Category: punk

  • Steven Blush Celebrates American Hardcore: A Tribal History Second Edition at Quimby's!

    AMERICAN HARDCORE: A TRIBAL HISTORY was released in 2001 to great success.  The book is now in five languages, and led the way to the creation of the acclaimed documentary AMERICAN HARDCORE: The History of American Punk Rock 1980-1986.  With the resurgence of punk rock, and continued interest in the significant American DIY movement, Blush has expanded the book and into a second edition.

    Author Steven Blush promoted hardcore shows in Washington D.C. in the early 80s. He moved to New York in 1986, and founded SECONDS Magazine, publishing 52 issues through the year 2000.  Blush has written three books on the subject of rock: AMERICAN HARDCORE: A Tribal History (2001, Feral House); AMERICAN HAIR METAL (2006, Feral House); and .45 DANGEROUS MINDS: The Most Intense Interviews From Seconds Magazine (2005, Creation Books).  His writing has appeared in publications including SPIN, Details, PAPER, Interview, Village Voice and The Times of London.  For twenty years he worked as a New York City club DJ and promoter, noted for his “Rock Candy” parties at Don Hill’s and sound designs for fashion pioneer Stephen Sprouse.

    For more info: americanhardcorebook.com

    Fri, Dec 3rd, 7pm

  • Sara Marcus Reads GIRLS TO THE FRONT With Jessica Hopper, author of The Girls Guide to Rocking

    GirlsFrontThe last great underground cultural movement of the pre-Internet age, Riot Grrrl revolutionized girlhood itself. In the early 1990s, young women were realizing that the equality they’d been promised was still elusive, and a newly resurgent right wing was turning feminism into the ultimate dirty word.

    Riot Grrrl roared into the spotlight in 1991: an uncompromising movement of pissed-off girls with no patience for sexism and no intention of keeping quiet. They published zines, founded local groups, and organized national conventions, while fiercely prophetic punk bands such as Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, Huggy Bear, and Bikini Kill helped spread the word across the US and to Canada, Europe, and beyond.

    GIRLS TO THE FRONT (Harper) is the first-ever history of Riot Grrrl—lyrical and infused with punk, it tells the story of a group of extraordinary young women coming of age and coming into their own. Part social history, part cultural criticism, and part collective biography, this passionate narrative takes us from the front row of a punk show to the stage of the Republican Convention; from a seedy strip club to the US Supreme Court. It tells the tale of a time when America thought feminism was dead, but a generation of noisy girls rose up to prove everybody wrong. Deftly weaving together a wide range of political and cultural histories, this is a dynamic chronicle not just of a movement but of an era.

    Also joining Sara is Jessica Hopper, author of The Girls Guide to Rocking (Workman Books).

    For more info: www.girlstothefront.com

  • Author Kyle Smith Reads from His New Novel 85A

    85A

    Kyle Smith will read from his Chicago-set coming-of-age novel out this summer from Bascom Hill Publishing Group. Set in late 1980s Chicago, 85A follows its half Johnny Rotten, half Holden Caulfield antihero, Seamus O’Grady, through a watershed day in his adolescent life. As a gay teen from a conservative Catholic home—in one of the most racist neighborhoods of a notoriously segregated city—Seamus begins to seek his niche in 1980s Chicago’s multicultural punk and bohemian circles.

    Originally from Chicago, Smith infuses 85A with the rich detail of his own experiences with the Chicago punk scene as his protagonist struggles with universal themes of identity, rebellion and belonging. Today, Smith lives in Brooklyn, New York and regularly contributes to Edge, The Brooklyn Rail, and WhiteHot Magazine.

    “Like Holden [Caulfield], Seamus serves as an important reminder of the universal urge to self-define in a world hostile to anyone who dares to be different.” – Edge on the Net

    “[Seamus’] treatment at the hands of his family and his teachers is heart-wrenching.” – Booklist

    For more information, visit: http://85anovel.com/events.htm

  • Tesco Vee and Steve Miller from TOUCH AND GO: The Complete Hardcore Punk Zine ’79-83

    Tesco Vee and Dave Stimson launched Touch and Go fanzine in Lansing, MI, in 1979, and set out to chronicle, lambaste, ridicule, and heap praise on the new punk happenings. In laughably minuscule press runs by today’s standards, T & G was made by guys within the Midwest scene strictly for the edification of scenesters and pals in other cities like DC, Philly, Boston, LA, SF, and Chicago. Inspired by Slash and Search and Destroy and writers like Claude Bessy and Chris Desjardines, TV and DS pumped out twenty-two naughty, irreverent issues, spawned a legendary independent record label, and brought fame and fortune to the best bands in the land, including:  Black Flag, Minor Threat, the Misfits, Negative Approach, the Fix, the Avengers, the Necros, Discharge, Die Kreuzen, Poison Idea—any punks worth their weight in glorious black and white.

    T&G4T&G3T&G2T&G1

    balloon-proof

    I was inspired by how fearless and together Touch and Go were. They were really wild and extremely funny.”—Henry Rollins

    “It was really one of the first times anyone outside of Washington really paid us any mind. The fact that Touch and Go took an interest in us really blew us away.”—Ian MacKaye

    “Anyone who’s ever published a true DIY fanzine owes at least a small debt to Touch and Go.”—Decibel

    For more info: http://www.touchandgobook.com