The latest issue of ‘The Spectator’ magazine has a two-page interview with Charlie Harper in which he discusses a number of aspects of what he’d written about in his autobiography ‘An Anarchy of Demons’, published last year by Earth Island Books. The interview, conducted by Michael Hann, is under the title “Meet the last original punk playing punk – Charlie Harper of UK Subs discusses fifty years on punk’s front line” and can be found online here: https://spectator.com/arti

Take Effect review the Scene Police Records book The Scene Police Story: A Story of Rebellion, Passion, and Financial Ruin Dennis-P. Merklinghaus did what legions of punk kids in the early ‘90s dreamed of - he ran a fully DIY record label that put great music into the hands of like-minded people worldwide. Of course, it wasn’t all glamorous and certainly not always fun. In this very forthright book, Merklinghaus tells the tale of his fanzine, Interpol Times, which esc

Thoughts Words Action review Hardcore Horror There is an annoying tendency of mainstream publishing to examine underground subcultures through a highly distorted, sanitised, and ultimately inauthentic lens. Whenever major imprints attempt to capture the energy of the punk rock and hardcore scenes, the results often read like a tourist’s travelogue, full of superficial aesthetic choices and tired stereotypes that completely miss the point of the movement. This is why a relea

Charlie Harper’s acclaimed autobiography ‘An Anarchy of Demons’ is now sold out of the first and second print run copies. A new updated version of the book is at the printers right now, with some minor amendments, plus a handful of photos added that Charlie recently found in his archive, which he thought would enhance this new third edition. The updated version will be available in paperback, hardback and ebook, and there’s still a few copies of the accompanying audio CD too.

Leon The Poet will be performing at the Colchester summer fringe on 23rd July, at Patch at 7pm, and 24th July at Roots and Grooves cafe at 8.30pm. He’ll be performing a brand new fifty minute show entitled ‘The Cult Kid and Me: My villain origin story.’ This is Leon’s longest show so far, a superb evening out and a big step up creatively, so get along and check it out if you can. Leon the poet’s debut collection of poetry, ‘Sometimes I’m The Bull, Sometimes I’m The China Shop

There’s six pages in this week's Nieuwe Revu about the new ‘Punk at Sea: A Rebellion Festival photo book’ by Michiel Blijboom. Punk at Sea is a celebration of punk, people, and the seaside at Blackpool - Rebellion Festival in candid pictures. 130 image packed pages of punk rock mayhem and fun in the sun. There’s also some new ads, based on bands and characters from the hundreds of photos published in the book, knocking around the internet and social media now. This photo book

Photos taken on 30th June at the Best Video and Cultural Centre in Hamden, CT after the screening of ‘Rock n Roll High School’ with Jenn L Beckwith, the author of the brilliant new Ramones book, ‘All Good Cretins Go To Heaven: The Enduring Legacy of The Ramones’ signing copies, answering questions and talking about her book and the Ramones. In 1974, a music revolution began with a band in New York City’s Bowery neighbourhood. They played in a small near-empty bar to an audien

Four years ago today, Ryan Roberts excellent book 'Nimrod' was released. But recently The Nineties Guy has uncovered something that raises questions... Nimrod is a superb coming-of-age story about the power of music, the excitement of young love and the need to leave the hive. Much of the writing is based around the musical works of Green Day and The Police / Sting. Rod is a daydreamer, Cat is the new girl, together they will discover the beauty of spontaneous adventures wi

An excerpt from ‘THE SCENE POLICE STORY - A Story of Rebellion, Passion, and Financial Ruin’ by Dennis P Merklinghaus. The year 2000 continued with Tupamaros touring parts of Europe with Planes Mistaken For Stars, which was a blast. That year also saw me breaking the edge, for which this tour was the perfect time to experiment with alcohol and pot again. Case in point, playing the Melkweg in Amsterdam was a blur, as we went to a coffee shop before the show, where I had my f

Britain in the 1980s was in the grip of a socio-economic crisis, with mass unemployment, riots breaking out in all the major cities, the closure of industries, and the height of the Cold War. This in turn spawned a generation of disaffected youth who fought back with their music coupled with a defiant look and attitude. The UK punks of the 80s were living on the fringe and sticking two fingers up to society. In the new book 'Voice of a Generation: 80’s UK Punx in their ow

On 30th June from 7pm at the Best Video and Cultural Centre in Hamden, CT there will be a screening of ‘Rock n Roll High School’ (A 1979 film in which the fanatic and delinquent Riff Randell battles it out with the strict new principal of Vince Lombardi High School, Miss Togar, with a little help from the Ramones!) with Jenn L Beckwith, the author of the brilliant new Ramones book, ‘All Good Cretins Go To Heaven: The Enduring Legacy of The Ramones’ there to sign copies, answe

Counter-cultural explosions happening elsewhere. The global underground music map is incredibly vast, yet Western listeners frequently suffer from a severe case of tunnel vision. We routinely hyper-focus on our localized circuits across Europe and North America, completely oblivious to the brilliant counter-cultural explosions happening elsewhere. It takes a monumental piece of print documentation to smash those geographic biases and open our eyes to the thriving sonic resi

Had an absolutely cracking time at the launch for the Ten Poets Volume Three book in Ipswich the other night. Great sets from Michael Bamber, Matt Carter, Laura Bradley, Kirsty Smith and David Mustill - what a line-up! If you don't have a copy yet, Earth Island Books have plenty, so let’s rectify that situation.

Not all poetry behaves itself - and James Domestic has no interest in making it try. Within these pages the ordinary slips out of situ. Narratives get a bit wonky, objects misbehave, and convention absconds. A TV legend may be a residential menace, and a smart speaker might develop a grudge. A rock band could be mistaken about what it actually is, and the Poetry Police may have secured an arrest warrant… Domestic’s world feels just close enough to ours to be unsettling -

‘Tin Knocker’ is a story about choices; choices that can find you in the worst throes of a suspended adolescence and force you to face impending adulthood. With a band that found a neatly defined success in the small, tight-knit LA punk family, both Mike Magrann and CH3’s trajectory should have raced past cramped, filthy vans and into catered dressing rooms and five-album deals. It was the ‘80s, after all. Excess was more common than oxygen and they were throwing deals at ban

Tilman Dominka's book ‘I am already hearing sounds’ combines black-and-white photography and music. Closely connected to the DIY music scene, he travelled to various places to visit musicians he met at shows. In this book, which is dedicated to the close connection between photography and music, he has compiled images from the last 15 years and asked musicians and bands to provide a piece of music; there are 30 images and accompanying pieces of music, which can be accessed

There’s so many great photographs in the new ‘Punk at Sea: A Rebellion Festival photo book’ by Michiel Blijboom. Over 130 pages of candid images, taken mainly of fans and punks just being punks by the seaside, at the big festival in Blackpool. The book is available in time for the big thirty year celebration – crass commercialism, or a celebration of the people and the scene we all love? Rebellion, the annual punk festival in and around the not so aptly-titled Winter Gardens.

‘All Good Cret­ins Go To Heaven: The Endur­ing Spirit of The Ramones’ by Jenn L. Beck­with with Gary Lynn Clev­enger ★★★★ Earth Island/DiWulf £19.99 ISBN 9781916864948 280 pages Love let­ter from the fans Show­ing again how price­less memor­ies can often out­weigh pro­fes­sional inter­views for fun and insight, chil­dren’s lib­rar­ian Beck­with’s first book came from an idea with researcher Clev­enger to hon­our the Ramones around their 50th anniversary that grew into an un

Thoughts Words Action review ‘Tear It Down’ by Alexandros Anesiadis Anyone who has spent a significant portion of their life digging through the dusty crates of underground music history knows that genres don’t just appear out of thin air. They are forged in the fires of friction, subcultural warfare, and unexpected alliances. Back in the early 1980s, if you told a die-hard hardcore punk that they would soon be sharing a mosh pit with a long-haired thrash metalhead, they pr

London’s Wonk Unit are not only one of the most successful and prolific UK punk bands of the last two decades, but also one of the most original and eclectic, their irreverent take on melodic punk knowing few boundaries and their self-effacing humour coupled with an often- fearless honesty. “It was around 2005, and I hadn't made any of my own music for a few years previously,” explains vocalist Alex Johnson, who had enjoyed considerable success in the Nineties as part of The