandra Dupre, the hooker and raver who recently toppled New York's crusading Governor General, Elliot "Steamroller" Spitzer, have soared faster than his reputation vanished.

2) Why don't modern bands have the same longevity the way bands like the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Madonna, etc., etc. etc.?
Frankly not sure I agree on this one. An extended career's really down to artists having the ability to sustain their own musical force. You say it yourself -- Madonna (launched 1980s,) isn't the same generation as the Stones (b. 1960s,) who are a decade older than Bowie (first rocked big time in the early 1970s.) That means new waves of talent keep on rolling in, hoping to crash an audience; and theoretically at least, the internet should make it easier to find 'em (see above). There are many cases of enduring adoration of artists who might have been forgotten, like Morrissey or the New York Dolls. Not to mention the continued fascination with first-wavers who keep cropping up in this column, like the Clash's Mick Jones and his Carbon/Silicon, and the Slits, whose first American tour in three decades is selling out right now to adoring kids not born when they first ripped their fishnets. It all proves that fans' interest in artists -- of every era, including punk -- really does sustain, if only for the nostalgia value. People will still be buying Bjork, maybe directly from an implant in their brains, when she's a pixie-like pensioner. There's no reason to think that artists starting out now won't experience the same long, sometimes fractious love affair with their audiences.

3) Do you think the political climate and energy in the States at the moment will inspire really great music or more crap?
OK, I'll be chargin $35.00 a minute for this psychic insight! If we look back, it's usually said that edgy times of great struggle and stress, e.g., Berlin in the 1930s, Seething London in the 1970s, produce dynamic art. I've always found that a really depressing analysis. Well, America's current depression is certainly about to put the theory to the test. There hasn't been a recent musician or band making unifying anthems that rouse social awareness on a mass level, the way Bob Marley, Curtis Mayfield, the Clash, George Clinton or James Brown did and still do. Maybe Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" is a candidate; or Kanye West's social observation on "Gold Digger." If you, Fierce Reader, have ideas on others, please shemail me.

4) Do you think the declining value of the US dollar will have an effect on American music abroad and international music Stateside?
The dramatic dwindling of the dollar makes Euro-hungry Yank musicians a cheap date for the rest of the world. A comparatively meager international deal swells impressively when translated into our sad little dollars. That's the good bit. They can afford us -- but can we afford them? The bad bit is that some mid-range foreign tours might find it harder to play America, because the money isn't there. Or should I say, here. Certainly, American Immigration policies are far more of a musical killjoy and have a far bigger impact than the exchange rate on the global flow of music. All visa requests by Cuban artists, for example, have been rejected by the INS since 2003. Foreign musicians tell me they're nervous about coming here in case they get tempted into a gig or recording session -- and then get busted for doing what comes naturally, like jamming with the US artists you've been digging for years. Getting the necessary H1 visa is a lengthy, delicate process which cannot be pulled together in time for a quick tour. There's sure plenty to sing about now, if artists feel the need to make socially conscious music - but then, there always is.

5) How long do you think it will be before the CD medium is completely phased out?
To answer this I turned to the multi-talented music industry veteran, producer and DJ Brian Michel Bacchus, who signed Norah Jones when he was a corporate A&R man, and now owns his own label, SoulFeast Music, as well as heading Content Acquisition and A&R for the top digital distributors, INgrooves:ONE Digital. Over to you, Brian.

"I'd say it's 5-10 years, perhaps sooner, before CDs are phased out completely. The CD has basically become a storage medium and even as that, it is inadequate with only 700 MB. People who get CDs now usually put them in their computer to be stored on their hard drives, usually with iTunes, and then listen to them on their computer or on their iPod or some other mp3 device. Labels like Ropeadope have even completely stopped manufacturing CDs. When you look at the sales of devices that play music, only two have been selling in the past few years - iPods and turntables. What does that tell you? Try buying a stand alone single player CD player that is not a high-end model. Almost impossible to find. Although sales across the board in the music business are depressed from previous years, I think the future of recorded music sales is in digital downloads and niche areas like vinyl. Seven-inch 45s are very hot now in rock and roll. The success of magazines like WaxPoetic and stores like Brooklyn's DopeJams only confirm this trend."

And finally...Robert Blank asks:

Was Lydia Lunch underage when she first started performing with Teenage Jesus and the Jerks?
Underage for what? Drinking or joining the Army? (special thanks to Kid Creole)

***********************************************

Some glad news now. In the spirit of punky experimentation the next Punk Professor column will be filmed, so you'll get to see me rabbit on about weighty matters of the day with the noted British Bard, Billy Bragg. He's broken a six-year silence with the new "Mr. Love and Justice," which has generally been hailed as a fantastic work, with B.B. displaying a maturity and mastery that's worth the wait. So get polishing those screens, ready for the Punk Professor to bust out visually, aided and abetted by punk's prominent conscience and humanist, Billy Bragg.

Now for the bad news. In the last column, we mourned producer Joe Gibbs. Now another Jamaican talent has left us - Mikey Dread, the DJ whose rolling delivery and lanky lope were familiar to everyone who dug his work with key collaborators, the Clash. He toured widely with them, produced their popular single "Bank Robber," and contributed to their sprawling 'Sandinista' opus. Like many other music lovers in the first punk era, the Clash got into Mikey Dread through his phantasmagoric singles, notably "Dread at the Controls," also the name of his influential Jamaican radio show which was pirated globally on cassette; and the freaky dub of "Parrot Jungle" which drove everyone wild with its effects and ambiance. The Rasta was too raw and real for his early employers, the Jamaican Broadcasting Corporation, who demoted him to the late night slot. But he soon had the station's hottest show, playing strictly dub music and parlayed his popularity into a respected musical career. Mikey passed away on March 15th. He was 54 years old.

The Melody Lingers On...

2008-02-28T05:30:00.000-08:00

Q: I am a Chinese boy; this is the first time to chat with you. I want to ask you what I should do to improve my English level?

A: Dear Xie Yong,

You are so right to Think Punk. There is no better way to learn a language than to follow your passion and tune in to whatever people like you are reading and watching and listening to in the place that interests you. Of course, in the case of learning English, you're lucky enough to get loads of opportunities -- US, UK, Oz, Canada, great chunks of Africa, India and Asia etc -- thanks to the old colonies, whose main upside was making large sectors of the globe able to communicate.

For a start, I recommend you watch BBC America and hang out on this site as much as you can. Really. All the BBC America reality shows like How Clean Is Your House, Bargain Hunt, You Are What You Eat, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, etc. reveal raw British everyday life in all its coziness, like no other TV station. Plus the drama and comedy are dead authentic.

Obviously I think you should listen to punk to get some proper Anglo flavor. Punk isn't exactly associated with great diction, but I kicked the concept around with some fellow punkoids and top punk photog Janette Beckman voted for The Jam "because they're so sharp and clever," while Joly of punkcast.com insists you can't go wrong with John Lydon, ex Rotten, of the Sex Pistols and PiL, "because of his clear enunciation." I like the Raincoats, who sometimes sing quite slowly, which could be helpful. (See below for info on a rare Raincoats gig in London).

My own vote, though, was for the late, great Ian Dury, who was punk's funniest wordsmith. Find songs like "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick", "Clever Trevor" and of course, "Sex and Drugs & Rock'n'Roll" to hear how the likes of Lily Allen learned to sing a story. Try and get the studio versions, though, because on the live versions on ITunes, Dury's cockney accent might be a bit hard for a beginner.

Q: Is Punk Dead!?

A: Dear Coreen,

When it began in the 1970s, punk had the shock of the new. Now it's part of the social/cultural pantheon. Now we can say that though the ideals of punk may be endlessly betrayed, they'll never die. And a wise word from my esteemed editor/publisher, Miss Grace: "Personally, I don't think it's dead. It's just older now and requires naps."

Q: Hey Punk Prof

I saw some damn car commercial that was using the Clash version of "Pressure Drop" in the background. I think we can agree that Joe’s spinning in his grave (can't we?). But I wonder - is the whole idea of "selling out" passé? Since Moby sold every song on "play" to the advertisers, it seems like what used to be selling out is just cool. Is it just a matter of perspective? A financial necessity for musicians today? Should we still hate it? And I wonder who owns rights to the Clash songs. Someone ok'd that, and I’m old enough to think it ain't cool.

A: Very perspicacious questions, Kurt, and I can recall many anguished evenings discussing this and other punk ethics questions.

And so did Joe Strummer! Our London Spy, author Chris Salewicz's recent biography of Joe Strummer, Redemption Song, told me on the phone about interviewing Joe on this very point in Spring 2002, when “London Calling” was being used to sell Jaguar X Type cars. Joe had been quite sniffy when a dog food brand wanted to use the band for a commercial; but as Chris described, imitating Joe's voice precisely, "... and I just thought -- Jaguar! Yay! We've turned down millions of dollars, but every group deserves something, specially twenty years after the fact. I can use this money to finance the Mescaleros!" That same year, the Clash's 'Should I Stay or Should I Go' was used in a Stolichnaya vodka ad.

Ultimately I think the answer is found in an old song by Mark Stewart of Bristols's post-punk combo, The Pop Group: "We Are All Prostitutes," with the Margaret Thatcher sleeve. Mark was in post-punk angry pretenders, The Pop Group, whose anguished free jazz yowl and urgent funky groove is much missed. Having said that, Mark's new album, 'Edit,' is coming out very soon. See more info below.

As brand-dependent bands everywhere choke in shock at my cheek, think about this.

You can argue that in allying with corporations, often the Medicis or patrons of today, you are just trying to reach as many people (as well as make as much dosh) as possible. The problem with this argument, of course, is context. So you make a song that has a conscious aspect, something to say. To have it harnessed to sell, E.G. a polluting chemical company, or promote a political party, would make a true fan want to vomit and definitely reduce the credibility of the artist concerned. Tainted love, INDEED.

Ultimately, of course, it's a personal choice, often determined by depth of pocket. But just like you and Joe Strummer, Kurt, I believe that artists should monitor the public use of their music very cautiously so they don't look like total wankers.

And before I get any snide comments about this punk column appearing under a corporate banner, let me say again that I am a genuine BBC America fan and was before I started writing this column, so like Joe Strummer, I just thought, Yay! If I rabbit on about BBC America programming it's because I dig it. So that's that. Drop round my place if you don't believe me. Ask my cat, Laszlo. He's very good at guessing who's shagging who on 'Hotel Babylon.'

***********************

For a real wish-you-were-here punk rock London night out, grab a new DVD from the UK, "Ruts: 16th July 2007."

The London gig was the first time original Ruts drummer Dave Ruffy and bass player Segs Jennings had reunited since the death of their lovely lead singer, Malcolm Owen, a man I was super-fond of, who OD'd in July, 1980. The accidental tragedy happening just weeks after Joy Division's Ian Curtis killed himself signaled the end of an era, as John Robb says in his loving liner notes. At the show, Owen's role was taken by long-time Ruts fanatic, Henry Rollins. "It was real thinking music without being boring or too cool. It was fantastic," says Rollins on the interview DVD of why he and his hardcore crew were all so keen on the band.

Happy jam at the Ruts' finale with the Damned's Captain Sensible at the fore

Goodbye to all that -- for now! l. to. r Segs Jennings, Paul Fox, Dave Ruffy, Henry Rollins

The show has all the atmosphere of an uncensored, rollicking gig of old comrades who love playing. Captain Sensible from The Damned, still in his trademark red beret and Dave Vanian, complete with cloak, sprint through "New Rose" (the first ever UK punk 45!) as ardent as ever. Misty in Roots display the sort of roots grandeur that made them a favorite of the Rock Against Racism activist organization supported by the Clash. In a nice twist, when the (black) Rasta band started a label in the early 1980s, their first signing was (white punks) The Ruts, whose "In A Rut" and "Babylon Is Burning," made the band loved everywhere punk took root.

Sadly, the show was a benefit for the Ruts' guitarist, Paul "Foxy" Fox, who died in October, 2007. Though Paul looks somewhat gaunt on this DVD, he's very up and chipper and plays like a champ. Big punks appear in support, like Tom Robinson, Splodgenessabounds, the UK Subs, John Otway, TV Smith and Eddie 'Tenpole' Tudor and the Peafish House Band.

"Malcolm was like Iggy Pop," reminisces Segs. "He used to head butt the cymbals, it usually sounded great. But one night we were in Devon and we'd drunk some local cider before the show and he head butted the cymbals.... I had to take him to hospital in the ambulance after the gig!" They all laugh on the DVD, and I did too -- but under the circumstances, the funny memory has a bitter aftershock; a sad reminder of how "going mental" really can go too far. I miss Malcolm.

The interviews between all the various punks are rambling and hilarious, sometimes poignant. Asked about working with Rollins, Segs says, "It was great! Of course it was a bit funny when Henry did thirty press-ups before the rehearsal! Henry was bang on time, he puts the punk in punctual!" Ta-da!

It's a big moment for the pioneering women of punk -- our time has come again sisters! (If it ever went away...) Legendary Rough Trade band and Kurt Cobain favorites, The Raincoats, are playing an all-age Saturday afternoon show on March 1 ^st . in London's St Peter's Church, Kensington Park Rd., W.11, to raise money for a house for Aids orphans in Uganda. They'll be a full band, as originals Ana da Silva and Gina Birch have enlisted Bat for Lashes player Lizzie and drummer Alison from ATV.

And finally, U.S fans around the land can get to see the Slits. For more info on the dates by scene godmothers, the band the Punk Professor jams with on You Tube! and their The Revenge of the Killer Slits e.p., with its unforgettable take on Marvin Gaye's "Heard It Through The Grapevine," see below.

Large and in charge - The Slits

It would be kinda sad if after all that great gals' music, the Slits and Raincoats hadn't had some musical daughters. I'm partial to Mika Miko songs, specially the slower ones like "Jogging Song (He's Your Mr. Right)" and "Oh Head Spin." They'll be playing at South By South West and at Noise Pop in San Francisco introducing their new “C.Y.S.L.A.B.F.” album on the Kill Rock Stars label and their “666” EP on PPM, supported by No Age.

l. to r. Michelle Suarez, Jessie Clavin, Jenna Thornhill, Jennifer Clavin, Katelyn Hall

Since We Last Met.....

Singer Alice Nutter and drummer Harry Hammer from the anarchist punk rocker collective Chumbawumba who had a massive pop hit with 1998's irresistible 'Tubthumping' have formed a new nine-person combo called The Sex Patels, playing lengthy, sitar-drenched raga versions of songs by the Sex Pistols, Talking Heads and X-Ray Spex...

I have spent the morning paying tribute to the Jamaican producer, Joe Gibbs , who died aged 65 on February 21, by listening to the new re-issue on the fine Shanachie label, "Dennis Brown: The Best of the Joe Gibbs Years". In the punk era, the Joe Gibbs label was a brand of excellence. Joe released other classics like Althia and Donna's international pop hit, "Uptown Top Ranking" and the top punk favorite, Culture's Two Sevens Clash -- one of my Top Ten Ever selections, also recently re-isssued by Shanachie in a seriously loving edition. The Dennis Brown/Joe Gibbs work is still a rush of emotional, uplifting power. Mastersinger Dennis's wraparound velvet voice rings out over the energizing glory of the horn sections on "Money In My Pocket" "Ain't That Loving You", "Malcolm X" and "Oh Mother." A great testament.

Must-hear classic: Dennis Brown on the Joe Gibbs label

****************

For Mika Miko tour dates and info:

http://www.killrockstars.com/press/467/
http://www.myspace.com/mikamiko

To buy the Ruts Benefit DVD with the Damned, Tom Robinson and many others including the Ruts w/Henry Rollins, go to

http://www.myspace.com/TheRutsOfficialPage

For the new Ruts single, a remake of 'Babylon Is Burning' by the Ruts w/Henry Rollins:

http://WWW.INDIESTORE.COM/THERUTS
http://www.myspace.com/TheRutsOfficialPage

Mark Stewart's new album 'Edit' will be out in April (Europe) and May (UK/USA). Two tracks, 'Secret Suburbia' and 'Loner' are on http://www.myspace.com/markstewartmaffia

More details about Mark Stewart's 'Edit' can be found here: http://www.crippled.com/?cat=products&subcat=0&id=183

For those smashing Slits, check:

http://www.myspace.com/theslits

HAPPY BOBDAY, MR. MARLEY

2008-02-14T05:34:00.000-08:00

On February 6, the day Bob Marley would have been 63, I was in his home town of Kingston, Jamaica experiencing some Tardis moments (and if you don't get it, ask Doctor Who). It was fascinating that Jamaica gets all Christmas-y on the Big Man's birthday (or Earth Day, as Rastas say.) Of course, it's also a government and a Christian holiday, but it was amazing to see the whole town so still. People were going round saying "Happy Bob's Birthday" to each other, which I cut to "Happy Bobday."

Actually, I was in the middle of an extended Marley moment anyway, as I was in Kingston to do readings both uptown and downtown: with founder/director Rozylyn Elison and librarian "Happy" Howell at the Trenchtown Reading Centre, that ghetto jewel, and at the University of the West Indies, where my "The Book of Exodus" on Bob and his Wailers' album got its Caribbean launch, courtesy the University of the West Indies Professor and Director of the Reggae Studies Unit, Carolyn Cooper, a pioneer in Caribbean music academia.

My Bobday was spent with some kind folks from the psychedelic Japanese travel magazine, Trip. Their Bob story's being shot by New York/ Jamaican photographer, Nigel Scott, who has four framed portraits of Bob in the show at the Bob Marley Museum, on loan from the Jamaican National Gallery, along with a Bob surfboard he made. Thanks to Nigel for all of these Bobday pics and watch out for his in-the-works book, "Thank You, Mr. Marley."

Nigel Scott's surfboard of Marley in the current exhibition

My cunning plan was to try and squeeze into the sold-out premiere of "Africa Unite", the new documentary on the Marleys' trip to Ethiopia directed by Stephanie Black, who also made a must-see doc on Jamaica called Life & Debt that explains a lot about the mess the island is still trying to pull out of.

Instead, here's a report from our Spy, the witty Gleaner journalist Mel Cook, who I met at my UWI reading: "I was knocked out because it's far more than a music film. There's not just extremely rare Bob footage, it's the way Black pulled different parts of history into a cohesive whole -- the Marleys visiting Ethiopia, the Rasta homeland, for the first time, along with the whole history of Africa's division and then independence."

For director Stephanie Black, "The trip was very emotional because I was able to see Ethiopia through the eyes of my old friend 74 year old Bongo Tawney, a Rastafarian Elder who was a bred'ren of Bob's, as well as my own. It's been his dream his whole life to reach Ethiopia, so when the Bob Marley Foundation invited him, that was really heartwarming."

But I got sidetracked in a way even Stephanie herself approved of -- at a Rasta drumming session of Bob's songs. Actually, it was a rehearsal over on the verandah at top guitarist Earl "Chinna" Smith's house. He was working with the Mystic Revealers, an old-school "nyabinghi" drumming and chanting group -- the real rich roots of Bob Marley's music, onto which any other vibes were grafted. Chinna was an unofficial Wailer who played with them often over the years. One of Jamaica's most respected musicians, bandleaders and arrangers, even he deferred to the blind singer of the Revealers, who's a very regal Elder. Standing on Chinna's garden path with the Japanese posse and a journalist from France, (Chinna makes friends wherever he goes!) it was like being in Rasta Temple. Of course, Chinna knows that material inside out, and it was great to watch him show everyone the subtle chord changes at the intro to the Wailers classic, "Dem Belly Full (But We Hungry); they're quite complex! They also played what Chinna called "The Anthem" -- "One Love". The drummers started after lunch and went on all afternoon. Frankly, the bit that got me weepy was "Fly Away Home," the old gospel song about life and death, that the original Wailers trio used to sing.

The Mystic Revelation Vibration rehearse chez Chinna, Bobday.

l to r: Herbie, Jahman, Negus and Chinna

Image courtesy Vivien Goldman aka The Punk Professor

That night, we all hung out at the Bob Marley Birthday Celebration at Strawberry Hill, a unique mini-village of a hotel up in the Blue Mountains behind Kingston, where Rita Marley and Danny Glover were celebrating Bob's birthday and "Africa Unite."

l to r: Danny Glover, Babsy Grange, Judy Mowatt, Marcis Griffiths, MC Tommy Cowan, PM Bruce Golding and Rita Marley cut Bob's 63rd birthday cake at
Strawberry Hill.

The quaint cottages of Strawberry Hill -- they call them huts -- are one of the greatest places you can ever stay if you like luxuriating on stunning mountaintops. That night the lawn was full of elite Kingstonians - including Bob's widow, Rita Marley and her fellow songbirds in the I Three, Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt, plus Olivia "Babsy" Grange, the very busy Minister of Information, Sports, Culture Youth and Women's Affairs and the Prime Minister, the Hon. Bruce Golding. Truly the furthest possible cry from Bob's rural village of Nine Miles, or the Trench Town ghetto where he was a teenager -- but not as distant from Mr. Marley as you might think.

l to r: The I Three: Marcia Griffiths Rita Marley Judy Mowatt

enchant the crowd at Strawberry Hill on Bob Marley's birthday

Image courtesy of Nigel Scott

The Punk Professor, Minister Olivia "Babsy" Grange and Sallie Henzell, widow of the Harder They Come director, Perry

Before Strawberry Hill was a hotel, I used to stay there as a young journalist - OK, I was six, right? -- and in my Tardis moment I looked round the elegant uptown crowd and remembered the long-gone little wooden hut that used to be right there, which I shared with photographer Kate Simon. The whisper would go round the big house that Bob was coming up to stay in the hut next door with then galpal, Cindy Breakspeare, Miss World 1977, (now also known as Damian Marley's Mum.) Those tropical evenings are surprisingly noisy with the sound of insects, but late at night we'd hear one solitary car parking outside and know that at least someone was having fun (the Marley marriage was unconventional but lasting.)

The Punk Professor Vivien Goldman and Miss World Cindy Breakspeare at
the Book of Exodus UWI launch. Image courtesy of Floyd Morris

Strawberry Hill is also where Bob, Rita and the band went to re-group after gunmen tried to kill him at his Hope Road house, now the Bob Marley Museum. So when "supers" (VIPs) spoke, like Danny Glover quoting poet Langston Hughes, and Prime Minister Golding saying, "we must work to further Bob Marley's spirit," I did feel that Bob's spirit was very much there. Though the crowd was extremely far from being the actual oppressed underclass whose voice he was, you don't have to be an officially designated sufferer to know pain and lean on Bob Marley.

I'm not a betting person, but I have no doubt that had he still been around, Bob would have enjoyed that event -- and then headed all the way down to Trench Town where the Rastafarian "nyabinghi" drumming went on till past dawn, all the way up from First Street where he used to live and the Culture Yard is now, to Seventh Street, the roads he sings about in "Talking Blues".

The performances at Strawberry Hill were particularly great, seeing young Jamaican artists come up directly influenced by Marley in so many ways, and in the case of the energetic, soulful young Djavan, being groomed by the camp of Marley's sons Damian and Stephen. Everyone was backed by Lloyd Parkes' We The People Band, who've actually backed everyone for many decades, very well; and it was also superb to see one of my very favorite young singers, Etana perform. She used to be in a group in Miami whose big attraction was wearing not very much and who made her straighten her hair. Then she decided to move back to Jamaica, make the music she really loved, grow dreadlocks and wear comfy clothes. Her earthy, vibrant voice and style as well as her great songwriting made her an instant hit over here in Jamaica and the rest of the planet will soon follow.

The Marleys perform at Africa Unite

Image Courtesy of Palm Pictures

The stars of the night, of course, were Etana's clear influences, the I Three, who used to back Bob and the Wailers. They're really a Jamaican vocal supergroup consisting of Rita Marley, Judy Mowatt and Marcia Griffiths. To hear those lush voices melding again on a medley of "Three Little Birds" and "Buffalo Soldier" and the Griffiths-penned, "He's A Legend," surrounded by the dark hills twinkling with the lights of tiny villages, was mesmerizing.

Etana, Jamaica's soulful, rootsy new singer, with the Punk Professor

SINCE WE LAST MET....

You can't keep a good Slit down and after being THE prototypical punk girl group since the 1970s, with all too little overground recognition, it seems that once again, their time is now. We'll have more about the Slits tour that starts in March, but for now here's a Janette Beckman shot of Arri from the Slits at NY's Webster Hall party for Chloe Sevigny's new fashion line for Opening Ceremony. Yes, there were celebs... the Yeah Yeah Yeahs among 'em. Remember how you read here first, that subtle style-setter Chloe was backstage with the Slits last summer in Brooklyn? THIS is the result.

Arri and the Slits wow everyone at Chloe Sevigny's party

Image courtesy of Janette Beckman

Chloe sent us an email saying, "The slits have been a long time favorite of mine. When I was 19 I painted the back of a jacket with their logo, this jacket sparked friendships with several of my still closest friends. When planning my party for opening ceremony they immediately came to mind. They are strong, talented women with some of the best style I have ever seen. Their early photos and video footage have been a huge inspiration to me and many others, the new ep I might even say is better than anything they recorded in their heyday!!!!!!! Ahhhh, attack of the killer slits!"

Arri holds up Chloe's dress, with bassie Tessa

On Janette's pic you can see how Arri tried to put on one of Chloe's dresses onstage -- but it was too small! At the end of the song, the dress caught on her fishnets and she walked offstage with the dress dangling from her leg. That's Arri stylee!

Opening Ceremony, a fashion store in SoHo, is currently selling both Chloe's line and limited edition hand-printed Slits t-shirts.

Also…Vivienne Westwood on her new line Red-Circus: The great lady, actually OBE! said, "Dressing up is a way of

showing concern about the world... you should be sustainable, not buy too many when you see something you really want and it really suits you, you should buy it and wear it every day. VW's orange crop blended brilliantly with her purple outfit.. "An attitude is great" concluded Westwood after objecting to fashion's pressure to be size sub-Zero...

Opening Ceremony: http://www.openingceremony.us/

Nigel Scott's web site: http://www.n4nigelscott.com

PUNK PROFESSOR GOES TO JAMAICA

2008-01-18T05:35:00.000-08:00

How Clean Is Your Ghetto?

Josh Kane: I was wondering how the punk scene of today is compared to the punk scene of the (first) punk era.

Dear Josh - There are so many differences between now and then, and we are communicating via one of them -- the internet. Although it's done a good job of shattering the music industry, there's no doubt the internet functions like one big punk fanzine, in terms of enabling people to communicate and share music more freely than ever before. Back then was also a far less controlled time -- London where so much wild stuff started now has perhaps the highest concentration of surveillance cameras in the world. Also, in punk's Round One, there was the innocence you get from inventing something that feels and is quite new. Now the punk mantra of harder - faster - louder coupled with insignia like tattoos or lurid Mohicans with shaved sides is almost nostalgia. Where will rebel rage go from here in music and style? You tell me, Fierce Readers.

************************************

How Clean Is Your Ghetto? I asked myself while in Kingston, Jamaica's Trench Town neighborhood, made famous by Bob Marley and the Wailers. From the crude barricades dividing off neighboring blocks that weren't on speaking terms because of long-time political grudges, to the heaps of garbage round the corner being thoughtfully chewed by some healthy looking goats, the scene seemed to cry out for Our Ladies of the Mop, the ones who put the saint into sanitation -- Kim Woodburn and Aggie McKenzie.

I must confess to an addiction. I love watching the BBC America shows like How Clean Is Your House and You Are What You Eat. In these times of non-stop bombardment by images of “perfect" celebs in immaculate Cribs, it's quite refreshing to see the transformation of everyday schlubbs who are even messier and unhealthier than me. In regular American self-help shows, even the “Befores” seem pretty well put together. But get the likes of Aggie and Kim down in Kingston's tenement yards, and you’d see those rubber gloves scrub a challenge worth the feathers (and if you don't get that gag, watch the show.) Would lemon and salt work on that oily debris in the gully? The Trench Town residents would love to know.

Of course, there wouldn't be much point in transplanting You Are What You Eat to Trench Town -- people here don't have enough food. Not much fun in that, unless Gillian McKeith, the show's stern but fair holistic nutritionist, was planning to fatten kids up.

I was in Jamaica on assignment for Culture and Travel magazine, writing a story about the Revival of Downtown Kingston, which includes the Trenchtown Reading Centre, an amazing indie library in the middle of the slums that gives the local youth access to books in a clean well-lit space.

Lo and behold, there, following in the footsteps of so many UK punks before him (John Lydon, the Clash and the list goes on,) was Sheffield, England's very own Punk Poet, (OK, he's a bit more electro than punk, but he's punky in spirit,) Jon McClure of Reverend and the Makers. He was being shot -- and in a good way, as opposed to with a gun -- by Rick Elgood, a dreadlocked British director who was pioneering punk cinéast Don Letts' frequent partner before moving to Jamaica and becoming one of the island's top film-makers. Thanks to Rick and his doc for the accompanying pictures. McClure's career was kick-started by his friendship with one of the biggest British bands, fellow Sheffield-ers the Arctic Monkeys. "I was the poet who was around the music, shooting my mouth off -- but not about nothing," he told me. Gradually the poems became lyrics, the musician pals became collaborators, and now Reverend and the Makers are a UK rave.

His mates called him The Reverend because he was a sensible and forceful talker; and McClure's honest, critical but compassionate and funny take on human nature on the album, "The State of Things" with songs like "Heavyweight Champion of the World" is being hailed as something of a relief, as, unlike most pop stars, Mr. McC's lyrics are worth your attention.

Trench Town Rocks! Photo courtesy of Rick Elgood

What drew the good Reverend to Trench Town? "I grew up in a Jamaican area of Sheffield and I was exposed to all that great music. What I love about Jamaican music is it keeps on evolving," said McClure. "Not like British indie guitar music, which has definitely stagnated and not really evolved for twenty years, to be honest. It's stalled but over here the music continually re-invents itself."

The Reverend blesses Kingston. Photo courtesy of Rick Elgood

McClure got down with Jamaica by learning the latest dancehall step, the Popitoff. He loved the Reading Centre and plans to send down books -- and hopes to translate his passion for those island sounds by working with some islanders. Watch this space.

More UK poetry came my way
When I was in Jamaica the other day
Linton Kwesi Johnson the Brixton bard
Showed the University he's still "well hard"

(and that's a Jamaican compliment for good.)

In other words, the prototypical "dub poet" Johnson, aka LKJ, joined fellow dubby versifiers Mutabaruka and Jean "Binta" Breeze at a University of the West Indies tribute to the late Miss Lou, the gutsy, folksy champion of Jamaican patois poetry and legend. I've been a huge fan of LKJ since his first record, "Dread Beat and Blood," back in the protozoal Punky Reggae era. Now he's one of Britain's most revered artists, with no compromise. Hearing beloved poems like "Reggae Fi Dada," his elegy for his father, in the place his family came from, was pretty moving. One of LKJ's classics is 'Sonny's Lettah' which details how police harassment led to a young man killing a cop to protect his kid brother. I liked how the packed audience chuckled softly when LKJ was explaining the background to the poem, a law called "Suss" that in the first punk wave was a great excuse for arresting mostly young black males on "suspicion" of intending to commit a crime. The crowd's oddly cheery response seemed to be a mix of amazement that such a dodgy law could be -- and recognition that though the law's name may change, the young and the broke are still a target, everywhere.

Poet Jean "Binta" Breeze channels Jamaican legend, Miss Lou.

*********

And so to the Slits, who synchronistically for this column, share a producer with LKJ, Dennis Bovell. They're the top girl punk band who paved the way for everyone from Madonna to Avril Lavigne and M.I.A. The Slits had/have not only The Look and The Attitude, but the songs, too. Anyway, as we've reported before, their quality keeps on getting them generations of new fans (Check out the photo gallery for pics of Chloe Sevigny with Arri Up and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth)

Our Spy Zoe and the reunited Slits Tessa (l.) and Viv (r.)

Image courtesy of Dylan Howe

Our London Spy, author and DJ Zoë Street Howe, aka punky reggae DJ Zoë Paranoë, who's writing a book on the Slits, is here to tell us about a momentous encounter that happened Since We Last Met.... Now over to Zoë in London: Mick Jones’ current band Carbon / Silicon launched their club night Carbon Casino in Ladbroke Grove, West London last week – and it proved to be more momentous than anyone expected …

The incomparable Mick Jones and crew

Big moment no.1: The legendary Topper Headon turned up to play drums with Mick for the first time in 25 years! (Don Letts was on hand to film the action). They played some vintage Clash – including ‘Train In Vain’: an appropriate choice seeing as the subject of that song – Ms. Viv Albertine – had turned up that night to watch, and to meet fellow Slit Tessa Pollitt…

Big moment no.2: … this was especially amazing because Viv lost contact with the rest of the Slits since the band split in the 1980s, and she made her way as a director.

Don the Dread Director

shot them back when and here they all are again.

But I managed to bring the pair together for the first time in 20 years on this potently punky occasion. As you can see from the pictures, they were like a bunch of excited schoolgirls. Nothing changes …

*******************

And don't you change, except like your socks and stuff, until we meet again....

Have yourself a punky little Winter Solstice

2007-12-19T05:38:00.000-08:00

From Drew S.
How would you define the differences between Punk and Ska, both the music and the lifestyles?

Hey Drew S.,
You've got the Jamaica/UK connection that people in the US don't generally know as much about, because it was such a U.K. thing. But reggae was the original soundtrack to punk basically because it was the most happening sound around back then, and they were both kinda rebel music from the underclass. Ska, the music that kicked off Jamaican Independence in the early 1960s, was known for its "rude boys", loosely equivalent of punks or, arguably, gangstas. Right after Punk's first wave of Pistols, Clash, Slits, Stranglers, etc, ska really came to the forefront of mass consciousness. Those Two Tone bands like the Specials and Madness who used lots of black and white in their artwork, were often racially mixed and wore the sort of pork pie hat Brad Pitt goes for, all played ska.

Punk and ska could possibly be seen as a bit alike, just 'cos they're both way up in the BPMs, and their speed makes them both perennials among kids with energy to pogo. But you make an interesting point, Drew, when you refer to the punk lifestyle. Now that means something -- often living somewhat outside of society or even off the grid altogether; trying to act communally to change the problems you see around you. But the "ska lifestyle" as such doesn't exist to the best of my knowledge, other than as maybe an upbeat mentality, or a tendency to dance all night and look sharp in a monochrome wardrobe that always co-ordinates. If you, fierce reader, know of a jumpin' ska lifestyle I've been missing out on, please write so us BBC Americans can all get together and do the ska! ska! ska! Thanks, rude boy! Or is that rude girl?

From Tee Bob:

Lady V,
The term "bottom line" is most often used in business to mean goals based on strict accounting criteria. Is this concept in tune or in conflict with punk ethics and punk business practices? What is the punk business ethic and where does it stop?
Love and Donuts, Neonsandwich

Dear Neonsandwich,
You're basically asking a very Christmas question: how much is enough? Obviously, that's the problem with rampant and unbridled capitalism; the greedy mentality that Bob Marley described as the big fish that eat small fish, who "would do anything to materialize their every wish" in his song 'Guiltiness'. But it seems that so-called socialism in action often fares little better, leading one to think that maybe no system works and humans are doomed to lurch from one misguided attempt at a functioning society to another. Personally I'm a simple liberal humanist with no economic background, but you inspired me to look up "compassionate capitalism" and found that there's lots about it online. Major companies are now becoming aware that giving back to the community is both good PR and a great way of establishing brand loyalty. So it may be in a slightly twisted way, but punk ideas are filtering through the system it kicks against.

When pioneering punk indie label Rough Trade Records started out, they operated a 50/50 system with their artists, and their publishing company gave an unusually generous royalty to their songwriters (who included me.) It was an unprecedented business angle that earned a lot of loyalty; but sadly for the indie spirit, didn't stop their publishing catalog from winding up as yet another asset of the mega-multinational, Universal. But the favorable publishing splits they gave to artists weren't why that incarnation of Rough Trade went down; and their "No Rip Off!" spirit still serves as a good ethical guideline for punky entrepreneurs.

The bottom line is that 'cos it's designed to deal with reality, punk is all about the bottom line.

Love and tofu cheesecake to Neonsandwich, who wants you to check his music and ideas online, please.

Since we last met....

Pioneering trip-hoppers Portishead broke a decade's silence to play at A Nightmare Before Christmas at a kitschy British holiday camp in the seaside resort of Minehead... and Carbon/Silicon finally played NY...

The Clash were one of the main UK punk bands to support hip-hop. Post-Clash, guitarist and songwriter Mick Jones has had other bands, but in his new combo who we've talked about before, Carbon/Silicon, he reunites with one of his oldest mates, Tony "TJ" James. Our Spy at NY's High Line Ballroom was Jody Worth, writer/producer (Deadwood, NYPD Blue) and ex-lead singer of Blow-Up (www.blowupband.com). OK, he's a mate of the band's -- but the man's punk enough to tell us if they were awful!

Says Jody:
"First visit to Highline Ballroom, and what better reason? Mick Jones's first appearance on a New York stage in 12 years -- Tony James' in 17. This show is sold out too, punters ranging from teens to 60s. When the band hit the stage it's hard to tell who's happier, the crowd to see them, or Mick and Tony to be there. Two geezers, each in smart, dark suits, like a punk rock version of the Kray Twins. Mick smiled and joked, "What are you cheering for? We haven't done anything yet!"

A job well done! Carbon/Silicon rock the house.

Image courtesy of Astralwerks

Opening with "Magic Suitcase," the connection is instant, and the band rides the wave. Two (loud) guitars and a powerhouse rhythm section comprised of drummer Dominic Greensmith (Reef) and ex-B.A.D. bassist Leo "Ee-zy-kill" Williams, sans samples or DJ. Live, it's definitely more Carbon than Silicon. James and Jones are all smiles, old friends having a blast. One guy out front shouts "This is real rock and roll! This is not bullshit!" Mick, who would never say such a thing himself, grinned widely and pointed, commenting, "That guy! What he said!" The crowd, including ex-Ramones' manager Danny Fields, Gabby Glaser, photographer Bob Gruen, Josh Cheuse, Chris and Tina from Talking Heads and ex-B.A.D. keyboardist Andre Shapps, roar in agreement.

Still magic after all these years - Mick Jones and Tony James.

Image courtesy of Astralwerks

MJ and TJ have forged a classic axe tandem à la Richards/Jones, or Thunders/Sylvain, even staging mock guitar duels. There were no Clash or Gen X covers, but with Mick serving as M.C. and stand-up comic throughout the 90-minute set, the band aired lively, spontaneous versions of most of their new CD, The Last Post, including "War On Culture," "Really The Blues," ("for Mezz Mezzrow") and "The News." Back for the encore, Mick half-joked they were afraid the crowd might have dispersed while they're chilling backstage. The encore "What The F**k!" burns with a familiar scorching Who-derived riff that formed the basis for much of the early Clash catalogue."

An American tour is penciled in for March/April.

P.S: Jody sez check out Brendan Mullen's new book Live at the Masque: Nightmare in Punk Alley.

Carbon/Silicon emerge from the download world.

Image courtesy of Astralwerks

It's a stone fact that as the Clash pointed out, punk and hip-hop are umbilically connected. My key compadre covering British music back in the day was the vivacious photographer Janette Beckman, who became the premiere portraitist of early NY hip-hop, as captured in her new book, "The Breaks: Stylin' and Profilin' 1982-1990" (PowerHouse Books)

Look This Way.

Image courtesy of Janette Beckman

"In London I had spent six years documenting the youthful tribes of punks, skins, rockabillies and ska kids. When I moved to New York in 1982, hip-hop was just beginning," recalls Janette, aka JB. "The Roxy Club was bringing the uptown Bronx rap, graffiti artists, DJs and scratchers to the hip downtown art scene and it was starting to be noticed by the world. Just like the British punk movement which came from working class kids, hip-hop came from the American kids on the streets, who were inventing their new renaissance of music, fashion, dance, style and attitude.

A Hip-Hop-A-Bibbidee-Bop

Image courtesy of Janette Beckman

"Instead of safety pins and Mohawks, hip-hop had gold chains and fades. Instead of letters cut from newspaper headlines like on the Sex Pistols posters, hip-hop had spray-paint graffiti to express its rebellion. Instead of pogo there was break dancing and double dutch. But hip-hop and punk musicians both performed songs about rebellion and criticized the world around them, from the Clash's "London's Burning" to Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five's powerful anthem "The Message'".

I happened to be in JB's Lafayette Street studio in NYC when she shot this picture of Slick Rick. He's holding guns, but I remember how he was extremely twitchy that day, so they obviously weren't making him feel more confident. In his essay for 'The Breaks', writer Tom Terrell describes the rapper: "Slick Rick; black eye patch, bejeweled velvet crown, and rakish gold-toothed grin, gold dookie/rope/link chains around his neck, each diamond encrusted silver ringed hand clutching a gold gat..."

Don't let the photo fool ya. Guns didn't really cheer him up.

Image courtesy of Janette Beckman

Tom's singular text, with its juicy African-American flavor, has become even more precious as along with his lauded liner notes for the recent Miles Davis six CD box set of "On The Corner," they were his last published words; my inspirational friend Li'l Tommy Tee died on Dec 6 aged 57, of prostate cancer.

So this column is dedicated - or livicated as the Rastas say -- to Tom.

The Hope Business

2007-11-19T05:38:00.000-08:00

The Hope Business means people who make it their business to spread hope.

Cynicism is the weapon of the weak, someone said, and happily, since we last met. I have been exposed to heavy doses of hope. "I prophesy that before too long, HIV will be RIP!" Bono flamboyantly announced onstage at the AIDS charity Keep A Child Alive's star-studded Black Ball in NY's Hammerstein Ballroom. The Irish shaman was being honored alongside Dr. Pasquine Ogunsanya of Uganda's Alive Medical Services, and Nick Reding, a British actor who moved to Kenya and founded SAFE (Sponsored Arts for Education.)

The incomparable and tireless Bono

The Black Ball is known for red-hot music -- and that night was blazing, right from the first foot stomps of a South African dance troupe, Juxtapower, and the intense harmony of South Africa's Agape Choir of AIDS orphans.

Juxtapower - Got Zulu?

The charity's co-founder and global spokesperson is the ludicrously talented Alicia Keys. Unlike many charity-hopping celebs, Keys' is hands-on at KCA's twelve clinics and orphan care sites in seven countries in Africa and India, experiences that have clearly transformed her. No wonder she has a great crew of musical girlfriends, who showed up in force that night -- Sheryl Crow and Gwen Stefani, all in top form.

Image courtesy of Keep A Child Alive

Alicia always hits the right note

from l to r: Sheryl Crow, Bono and Gwen Stefani

Gwen Stefani lost in the song

The music was outstanding. An easy joy flashed between them as they relished jiving and jamming with sisters of equally formidable powers. They tore up tunes like Marvin Gaye's "Inner City Blues", Sheryl's "Winding Road", U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday," Gwen's "Watcha Waiting For" and Alicia was tender in her delivery of "Like You'll never See Me Again" and Bob Marley's "Turn The Lights Down Low." Keys said, "You don't know what this voice does to me," as she introduced opera singer Kathleen Battle and together they tore up U2's "Miss Sarajevo".

KCA need all the help they can get, and find innovative ways to bring it on, from their original Dollar A Day program to their new Good Cents Initiative.

Nelson Mandela and Bono both big-upped my old friend and hero, Nick Reding, who switched from acting (though you can see him in "Blood Diamond"!) to found SAFE. Perhaps only Nick could have made it happen -- three traveling theatre troupes on the Coast, in Nairobi slums and the wild Masai highlands, performing original plays that make the audience laugh till their hardness to AIDS sufferers crumbles. You may have seen their audacious street theatre in "The Constant Gardener." Truly, Nick's work lives up to SAFE's motto - Compassion, Solidarity and Hope.

Top music at a KCA event is no surprise, as spunky, punky founder Leigh Blake, was a CBGB's regular and Talking Heads cohort in the first punk days. Serious artists gravitate to her work because plebs or celebs, Leigh infects everyone with the feeling they can -- and will - make a difference.

From l to r: Padma Lakshmi, Leigh Blake, Ali Hewson, Bono and Alicia Keys

Hope is the mission of my mate Mariane Pearl, too. She recently had the (slightly surreal) experience of being played by Angelina Jolie in the film version of her book, "A Mighty Heart", which chronicles her search for her missing husband Wall Street journalist, Danny Pearl, and dealing with the grim discovery of his video execution by Al Qaeda. She was just in New York to promote her new book, "In Search of Hope", and to receive Glamour's Woman of the Year award alongside luminaries including Toni Morrison. It gathers her articles Glamour published over an extraordinary year spent chronicling little-known local heroines on the front lines of Global Warming, the child sex slave trade, and many other flashpoints. Mariane's series received an overwhelming response from American women, whose urge to understand and act on life's inequities has been seriously underestimated. The grandes dames of Mariane's vivid reportage grab their grim fate and shake it till it recedes and is replaced by a positive future.

What's always attracted me to punk is its inclusionary, activist sense of community, and I agree with Leigh and Nick, who both said that when you have service in your life, things get better, and Mariane's positivity proves it.

In signing off, here's a summons from Bono -- "Love thy neighbor is not advice -- it's a command." How punk is that!

London calling and more from reggae central

2007-11-15T05:41:00.000-08:00

Here's This Week's Big Question --

From S.W.

Firstly, a great thank you for turning me onto some great music when I was at school (eg 'Jeannot Ou Est Le Serieux.) Re: NME (the UK music weekly,) when it was putting Sun Ra, etc. on the cover -- do you think that punk can take any credibility for opening up some of this other 'world music' to a wider public, music which seems again to be ignored. The question there somewhere was about Punk's relation to other music, or the music presses brief period of openness. -Question (b) what about music (punky) that you didn't personally like, for example, I don't know Siouxsie and the Banshees? How do you feel about them in retrospect? And is it possible to like the punk ethic (D.I.Y.) and think the Pistols were miserable and wonder why John Lydon always has to sound eternally bored when he opens his mouth. Something to do with Punk's acquired habit of nihilism..? Also, I loved your record with Chantage. Was it a one off?

Hey S.W, I don't know who or where you are, but your letter does strike a chord that zings in my heart. It's so nice you remember that long gone moment when the music press was really experimental, and having a mass youth audience, there was a way that information about stuff you might never have even thought to look for, snuck into your consciousness. Now it's all split up into niche marketing, special interest groups (which can be good), and there are sites like afropop.com and calabash.com serving world music fans; but you miss out on that random quality of stumbling across some totally unexpected life changing groove in a style you didn't know you liked.

Just like you, it really was the D.I.Y. punk ethic that got me, babe; though that Rotten snarl trademarked a moment, still gives the chills, and did the job of grating up the charts like nails scraping the paintjob of a new Humvee, Rotten himself was more likely to chill out at home with a wicked dub than a punk 45, and so was/am I. Having said that, "Oh Bondage Up Yours" by X Ray Spex is still a disc to live by/with/for, and the same goes for many punk gems.

The point you make about punk and world music is a good one -- certainly the more complex sounds of post-punk, like Gang of Four or the Raincoats, say, aren't shy to be jazzy; and of course, punk interacted profoundly with reggae, which was the "world music" of the time, as African and other non-Anglophone musics were rarely around. I reckon the rather sad tag of "world music" loosely means stuff that it isn't sung in American or British English.

Gang of Four's - I Love A Man in Uniform

P.S. S.W. -- I love that you remember "Jeannot Ou Est Le Sérieux" and my old Chantage record, "It's Only Money" both from the early 80s! Yes, that twelve inch was our one and only. Maybe me and my mysterious partner in our duo, Moona, should unleash it on the world again. How ever did you find it?

QUESTIONS FROM MY READERS FOR NEXT TIME...BE SURE TO STOP BACK BY FOR THE ANSWERS

From Drew S.
How would you define the differences between Punk and Ska, both the music and the lifestyles?

From Tee Bob
Lady V, The term "bottom line" is most often used in business usually to achieve goals derived from a strict accounting criterion. How is this concept in tune and in conflict with punk ethic and punk business practices? What is the punk business ethic and where does it stop?
Love and Donuts, Neonsandwich

Since We Last Met:

The Stranglers performed at Camden Town, London's legendary Roundhouse - 30 years to the day since they last played the venue...the Bush Tetras played NY after almost as long away...and arguably the biggest re-reunion of all, the Sex Pistols did LA and London... and here are special reports from our Spies...

The Stranglers - Midnight Summer Dream

The Bush Tetras - Too Many Creeps

London:

When I labored at punk-rock weekly SOUNDS in London, one of our bright writers was Pete Silverton who went on to co-author "I was a Teenage Sex Pistol" with Glen Matlock, the Tuneful Pistol.

Glen Matlock

Pete Silverton - Our man at the Sex Pistols homecoming happening

Pete reports from London: "They were the Sex Pistols. They played every song they knew and recorded. It was everything you wanted. It was loud and fun and noisy and familial in a strange kind of way. My son wore my original 1970s black leather Schott jacket, the Ramones one. It was a typical moment of the evening. The audience was far too acute to complain that this was a show rather than the frightening, unstable upheaval of a 1976 Pistols 'performance'. I didn't pay, of course. But I would have."

L.A.:

Jamaican scene maker Wayne Jobson, aka Native Wayne, is a film-maker and top reggae DJ on the West Coast's Indie 103.1. Back in the classic punk time in London, he was a real reggae regular on the scene and had a band back home called Native, together with his wonderful brother Brian. Their daring, haunting album "Rockstone", produced by dubmaster general Lee "Scratch" Perry, is just reissued on the groovy UK label Pressure Sounds. Wayne reports from the Pistols' LA show -- where old cohort John Lydon bigged him up from the stage!

Rare reggae groove from the fabulous Jobson Brothers

"I have seen the future of punk music, and it is the past!" The Sex Pistols stepped onstage at the Roxy in Los Angeles and showed all the clones to the throne like Green Day that they are all still green and that their day has not yet come! Easily one of the greatest front men in history, Johnny Rotten put all the impostors in their place, even reminding the audience that it was the Pistols that started the revolution and not the Ramones! Steve Jones attacked his axe like the crazed Jack in The Shining. Paul Cook and Glen Matlock showed us why they are still "the tightest rhythm section in punk music."

And more from Reggae Central. You want to play for hours, opening the wee envelope flaps to discover the mini-CDs and memorabilia of "Reggae Scrapbook" (Insight Editions), a very personal statement from actor/broadcaster/archivist and Marley specialist, Roger Steffens of Reggae and African Beat magazine, and photographer Peter Simon. They ransack their visual and memory stash to deliver a glorious, very touchable coffee table book of tricks and tales.

Reggae Scrapbook cover by Roger Steffens and Peter Simon Chocka with reggae tchotchkes.

A last word on New Identity Dance Music: By starting the weekly Basement Bhangra parties in Manhattan in 1997, DJ Rekha became godmother to a global movement that made the thundering throb of the traditional tall dhal drum a regular sound on Ibiza dance floors. Guests at Rekha's album launch at writer/producer/actor/siren Tanya Selvaratnam's Lower East Side pad cheered this long-awaited long-player, which features collaboes with Wyclef Jean and remixes by all the bhangra biggies -- Bally Sagoo, Apache Indian, Punjabi MC.

From l to r: DJ Rekha, Tanya Selvaratnam, Vivien Goldman at the Basement Bhangra bash

Marc Bolan's 60th Birthday Party

2007-10-15T05:42:00.000-07:00

From Ron Ramone:

Dear Punk Professor,

Part of your response to the question "Is the UK cooler than the USA"? struck a chord with me. You wrote, "One distinction that I have observed: the English generally tend to prize eccentricity more than Americans, which partly explains why punk flourished there." Let us not forget that punk in the UK was way more a political statement than it was in the US. The Ramones were not singing about anarchy or dead-end jobs like the Pistols & the Clash were. In the US it was driven by boredom with the status quo, how corporate rock music was and how conservative society had become. In the UK it was also more of a fashion statement & in the US it was more of an anti-fashion statement. That said; I believe that you'd see that the East & West Coast of the US prized eccentricity more than the South & Midwest. That is why the punk communities in places such as Boston, New York & LA flourished. So I guess I really don't have a question.

Dear Eric,

Thanks for your interesting points, which all make sense. It's very punk of you to "not have a question"! But negative's the flip of positive and your non-question actually extends the debate on the links between US & UK punk -- what do you reckon about it, rough readers? -- and even takes it a stage further. So here's a non-answer to your non-question. You reinforce a general observation that's cropped up quite a bit in chats with NY people who've moved to Miami, where I'm writing this. Everyone agreed that coastal areas around the world, not just in US or UK, are often more receptive and sophisticated than inland regions; maybe because they're so obviously on the edge, just oceans away from Other Cultures. Anyway, Other Cultures are likely to be sitting next to you on the subway, so we're all Other Cultures now. OK, let's hear it from angry landlocked readers!

I wish you glitter, fierce reader, and plenty of it. Like the glitter that twinkled against the dark trees as a motley crew pranced onto the stage at Marc Bolan's (posthumous) 60th Birthday Party at Central Park's Delacorte Theatre on a recent warm Saturday evening. It was like a carnival "by the light of a magical moon" as Marc sang.

Marc Bolan was an enchanted, enlightening figure in 1970's UK pop who went through many mutations -- almost as many as his frenemy David Bowie -- starting out as a mystic hippie bard ("My people were fair and wore stars in their hair...") and switching teams to become the prototypical glam rocker ("Bang a gong/Get it on...") leading an army of swooning schoolgirls, including me. His shocking death in a car crash in 1977 froze him forever young -- a fey, dirty dandy with dark ringlets and intense kohl'ed eyes. Bolan was a bohemian freethinker who punks adore. A true rock icon.

Marc - Always Amazing

Looking spiffy in a satin waistcoat by designer Zandra Rhodes

In homage, a galaxy of punk rock stars appeared at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park on a warm Saturday night to show respect. Moby happened to be there celebrating his birthday (though he was careful to point out, it wasn't actually his birthday that day,) and joined a mega-jam onstage. "I'm honored to be playing 'Twentieth Century Boy's visceral libidinous, riff," said Moby. The true Metal Guru, American producer Tony Visconti who helped mold both Bolan and Bowie, played with lots of the bands. He spoke tenderly about when he had a flat in London and Bowie and Bolan were always coming round to jam and party as they both still lived at home with their mums.

Richard Lloyd (Television)

Moby, Clem Burke (on drums), and Tony Visconti

Surprise guest Patti Smith took "Children of the Revolution," right to the barricades and over the top. By the power invested in her, Patti chanted Marc's words like a punk preacher, riffing ferociously on "They're trying to take us down, don't be fooled, child!" and relishing my personal fave couplet, "I drive a Rolls Royce/'Cos it's good for my voice."

The High Priestess of Punk

An honor roll of NYC's original CBGB's posse brought Marc's music back to its home away from home -- it turns out that Bolan recorded a lot in the Village. Backup through the show and "Born To Boogie" were performed by NYC punk heroines, Tish and Snooky, who used to be in the Stilettoes with Debbie Harry before Blondie. Now, best known for Manic Panic, their vivid line of punk hair dyes, they're still a rainbow riot. The drummer for Blondie, Clem Burke, lived up to his hype by Moby as "the best rock drummer of all time." Richard Lloyd from Television did "Jeepster".

Rocking très glam/trash leopard-skin jeans as he put some passion into "Ballrooms Of Mars," was Ivan Julian, ex-Clash/Richard Hell and the Voidoids. Two of the New York Dolls did two separate sets, Sylvain Sylvain rampaged through "Get It On" and Steve Conte growled "Rip Off." The Bongos' Richard Barone swanned through "Mambo Sun" and Joe Hurley, who was a prime mover in the show along with Joe's Pub and Bill Bragin, gave "Life's A Gas" some spine-tingling vibes. There was also a dazzling version of "Dove" by a barefoot Icelandic flower child called Ragga.

NYC punk heroines, Tish and Snooky

Ivan Julian

Two New York Dolls get it on again with Tony Shanahan

Joe Hurley

Barefoot Icelandic songbird sings a spell

A funky living link to Bolan is pop's own Irish eminence grise B.P. Fallon. Like Zelig, the ageless, elfin B.P. has been scene making since pop began. Not so much a publicist as a vibe conjuror, B.P. promoted people like Elvis Costello at one of the original punk indie labels Stiff Records. Now he has three books out, has a globally roving club night called Death Disco with Alan McGee (who founded Creation Records of Oasis fame.) As always, B.P.'s skating merrily along the cutting edge and now he's managing a very tall, very genial bloke called Justin Tranter, of rad glam band Semi Precious Weapons, who looks as good as Grace Jones in his high fetish heels and corset.

Looking dashing in Bolan's own stripey black/silver satin waistcoat by designer Zandra Rhodes (value: $20,000) Justin kindly lent his own silver waistcoat (value: $20.00) to The Scissor Sisters' glam man, Jake Shears, who joined him along with Steve Conte as Justin conveyed Marc's feline ways on "Metal Guru" and led the multitudes through "Hot Love."

Jake Shears, Justin Trantor and Steve Conte

From the past, look to the future. Right now B.P and Justin are pushing on through the mist of confusion round the music business. They are giving away their new CD, "We Love You," (and I love "Her Hair Is On Fire,") free in stores like Urban Outfitters, and even Barney's, where Justin sells his SPW glam/punk jewelry line. B.P sees it as a way forward for musicians, though even he agrees it's not much help for broke musicians who are only good at music and want to work at it all the time. These days, the Children of the Revolution gotta multitask.

Semi Precious Weapons' "We Love You" is out October 30 on Precious Records.

All pix by Kevin Yatarola/Joe's Pub & Bruce Alexander

Welcome to Punkville

2007-09-24T05:43:00.000-07:00

From Angela Jaeger: Can punk become an ideal to live by in a post-modern global community?

Go, Angela! Tell it like it is! That's why I'm writing this column now. The ideals you mention are clear to punk bands all over the world, united by their urge to change things like the ongoing rape of the planet or the unfair system they're living in (and they're all more or less unfair, except maybe Scandinavia and the Netherlands.)

It's like Punk is a huge encampment, call it Punkville, sheltering various bods who'd maybe never meet if they didn't all dig hanging out there. Some move in permanently, others drop in for a weekend, but they all have Punk stamped somewhere on their personal, intimate profiles. Rabidly anti-materialistic crusties living off the grid, fashion designers nostalgic for their wild youth, (or still wild,) vegan bakers, Professors yet, and of course musicians, including artists who aren't obviously punk, like Michael Franti and Manu Chao. Punk bands identify with the outsider, the oppressed -- that's why Bob Marley's more punk than, say, the lovely lads of The Police, who are more likely to be filed under Punk. Punk-ish bands exhibit varying degrees of commitment to the real ideals of punk -- but if the thin boy singer has artful holes in his clothes and wears black eyeliner, it's a fair bet he's punk-identified. How punk are they really? More on the punk-o-meter in the next question from Eric....

More Punk

Punk-ish

From Eric Siegel: Do you think there's a band that doesn't deserve to be called punk and a band that does?

A great and challenging question, Eric. Thanks. If punk is in the heart, as I believe, then I stick to identifying bands as "punk" primarily where they offer not only energy and attack, but also some sense of social engagement and a desire for change. That narrows the field and I would love readers to write in and let us know which bands are inspiring them right now. MIA's music is cosmopolitan and danceable but also angry and thoughtful. She's very punk. Good Charlotte rock the punk tattoos, smeared eyeliner and jagged Mohawks, but their music is power-pop. They mock the rich on "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous," but I wonder if singer Joel Madden feels the contradiction now he's a full-on tabloid celeb? Ah, how to still be angry while you're sipping champagne in your Jacuzzi! Always a problem! On "World Is Black," G.C. bemoans the state of the planet; still, their approach is more in tune with emo's all-about-me meanderings. So they give solace to many, but Good Charlotte ain't as punk as they look.

Punk via Sri-Lanka

Is this really punk? Or does it just dress like it?

Angela and Eric, thanks for your questions. Keep ‘em comin'!

Lastly, a big Punky Birthday 2 U to www.punkcast.com for their tenth anniversary. Founder and videast Joly is a true punk legend, uncompromising and quite a visionary. A New Yorker for some 22+ years, Joly's imprint, Better Badges, were first to use the humble badge as a guerilla medium in London in the first wave punk time. I always remember his Patti Smith badge, the first time that she and her band, including Lenny Kaye and the dear departed Richard "DNV" Sohl, hit the UK. The Patti Smith people were some of the few original US punks to identify with reggae and dub, so Joly put her distinctive profile on a red, green and gold badge that went everywhere and said it all. It's amazing how Joly is still always down with the key underground action; he got some of the last footage of Joe Strummer when he visited NY with the Mescaleros, and the first of bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeah's.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs image courtesy of Joly

Being a bit of a mathematical and technical whiz, Joly was hot on the internet while it was still obscure boffin stuff, and typically, got the potential of the new medium. He's been recognized in the Village Voice as an indispensable New Yorker, and recently both Wired and Rolling Stone rated punkcast among the hottest video podcasts. When I teach Punk at NYU's Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music, I always ask Joly to come in, bring some of his fanzine collection and tell us how it really was and is. Big up Joly in Punkville!

Marley's 'Exodus' 30 Years Later - (NPR)

2007-09-23T11:07:00.000-07:00

"Thirty years ago, reggae superstar Bob Marley released his highly acclaimed album "Exodus."

Veteran music journalist Vivien Goldman says it was a response to a politically motivated attempt on Marley's life.

Farai Chideya talks with Goldman, author of The Book of Exodus: The Making and Meaning of Bob Marley and the Wailers' Album of the Century."

Click here for the interview!

Lost Women of Rock FOUND!

2007-08-28T05:44:00.000-07:00

From Pedro Marazzi: What is your view of modern-day punk bands? Particularly those we in the US are subjected to. In the UK there was deemed to be three generations of punk bands. The first generation, which you seem to belong to, being Pistols, Clash etc. Generation 2 being Stiff Little Fingers, Ruts etc. Generation 3 being Anti Nowhere League, Exploited etc. Due to my age I came in at Generation 2 and initially felt like I'd already missed the party. First generation punkers tend to be too easily dismissive of most punk that followed, probably due to less originality. What is/was your view?

Thanks for the astute question, Pedro. Your breakdown is very precise 'specially as the waves you mention came quite close together. But who do you think is less original -- the late-wave musicians, or the people (not) listening? I'm assuming you mean the musicians, in which case I'm glad you dig the under-appreciated Ruts. If only their wonderful singer, Malcolm Owen, hadn't OD'd on heroin so young... he was gorgeous and had a great intensity that was very compelling and seductive but seems to have burned him right up. You're probably right anyway, Pedro, in that seeing any style, e.g. punk, coming round the cultural conveyor belt yet again can prompt yawns from the been-there, done-that dudes. Not those neck tattoos AGAIN?

There's also the nostalgia factor -- people get all smooshy over the music they first snogged to. So it's partly too-blasé-to-bop, and partly that original punks like the Clash had a commitment that still inspires people.

But the sign of a lively mind -- crucial to punk - is not to get locked into one era. Keep cruising for compelling voices! Lily Allen is this column's reigning Punky Reggae Princess; Tanya Stephens is our Rebel Queen; and the mighty Manu Chao, whose new album La Radiolina, breaks a six-year silence, is the artist Joe Strummer would have liked to be. So it's never all hopeless, even when it's a bit grim.

Image courtesy of Blake Zidell.

In the Wailers dressing room after their fantastic, packed out show at the High Line in Manhattan, Tré Cool from Green Day, a huge Wailers fan, was there to big up the band with his super girlfriend, Sarah Belger. He insisted on having his photo taken with the Punk Professor and bass legend Aston "Family Man" Barrett, and rather impressed me with his glee at how the band's smash hit, 'American Idiot' had distressed President Bush.

Drummie Zeb, Tré Cool, Punk Professor,

Aston "Family Man" Barrett. Image courtesy of Sarah Belger.

Emotion and excitement bubbled like the champagne at the lunch in London's hip Portobello Road that writer, artist and activist Caroline Coon put together for 'The Lost Women of Rock Music: female musicians of the punk era,' (Ashgate Books) by Dr. Helen Reddington. It was old home week for first wave punk rock grrrlz, and British punk legends, Lora Logic, and her old bandmate in X Ray Spex, Poly Styrene, were both there with personality-packed daughters! There were also various MoDettes, Belle Stars, and others.

The Punk Girls' Token Bloke: keyboard player Steve Beresford,

Slits bassist Tessa Pollitt and Slits manager Christine Roberston.

Image courtesy of Vivien Goldman.

Tessa Pollitt (the Slits), Christine Robertson

and Jane Crockford, bassist for the Mo-Dettes.

Image courtesy of Shirley O'Loughlin.

(left to right) Ana da Silva (drummer for the Slits), the elusive

Lora Logic (saxophone for X-Ray Specs and solo artist),

Gina Birch (bassist for The Raincoats), Jane Crockford.

Image courtesy of Vivien Goldman

Caroline gave a great speech, which you will be able to see a bit of right here (coming soon!). The author used to play in a Brighton punk band called The Chefs as Helen McCookeryBook. Classic punk rage at how girl punk musicians have been ignored and written out of history -- see, that's why it starts with "his"! -- inspired Helen to write this valuable book. It began as an academic thesis but will reach much further.

Vivien Goldman (aka Punk Professor), Dr. Helen Reddington

and Caroline Coon. Image courtesy of Kieron Tyler.

The seriously cool guys, like Kurt Cobain, who championed the Raincoats, and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, do get the greatness of the girls. Supported by London's original punky reggae female rockers, the Slits, Sonic Youth performed the whole of their 'Daydream Nation,' at McCarren Pool, a hipster hangout in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Onstage Moore hailed up the Slits and called Ari Up "My hero!" Although Thurston later humbly said "I just kept my head down and tried to get through to the end," the show really felt like a journey, epic and emotional. Kim Gordon is a sultry, brooding rock star, with a fluid, forceful bass style, who scores double 'cos guys love her and the females in the audience all sense she's a sister.

Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, unidentified woman and

Ari Up (The Slits). Image courtesy of Peter Remke.

The eternally cool Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth)

Image courtesy of Peter Remke.

The audience had never seen anything like the Slits, who played many of their old school gems like "Typical Girls" and some of their newer material, too. Sadly, the listings were wrong so keen Slits fans like the girls of "no age jungle riddim vendors", Gang Gang Dance, missed them. Backstage, GGD's Lizzi Bougatsos and Jess Holzworth introduced their own sister in punk, the smashing actress Chloë Sevigny, joking, “She's a star!" Nice Chloë practically crawled into the room in a major just-a-regular-gal attack! They're old friends and Slits fans forever.

Chloë Sevigny with Ari Up (The Slits)

Image courtesy of Peter Remke.

The new generation of Slits, like Hollie Cook, keep the vibe alive. Hollie is original punk rock royalty as her father's Paul, the drummer of the Sex Pistols, and her mother is Jennie of the Belle Stars, who was in great form at the Women In Punk lunch. You can also hear Hollie on 'Milk And Honey,' the single from a new release that I love, called "Survival of The Fattest: Battling the forces of evil with hippy reggae," by Prince Fatty. It's the new project by Mike Pelanconi, the producer/engineer who made the smash "Alright, Still," with Lily Allen.

Image courtesy of Mike Peloconi

Hollie Cook (The Slits).

Image courtesy of Peter Remke.

Hollie Cook (The Slits).

Image courtesy of Peter Remke.

Your Questions Answered!

2007-07-30T05:45:00.000-07:00

READER QUESTIONS ANSWERED

This week’s session is a little different as it's more of a chat between us; call it a think tank if you like. Keep sending those questions and at regular intervals, we'll just devote a column like this to filling in those blanks, as well as the regular answer-per-column business.

1) From Lindsay Tulkoff: I love punk - I really wish I had been around back then. How come punk in the United States wasn’t as political as it was in Britain?

Thanks, Lindsay. I can tell you, those were some wild times, and though there was a lot of beating-up type of violence, guns were not involved – which I noticed in recent trips to my home town, London, is sadly not the case today. Kids killing kids has become a grisly reality. But more of that another time, and I’m curious about readers thoughts/questions on violence and punk.

There’s a school of thought that insists that EVERYTHING is political – in which case, The Ramones singing 'Sheena Is a Punk Rocker' or Blondie singing 'Denis Denis' has as much political weight as the Pistols' 'Anarchy In The UK.'. But you’re right in that UK punk was a vehicle for expression about the extremely messed-up state of Britain at that time. Unemployment was at a new high, and it seemed like the old systems had crashed completely. There were constant strikes by the unions – which Margaret Thatcher would soon de-fang, for good or ill, just as punk was segueing into post-punk. Power cuts lasted for days, garbage frequently piled high in the streets, and IRA bombs could explode anywhere, any time.

Debbie Harry of Blondie

The Ramones

Jon Savage’s photos which we ran recently, were an amazing reminder of how my old ‘hood, Ladbroke Grove celebrated by the Clash as The Sound of the Westway (a motorway that sliced through the area)– used to look as if the wartime Blitz was still going on, with its many vacant rubbish-strewn lots fronted by dented corrugated iron. Now the area is totally posh and some of the most expensive real estate on the planet. In short, London in the mid-70s was rich in the sort of anger Johnny Rotten expressed on the Pistols’ last ever show, in San Francisco, when he famously shouted, “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” With the old British Empire gone, and the ebullient 1960s sense of abundance shriveled, there was a sense of Year Zero, that pride in English identity was a joke. And kids round the country were keen to mouth off about it, resulting in the wave of political music that means a lot to you & many others.

The Sex Pistols

The boutique run by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood

But there was much to vent about in America, too – why didn’t it happen here? I think partly because as punk was beginning, the Vietnam War was just trailing to its ignominious close. I get the feeling that kids here at that point were OVER protest in music, as a reminder of the boring bad old days. It meant hippies, folk music. It was seen as being too earnest and serious. Instead there was a thrill in being what I call perma-teen – embracing the zany, sometimes surreal, endless adolescent fun and escapism embodied by The Ramones’ cartoon persona.

And what do you, dear punk reader, think of the other aspects of American punk? Let me know.

2) From Joyce Crowley: Where did you meet the Clash and what is Paul Simonon like?

The way it was for me was the way it can be in any low-rent, high-skills community of artists. The Clash were a local band – Joe Strummer started out playing in the Elgin pub across the road from my house in the 101’ers - and I was a music journalist. Just like in, say, the tight knit SF punk scene, or the CBGB’s crowd in NYC’s pre-gentrified Lower East Side, there were none of today’s barriers between artist, fan and media pal. The famous incident where my fellow scribe Nick Kent was punched out by the volatile Pistols' bassiist, Sid Vicious is less likely to happen now that VIP rooms isolate artists from their audiences in all but the punkier venues. Stay punk! (But skip the punch, preferably.)

CBGB'S

What is Paul Simonon like? In many ways, Paul IS the archetypal punk, in that one of the first times he ever picked up a bass was onstage with the Clash. After being taken on by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, it was pretty well acknowledged that though he had zero bass playing experience, he more than made up for it with his style and impressive cheekbones. Paul was really the visual artist of the band, (as well as the in-house heartthrob, -- his dramatic fling with Patti Smith, who he met when she jumped onstage with the Clash at a gig, was one of the first collaborations between Anglo-American Punk.) His early canvases, particularly one grey and brown-toned landscape of a car dump, indicated his visual taste was just as raw and punky as his first bashes at bass. He was largely responsible for Clash fashion statements like the words stenciled up the legs of his flight suit; and the paint-spattered look inspired by Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings. Now, Paul plays with the Gorillaz' Damon Albarn in The Good The Bad and the Queen, and the rest of the time, he's the fine art painter he first set out to be.

Paul Simonon/Cover of The Clash's London Calling album

3) From Devin Farrell: Do you agree with me that the U.K. is better than the U.S.? (I live in the U.S.)

Thanks for that neat philosophical query, Devin. You may have guessed that I’ve lived and still move between both great nations, and I can tell you that ultimately, everywhere has its advantages and disadvantages. One distinction that I have observed: the English generally tend to prize eccentricity more than Americans, which partly explains why punk flourished there.

4) From Edward Arthur: 1) Whatever happened to Ed Bahlman? 2) Did PUNK really start in the UK?

If anybody reading this knows a number for Ed Bahlman, do let me know. Does Bahlman owe you money, Other Ed? Or are you simply a fan of Ed’s late 70s-early 80s label, 99, on which I was an artist along with ESG, Glenn Branca, ETC, all now regarded as musical post-punk pioneers. The spacey NJ?? Funk of all-girl trio, ESG, is now on the road again – this time, with their daughters! -- and Glenn is a busy composer. Thus the artists Ed signed are all present and correct, but – where’s Ed?

Glenn Branca

And a very interesting question from Pedro Marazzi: What is your view of modern-day punk bands?

Particularly those we in the US are subjected to. In the UK there was deemed to be three generations of punk bands. The first generation, which you seem to belong to, being Pistols, Clash etc. Generation 2 being Stiff Little Fingers, Ruts etc. Generation 3 being Anti Nowhere League, Exploited etc. Due to my age I came in at Generation 2 and initially felt like I’d already missed the party. First generation punkers tend to be too easily dismissive of most punk that followed, probably due to less originality. What is/was your view?

TUNE IN NEXT TIME FOR THE ANSWER TO PEDRO'S QUESTION -- AND ASK ME ANOTHER....

Punky Hippy Party

2007-06-18T05:46:00.000-07:00

Your Reader Questions Answered!

From Kurt: “Ok, so I've seen the Sex Pistols reunion tour, the Gang of Four reunion tour, the Slits reunion tour. I saw Wreckless Eric last year, reuniting with himself I suppose. All but one was great. My question, Punk Prof, is this: do bands owe us anything when they get back together? Are there right or wrong reasons to do it, or is it all just their own flippin' business?”

Punk band reunions puncture society’s fond delusion that fresh creativity is the prerogative of the under-25s. Somewhat to their surprise in many cases, these bands realize that there’s a market for these reunions with their old bandmates/frenemies, and it strikes a chord – particularly as many of these musicians had found themselves adrift, forced to acknowledge that their sum really had been greater than their own egos. However, for both musician and audience, these shows usually wind up being quite powerful events, more than mere nostalgia. If the artist has given up playing in the interim, they’re bound to fall in love with playing all over again, a sensation vividly captured in “New York Doll,” Greg Whiteley’s documentary on Arthur “Killer” Kane of that band. Seeing the Sex Pistols reunion was remarkable as now their playing had improved so they sounded as good as the polished sound coaxed by Chris Thomas, the producer. When I wound up jamming onstage with the Slits at their reunion, it was frankly a thrill that bass player Tessa Pollitt and singer-songwriter Arri-Upp had found a new crew of junior Slits, who were obviously the band’s artistic progeny, with their dub influence and white girl dreads.

It’s a given that there’s a Pavlovian fascination with the music we first XXXed to (insert your favorite wild thing here,) in our childhood and adolescence, which in many cases is transmitted to the offspring. Thus the many families attending the recent Roger Waters concert in a Jersey Arena, generations singing and playing air guitar together along with his band’s performance of the whole ‘Dark Side of the Moon,’ the hippy magnum opus Waters recorded with the band he co-founded in the 1960s, the Pink Floyd.

In short, old punk bands, LIKE OLD HIPPY BANDS, deserve a chance to grow, just like everybody else. These shows can fire memories and inspire the next generations.

Hope this answers your question, Kurt. Thanks for asking.

OK, you in the back there, I’m wondering why your essay on the tension between punks and hippies has no words, and what exactly these sixty-four drawings of brightly colored safety pins and skulls actually mean? You say this is the result of three solid weeks of original research? Oh, I see. You were switching between LSD and amphetamine to compare and contrast punks’ and hippies’ drugs of choice, and this is your response. Well, I’m afraid your research will have to be a bit less original, unless you want your grade to be @@###?”///. Consolation: that grade may not get you a degree, but it’s like an invite to the Punky Hippy Party.

Roger Waters kept the Pig in the Pink Floyd divorce

Yes, Bob Marley sang about the Punky Reggae Party, to which the Clash and various other punks were invited, along with the Wailers. “No boring old farts will be there,” promised Marley, and many listeners assumed that he must be referring to the Pink Floyd and their ilk – the dinosaur 1960s superstars who had dominated the charts, it was felt, for far too long. Nobody sang about the Punky Hippy Party -- not till this column, anyway. The whole point of punk, or so it seemed at the time, was to sweep away what was seen as the deluded idealism and annoying naïveté of hippies and replace it with punk’s gritty realism.

Jon Carin with Punk Professor: Both factions of the old Floyd love this multi-instrumentalist and punks do too

“Punks hating hippies? That was all a load of rubbish,” declared Jon Carin firmly, helping himself to some moules in the leafy garden of a West Village restaurant. An hour before, the brown eyed multi-instrumentalist had been onstage in front of twenty thousand people at a New Jersey arena, backing Roger Waters, the co-founder of Pink Floyd. “John Lydon and Steve Jones (ex-SexPistols,) Captain Sensible (Damned) – I’ve got them all tickets to our shows.”

And Carin should know. Taken on by the supergroup while he was still in his teens, due to a particular combination of talent and personality, he is now the only musician invited to shuttle back and forth between Waters and Dave Gilmore – the two feuding ex-Floydies who each tour the world with their own representation of that august catalog. Reggae has paid Dark Side of the Moon the ultimate tribute with a great favorite of mine, the Easy Star All Stars’ “Dub Side of the Moon,” but the original version still sounds strong. It was a gas to watch that familiar Floyd emblem, the big pink graffiti’d pig, float overhead—Waters reserves his ripest anti-Bush insults for the pig’s plump rubber rear and the graffiti are altered according to issues relevant to each concert’s location, Carin explains. Being immersed in the big sound of LEGENDARY SINGER, P.P. Arnold, the guitar stylings of original pop icon, the Amen Corner’s Andy Fairweather-Lowe, plus their sophisticated mini-movies and psychedelia, was a delicious sensation. A handy reminder of why, though punk happened in stinky cellars, I’d have quite liked IT to be bathed in irridescent colored lights.

Though Waters’ political analysis in songs like Leaving Beirut, is a touch lacking in nuance, the timing of its performance sent a shiver down my spine. While Waters was emoting against a superb backdrop of oversized cartoon frames telling the story of how a nice Arab family rescued Waters when he was a lost hitchhiking student, my hostess, super Punky Mummy, fashion PR Oberon Sinclair-Carin, showed me the latest war death updates on her mobile phone. Seems like the fight for different IDEAS of peace has an even longer shelf life than the Pink Floyd’s canon.

And you in the back there, staring obsessively at a blank wall. While you're busy opening the doors of perception, don't forget to close the classroom door on your way out, as this lesson is actually over. The other students are all gone - and so, it would seem, are YOU. REAL GONE.

Punky Hippy Party Continued

2007-06-15T05:47:00.000-07:00

Aha! A special welcome to you in the back there. After the last class, the Psychedelic Roger Waters/Pink Floyd session, when everyone else had gone and you just sat there watching mental television on the blank wall, I wasn’t sure you’d make it back intact. What was that? On your trip you lived through the last hundred years of your family tree? Well, in that case, you’ve got a head start on today’s class as we’re still looking at the 1960s; a decade whose influence remained strong in the 1970s, even though lots of Punks said it was all a load of bollocks. We will see that the Hippies’ ideas of Peace and Love were actually not that different from the Punks' Search and Destroy; because both generations were fighting in their own way for a more honest society.

“Summer of Love, Remembering the 1960s”, a show at the Whitney, is a reminder of why that decade still fascinates. Musical entertainment at the opening soiree, which I attended with Punky PR Mummy, Oberon Sinclair-Carin, was provided by hippy bard, Donovan, who swung his way through favourites like Mellow Yellow. His hair still in artless ringlets, the genial Donovan confided to us that he always watches BBC America when he’s in the US, and that his stepson with wife Linda, whose father was the late Rolling Stone Brian Jones, is obsessed with old school reggae.

Gene Anthony – Hippies on the Corner of the Haight. Image courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art

Mati Klarwein Aleph Sanctuary View. Image courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art

The exhibition’s focus on entertainment, music and underground art like British comic book, Oz, make it a magnet for music people. Among the swinging gear on display: Richard Avedon’s famous oversaturated color images of the Beatles, looking as if they were Indian deities; Patrick Litchfield’s shot of the newly married Mick & Bianca Jagger in a Rolls, she the height of Biba and Ossie Clarke chic in her white floppy hat, both imperious in their beauty, like they were off to honeymoon in Olympus. I adored this expo. For me it LITERALLY hit home, particularly as it showed London murals that I vaguely recalled from my early childhood, like the wall of Granny Takes a Trip on the King’s Road, very near where Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren would open the shop Sex, the home of punk, a decade on. A stellar Sixties crew of artists includes paintings, photos, sculptures and installations by Richard Hamilton, Mati Klarwein (of Santana sleeve fame,) Jimi Hendrix, Lynda Benglis and Andy Warhol, among others, and the show was organized by Christoph Grunenberg, director of the exhibition's originating museum, the Tate Liverpool.

Gene Anthony photo of beat generation icon Ken Kesey. Image courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art

Victor Moscoso Neon Rose 12. Image courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art

It was a joy to experience once more the elaborate rococo Edwardiana, the lush decadence of the illustrations inspired by Aubrey Beardsley and the organic voluptuousness of Art Nouveau; all those pre-Deco decorative flourishes which came to seem redundant when minimalism and its spawn, the color taupe, took their wraithlike hold on the design world. Though it skipped a couple of generations, it struck me as I tripped (hoho) past the warning for epileptics and those of a sensitive disposition and entered the exhibition’s strobe room, how it felt like an Ibiza house rave, from the 1980s through to today. That psychedelia never really went away. But it’s often said that the political awakening and awareness that the 1960s have come to represent got lost somewhere round the 1980s Greed Is Good era and never quite returned. Still, hiphop, whose birth paralleled punk’s in the 1970s, has always had a strain of conscious activism duking it out with the taboo vocabulary and mutely gyrating “video ho’s”. Hiphop guru, Russell Simmons has had to busy himself with more than one culture battle recently. The Don Imus debacle has seen Simmons align himself with a purging of hiphop’s crasser gangsta aspect; and the brazen inequities of the Rockefeller Drug Laws have prompted him to tackle the government directly, as Lockdown, a new documentary directed by Michael Skolnik and Rebecca Chaikin, explains. “We thought it would be a quick shoot, eight weeks and they’d close the deal to change the law. It wound up taking three years to just to finish the documentary, and the fight isn’t over yet,” Skolnik says.

Hiphop guru Russell Simmons

The draconian, antiquated and brutally punitive Rockefeller Drug Laws first brought in to combat the ravages of angel dust or heroin in the 1970s, have long been ineffective for dealing with any problems created by drugs, and are really a tool to tear families apart, ruin lives, and criminalize mainly Black and Latino prisoners; effectively castrating their citizenship by ensuring they’ll never get to vote. A pernicious social bargain views prisoners as a cheap, convenient work force, whose housing has become a growth industry re-energizing dying industrial towns; while keeping a prisoner in jail costs us taxpayers 60K a year. To that staggering sum must be added the social costs, which are literally incalculable. The fact that African-American women are in the front line of HIV infection is just one of the side effects, as previously straight prisoners adapt to their incarceration, and infect their women on release. While many mothers who find themselves effectively single mothers are heroines, few would dispute that having a male in the home is usually a plus. No conversation on the Rockefeller Drug Laws passes without someone observing that your Wall Street cocaine user never gets hit with the legislation that sends a small fry street corner hustler away for years. The answer to that math can be found in serious issues like the rise in gang violence plaguing our cities.

As “Lockdown USA” points out, New York’s Governor Elliot Spitzer’s election campaign promised to deal with the Laws, but somehow it all got sidelined once he was elected. Some slight cosmetic improvement did happen in 2004, when the sentence was cut from fifteen years to life, to eight to twenty-one years – but that’s still like a lifetime to a young person caught with as little as two ounces of any narcotic.

Skolnik and Chaikin focus their lens on the case of Darryl Best, who wound up in jail after signing for a package that arrived while he was working at a friend’s house, which turned out to contain drugs. The traumatic effect of his imprisonment on his family is interwoven with Simmons’ own struggle with “politricks,” as reggae singer, Peter Tosh used to say.

When the music mogul realizes that Governor Spitzer hadn’t acted on the deal Simmons thought he’d successfully brokered, he is visibly shocked and tells a reporter, “No matter how much these politicians are wiggling, they are guilty, going for their summer vacation leaving people suffering in jail who they know should come home. Politicians call themselves civilized, but in hiphop we have to tell the truth to each other. People come from the struggle and are sometimes not so polished, and you can’t go around lying, splitting the truth. In the rap business people get killed over shit like this. If I lied to my artists, I’d be dead!”

Comments Gabriel Sayegh of the Drug Policy Alliance, “New York has been waiting for reform for thirty-four years and nothing’s going to move until Governor Spitzer lives up to his campaign promise and makes it a priority.”

In short, you in the back there, if you insist on INDULGING YOUR TASTE FOR PSYCHEDELICS – make sure you do it when there are no surveillance cameras AROUND.

Lockdown USA will be released later this year.

Whitney exhibition ends September 16.

Punky Mummies

2007-05-22T05:48:00.000-07:00

OK, class, it’s time to reflect on the role of the Punky Mummy. On first hearing, that might sound like an odd combo – but that’s only if you haven’t seen the teensy onesies advertising CBGBs or The Ramones. You in the back – is that a Mother’s Day card you’re writing? Go on, pass it over. How very thoughtful. Oh, I see, it’s a print out of profiles on your dating site. Looks like a shopping list. Well, that’s how it works today. Not that punk was a really romantic era, as such. It’s rather a relief that the punk slang for the act of coitus has been long abandoned – it’s “squelching,” which has a louche, even unhygienic, subtext of snatched seconds in mucky lavs. The Sex Pistols “Bodies” is a loathing song, not a love song, or the invitation to unbridled lust the title might imply. Nonetheless, all that, jumping up and down pogoing, did stir the blood, and unleashed an excess of energy, that had to go somewhere – and not always that far, as evidenced by the fact that the daughter of Sex Pistols’ drummer, Paul Cook, and Jenny, lead singer of the Belle Stars, now sings with the Slits.

Loads of punks are mothers. In fact, Patti Smith’s daughter Jesse is now a musician herself, and both singer Arri Upp and her old Slits-mate, Neneh Cherry of Cirkus, have bands with their children.

Offhand, though, I can’t think of a Punky Mummy’s love song to her child, like the way Lauryn Hill’s paean to her child, Zion, is as touching as any great love ballad; nor of any song about hating your mother, like Eminem’s. Please email me with thoughts on any I may have missed or blanked on.

Stu: his musical, Passing Strange, is strangely memorable

Being an essentially anti-authoritarian mode, though, it’s not surprising that the punks and their mums arena can be a bit problematic. Certainly, it’s the obsession of the protagonist of a memorable musical, “Passing Strange,” that I saw at the Public Theater obsesses over it. Bearded, bespectacled, burly, wry and professorial Stu, mainman of San Francisco’s band The Negro Problem, basically plays his younger self in this touching, bittersweet musical co-written with his mate, Heidi Rodewald, directed by Annie Dorsen and co-produced by Joe’s Pub’s innovative music booker, Bill Bragin. Punk is pivotal to the piece, a lively and thought-provoking narrative with an engaging six person cast, based on his coming of age as a budding, bookish black beatnik more likely to go Om than Yo coming up in 1980s Compton, LA, who’s the sole son of a strict church-going single mother. Starting a punk band liberates and emboldens Stu to go adventuring in Europe where hilariously, he re-invents himself as a threatened gangsta, rather than a fugitive from the church choir, to get some cred with the radical, free living and loving squatters in Berlin and Amsterdam. But he’s so busy looking for himself on the road, that he can kid himself he’s not just running away. Ultimately, it’s his unresolved maternal scene that trips him up, and makes this pioneering Afro-Punk re-consider what being radical really means.

Mamarama is the roller-coaster of balancing family and creativity

Punk Love by Susie J. Horgan

Truth has a lot to do with it, of course, and nothing’s more punk than the truth. And to tell the truth, back in London, in the Goldman Towers of my youth, it was understood that Mother’s Day was a load of bollocks designed by the greeting card companies, and we were never to mind it. The point being, every day was Mother’s Day for our merry little nuclear unit; though whether that was really so, I slightly doubt, in retrospect. Anyway, discovering how a woman who was previously all about free self-expression, i.e. a Punky Mummy, can make every day Mother’s Day, is sometimes a tough one. Finding a community can be a lifesaver, as writer Evelyn McDonnell and photographer Susie Horgan, two Miami P.M’s, discovered.

Evelyn is well kitted out with kids – two stepdaughters and a son, all charmers – and Susie, whose husband is in a wheelchair, has an adopted boy. In their freewheeling punk days, they hadn’t necessarily anticipated such complicated though enriching domesticity, and they’ve both chronicled it in their own way.

In her “Punk Love,” Susie re-visits her youthful photos of the early D.C. punk scene, when she sold ice cream in a Georgetown store managed by the future political bard and TV personality, lantern-jawed Henry Rollins. He contributes text, alongside musician Ian MacKaye, co-founder of Dischord Records. Susie’s photos of soft-faced boys ripping out harsh guitar chords, are very immediate and innocent, and show how the full-frontal attack of DC punk really was born with a bang.

Henry Rollins proves - Punk really is a love fest, after all

“Mamarama” is writer Evelyn McDonnell’s reflection on her roller-coaster evolution from the kid who camped under the stars with her parents and brother, through their divorce, her two marriages, (one happily ongoing), participating in guerilla media on the east & west coasts, plus the aforementioned Punky Mummy thingy – all the while listening and responding to music. She’s currently Music Critic at the Miami Herald, but in the basements of the early 1990s downtown Manhattan’s Nuyorican Poetry scene, Evelyn and her buddy writer Jana Martin, kinda adopted me. We formed a sustaining writers group and punky collective, the Fictionaires (watch out for Jana’s book of short stories, ‘The Russian Lover,” by the way.) Between us, we’ve delivered four books and one baby in the space of a decade, not bad going. Though we’re all scattered, the Fictionaires still critique each other’s work and lives, so it was no surprise when “Mamarama” turned out to be a bonny, bouncing book weighing in at approximately eight ounces. Evelyn says Mamarama means, “Balancing your life and the family thing and the freedom thing, mothering without losing your sense of adventure and the culture at large.” Susie laughs, “Me and Evelyn have these chats – ‘What was your Mamarama today?’”

Evelyn’s receiving quite an emotional response, particularly as it’s one of the few cool commentaries available for young women – or hey, even aging-almost-imperceptibly women – who are trying to invent new ways of mothering and re-envisaging womanhood, without throwing the baby out with the excess fat.

This book will help any woman, any time

Talking of motherhood and excess fat, you really don’t need to be a Punky Mummy to find that yoga is as lifesaving as a community of reliable and endlessly amusing mates. To be gagging for yoga, you don’t need to be lugging laundry or a baby. It could be a big briefcase or, as in my case, a big bust and a job as a writer hunched over a laptop – or simply a load of angst. If it weren’t for the work of Mr. Iyengar, and his daughter Geeta, who wrote the foreword for “The Woman’s Yoga Book”, and particularly its author, my teacher Bobby Clennell, my knuckles would definitely be trailing on the tarmac, in the style of our ancestors the Neanderthals. “I’m keen on doing yoga as a woman, not a man; coming back to our nature, but in a progressive way,” she explains.

Over some four years, Bobby has distilled her knowledge of woman’s yoga for every phase of life and combined it with her old skill as an illustrator – she used to be an animator– into a completely original and very necessary handbook to keeping your head on straight and your limbs in the lotus position.

And you in the back there – is that the lotus position, or are you just copying the answer from your mate? Now if I were your mother, not your Punk Professor…

The Aesthetics of Punk

2007-04-25T05:49:00.000-07:00

In your recent post you mention hippie and punk as two sides of the same coin, (and I agree) yet so many self-identified punks profess to hate the '60's. Why? It seems this contradiction occurred back in '76 or so when various Pistols and certain others (Malcolm MacLaren perhaps) would be quoted as saying they "hate hippies and their bell-bottom jeans and long hair". It was clear they were simply referring to 60's fashion. But very soon it became "we hate hippies and everything they stand for like peace and love". Many people who read these comments about hating hippies took them very literally, and these people - especially would-be, 2nd generation punks - began to despise everything associated with hippie/'60's values, not just musical but philosophically and politically as well. I'm certain this contributed in some way to the rise of Thatcher and Reagan, especially in the UK where punk had far more cultural influence.

Regards,
Sean Oliver
Madison WI

Thanks for an astute question, Sean. I agree with you about how changing cultural values and the rejection of the hippie's peace and love vibration helped usher in what proved to be a depressing era for many, and a boom time for a privileged few. Why did it happen? There's a certain clockwork inevitability about each generation reacting to their parents - a formula that Savage's teen tome also illuminates - even when their fundamental beliefs are not that different at all. The old myths decreed that The King Must Die; the old order must crumble or apparently the world won't turn. I finally caught up with Clatterford, and was amused to hear the Women's Institute chairperson moaning that their meeting had descended into "Anarchy." Would that word have come to her gently reared rural mind without Johnny Rotten's yowl? As Savage said, first wave punk veterans are slightly surprised at punk's staying power, but perhaps it's because punk is about constantly questioning and overthrowing repressive systems which, sadly, never seem to go out of style. Given that classic reaction is how the world works, what's next for today's celebrity hungry scene?

PUNK PROFESSOR WEEK THREE

Time for our third session, punk people, and we're going to be looking at the aesthetics of punk, a recurring theme, particularly as in punk, visuals, style and aesthetics, are so clearly connected to the music.

Congratulations, you in the back there, for digging up some actual Vivienne Westwood type bondage trousers - unusual safety-pin - oh, I see, that's actually the dry cleaning tag and you accidentally put 'em on back to front… well, never mind, nice try. Apparently, part of being a Professor is the fun of seeing people you encouraged when they were starting out go on to do amazing work in the world, so it's particularly good to report that Jon Savage's new and long-awaited book, 'Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture' (Viking) is as engrossing and stimulating as fans of his much-loved punk book, 'England's Dreaming', had hoped. Jon's one of the writers I picked and edited at Sounds whose arrival I remember particularly clearly - he had just graduated from Cambridge when he turned up in the office with a copy of his fanzine. The stapled pages evidenced a strong vision and he became one of our main writers. Seemingly self-possessed even then, Savage often wore a dark, baggy overcoat, drainpipe trousers and winklepicker shoes, his hair in a glossy black Teddy Boy quiff. His scathing wit is still intact in Teenage.

(Viking)

Jon once remarked to me "It was particularly gratifying that the definitive punk history was written by a posh homo," and I quite understood; the downside of mid-70s (and later) punk was an unreconstructed laddism sometimes expressed with an unthinking, knee-jerk homophobia or racism, that was at variance with the progressive, socially committed attitudes of, say, the Ruts and the Clash. Of course, parallel disputes still continue today, as Rock Against Racism and related organizations have had to rise again to combat problems in Europe. Now residing in rural grace in Wales, Savage can soothe his breast by walking to the sea, which is what he was about to do when he recalled what drove him to spend years writing the book. "It was a Runaways gig in 1976," he said, "I'd been in Chester, so it was the first time I'd seen loads of punks together at one time. They'd taken all these postwar youth styles and put them together with safety pins - brothel creeper shoes with 1960s trousers and zoot suits with winklepickers." The realization that fashion and style are an organic continuum that regenerates spontaneously for each generation's definition of youth set Jon thinking, with riveting results.

Vivien with Jon Savage

An exhibit of Jon's photos from the period is currently up in London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, named after his fanzine, Secret Public, and Jon sounds like he's flashing back in time as he describes the memories sparked by seeing his old pictures again. Now awash with chic boutiques and restaurants, in those days the grim, grey streets of Ladbroke Grove, home to the Clash and so many more, still bore war scars, three decades after the Armistice. "You see corrugated iron everywhere, going through all these (bleak) cityscapes and right at the end there's a Clash graffiti," said John. "And there was nothing else there. There really was nothing else there, when you think about it. That's why I liked it so much. Of course, it's all lasted much longer than one could ever have thought. Now punk is huge. In England, Punk has become the Year Zero. No-one remembers the 1960s any more." Some of Jon's strongest fanzine work was done in collaboration with a Mancunian artist named Linder, a close associate of the Buzzcocks, whose powerful collages deconstructing domesticity were direct descendants of political artists like 1930s collage master, the prominent anti-Fascist John Heartfield. His unforgettable satires of the power structure in Hitler's Germany also rang the alarm for punks battling neo-Nazi groups in Britain with Rock Against Racism. Collage is closely identified with punk - something about its scrappy, recycling technique just fits with punk's indie, sustainable ethos. The wild women of Berlin's Chicks on Speed collective always blend art and style with their avant-garde dance music. The band's Alex and Melissa collaborated on the startling cover collage of their "Girl Monster" compilation of girly music with artists including Bjork, the Slits, and your humble correspondent.

Under the Westway, Ladbroke Grove, 1977. Image courtesy of Jon Savage

Image courtesy of Chicks on Speed

Another worthy successor to the great Heartfield, Swedish artist Moki Cherry's rage against the destruction of the planet and the hypocrisy bedeviling our relationships, is pure punk. Perhaps it's no surprise that her musician daughter, Neneh, a sometime Slit herself, grew up to bridge punk, hip-hop and the free jazz she absorbed from her late father, trumpeter Don Cherry. Moki is a matriarch (her son Eagle Eye is also a musician,) and while she has made her whole life into a work of art and never stopped producing, her own great creative adventures have had too little recognition from the establishment. Few artists enjoy such a flexible range of creativity, each project stamped with a clear personality. Always excellent, Moki's contribution has ranged from making a children's theatre, including costumes and sets, to ceramics. She uses power tools to build emotive light boxes, and embroiders vivid satin hangings like those adorning some of Don's classics. But now it's Moki's limelight time, and she's engaged with collage. 'Moki, Sanna, Tonia,' a documentary about Moki and her longstanding artist friends, Susanne Beckman and Toni Roos, has prompted great press in Sweden. Even long-standing fans - face it, like me - were stunned at the punch of these peculiarly personal and political works -- and they're all good-looking, too. Please check Art-O-Mat site for dates and times of Moki Cherry's exhibition, SLEIGHT OF HAND.

"Fishwife" by Moki Cherry

"Future is Now" by Moki Cherry

"We're Open Minded" by Moki Cherry

NEXT WEEK'S ASSIGNMENT -

If each generation traditionally rejects their parents ways, will the next crew coming up say that celebrity obsession is boring and passé?

Punk Class of '76 and beyond

2007-04-11T05:50:00.000-07:00

Welcome to our second lesson, Class, and what are those suspicious noises coming from your laptop, you in the back there? Please remember that computers are only to be used in class for making notes, definitely not for viewing banned material.

No woman is an island and happily, the Punk Professor has gathered an elite cadre of spies to serve this column's community, all longstanding comrades in punk who continue to make a great contribution. Today's reports come from Chris Salewicz in London and Amy Linden in New York and indicate that many of the pupils of the Punk Class of '76 and '77 who lived to tell the tale are still at the top of their class.

Going back to their roots, Patti Smith, Lenny Kaye, Jay Dee Daugherty and Tony Shanahan played a small show in the storied Chelsea Hotel, a bonafide boho hangout that was Dylan Thomas' home at the time of his death. When she first arrived in New York, the Chelsea was home to Smith and her close friend, the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. It was a low-key but typically intense Patti presentation to announce her new release, Twelve, - an album of covers from one of punk's more formidable auteurs. Perhaps the prototypical Punky Mummy, Smith took some years out to devote herself to her children and her late husband, Fred "Sonic" Smith, the guitar player for punk inspirations, the MC5. But her leave of absence from touring just seemed to feed Patti's commitment to total sincerity onstage and in the studio, so when she chose to cover songs by, among others, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix and Paul Simon she naturally followed her heart and stirred controversy; some critics found her rock-based selection to be predictable, others dug it. Always cosmically inclined, Patti munched on matzo in tribute to the second Passover Seder, which was taking place that same night. Linden notes that when an audience member asked Smith why she was doing Tears For Fears' "Everybody Wants To Rule The World," Smith came back with the classic punk zinger: "Because I want to."

And in London, the original members of the Clash are also still doing it their way. Après-Clash, bassist Paul Simonon initially reverted to his first calling as a visual artist, but has recently joined The Good, The Bad and the Queen, the band formed by Blur originator, Damon Albarn. When the much-loved West London theater immortalized by Clash singer Joe Strummer in "White Man at Hammersmith Palais" finally closed recently, Simonon's band played the night before last - the ultimate honors of sending off the venerable venue went to Mancunians, The Fall.

(Joe Strummer from the book, Out Of Mind courtesy of Shawn Mortensen)

However, Clash guitarist and songwriter, Mick Jones, never stopped making music. After the Clash came Big Audio Dynamite (B.A.D) featuring two Dreads who helped put the reggae in punk, long time bred'ren Leo Williams and Don Letts, better known as a DJ, film-maker and recently, author. Now Jones has an intriguing outfit called Carbon/Silicon, put together with his old mates, the estimable Tony "T.J." James, and Leo Williams. Both James and Jones have fertile minds. In fact, James' previous bands have often seemed to be conceptual ripostes to the zeitgeist, as in the Op Art punk popsters Generation X with Billy Idol, followed by James' reinvention sporting an absurdist pink wig with post-post-punk posers Sigue Sigue Sputnik. Throughout he has remained a terrific bass player with a great sense of fun - and indeed, much flexibility, as he's currently playing guitar.

(Mick Jones of Carbon/Silicon courtesy of Carbon/Silicon)

Listening to Carbon/Silicon's music online -apparently they intend to put all their songs up for free -one hears an odd yet inevitable sound: mature punk. These rhythms indicate artists who've been there, done that, with a range of styles - punk, funk, reggae, dub -- always reaching for the DNA of what moves them, and finding their answer in a sometimes almost skeletal sound that suggests a new way to dance. Jones' freeform rants are both pungent and pointed. Grown folks' wisdom informs lyrics like these from "Prophet":

"Ain't no profit/Being a prophet/Ain't no kudos being right/But it gets you through the night." Those words suggest a man who has learned that while compromise isn't necessarily always as bad as hard-line Punk says, the truth will always be non-negotiable.

Our London spy, Chris Salewicz, author of the epic new biography, Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer, happened on the band playing a down-low show at their rehearsal space in the charmingly untrendy enclave of North Acton. Reports Salewicz, "They've been working on it for four years. Mick Jones looked unbelievably happy, beaming with joy. The material is fantastic, probably the best he's ever written, like the new single, "The News", which is all about positivity and the conspiracy to bring us all down. Quite a lot of blokes of a certain age there had tears in their eyes."

From the start, Clash front man Joe Strummer knew how to pose -- throw a smoldering glance, strike a tough stance. For this warm view of Joe, and many other more anonymous folk who the photographer also knows to be stars, see the bold new photo anthology from Shawn Mortensen, Out of Mind. A gentleman adventurer whose natural habitat is the front line, Mortensen is a generous, genial type who's also a good host. With his first wife, Gaby, Strummer once wound up crashing in Mortensen's LA pad, and this portrait shows a Strummer I remember: droll, scathing, and always engaged in some great debate. As a fashion photographer, Mortensen loves to shatter industry expectations. He brings the same humanity and fine eye to photographing gunmen in Kingston or South African AIDS activists in flowing scarlet head wraps and robes. Whatever the subject, Mortensen's sensibility is strictly rad punk, fresh and ever ready for the revolution.

Now our time's up, and just before you leave - quietly, please, we've had some complaints -- a quick word regarding our host. If any of you were also hooked on French & Saunders and can quote chunks of Absolutely Fabulous word for word, are you aware that the old team has a new BBC America series called Clatterford? Put it this way, if I A) had a TIVO and B) knew how to operate it, Clatterford''s one to record. For real.

Class dismissed. We'll re-convene in two weeks.

This week's question:

Why did biographer Chris Salewicz name his biography of Joe Strummer after a song by Bob Marley?

OUR READER'S QUESTION:

It seemed like punk was a rejection of most everything that came before - but of course, that really is impossible. Who were the most important predecessors and influences upon punk? Who were the influences that perhaps the punks wouldn't want to admit to?

-- Noah Simon

Thanks for the perspicacious question, young Noah.

The roots of punk spread far and deep, though it magically seemed to spring from the air at the time. A blend of psychedelia and agit-pop whirl in the punk centrifuge:

T Rex, the MC5, Albert Ayler, Burning Spear and 1930s anti-Fascist collage artist John Heartfield, glam rockers, flag burners, teddy boys and fetish girls, marching leftist students in Paris in 1968. They all fuse, or maybe explode, in punk, along with much more. Personally, I've always been drawn to the libertarian, pagan, Druidic aspect of punk, personified in its most celebrated visualiser, Jamie Reid, the political artist and Druid priest who designed the Sex Pistols' sleeves and came up with the now classic conceit of using "kidnap" cut-out lettering. As to Punk's Dirty Little Secret, the influence that dare not speak its name -- here, images of a long-haired teenage schoolboy Johnny Rotten come to mind - it is the quiet punk penchant for longhaired UK hippy jam bands like Hawkwind and the Pink Fairies. The Sex Pistols' singer always had the sense to claim all his influences proudly even at the height of punk's dictum: The only good hippy's a dead hippy. That's partly why Rotten became a true Punk Archetype. Like my comrade in punk, artist and writer Caroline Coon, whose activism spanned both those eras and still continues, I know the superficially contradictory creeds -- the hippies' All You Need Is Love and punk's No Future/Blank Generation -- to be two sides of the same shiny coin, that both pay in positivity.

Ask the Punk Professor

2007-03-16T05:51:00.000-07:00

You heard Lily Allen say it!

You'd better read your Punk Professor - and yes, you playing with your mouse in the back there, that's me, Vivien Goldman. I'm here to ask questions and answer them - and so are you.

(Vivien with The Slits' Arri-Up by Janette Beckman)

I am the Professor of Punk, and not only because I teach a course, Classic Punk & Beyond, at the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Back in the day, as Features Editor of the scrappy punk-rock weekly, Sounds, I was there to track punk's frenetic development. Pistols, Clash and Pretenders, DJ Don Letts, Dennis Brown and various Wailers all partied at my place in London's Ladbroke Grove, and on transatlantic trips, I dropped in on the Ramones, Talking Heads, Blondie and Patti Smith.

This is what I learned in my Punk life class. You have to start doing what you believe in some time, so why not now? And play each gig, teach each class, write each blog, like it was your first - and last. That's punk.

(Vivien on Launderette/Private Armies single on Window/99 Records
by Jean-Bernard Sohiez)

Since we're doing Show & Tell, yes, if you are a semi-obscure download/vinyl junkie, I am the same Vivien Goldman who was in the band, the Flying Lizards and made the Launderette/Private Armies single with an all-star crew including PiL's John Lydon and the Raincoats' Vicki Aspinall. Punk freed me as it did other females to tap into parts of my creativity I might never have explored otherwise - and actually I still do music today. The sinuous-voiced chanteuse Jill Cunniff (ex of punk/funk hiphop girls, Luscious Jackson,) called me up onstage when she was playing the Mercury Lounge on the Lower East Side at the weekend, so I got to do backing vocals and bop around a bit on "Exclusive", the song we wrote that's on her first solo CD, "City Beach".

(Jill Cunniff by Deborah Francis)

Every gig Jill plays, she promotes the Surfrider Organization, who clean up beaches around the world. Lucky beachcombers in Miami, Hawaii and Far Rockaway will soon get to hear her on an endangered beach. Instead of Bring Your Own Bottle, why not bring your own garbage bag and really get down and dirty? Hopefully the sea will still be clean enough to bathe in afterwards.

Anyway, I'm curious for your thoughts. How does punk play out in your life today? For my assistant, an entry-level rock star named Moses, it means playing with the Frontier Brothers at South by South West in between editing Lily Allen's shout-out to you.

(Frontier Brothers by Janette Beckman)

And there's more soon to come from Lily Allen, Britain's stylish, sassy, punky reggae goddess. Here's a pic from her show at Webster Hall shot by my frequent partner in art, Janette Beckman. Lily strode the stage, dissing fashionistas, looking excellent in her own original style -- a Chloe dress and Nike trainers.

(Lily Allen by Janette Beckman)

And before we end this session, some of you have already sent questions, for all of which, many thanks. Really, though, straight facts you can find anywhere. But Erik Salgstrom asks a Big One:

Q: "If you're so "punk" why do you work for a gigantic media producer controlled by a gigantic neo-imperialist bureaucracy?"

A: Well, Erik, I'm glad you asked me that. People have been arguing that vexing question ever since the Clash first signed to CBS instead of an independent label. Definitely, context is important - but most important is getting to communicate what you want to express. Looking back, Geoff Travis, the founder of Rough Trade, felt that it was necessary at that time for the Clash not to sign with an indie, so they could reach their broadest audience. Not that I'm the Clash, but personally, I think BBCAmerica.com is a great place for us to meet. In fact, apart from loving "Footballers Wive$," I get a lot more hard news from its cousin, the BBC UK website, than I do from news outlets in America. If we can exchange thoughts right here, it's just as "real" as if we were on a chat group or talking at a gig - maybe more so, as we might reach people who would otherwise never think about what punk means, or why it's still around after all these years. That's what counts.

Class dismissed. We'll get together again in two weeks.

Assignment # 1: I'd be interested to know if - and how - you see the spirit of true punk in action around you, wherever you are.

Mojo Review of Exodus

2007-02-19T10:07:00.000-08:00

A close confidante of the Wailers, Goldman was the pioneering music journalist who explored the Kingston ghettos, interacting with musicians and the politically aligned street gangs who attempted to assassinate Marley in '76, thus causing the album Exodus' initial spark. The album's backdrop is fraught with political intrigue and personal crises as Marley queries issues of race and self determination in a post-colonial Jamaica then just impacting on overseas consciousness. Goldman's tale is finely wrought, her pace nearly perfect, as she leaves space for the inclusion of illuminating quotes while also relaying insightful contextual comments on the album's peculiar symbolism. DK

Boston Globe Reviews Exodus (June 26, 2006)

2006-06-26T10:05:00.000-07:00

...Taking a deep left turn now, we head into the territory of "The Book
of Exodus," Vivien Goldman's exegesis of the 1977 Bob Marley album.
Bass lines boom, Bibles are brandished, and apocalyptic clouds of
marijuana-smoke cover the land. Marley and his Wailers recorded
"Exodus" in London after a botched attempt on his life caused him to
quit his native Jamaica, and Goldman explores with great care the
personal and political context in which the music was made.

She also plunges into the perennial meaning of "Exodus" itself,
talking to rabbis in London, Islamic professors in New York City, and
Rastafarian wise men in Kingston, Jamaica. She talks to the family of
Ernest Gold, who wrote the theme to Otto Preminger's movie "Exodus,"
the piano motif of which was incorporated by Marley into the title
track of his album. She does her homework, in short, and the result is
a stimulating and atmospheric hybrid of a book, in which the spirit of
Marley only four years from death but doing the dance "that seemed as
if he was juggling a soccer ball with his knees"is strong.

- James Parker

Publisher's Weekly on Exodus (May 2006)

2006-05-19T10:10:00.000-07:00

In this dense but well-written work, veteran journalist Goldman
examines the cultural, political and violent roots of Bob Marley's
classic record Exodus.
Goldman is undeniably as intrepid and insightful as music journalists
come and this effort clearly required every ounce of her talent. In setting the
stage for what would become Marley's masterpiece, she reached beyond the Exodus
sessions themselves into the early history of Marley and the Wailers, into the
hornet's nest of Jamaican politics and the island's international history and
African history, as well as the mystical, often contradictory, tenets of
Rastafarianism.
It is all necessary background for what made Marley both the searing
performer he was and the iconic figure he would become?a fame that would nearly
kill him. Just days before a planned free concert in 1976, Marley, his wife,
Rita, and Don Taylor were wounded by gunmen, forcing Marley to flee to
London, where Exodus was recorded.
This is no pop music hagiography but a brimming, tightly
constructed examination not just of Marley's life and music but of
human nature itself and the struggle for freedom. The more casual fans
of Marley may not follow; those who do will see deeper into the man
and his music thanever before.