With a recent slew of documentary films and books, punk’s forty year old body has been repeatedly repackaged, sweetened and sold to the masses at the mall, mystifying and irritating many people in the process. In The Baffler, Eugenia Williamson analyzes punk’s history, evolution, literature and commodifycation and addresses the lingering question: what does being ‘punk’ even mean anymore more? Besides, anyone who’s seen […]
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Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Quotes, Unapologetic Women
Hallowed Ground: Patti Smith on Visiting the Prison of Jean Genet’s Dreams
We were entering a military zone and hit a checkpoint. The driver’s identity card was inspected and after an interminable stretch of silence we were ordered to get out of the car. Two officers searched the front and back seats, finding a switchblade with a broken spring in the glove box. That can’t be so […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz Freed Rock and Roll
Always the kind of personality who cut through false distinctions, Coleman could boast a lineage both in punk rock and, with his collective-improvisation aesthetic, in the very music that punk rock often claimed to set out to destroy, hippie psychedelia and stadium rock. Bassist Jack Bruce of Cream, who had a jazz background, told the […]
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Patti Smith's Advice to the Young
“Build a good name. Keep your name clean. … And if you build a good name, that name will be its own currency.” Our video pick of the day: Words of wisdom from Patti Smith, from the Louisiana Literature festival, August 2012 (6 minutes) (via @PocketHits)