Punk Is Dead: Modernity Killed Every Night

by Richard Cabut, Andrew Gallix

This original collection of insight, analysis and conversation charts the course of punk from its underground origins, when it was an un-formed and utterly alluring near-secret, through its rapid development. Punk is Modernity Killed Every Night takes in sex, style, politics and philosophy, filtered through punk experience, while believing in the ruins of memory, to explore a past whose essence is always elusive.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published October 27, 2017

About the author

Current books.

Disorderly Magic and Other Disturbances (Far West Press).

Looking for a Kiss – extended edition (PC-Press)

Richard Cabut is author of the novels Looking for a Kiss (Sweat Drenched Press, 2020) and Dark Entries (Cold Lips Press, 2019), editor/-writer of the anthology Punk is Dead: Modernity Killed Every Night (Zer0 Books, October 2017), contributor to Ripped, Torn and Cut – Pop, Politics and Punks Fanzines From 1976 (Manchester University Press, 2018) and Growing Up With Punk (Nice Time, 2018).

His journalism has featured in the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, NME (pen name Richard North), ZigZag, The Big Issue, Time Out, Offbeat magazine, the Independent, Artists & Illustrators magazine, thefirstpost, London Arts Board/Arts Council England, Siren magazine, etc.

His fiction has appeared in the books The Edgier Waters (Snowbooks, 2006) and Affinity (67 Press, 2015). He was a Pushcart Prize nominee 2016.

Richard’s plays have been performed at various theatres in London and nationwide, including the Arts Theatre, Covent Garden, London.

He published the fanzine Kick, and played bass for the punk band Brigandage (LP Pretty Funny Thing – Gung Ho Records, 1986).

Reviews

[Heather ~*dread mushrooms*~]

Punk, in a nutshell, was glam ripping itself apart.

DNF @ 35%

I think I was expecting this to be more music-focused. As someone who wasn't alive during punk's heyday, the music and documentaries are I have to connect me to it. I'm glad books like this are being published, hopefully bringing the spirit of punk to a wider audience.

That said, this book was not for me. This isn't about the music at all, but about the SCENE. I had no idea punk was a SCENE. And oh my god, it was just as pretentious and annoying as any other scene you can think of. There were specific types of artists (Situationists), specific places to be (SEX), certain clothes to wear (straight jeans, one-of-a-kind shirts), and certain people to know (Malcom McLaren).

Male punks might have been violent when pushed, but they were also engaged with feminism, vegetarianism, and secularism in daily life.

That sounds so, so familiar.



I actually wanted to quit after just a couple of essays. I have no idea who the people writing them were and don't care to dig deep enough to find out, but man, most of them couldn't write worth a damn. They have big ideas and know big words, and they were THERE, but it seems they can't string thoughts together in any coherent manner. They write as if the reader were there too and knows exactly what they were talking about—the exact location of a club that no longer exists, who this random person is, the significance of this artsy idea that most people have never heard of. Clearly they have this context already built in their mind but didn't feel the need to explain that context in the actual essay. Sometimes I had no idea what I was reading or why.

The real punks were also against punk, or at least against the label. Being a true punk was something that could only go without saying; it implied never describing oneself as such...

Again, such a familiar tenet.



There was so much name-dropping of people and places and brands that I was completely put-off. And I wonder how the people who contributed to this can remember the exact outfit they wore on some random night forty years ago. I guess I didn't realize punk was, at least initially, so materialistic and scenester-y. I'm sure these contributors would say otherwise, but that is EXACTLY how it felt reading these essays.

What he did, I feel, is create an attitude, a creative attitude—DIY, anti-corporate, and not for sale.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

[Diane Hernandez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but pretentious, essays and memoirs about punk rock's beginnings in England.

The essays here vary tremendously in readability and point of view. Quite a few emphasize the punk "scene" and how awesome it was for the writer to be a part of it. Others interpret punk as a reaction to glam (think New York Dolls and David Bowie in the late 70s). Some suggest the private school uniforms frequently worn by punk rockers at the time represent a rejection of the old fogies (30-year-olds) of 60s rock like the Rolling Stones.

Some of the ideas are good but a reader must wade through a lot of pretension to get to them. As a former punk rocker in 80s Los Angeles, I do recall that enthusiasm for making the music was more important than real talent for playing an instrument or singing. However, punk rockers were not pretentious at all. In fact, they were rebelling against the arrogant rich and those striving to be rich (like on the hit television shows of the time Dallas and Dynasty). The biggest negative for this collection is the absence of the music. Even the Sex Pistols, arguably the first punk rock band, were mentioned more for their appearance and lifestyle than their music.

I would recommend Punk is Dead more as a research source for a college class than for former punk rockers like myself. Sometimes it is best to leave the past in the past. 3 stars.

Thanks to the publisher, Zero Books, and NetGalley for an advanced review copy.

[Nena Gluchacki · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a self-serving stream of consciousness. For people that don’t want to be labeled, they sure love giving themselves labels. The punk scene will not help its elitist image with this piece. It was just a place for a couple of claimed originals to the punk scene to brag about being originals in the punk scene.
Free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Dan Palmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

In response to some eminently reasonable criticisms made in a number of previous reviews (and without wanting to offer an apologia on behalf of the editors and contributors concerned), I feel it fair to suggest that this collection was probably never intended as a primer on punk. It imagines, I think, a familiarity on the part of its readership with certain key - but sometimes neglected - individuals, historical reference points and ideas and attempts to hold open a number of doors onto punk's history that have been in danger of closing fast. Inconsistent, at times pretentious, unfathomable or elitist, Cabut and Gallix's volume is nonetheless a reminder that punk was always a contradictory and contested form and deserves more than the standard narrative account that increasingly holds sway.

[Annarella · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very fascinating book if you are interesting in what the punk scene was. Not only music but the lifestyle as well. Not all the essay are at same level but on the whole a very entertaining reading.
Many thanks to Netgalley and John Hunt Publishing for giving me the chance to read this book in exchange for a honest review.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good, if inconsistent anthology of writing about early punk rock. There's a lot of interesting historical and theoretical articles, but also a fair amount of dull, narcissistic articles that do little more than tell you about the writer.

[Des Bladet · Rating 1 out of 5]

You had to be there, I guess. Also a lot of the pub-raconteur prose makes Philip K Dick look like Oscar fucking Wilde, pardon my French. Made me wince, and I am hardly an aesthete.

[Tehteh · Rating 3 out of 5]

So...It may look like I took 5 years reading this. That's not the case. I first started trying to read this in 2017, through Netgalley, but it was a troubled time for me and I never got to finish it. I was later given a second chance and I figured this year it was time. Took me about a month now because this book is kinda dense and somewhat difficult to grasp for a Portuguese 90s kid like me, as much I am fascinated with the punk era.

So, wgat is it? It is a collection of articles, stories, interviews and such about Punk Culture in 76/77's Britain for the most part. It was done in celebration of Punk's 40th anniversary. Sooner rather than later we will be at its 50th.

It does tell a number of stories and perspectives, but to a certain point and extent, I still feel like this might as well be a Malcolm Maclaren/Sex Pistols tribute or biography. There is a distinact feeling that punk really is dead - it might as well be buried with Sid Vicious, because none of the bands that carried on were worthy and the ones that came after are an aberration - I strongly disagree, but then again I didn't live through this.

It's an interesting read to find out about lesser known people like Jordan or Max, and it champions the fenales in a world where the males dominate seem to be the main lasting faces. I'll give it that.

It's interesting to hear about Patii, Buzzcocks, The Ants, which I had never considered before.

It was certainly cool to learn about the political and philosophical bases for the movement.

But in the end? About half of the book IS about the Pistols and it does seem like the movement was born and died with them. I don't think so, but I was never living in the 20th century so I never had to leave it