Oktober 4th, 2017

Spoke – Images and Stories from the 1980s Washington, DC Punk Scene, Compiled by Scott Crawford

Posted in bücher by Dolf

Akashic Books, 232 Third St., Suite A115, Brooklyn, NY 11215, Usa

When I first heard about the publishing of this book I thought „Another book about that period of DC? Hope it is not an over-documentation…“ Now it is out and I can tell you – it is not. Sure, some of the photos have been published many times before – but numerous not – and all in all it is so many great photos, mostly live shots (a lot by Jim Saah and too many other photographers to mention them all here). Sure, it is almost all „the same“ people who get to say something about their band or the other bands – but this time not only „those“ people, but also other people, not that popular but also part of the scene back then, which is great.

After a foreword by Scott (Crawford also did the film – Salad Days – about that period of DC Punk, so some might say, this is the book to the film….) 25 bands are presented, each one with a short history overview that features the basic facts (most written by Tim Stegall and Steve Kiviat, Scott Crawford, Glenn Griffith, Shawna Kenney). Then band members and friends are given space to share their memories and impressions. Sure, a lot of that is praise of how great and important the band was – and to be honest, most of them have been pretty great and are important, so what. But this time – maybe because it is also other people that are featured – it is not only swarming! For example some members of SOA clearly say that is was a uncool move of Henry to leave SOA for BLACK FLAG, and they have been not happy about that. Or you get remembered that Embrace basically was Faith with Ian singing and why the whole band construct did not work so well… but I will tell not much more here and spoil it all for you. It was all great bands, ok, some of them not – at least for my taste. But if you are not familiar with the early DC scene, you can find out a lot and if you are a fan, you will get this definitely. The bands? Bad Brains, The Teen Idles, Black Market Baby, SOA, Minor Threat, Government Issue, Void, Iron Cross, The Faith, Scream, Marginal Man, Gray Matter, Beefeater, King Face, Rites of Spring, Dag Nasty, Embrace, Soulside, Fire Party, Shudder to Think, Ignition, Fugazi, Swiz, The Nation of Ulysses and Jawbox. At the end is a list of all the people quoted and in what bands they played or what they did – good overview. It is a hard cover book, very nice put together in a good format (26,2 x 1,5 x 25,7 cm), 128 pages, 24,95 $ US (dolf)

Isbn 978-1617755002

[Trust # 185 August 2017]

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