What do you think?
Rate this book
Threat by Example: A Documentation of Inspiration
Book by
131 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
17 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 13, 2011
I first read this book right after it was published in 1989 when I was a sophomore in high school. Reading it as a jaded old punk was a really different experience than reading it as a fresh faced young punk who was really excited about everything, but all of these essays are really interesting and for the most part really well written. I still found it inspiring after all these years.
It's funny to read this book in light of future developments. Who knew in 1989 that Chumbawamba were going to be future top 40 one hit wonders? Dick Lucas says something in his essay about how he thought that punk was going to cycle back into the mainstream at some point, and it did just two years later in the form of "Smells Like Teen Spirit". More then one essay talks about the need to decentralize the way that information is spread, and a few years later it happened with the internet, for better or for worse.
This book also serves as a snapshot of the main players in DIY punk circa 1989. Not many of the people contributing to this book really stayed the course. Jeff Bale became a conservative. Larry Livermore became a millionaire conservative. Chumbawamba left DIY punk all together. Most of the contributors to this book are basically MIA from the scene. Ony the Ex, Mykel Board, maybe Cynthia Connolly just kind of soldiered on doing what they are still doing.
This book is really one the only attempts ever to explain why people get involved in DIY punk and what keeps them going. Why for the past 20 years have I poured tons of time and money into the often thankless task of dealing with the organizational side of punk? I don't know really, but here are over two dozen other people wrestling with the same question. Since I read this book right when I was first getting into "the scene" I've often thought it contributed to me having a more intellectual approach to punk that often put me at odds with the "RAW PUNX" of the world. Great to read this again and thanks for ruining my life Martin Sprouse.
It's funny to read this book in light of future developments. Who knew in 1989 that Chumbawamba were going to be future top 40 one hit wonders? Dick Lucas says something in his essay about how he thought that punk was going to cycle back into the mainstream at some point, and it did just two years later in the form of "Smells Like Teen Spirit". More then one essay talks about the need to decentralize the way that information is spread, and a few years later it happened with the internet, for better or for worse.
This book also serves as a snapshot of the main players in DIY punk circa 1989. Not many of the people contributing to this book really stayed the course. Jeff Bale became a conservative. Larry Livermore became a millionaire conservative. Chumbawamba left DIY punk all together. Most of the contributors to this book are basically MIA from the scene. Ony the Ex, Mykel Board, maybe Cynthia Connolly just kind of soldiered on doing what they are still doing.
This book is really one the only attempts ever to explain why people get involved in DIY punk and what keeps them going. Why for the past 20 years have I poured tons of time and money into the often thankless task of dealing with the organizational side of punk? I don't know really, but here are over two dozen other people wrestling with the same question. Since I read this book right when I was first getting into "the scene" I've often thought it contributed to me having a more intellectual approach to punk that often put me at odds with the "RAW PUNX" of the world. Great to read this again and thanks for ruining my life Martin Sprouse.
February 3, 2023
I initially read this back in 1989 and found it to be very inspirational. Now, rereading it, I find it to be inspirational in a different way. The first time around it was all about the music, the lifestyle, and the politics. Now I found my inspiration to be in the category of Be-True-To-Yourself. It was nice to revisit, and it stands the test of time, (Mykel Board's essay especially cracks me up), but is at as life-affirming as it was before? No, but it also did not need to be. It just needed to be a reminder, and that is exactly what it was.
Read this when you are feeling lost, or just want some kind of confirmation that you are on the right path.
Read this when you are feeling lost, or just want some kind of confirmation that you are on the right path.
November 11, 2012
This was given to me by my first boyfriend as a gift, because he was one of those interviewed for the project. As a teenage punk myself, I found it very exciting to read about what older, more established rebels were doing and had done to create the scene I was so excited about. Martin Sprouse, who was a columnist and reviewer for Maximimumrocknroll, produced this book for exactly that reason - to give the people in the scene who had inspired him a chance to demonstrate that there were paths for punks besides the well-trodden path to frustrated self-destruction.
Looking back, he chose well; so far as I can recall no one in this book died from an OD or committed suicide. Moreover, he chose well in the sense that he didn't just choose "punk super-stars," he chose people who were doing a wide variety of interesting projects, from radio shows to record labels to poetry to photography to collage art to running bbs systems to publishing magazines. Because Martin was a Bay Area punk, there's a fair number of California folks here, but there's also people from Holland, England, and across the USA. The interviews I remember being most impressed by were Tom Jennings, Tim Yohannan, and Al Flipside (the last being the most surprising because I hated "Flipside"). The most readily recognizable name today would be Ian Mackaye, who has after all said plenty about himself, but it's interesting to see where he was at in 1989 and how well his basic philosophy of life was already established at that time.
Today, this book is a piece of punk history. It doesn't document the "most important" things going on in the scene at the time, but it does serve as evidence of the wide cultural net punk cast, and of the power it had (and still has) to inspire.
Looking back, he chose well; so far as I can recall no one in this book died from an OD or committed suicide. Moreover, he chose well in the sense that he didn't just choose "punk super-stars," he chose people who were doing a wide variety of interesting projects, from radio shows to record labels to poetry to photography to collage art to running bbs systems to publishing magazines. Because Martin was a Bay Area punk, there's a fair number of California folks here, but there's also people from Holland, England, and across the USA. The interviews I remember being most impressed by were Tom Jennings, Tim Yohannan, and Al Flipside (the last being the most surprising because I hated "Flipside"). The most readily recognizable name today would be Ian Mackaye, who has after all said plenty about himself, but it's interesting to see where he was at in 1989 and how well his basic philosophy of life was already established at that time.
Today, this book is a piece of punk history. It doesn't document the "most important" things going on in the scene at the time, but it does serve as evidence of the wide cultural net punk cast, and of the power it had (and still has) to inspire.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews