music

Content about music, and music industry struggles.

Fragment of album cover for Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

Fragment of album cover for Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

Johnny Hallyday album cover from the early 60s

The Poverty of French Rock ‘n’ Roll by Larry Portis

This is chapter 6 of Larry Portis' book French Frenzies. Larry Portis died a week ago near Ales in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of the South…

Working on a decaying dream - Kollectiv

The Kollectiv look at Bruce Springsteen in the context of class disintegration and place him firmly in the decadent tradition of Balzac and…

Don't Mourn, Organise!

Music and the IWW: the creation of a working class counterculture - RudolfTB

This article discusses how the early IWW used music both as an organising tool and as a means of…

Music of 2009

The Basic Alternative Education of a Chinese Punk

Translation of an autobiographical essay by Tang Shui'en, mainland Chinese anarchist musician and activist, recounting his path from childhood in…

Hong Kong: Where anarchists and blackbirds sing about freedom

Brief report on anarchist elements in the Hong Kong activist scene ca. 2009, focusing on Lenny Guo of the band Blackbird, veteran of the 70s Front.

Acid comment: the moral panic about acid house parties - The Red Menace

Article looking at the media hysteria surrounding the Acid House music subculture of the late 1980s.

Muzak to my ears - canned music and class struggle

Public space and muzak as policing.

Class struggle and hip-hop: interview with Comrade Malone, 2009

Hip-hop has seen artists with social and political awareness. Rarely, however, has there been hip…

Reservoir of poses - Gregor Jamroski

This article first appeared in the early 1980’s in New York and an edited version was republished a few years later in an obscure, apparently one…

Small Axe by Verbal Terrorists

Geordie hip-hop crew the Verbal Terrorists’ Small Axe brings forthright radical messages to agitate, educate and entertain. Tom Jennings goes with the flow.

The 3rd World, by Immortal Technique and DJ Green Lantern (Viper Records 2008)

The new release from Immortal Technique, hip-hop’s most implacable class warrior, thoroughly links…