Visual Vitriol: The Street Art and Subcultures of the Punk and Hardcore Generation

Description

Visual Vitriol: The Street Art and Subcultures of the Punk and Hardcore Generation is a vibrant, in-depth, and visually appealing history of punk, which reveals punk concert flyers as urban folk art. David Ensminger exposes the movement's deeply participatory street art, including flyers, stencils, and graffiti. This discovery leads him to an examination of the often-overlooked presence of African Americans, Latinos, women, and gays and lesbians who have widely impacted the worldviews and music of this subculture. Then Ensminger, the former editor of fanzine Left of the Dial, looks at how mainstream and punk media shape the public's outlook on the music's history and significance. Often derided as litter or a nuisance, punk posters have been called instant art, Xerox art, or DIY street art. For marginalized communities, they carve out spaces for resistance. Made by hand in a vernacular tradition, this art highlights deep-seated tendencies among musicians and fans. Instead of presenting punk as a predominately middle-class, white-male phenomenon, the book describes a convergence culture that mixes people, gender, and sexualities. This detailed account reveals how members conceptualize their attitudes, express their aesthetics, and talk to each other about complicated issues. Ensminger incorporates an important array of scholarship, ranging from sociology and feminism to musicology and folklore, in an accessible style. Grounded in fieldwork, Visual Vitriol includes over a dozen interviews completed over the last several years with some of the most recognized and important members of groups such as Minor Threat, The Minutemen, The Dils, Chelsea, Membranes, 999, Youth Brigade, Black Flag, Pere Ubu, the Descendents, the Buzzcocks, and others. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 7 Introduction......Page 11 CHAPTER ONE: The Second Skin of Cities......Page 17 CHAPTER TWO: Incite and Incorporate: Punk Art Exploring the Usable Past......Page 53 CHAPTER THREE: Wailing on the Walls of Sin Cities: Graffiti and Punk Syncretism......Page 75 CHAPTER FOUR: Re-imagining the Geography of the Wasteland: The Convergence of Punk and Skateboarding......Page 115 CHAPTER FIVE: Images from the Crypt: Undead, Ghoulish, and Monstrous Bodies......Page 135 CHAPTER SIX: Redefining the Body Electric: Queer Punk and Hardcore......Page 155 CHAPTER SEVEN: Call Me Jezebel: The Electrified, Unholy, and Wicked Women of Punk......Page 193 CHAPTER EIGHT: When La Raza and Punk Rock Collude and Collide: Hispanics in Punk and Hardcore......Page 223 CHAPTER NINE: Coloring Between the Lines of Punk and Hardcore......Page 251 Conclusion......Page 299 Afterword: Beat Heart Beat: A Look at the Art of Randy “Biscuit” Turner......Page 302 Notes......Page 305 Works Cited......Page 321 B......Page 336 D......Page 337 H......Page 338 L......Page 339 P......Page 340 S......Page 341 X......Page 342 Z......Page 343