A cultural dictionary of punk 1974-1982

Nicholas Rombes

Book - 2009

Saved in:

2nd Floor Show me where

781.66/Rombes
1 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor 781.66/Rombes Checked In
Subjects
Published
New York, NY : Continuum 2009.
Language
English
Main Author
Nicholas Rombes (-)
Physical Description
320 p. : ill. ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN
9780826427793
  • 400 Blows
  • Adolescents /Adverts
  • Against Method
  • Agnew, Spiro
  • 'Alternative Ulster'
  • 'Anarchy is Dead'
  • Angry Young Men
  • Art and Fear /'Art of Noise,'
  • Futurist manifesto
  • 'Art Rock'
  • Ashbery, John
  • Ask the Dust
  • Avengers
  • Bad Brains
  • Bad Taste in 1974
  • Balm, Trixie A.
  • Bangs, Lester
  • 'Biafra: 6,591 votes (3%)!!'
  • Blank1
  • Blank2
  • Blank3
  • Blank Generation
  • 'Blank Generation'
  • 'Beat Generation'
  • The Bloody Chamber
  • Boredom
  • Brando, Marlon
  • British National Front
  • Buffalo, New York
  • Callaghan, James: Prime Minister of Great Britain
  • Carter, Jimmy
  • Carter, Jimmy--and the new wave
  • Cassidy and Bangs in 1977
  • 'Cindy'
  • Cities, decay and beauty of
  • Clash, the
  • Class
  • Cleveland, Ohio
  • Compact audio cassette
  • Cooper, Alice
  • Cox, Alex
  • C.P.O. Sharkey
  • 'Punk Rock Sharkey'
  • Cramps: Live at Napa State Mental Hospital
  • Criticism, rock
  • Dancing
  • 'Death of Punk'
  • Dead Boys
  • Demics, the
  • Destroy All Monsters
  • Dhalgren
  • Dickies
  • Dictators
  • Dils
  • Diodes
  • Dogs
  • 'John Rock 'n Roll Sinclair'
  • John Sinclair
  • 'Dot Dash'
  • Down-and-out during the punk era, the fun of being
  • East Village Eye
  • Eater
  • Ejectors
  • Electric eels
  • Entertainment!
  • 'Experts Propose Study of 'Craze'âÇ£
  • Feelies
  • Fifties, nostalgia for
  • The Foreigner
  • 'Frankie Teardrop'
  • 'Full Speed Ahead'
  • Further Temptations
  • Generation X
  • Germs
  • Germ Free Adolescents
  • Gibson, William
  • Glass, Philip
  • 'Going Underground'
  • Graham, Bill
  • Gravity's Rainbow
  • Great Jones Street
  • Gulcher
  • 'Gunning for Sex Pistols'
  • The Gun Rubber
  • Hannah, Barry
  • 'Happy Birthday, Stephanie'
  • Headlines, 1977
  • Helen Keller
  • Herman's Hermits
  • High-Rise
  • Hippies, Johnny Rotten comments about
  • 'Horror Business'
  • Horses
  • 'How Could I'
  • 'I Got You Babe'
  • The Ice Age
  • Implied velocity
  • 'I waste hours keeping my soul out of the cauldron'
  • I'm OK--You're OK
  • Jarmusch, Jim
  • Jim Basnight and the Moberlys
  • Jungle Rot
  • 'Keep Yours Dreams'
  • Kentucky Fried Movie
  • 'L.A. Punk'
  • Ladies and Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains
  • La Guardia, Fiorello Henry
  • Leon, Craig
  • Lowell, Robert
  • MTV
  • Mad Magazine, punk and
  • Marbles
  • Meltzer, Richard
  • 'The Menace and Charm of Punk Rock'
  • Milk 'n' Cookies'
  • Minimalism
  • 'Mistakism'
  • Mo-dettes
  • 'the most absurd year in the history of rock 'n' roll'
  • 'Neat, Neat, Neat'
  • Nervous Breakdown
  • Nervus Rex
  • 'New Dark Ages'
  • 'New Music, The'
  • The New Wave
  • New Wave Theatre
  • 'New Way'
  • Nirvana
  • Nixon, Richard
  • Nobody's Heroes
  • Non Compos Mentis
  • No Policy
  • No Wave
  • Normals
  • Nostalgia
  • 'Notes on the New American Cinema'
  • 'not exactly what you would consider melodic'
  • Nuns
  • Oblique Strategies
  • Only Ones
  • 'Ottawa Today'
  • Out of Vogue
  • Outsider, The
  • Pagans
  • 'Paint it Black'
  • Para-Punk Cinema
  • Patti
  • Penetrators
  • Pere Ubu
  • Pettibon, Raymond
  • 'Police State'
  • Punk, alternate meanings of
  • Punk, as 'honored'
  • 'punk is inconceivable without the bleak failure of the Sixties'
  • Punk, its influence on something other than music or fashion
  • 'Punk rock is a put on'
  • 'Punk Rock: the arrogant underbelly of Sixties pop'
  • 'Punk Rock Rises Again!!', Creem headline
  • 'Punk Root'
  • 'Question of Degree, A'
  • Radio On
  • 'Radio Wunderbar'
  • Raincoats
  • Ramones [1974- ]
  • Ramone, Joey (and Joey Miserable and the Worms)
  • Ramones, the first album in ten tracks
  • Ramones, as 'trivial'
  • As 'great'
  • Ramones, first lines of songs on first three albums
  • Reagan, Ronald
  • 'Read About Seymour'
  • Real Life
  • Rebel Without a Cause
  • 'Receiving End'
  • Rent Act
  • Rimbaud, Arthur
  • Road Warrior, The
  • Rocket from the Tombs, four sentences about
  • Rocket from the Tombs, two songs by
  • Rockwell, John
  • Rombes, Kori Ann
  • Saints
  • Screamers
  • SCUM Manifesto
  • Second Extermination Nite
  • 'See No Evil'
  • Self-referential, punk as
  • 'Seventeen'
  • Shirkers
  • Shivvers
  • 'short-lived fad, a'
  • 'Singles reviewed
  • 'Sister Ray'
  • Sixties, punk as a rejection of
  • Sixties, punk as an affirmation of
  • Six Million Dollar Man, The
  • Skunks
  • Sleepers
  • Slits
  • 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem'
  • 'So Cold'
  • Social threat of punk, the
  • 'Something's happening'
  • 'Sonic Reducer'
  • Sonic Youth
  • Speedies
  • Spheeris, Penelope
  • Spock, Benjamin
  • Starburn: The Story of Jenni Love
  • Static Disposal
  • Sterling, Linder
  • 'still bewildered by the death-machine'
  • Stooges
  • 'Strange'
  • Student Teachers
  • Suicide
  • Survival Research Laboratories (SRL)
  • Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA)
  • Target Video
  • Teen Idles
  • 'That's Entertainment'
  • 'The music is primal, mindless, without climaxes'
  • 'The ongoing force of me'
  • Theoretical Girls
  • Theory, punk as a form of
  • 'There are Only Three Rock Groups in America'
  • 'There is nothing inherently wonderful about starkness'
  • 'The World's a Mess; It's In My Kiss'
  • Troggs
  • Truth about punk, the
  • 'TV Babies'
  • Undertones
  • Vast Majority
  • Vertigo
  • Vibrators
  • Vietnam War
  • Viletones
  • Vinyl
  • Wallace and Ladmo Show, the
  • Warhol, Andy
  • Weirdos
  • 'When You're Young'
  • Whistle Punk
  • Who Killed Bambi?
  • 'Why?'
  • 'Write Down Your Number'
  • 'Xerox Days'
  • Zeros
Review by Choice Review

Rombes (English, Univ. of Detroit Mercy), author of Ramones (2005), examines the punk phenomenon through 250-plus alphabetically arranged entries covering seminal UK/US bands and music, newsprint headlines, concepts, novels, politicians, and artists. No traditional reference book, this; Brian Cogan's Encyclopedia of Punk Music and Culture (CH, Dec'06, 44-1844) and Al Spicer's The Rough Guide to Punk (2006) fill that bill. Users are not likely to intentionally seek conceptual entries such as "blank" or "implied velocity" or headlines from fanzines; those entries will be discovered only through browsing or reading the complete work. Using zines, newspapers, novel excerpts, even his own short fiction, Rombes explores, with humor and an inventive presentation, punk's impact during its culture-changing years while also revealing its relationship to creative works and cultural movements. This scattershot analysis would be more cogent as a developed, topically organized treatise, but its style does suggest the short burst approach of many punk songs. More traditional cultural examinations are available, e.g., Robert Sabin's edited Punk Rock: So What? (1999) and Stacy Thompson's Punk Productions (CH, Jan'05, 42-2715), yet Rombes provides pertinent insights not available in these more studied publications. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through faculty/researchers; general readers. R. A. Aken University of Kentucky

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

At a cursory glance, Rombes's compendium has the form of a dictionary, covering punk bands from the Adolescents to the Zeroes, but scratch the surface and you'll discover a profoundly weird document, where the notion of "punk" expands to include discussions of Angela Carter, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo and Barry Hannah-although even Rombes (Ramones) admits the last is stretching the point. The tone veers from the academic to the confessional: "How can you hesitate about a song that has saved you more than once from the black depths you are prone to fall into?" Rombes asks in an entry concerning the British band Wire. There are several forays into the fictional, including stories about imagined versions of Patti Smith and Joey Ramone, as well as entries written by "Ephraim P. Noble," who is almost certainly a fictional alter ego. If it were touted as a definitive guide to punk culture, the dictionary's omissions would be glaring-but this is something altogether different: a personal investigation into the significance of punk rock, an attempt to inject critical studies with "a big dose of chaos and anarchy" and thereby create a compelling cultural narrative. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Rombes (English, Univ. of Detroit), the author of works on punk musicians and cinema, here examines punk as a cultural movement through A-to-Z entries drawing upon fanzines, magazines, and newspapers to place media and artists in the context of history. In the author's own words, he has "allowed the content of the entries to determine their shape, format and tone." The result is an eclectic examination of the punk movement as well as the cultural and historical issues surrounding it. The book concludes with a postscript analyzing the end of the punk movement in 1982. Bottom Line The author's love and knowledge of the punk era shines throughout the work. There are several other books on punk, but this one's focus on the general historical and cultural perspective of the movement, as well as its accessible and informal style, makes it a worthy addition to the literature. An excellent overview of the era for any library. [The book is also supported on the web at culturaldictionaryofpunk.blogspot.com.]-Samantha Schmehl Hines, Univ. of Montana Lib., Missoula (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.