Synopses & Reviews
Was punk just another moment in music history, a flash in time when a group of young rebels exploded in a fury of raw sound, outrageous styles, and in-your-face attitude? Greil Marcus, author of the renowned
Lipstick Traces, delves into the after-life of punk as a much richer phenomenon--a form of artistic and social rebellion that continually erupts into popular culture.
In more than seventy short pieces written over fifteen years, he traces the uncompromising strands of punk from Johnny Rotten to Elvis Costello, Sonic Youth, even Bruce Springsteen. Marcus's unparalleled insight into present-day culture and brilliant ear for music bring punk's searing half-life into deep focus. Originally published in the U.S. as Ranters and Crowd Pleasers.
Review
The dean of rock criticism, Greil Marcus, has been analysing the populist and the impenetrable for 30 years. This reissued collection includes features from times past, when Rolling Stone covered obscure British bands, gloomy discourses on Eighties American politics and Greil's exasperation with Springsteen and Costello. The Times
Review
Marcus, at his best, wrote and still writes about punk in a way that is as startling, as deceptively simple, and as moving as the music itself. Rolling Stone
Review
There isn't a bland sentence or obligatory opinion in this book. Brittle, lyrical, funny, outraged and for all the untouched bases, remarkably whole, [In the Fascist Bathroom] has the feel of a vital fin de siècle document. It argues that the willful negations of punk have cleared the way for a reconstructed value system at the edge of the abyss. On the twin strengths of his intellectual rigor and moral fervor, Marcus muscles up to Armageddon. Matt Damsker
Review
Greil Marcus is the only writer I'd trust to explain what all that horrible screaming, vile spitting, and great punk music was really all about. Nick Pemberton - London Magazine
Review
[As with] Adorno, and before him Wittgenstein and Nietzsche, Marcus's forte is the aphorism. This approach suits both his prose style-elegant, magisterial, economical-and his subject matter: rock is about the moments, specifically about fixing them in mind as they die, and Marcus was the first to say as much. Matt Groening
Review
His work develops history, as if it were a photo, in front of your very eyes. The essays are like the two-minute bursts of energy in so many of the songs he lauds; short and sharp, constantly stimulating, sometimes sad, more often elegiac, always endowed with the hope that humanitarian anger inspires. Ann Marlowe - Village Voice
About the Author
Greil Marcus is the author of Lipstick Traces, The Dustbin of History (both from Harvard), and The Shape of Things to Come, The Old, Weird America, Mystery Train, and other books.
Table of Contents
Introduction Prologue: The End of the 1960s
Two Late Beginnings
Johnny Rotten and Margaret Drabble
The End of an Antichrist: Sex Pistols, Winterland, San Francisco, 14 January 1978
1977-1979
Elvis Costello: The Old Waldorf, San Francisco, 16 November 1977
The Clash
Doom Squad
From 1979, Remove 7, Add Zero to 9, Then Wait
Dead Air
Live at the Roxy
Gang of Four
Logic
Rock Death in the 1970s: A Sweepstakes
1980
Fear in the Marketplace: Real Life Rock Top Ten 1979
Hi, this is America.
War in the Catamaran
Plague Disco
Ripped to Shreds
It's Fab, It's Passionate, It's Wild, It's Intelligent! It's the Hot New Sound of England Today!
Love and Death in the American Novel
Elvis Costello's Bill of Rights
The Roots of Punk, #783
Yes Nukes
Success and Failure in the Wilderness
Suspicious Minds
The Next President of the United States
1981-1982
Life and Life Only
Songs of Random Terror: Real Life Rock Top Ten 1980
Ideal Home Noise
Crimes Against Nature
The Au Pairs in Their Time
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Charts of the Gods
Food Fight: Real Life Rock Top Ten 1981
Life After Death
Dial Twisting
from Elvis Costello Repents: The Rolling Stone Interview
Badlands
1983-1985
The Mekons Story
In the Fascist Bathroom
Free Speech, #1
Imperial Margarine
Gone with the Wind
Four More Years
400,000 More Years
Corrupting the Absolute
Number One with a Bullet
Less Than Zero
The Last President of the United States
1986
Alone and Forsaken
The Last Broadcast
King of Nebraska
Flat, Toneless and Tiresome
Hum-drum
Sand in Your Mouth
U.S.A. Combat Heroes
The Return of King Arthur
Free Speech, #2
1987-1992
Born Dead
The Return of Iron Butterfly
Judgment Day
Music
More Bad News
Groovy Hate Fuck
Punk Is Where You Find It
An Echo
The Assassin
Chapters from History
Three Premature Endings
The Return of the Ranter
The End of the 1980s
The Return of the Antichrist
Epilogue: A Brief Return of the 1960s: Real Life Rock Top Ten Spring 1991
I am a Cliché
Citations
Acknowledgments
Permissions
Index