The Oxford Handbook of Punk Rock

This book showed up last week, as a heavy cardboard-clad parcel. It was a long time in the making. It contains what was going to be my last ever published academic chapter and lots more besides: Lucy O'Brien, Asya Dragonova, Russ Bestley, Mary Fogarty, Samantha Bennett, Paula Guerra and many more, all edited by George McKay and Gina Arnold. 

It's wildly expensive, intended as an academic library book, but will doubtless appear as a moderately expensive paperback at some point. It's caused a stir on one of my social media accounts firstly because of its expense, then later blossoming out into 'what the book has not covered, how awful'. Well once you make something intangible tangible, that's what happens, isn't it? The whole point of academic discourse is discourse. I should have said that in my responses to the post I suppose.

We could pretend that it never happened, of course, but it was a wildly influential musical/political/art subculture, and the seeds of its antiracist collaboration with Rock Against Racism planted a whole new approach to the power of young people to change things. The fact that this was so sneered at at the time, and so belittled now, proves that the power we had back then was dangerously effective. There are still a lot of festering dinosaurs around though, aren't there? Anyway, two fingers up to Reform. Should be called Retire, shouldn't it?

https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/38573?login=false

The publication triggered a request for a chapter that I wrote in 2022 about the engagement of women punk musicians with reggae music, which is quite an interesting outcome. I have had to ask to be described as an independent academic because I'm no longer at the University of East London, which does not deserve to be accredited for any progressive publication, given its practice on homophobia, racism and misogyny. All written down as being 'against', but student fees override ethics in a blatant disregard for these things. That's why I left, and the whole sorry tale is stored safely for the appropriate moment to unleash it.

Anyway, on another tack: I have a half-written piece on Joby and the Hooligans that someone invited me to write ages ago. I never heard back from them but should probably finish it anyway, just for my own purposes. I do know that my own memory of it all is completely subjective, but I also kind of owe it to Joby to immortalise him because he was such a character!