Rip It Up and Start Again

2011-11-14T21:34:00.001-05:00

2010-02-03T09:58:00.001-05:00

listings #1

London massive may wish to attend the launch event for Tim Lawrence's excellent study of Arthur Russell, Hold On To Your Dreams, at the ICA on February 20th.

Tickets can be purchased via the ICA website; updates, news and further information re. the launch and the book can be found at Tim's book blog.

2009-04-24T09:30:00.000-04:00

The next instalment of Henry Rollins's radio show is inspired by Rip It Up and Start Again! I knew he was a fan of postpunk (remember his far-ahead-of-the-curve reissuing of records by James Chance, Gang of Four, Devo, Flipper, Alan Vega, etc in the mid-90s via his label Infinite Zero?)but not to this extent: looking at the track list for the show, Rollins really knows the era inside and out. The show airs Saturday 25th April--tomorrow night--at 6-8 pm PST on the Santa Monica NPR station KCRW FM. As far as I can tell it can be listened to via the web live. It will also be archived online for several weeks thereafter.

2009-01-24T14:19:00.004-05:00

The footnotes to Rip It Up and Start Again now have a new permanent home at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog (further details below)

This blog is now dedicated to news about Rip It Up - information about foreign translations, Rip-related events, and so forth.

QUICK LINKS TO THE RIP IT UP CHAPTER FOOTNOTES

Prologue: The Unfinished Revolution

Chapter 1: Public Image Belongs To Me. Sex Pistols, PiL

Chapter 2: Outside of Everything. Buzzcocks, Magazine, Subway Sect.

Chapter 3: Uncontrollable Urge. Cleveland / Akron: Pere Ubu, Devo.

Chapter 4: Contort Yourself. No Wave New York: Lydia Lunch, James Chance and Contortions, DNA, Mars, Suicide, Lounge Lizards.

Chapter 5: Tribal Revival. The Pop Group, Slits, Alternative TV.

Chapter 6: Autonomy in the UK. Independent labels and DIY: New Hormones, Rough Trade, Mute, Factory, Fast Product, Swell Maps.

Chapter 7: Militant Entertainment. Leeds: Gang of Four, Mekons, Delta 5, Au Pairs.

Chapter 8: Art Attack. Talking Heads, Brian Eno, Wire.

Chapter 9: Living For the Future. Sheffield: Cabaret Voltaire, Human League.

Chapter 10: Just Step Sideways. Manchester: The Fall, Joy Division, A Certain Ratio, Durutti Column.

Chapter 11: Messthetics. London Vanguard: Scritti Politti, Flying Lizards, This Heat, Raincoats, Red Crayola, Young Marble Giants, John Peel.

Chapter 12: Industrial Devolution. Throbbing Gristle, Whitehouse, Nurse With Wound, 23 Skidoo, Clock DVA.

Chapter 13: Freak Scene. San Francisco: Residents, Tuxedomoon, Factrix, Chrome, Flipper.

Chapter 14: Careering. Public Image Ltd.

Chapter 15: Ghost Dance. 2-Tone and Ska Revival: Specials, Madness, Beat, Dexy's Midnight Runners.

Chapter 16: Sex Gang Children. Malcolm McLaren, Adam Ant, Bow Wow Wow.

Chapter 17: Electric Dreams. Synthpop: Human League, Ultravox, Gary Numan, Visage, Spandau Ballet, Japan, Soft Cell, DAF.

Chapter 18: Fun 'N' Frenzy. Scotland: Postcard, Orange Juice, Josef K, Fire Engines, Associates.

Chapter 19: Play To Win. New Pop's Pioneers: Scritti Politti, ABC, Heaven 17.

Chapter 20: Mutant Disco and Punk Funk. Early Eighties New York and its fans: B-52s, Club 57, Mudd Club, ZE, 99 Records, ESG, Liquid Liquid, New Order.

Chapter 21: New Gold Dreams 81-82-83-84. New Pop's Peak and Fall: Altered Images, Simple Minds, Orange Juice, ABC, Human League, MTV, Duran Duran, Culture Club, Scritti Politti.

Chapter 22: Dark Things. Goth: Siouxsie and the Banshees, Birthday Party, Killing Joke, the Cure, Virgin Prunes, Bauhaus, Batcave, Sisters of Mercy, Southern Death Cult.

Chapter 23: Glory Boys. Liverpool, New Psychedelia and The Big Music: Echo and the Bunnymen, the Teardrop Explodes, Blue Orchids, U2.

Chapter 24: The Blasting Concept. Los Angeles, Hardcore and Progressive Punk: SST, Black Flag, Husker Du, Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Mission of Burma.

Chapter 25: Conform to Deform. Some Bizarre: Psychic TV, Cabaret Voltaire, Coil, Foetus, Einsturzende Neubauten, Test Dept, Swans, Depeche Mode.

Chapter 26: Raiding the 20th Century. ZTT, Malcolm McLaren, Art of Noise, Propaganda, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Grace Jones.

Bibliography

Postpunk Timeline

and for more postpunk, check out:

more information here

2008-12-17T12:34:00.001-05:00

2008-04-01T16:55:00.010-04:00

FOOTNOTES #27 / CHAPTER 26 : RAIDING THE 20TH CENTURY: ZTT AND FRANKIEMANIA

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2008-03-31T20:32:00.006-04:00

FOOTNOTES # 26 / CHAPTER 25 : CONFORM TO DEFORM : The Second Wave Industrial Infiltrators

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2008-03-31T13:56:00.001-04:00

FOOTNOTES #25 / CHAPTER 24 : THE BLASTING CONCEPT : Progressive Punk from SST Records to Mission of Burma

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2008-03-30T14:15:00.005-04:00

Footnotes #24 / Chapter 23 : Glory Boys : Liverpool, New Psychedelia and the Big Music

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2008-03-28T13:35:00.004-04:00

FOOTNOTES #23 / CHAPTER 22: DARK THINGS : GOTH AND THE RETURN OF ROCK

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2008-03-27T13:40:00.004-04:00

FOOTNOTES #22 CHAPTER 21: NEW GOLD DREAMS 81-82-83-84: The Peak and Fall of New Pop + Appendix: MTV and the Second British Invasion

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes Blog

2008-03-26T16:42:00.004-04:00

FOOTNOTES #21 / CHAPTER 20 : MUTANT DISCO AND PUNK FUNK Crosstown Traffic in early Eighties New York

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2008-03-26T14:32:00.005-04:00

FOOTNOTES #20 / CHAPTER 19: PLAY TO WIN: The Pioneers of New Pop

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2008-03-25T16:35:00.002-04:00

FOOTNOTES #19 / CHAPTER 18 : FUN 'N' FRENZY: THE SOUND OF YOUNG SCOTLAND

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2008-03-17T17:26:00.004-04:00

FOOTNOTES #18 / Chapter 17: ELECTRIC DREAMS: Synthpop

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2008-01-11T10:50:00.000-05:00

more details on this month's Rip It Up readings tour of Germany:

17. 1. : Marburg
Café Trauma
Affölterwiesen 3a, 35039 Marburg

18.1. : Stuttgart/Schorndorf
Manufaktur
Hammerschlag 8, 73614 Schorndorf,
info: 07181 61166
20:30 Uhr

19.1. : Freiburg
Café Swamp
Talstraße 90, 79102 Freiburg
20 Uhr

20.1. : Frankfurt/M.
Mousonturm
Waldschmidtstrae 4, 60316 Frankfurt,
21 Uhr

21.1. : Köln
Gebäude 9,
Deutz-Mühlheimer Str. 127-129, 51063 Köln
info: 0221 814637 (Halle), 0221 58919414 (Büro)

22.1. : Hamburg
Übel & Gefährlich
Feldstr. 66, 20359 Hamburg

23.1. : Berlin
Festsaal Kreuzberg
Skalitzer Str. 130, 10999 Berlin
20.30 Uhr

2007-12-21T15:55:00.000-05:00

Next month I'll be heading to Germany for a book tour, where I and Rip It Up translator Conny Losch will be presenting an audio-visual entertainment package of text, videos and music at venues in seven cities across the nation.

Dates and locations:

17.1. Marburg – Café Trauma
18.1. Stuttgart/Schorndorf – Manufaktur
19.1. Freiburg – Café Swamp
20.1. Frankfurt/M. - Mousonturm
21.1. Köln – Gebaeude 9
22.1. Hamburg - Uebel & Gefaehrlich
23.1. Berlin – Festsaal Kreuzberg

More information re. times and street locations to follow, as well as related events and attractions (e.g. Mark Stewart looks likely to be deejaying after the event in Berlin)

And in further Deutschland-related new:

Rip It Up and Start Again was voted #6 Book of 2007 by the readership of Rolling Stone Germany, jostling amidst fiction by Cormac McCarthy, Mark Z.Danielewski, and J.K. Rowling.

Rip It Up was also selected as Music Book of the Year by two critics at the weekly magazine Die Zeit.

2007-11-18T23:04:00.004-05:00

FOOTNOTES #17 / CHAPTER 16 SEX GANG CHILDREN: Malcolm McLaren / Adam Ant / Bow Wow Wow

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2007-10-30T14:08:00.000-04:00

A Greek translation of Rip It Up and Start Again will be coming out through
Athens-based publisher Sonic Playground. ETA: possibly late 2008, more likely early 2009.

2007-10-21T23:23:00.003-04:00

FOOTNOTES # 16 / CHAPTER 15: GHOST DANCE: 2-TONE AND THE SKA RESURRECTION

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2007-09-13T09:18:00.000-04:00

A German language interview with me by Julian Weber for the Woz.

2007-08-29T23:40:00.000-04:00

The German language edition of Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984 ... aka Schmeiss alles hin und fang neu an is out now on Hannibal Verlag

check here for further information on my Deutchsland book tour, set for early January 2008

2007-07-17T21:34:00.000-04:00

in-depth (and how!) interview with stuart argabright of ike yard and "dominatrix sleeps tonight" fame

2007-07-10T10:36:00.000-04:00

piece from last year on the Rip It Up comp

Never mind the bleakness
The Guardian, Saturday May 13, 2006

When I embarked on Rip It Up And Start Again, four years ago, a big impetus was my impatience to shove punk rock out of the limelight. I was fed up with the relentless focus on 1976-and-all-that by rock chroniclers and documentary-makers. As much as Never Mind The Bollocks changed my life, it seemed clear that the most adventurous music emerged during the so-called aftermath years, 1978-84. The groups who made it, while sparked into existence by the Pistols/Clash, rapidly moved into far more expansive terrain than the back-to-basics rock'n'roll offered by most punk bands. Yet the post-punk period had never received its fair share of attention. Even John Lydon spent only a few pages on PiL in his 1994 autobiography, seemingly capitulating to the fact that the Pistols' over-told story was where his immortality resided.

Post-punk's stock has risen enormously in the last few years. 2006 will see the inevitable rash of 30th anniversary of punk retrospection, but the land is overrun by young groups who've been frenziedly looting the archives of post-punk. With the original battle won, a different impetus took hold when selecting tracks for the Rip It Up compilation: the desire to expand the conception of what post-punk was. Today's remake/remodel squad - Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, Futureheads, etc - operate from a rather narrow notion of post-punk, based around a handful of key bands (Wire, Gang of Four, the Cure, Joy Division...).

Post-punk tends to get equated with fractured guitars, agitated punk-funk basslines, and angst-racked vocals. In reality, post-punk was less a defined genre than a space of possibility, out of which a vast range of styles emerged, shaped by open-ended imperatives to innovation, wilful oddness, the jettisoning of all things obvious and rock'n'roll. With this compilation, I wanted to go beyond the cliches of "angular" and "bleak" and showcase post-punk's other facets: the ethereal, the quirky, the downright daft. There's frenetic high-energy tunes from Devo, the Fall, Josef K and others, but overall the compilation is slanted towards dream-drifty atmospherics and eerie bliss from the likes of Young Marble Giants, the Raincoats, Fatal Microbes and Thomas Leer.

Most pleasing to me personally is the tribute paid to Ivor Cutler (inadvertent - we had no idea he was going to die), through the inclusion of Robert Wyatt's wonderful cover version of Grass. A perennial presence on John Peel's show, Cutler was a post-punk fixture, his Scottish surrealist storytelling slotting perfectly alongside DIY weirdos like Native Hipsters and Family Fodder. Yet Cutler actually loathed rock, along with all amplified music, and was a dedicated member of the Noise Abatement Society. Somehow that seems to capture the eccentric spirit of post-punk.

2007-05-04T10:05:00.000-04:00

interview with me by Italian writer Fabio Izzo (in Italian and then in English)

2007-03-15T11:02:00.000-04:00

a programme dedicated to Rip It Up and Start Again, aired on the Radio Campus Rouen's show L’Opéra des Dieux and based around tracks selected by moi , is now downloadable at

www.operadesdieux.fr -> emissions -> rip it up & start again

2007-01-30T10:42:00.000-05:00

an interview with me by Jonathan Clancy for Radio Città Del Capo in Bologna

strangely we did not once discuss "Skank Bloc Bologna"

2007-01-18T13:14:00.000-05:00

the French edition of Rip It Up and Start Again (cover above) is published on January 25th by Editions Allia

the Italian translation came out late last year on ISBN -- check out the index cover

2007-01-12T15:31:00.001-05:00

FOOTNOTES # 15 / CHAPTER 14: CAREERING Public Image Ltd and Postpunk’s peak and fall

can be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2007-01-12T15:18:00.001-05:00

FOOTNOTES # 14 / Chapter 13 FREAK SCENE San Francisco

can be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2007-01-12T14:59:00.003-05:00

FOOTNOTES # 13 / CHAPTER 12 INDUSTRIAL DEVOLUTION Throbbing Gristle. Whitehouse. Nurse with Wound. Clock DVA. 23 Skidoo

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2007-01-12T14:56:00.002-05:00

FOOTNOTES #12 / CHAPTER 11 MESSTHETICS: The London Vanguard Scritti Politti. London Musicians Collective. Flying Lizards. This Heat. Raincoats. Red Crayola. Pere Ubu. Young Marble Giants. John Peel

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2007-01-12T14:28:00.007-05:00

FOOTNOTES #11 / JUST STEP SIDEWAYS The Fall, Joy Division and the Manchester Scene

can be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2007-01-12T13:42:00.004-05:00

2007-01-12T13:42:00.003-05:00

FOOTNOTES #10 / LIVING FOR THE FUTURE Cabaret Voltaire, Human League and the Sheffield scene

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2007-01-08T11:55:00.003-05:00

FOOTNOTES #9 / CHAPTER 8 ART ATTACK Talking Heads and Wire

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2007-01-05T14:10:00.002-05:00

FOOTNOTES #8 / CHAPTER 7 MILITANT ENTERTAINMENT Gang of Four, Mekons, Delta 5 and the Leeds Scene

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2007-01-02T14:54:00.002-05:00

FOOTNOTES #7 / CHAPTER 6 AUTONOMY IN THE UK Independent Labels and DIY - Rough Trade, Mute, Fast Product, Factory, Cherry Red, New Hormones, Swell Maps, Buzzcocks

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2007-01-01T23:26:00.001-05:00

FOOTNOTES # 6 / CHAPTER 5 TRIBAL REVIVAL The Pop Group Alternative TV and The Slits

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2006-12-21T11:58:00.002-05:00

FOOTNOTES #5 / CHAPTER 4 CONTORT YOURSELF No Wave New York - James Chance, Lydia Lunch, DNA, Mars, Lounge Lizards

can be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2006-12-21T11:57:00.001-05:00

FOOTNOTES # 4 / CHAPTER 3 UNCONTROLLABE URGE the industrial grotesquerie of Pere Ubu and Devo

can be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2006-12-21T11:56:00.002-05:00

FOOTNOTES #3 / CHAPTER 2 OUTSIDE OF EVERYTHING Howard Devoto / Magazine and Vic Godard / Subway Sect

can be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2006-12-21T11:54:00.001-05:00

FOOTNOTES # 2 / PUBLIC IMAGE BELONGS TO ME John Lydon and PiL

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog

2006-12-21T11:10:00.003-05:00

FOOTNOTES #1 / PROLOGUE The Unfinished Revolution

can now be found here at the Rip It Up Footnotes blog