The problem and the river to cross when it comes to calling a book 101 Cult Movies You Must See Before You Die is the defining of what constitutes a 'cult' movie. Who decides if a movie is a cult one or not? It's all subjective, of course, but ultimately it's the audience that creates that definition around a film rather than it being simply a label to apply. The one person excluded from the process is the director who on completion and delivery of a film can only wait and see what becomes of it. No director can intentionally set out to create a cult movie, no matter if the theme or the subject matter is obscure or the budget threadbare. If a movie does indeed fall within these parameters it doesn't automatically mean that it's cult. Just as easily it could mean it's simply puerile rubbish or indeed even brilliant - but never cult.
The word 'cult' is mostly used as an accolade and imbues the thing on which the word is placed with a value beyond any established values of the mainstream. When it comes to movies, success is typically measured monetarily as in numbers at the box-office or increasingly nowadays the amount streamed. When a film becomes cult it means it's moved beyond financial considerations and is now being viewed from a different and somewhat more passionate perspective. A perspective though not necessarily of more value but arguably much longer lasting.
101 Cult Movies You Must See Before You Die certainly contains a good selection of classic films though whether they could be called 'cult' is debatable. What is clear, however, is that it contains no surprises. Moreover, there are many films and some directors of films that are noticeably absent. Where, for instance, is Silent Running, the 1970s eco-sci-fi film featuring Bruce Dern? Point Blank featuring Lee Marvin? The Friends Of Eddie Coyle starring Robert Mitchum? Where is there mention of Bruce Lee and any of his films, or any of the many spaghetti cowboy films of the 60s and 70s? And if we're talking 'cult', where is Debbie Does Dallas or Deep Throat, even? Or are these not cult films as such?
It's apparent that when compiling this book there was an eye on its saleability and what would make it appealing to a wide readership. Who would want to buy it (apart from me, maybe?) if it was just full of art house movies like Andy Warhol's Blow Job, or Chris Marker's La Jetee? And are art house movies even cult movies anyway? Maybe it's just best not to ask too many questions and to just enjoy 101 Cult Movies You Must See Before You Die for what it is? That being, essentially, a mini-coffee table-type book that's nice to read and pleasing to the eye. Nothing more and nothing less.
Published in 1991, Spirit Of '69 - A Skinhead Bible by George Marshall is essentially a scrapbook of cuttings centred around skinhead culture from its birth in the late Sixties to its globalisation in the Nineties, all woven around its story as seen through the eyes of the author. Apparently it's a highly collectable book nowadays and can go for silly money on eBay...
Marshall is a skinhead enthusiast and writes passionately about all aspects, all phases and all off-shoots of skinhead culture. He knows his stuff and it shows, marking out music and clothes as primary factors though also giving equal attention to other aspects such as violence, violence and er... violence.
Does anybody remember the Millwall Brick and knuckledusters made from coins? George Marshall does. Does anybody remember hippy-bashing, queer-bashing, and paki-bashing as racially aggravated attacks were once called? George Marshall does and this was all long before skinhead morphed into Oi! and skinheads became boneheads. This was back when skinheads listened only to reggae, ska and maybe a bit of soul. Long before the advent of Sham 69 and the intervention of right-wing political parties into the scene.
So, skinhead violence has always been a tradition right from the get-go and whilst it's enabled the culture to maintain a pariah status and engendered it with a sense of danger that repels the casual observer, it's also acted as an attraction to some and interestingly as a great indicator of class background and position.
There's nothing wrong with skinhead violence and the potential for it per se, it's just when it comes loaded with ignorance, prejudice, discrimination and right-wing politics that it becomes a problem and the intersection where class consciousness and violence divides. None of these aforementioned traits are implicit within the working class and are in fact diametrically opposed to actual and genuine working class values such as community and solidarity - the very values that Thatcherism sought to put an end to and that all right-wing politics of whatever extreme ultimately betray.
A personal gripe of mine with skinhead culture is its embracement of the Union Jack and all that comes with that flag - the monarchy, subservience, empire, and conservatism. The England that the Union Jack represents is the England of the Old Guard that belongs in the dustbin of history. It's the England that views its inhabitants as fodder. A regressive, repressive England that died in the trenches of Flanders but continues to stumble around like a zombie blinded by mustard gas.
A much truer England is that of Albion and is one that won't be found on the playing fields of Eton or in the mansions of the rich, nor in the fox hunts, the Cambridge Balls, the boardrooms of big business or behind the gates of Downing Street. It's the difference between Rule Britannia or God Save The King and William Blake's Jerusalem. Albion, however, is the country that's been thrown to the dogs, strangled with fences and stuck with knives. Fuck the Union Jack I want my country back, as the Irish rebel song goes. I want Albion back.
Nazis became skinheads rather than skinheads became Nazis, Marshall writes and to a point he's not wrong though it's a lot more involved than that. You have to wonder why the extreme Right made a play for skinheads and why they had so much success, particularly as a lot of the skinheads they attracted weren't even old enough to vote? Was it because the extreme Right saw skinheads as being a representation of the white working class constituency they were gunning for and that skinheads were potential shock troops? The idea being that if they controlled the streets then control of the ballot box would follow? Well, Anti-Fascist Action successfully put paid to that by physically attacking any attempt at Far Right organisation on the streets and making it near-impossible for them to congregate.
And talking of Shock Troops, if only more Oi!/skinhead-type bands had taken the stance of Cock Sparrer as expressed in their song Watch Your Back where they sang "All they want is total power, climbing on the backs of the working class. Well we don't wanna fight because you tell us to, so watch your back when you attack cos we might just turn on you."
Saying that, however, it must be stressed the vast number of the bands that fell under the Oi! umbrella were really good and not racist or fascist in the slightest. Sham 69, Angelic Upstarts, Cockney Rejects, The Business, Blitz - all good, solidly anti-racist bands, all covered by George Marshall along with less savoury coverage of the blatantly racist bands such as Screwdriver. It's a fine line he treads. A delicate balance he tries to strike though whether he succeeds is debatable and probably decided on where it is you're coming from.
'Politics has never done the skinhead cult any favours and it's doubtful it ever will,' Marshall writes 'And that goes for the Left and the Right. Somehow it has managed to worm its way into the very heart of skinhead, and by doing so has bastardised the cult. And the media's constant portrayal of skinheads as extremist political animals has simply reinforced the fallacy that to be a skinhead you've got to either be a fascist or a fascist hater.'
Spirit Of '69 - A Skinhead Bible makes a bid for a middle ground though without any thought given to how easy it is in doing so to enable fascism. Mensi of the Angelic Upstarts would physically fight fascists. The Cockney Rejects would beat fascists up. Sham 69 stopped playing live altogether at one point so as to put a halt on fascists gathering at their gigs. If there ever was a so-called middle ground I'm sure these bands would have taken it but the cost, unfortunately, might well have been too high.
For all this, it's not to say of course that these things shouldn't be written about and in fact it's probably important that they are, hence why a book such as this as written by George Marshall is of some importance. Some relevance, even, because as they say - those who fail to remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
'If on your travels you should come upon a book of Poems And Songs by Leonard Cohen - pick it up', is as good a piece of life advice as any. At the very least you won't regret it nor curse the day. How many books of Leonard Cohen lyrics and poems does a person need in their life, though? Isn't just one enough? Or for some is one too many, even? Well, like snowdrops no two Leonard Cohen books are the same and like that other saying 'It's not where you're from it's where you're at', with all the many Leonard Cohen books that have been published it's all down to the selection of content and to the format. To presentation and arrangement.
A large amount of Leonard Cohen's works have come from a dark place, as I'm sure we all know. An endless, dark night of his soul, it could be said. Where his works come to fruition, however, is often a whole different place entirely. It's a place of deep love. A languid, still, deep pool to be drunk from by the thirsty traveller. An oasis in a desert that from a distance might look like a mirage but when reached is found to be real, cool (in all meanings of the word) and tasting like nectar on the tongue. Men - or rather men not bound up in knots of the R D Laing variety - appreciate it whilst women tend to disrobe and bathe in its waters.
You may have noticed, actually, that Leonard Cohen was always surrounded by beautiful women. Though he remained a bachelor, he always had a beautiful woman on his arm. The explanation for this isn't because beautiful women are naturally attracted to depression but because they are attracted to love, to certainty, to humour, and to the self behind the eyes. The men don't know but the little girls understand, as Jim Morrison put it.
A book of Leonard Cohen's lyrics and poems is meant to be savoured. It's meant to be sipped like you would a fine wine from a bottle brought up from the cellar for a special occasion. Each poem, each lyric, each composition is meant to be rolled about the tongue and have it make acquaintance with your palate.
A book of Leonard Cohen's lyrics and poems is meant to be indulged and to indulge you. It's a seduction. An enticement. An intercourse. To coin a Patti Smith phrase, it's nothing less than a brainiac amour.
Don't you get tired of accolades and plaudits used to promote and exult the quality or even the significance of whatever book they're referring to? All too often you'll get a quote from someone like Thurston Moore or someone who's obviously an acquaintance of the author plastered onto the front cover of a book praising it to the skies but on actually reading the book you end up wondering if they've read the same one as you or if they've even read it at all? Or sometimes you'll get a quote simply attributed to where it was written such as 'Mojo Magazine' or the 'Sunday Times' rather than the actual name of the writer, as if the name of the platform gives the quote some added weight.
So to Diary Of A Rock'n'Roll Star by Ian Hunter that says of it on the back cover 'This best-selling title is universally acclaimed as one of the most outstanding and essential music books ever written'. And on the front cover a quote from Q Magazine: 'This is the greatest music book ever written'.
Well that certainly raises the bar somewhat and places a bit of weight upon its shoulders. So let's tip-toe in and see what's going on, shall we? Although firstly, let's consider Mott The Hoople for a moment.
All The Young Dudes, of course, is the song most people know Mott The Hoople for and the Bowie story behind it is probably as equally well-known. Mott The Hoople were a quintessentially English rock band who seemed to fall between the two stools of Heavy Rock and Glam but in doing so, the kind of mega-success achieved by other bands who fully aligned themselves with either of these two genres eluded them. Mott The Hoople's impact upon those who appreciated them, however, was of much more substance.
As has been pointed out before, the Velvet Underground never sold many albums but everyone who did buy one often went on to form a band. Mott The Hoople may never have reached the same level of stardom as some of their peers but the people they did reach, they influenced. A prime example of this is Mick Jones of The Clash, who as a teenager would follow Mott The Hoople around the country, bunking trains to get to their gigs. The autobiographical nature of some of Mott The Hoople's songs is evident in many Clash songs as is similarities in guitar playing.
In addition, let's consider for a moment All The Young Dudes, a contender for one of the greatest rock'n'roll songs of all time - and that's my opinion, not that of Thurston Moore, Q Magazine or some hack from the Sunday Times.
All The Young Dudes is like an excerpt from a teenage opera, a kiss goodbye to the Sixties and a hello to the first rays of light from the Seventies. It's the view from the top floor of Leonard Cohen's mythic Tower Of Song peering down into the abyss below through a cider and speed-tinted mindset. In a world of little meaning it's a song trying to create one, a song of a time when girls could be boys and boys were learning to be girls, when any pop hero of note would be wearing make-up, stack heels and a screwed down hairdo. It's a signifier of a generation landslide where the world is spent and the teenage dream has ended at Altamont in a flurry of fists, the waving of guns and the flashing of knives. All The Young Dudes is a last grasp for hope eternal. It's the sound of the ball being passed in the hope that there is someone there to catch it. It's the capturing of the moment before the dawning of punk rock - or the dawning of The Clash, at least.
Diary Of A Rock'n'Roll Star, as Ian Hunter puts it in the preface, is 'a documentary about Mott The Hoople when on a five-week tour of America in 1972, a letter to a fan in the front row at the Rainbow, a diary to keep in touch.' It could be then a letter to Mick Jones himself, in his pre-Clash, crushed velvet loons and afghan coat, his face full of spots from ripping off the stars from his face. Funky little boat race.
On describing the band flying in to LaGuardia airport in New York from England, Ian writes 'Everybody in the world should see the world. It should be made compulsory. The kids from Bradford, Newcastle, Liverpool, Sunderland and all those northern towns whose only buzz is signing on Wednesdays and Fridays may never get to see the sight I see now and I'm woefully inadequate at translating it to paper'.
As anyone who has ever flown to New York would testify, the sight at night of the lights below as you come in to land is something to behold. Akin to looking down upon rather than looking up to the mothership taking off at the end of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. The sight of looking down upon clouds even, rather than looking up to them is mind-boggling itself when you're new to flying.
What Ian Hunter does, however, is not only convey the sheer wonder of going to America but also the trouble that can come with it. The winter cold, the snow, the flight delays, the discomfort.
In the same light - though he doesn't explicitly say it as such - it should probably be compulsory for everybody to play in a rock'n'roll band, at least for a time. Especially in a rock'n'roll band of the Mott The Hoople ilk, touring America in the early 1970s. To suggest it would effect you somewhat is an understatement though what Ian Hunter accentuates is that it wouldn't be all for the better. Of course, there are certain highs such as coming off stage after a successful concert that can't be replicated through any other means but there are also plenty of lows that would leave you with your world-view altered irrecoverably. In particular when it came to your opinion of the human race, or certain members of it at least.
Diary Of A Rock'n'Roll Star isn't the greatest music book ever written or rather it might have been in 1974 when it was first published but it is no longer. It's all subjective obviously but there have been better music books written since, a good example I would argue being the one about Nico - Songs They Never Play On The Radio, by James Young. If you've ever played in a band or ever dreamed of being in one then Diary Of A Rock'n'Roll Star is probably essential reading, far more so in fact than that other much-touted 'bible', Hammer Of The Gods, the story of Led Zeppelin's so-say on tour antics.
For anyone who's ever travelled through America, Diary Of A Rock'n'Roll Star is also going to appeal as it's more than likely going to ring a few bells. One of the most surprising things about it, however, is the cameo appearance of Keith Moon who rather than being depicted as the cliched madman of rock'n'roll, is presented in a whole different and really nice light. Which in a way is evidence of Diary Of A Rock'n'Roll Star being different to a lot of other music books in the fact that it draws back the curtain on the mythology of sex and drugs and rock'n'roll and shows it as it all really is: rouge blusher, hangovers, poverty, the good, the bad, the ugly and all points in-between.
The first thing that struck me about Riot City - Protest And Rebellion In The Capital, by Clive Bloom was the actual title. There's some copyright infringement going on here, surely, because everyone knows that it's Bristol that is the genuine and original riot city? Its tradition and history of protest and rebellion is a proud one stretching back centuries, with there even having been a Bristolian record label called Riot City in its honour. Of course, there's always been riots in London as well but the mobs involved with these have often come from outside - and that means from places like Bristol - descending upon the city with our flaming torches, our cudgels, our bags of marbles to throw under the hooves of police horses, and our strictly non-Cockney accents.
On a more serious note, the second thing that struck me about the book was the accolades at the front. You know when favourable quotes are taken from reviews and highlighted as endorsements? In Riot City they're from such people as Michael Binyon OBE - a Leader Writer for The Times; and Danny Kruger MBE - the former speechwriter to David Cameron. It leaves you wondering: though I doubt very much if these people have even read the book, how did a copy end up in their hands to begin with? What interest would such such people have in reading a book such as this? And what does it bode for the book when such people are praising it?
Well, a clue is given just five pages in where the urban rioters of 2011 are described as being 'inarticulate and badly educated', which in my eyes is quite a loaded categorization. It's a description that can only be applied by someone who feel themselves to be articulate and well-educated. Someone perhaps from a public school background, educated at Eton or Cambridge perhaps, peering down upon the urban poor from their position of privilege? It's almost enough to put me off reading any further but as Don Corleone once advised: 'Keep your friends close but your enemies closer'. So I persevere.
An interesting thing about Clive Bloom's 'inarticulate and badly-educated' comment is in its relation to one of the main subjects of his book, that being the student riots of 2010. These specific riots were instigated by the announced rise in tuition fees and the abolishment of the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA). Bloom writes about how free education at all levels had been since the Second World War the only way to beat the poverty trap, and how this idea was a cornerstone of 'socialist-modified' capitalism and the welfare state. In the same breath, however, he also writes of how free education had actually only ever been a privilege rather than a right. And there's the nub of it: that word 'privilege'. It just keeps cropping up.
Clive Bloom would be fully aware of his privileged position but he also might think he can circumnavigate it and that it have no relevance to his writing? He certainly knows his stuff when it comes to the subjects of protest and rebellion, and Riot City is certainly well-researched but if he thinks he can write from an unbiased and impartial position then he's clearly not read Chomsky. Bloom writes from a position of having a favourable network of specific contacts. He writes from a position of conservatism.
'Since the premiership of Tony Blair, mainstream politics had suffered a malaise,' Bloom tells us. As if mainstream politics pre-Blair was some different beast altogether where everyone held hands in a land of milk and honey basking under a Conservative sun.
Elsewhere he mentions and quotes Ayn Rand but in such a way that he almost gives his game away. Does Bloom's political sympathies lie with free market, laissez-faire capitalism of the kind Rand once advocated? I suspect so but then like a lot of other Randists and supporters of Objectivism he would probably deny it even to himself.
For all that, Riot City is an interesting read not least for acting as a reminder of what we've lived through and of the calibre of those who were governing over us during the period of which Bloom writes. For example, there's the reminder of Boris Johnson's view of the Occupy London lot camping out at St Paul's as being 'hemp-smoking, fornicating hippies'. If only. And then there was the Evening Standard headline declaring 'St Paul's Junkies a Health Hazard'. As with most things with the Evening Standard: only in their fevered dreams.
And then there was Michael Gove in his role as the Secretary of State for Education during the student riots in 2010 arguing for soldiers fresh from the front line of Iraq and Afghanistan to be retrained on a 'troops to teachers' plan in order to tackle classroom indiscipline.
And Theresa May in her role as Home Secretary in 2011 authorising the potential use of rubber bullets in response to the riots rocking the country that year.
And Eric Pickles, the then Community Secretary going on about the 'uneducated, unemployed sub-class'. Pickles would some years later be summoned to the Grenfell Tower inquiry where he would make it clear he had better and more important things to do with his time than answer a load of questions about 72 people burned alive.
Bloom's book ends with a supplementary essay entitled 1968: The Revolutionary Model Redefined, which is - surprisingly - really rather good even if the relevance of the inclusion of it is questionable. It's just nineteen pages long but it's packed with references, ideas and interesting insights that suggests it's actually groundwork for a whole other book. It's a critique, essentially, of the New Left movement that came to prominence during the late Sixties, its full flowering realised in the Sorbonne in Paris of '68.
Bloom writes of one of the ideas thrown up during the Sixties that said in order to cure the alienation of capitalist exploitation and banality it would be necessary to take alienation to its extreme possibility, thereby promoting shock. The shock would be via art but of a specific kind: anti-cooperative, non-recuperable and evanescent. The same tactic, of course, that elements of Punk Rock would later immerse themselves in.
Bloom traces the failure as he sees it of the New Left and its ultimate dissolvement into personal identity politics, ending up with a situation that merely reinforces so-called 'natural' and political conservatism. It's a convincing argument but moreover you can read between the lines that Bloom is basing much of his theory on his own personal experience.
Bloom has stared into the sun, peered at the horizon and gazed into the abyss but now he's back to square one. Back to him acknowledging the fixed position of his own privilege under state control, consumption and capitalism. Though recognising and acknowledging at the same time that the barbarians are at the gate, armed with flaming torches, cudgels, bags of marbles to throw under the hooves of police horses, and strictly non-Cockney accents.
Pulp fiction for the broad of mind, based on the cult television series The Girl From U.N.C.L.E starring Stefanie Powers and Noel Harrison that itself was a spin-off from the classic cult television series The Man From U.N.C.L.E starring Robert Vaughan and David McCallum. The Global Globules Affair written by Simon Latter gives nothing away in its title as to what it might actually be about although at the same time it tells us all we really need to know, that being it's the brand that counts not the content.
Published in 1967, it starts off quite fittingly in Carnaby Street where everything's groovy baby until U.N.C.L.E agent April Dancer who's on holiday in London for a few days sees some girl model-types sashaying along dressed in fashion garments woven from what looks like metal armour. At the same time she also spies an ex-professor of hers from when she was studying in Paris and her special-agent intuition is immediately buzzing. Something was going on warranting further investigation.
To cut to the chase, the professor has invented a fluid designed to attack all known banknote paper and reduce it to mush. Administered as a fine mist, the only thing it cannot penetrate is the metal armour material as sported by the Carnaby Street girls which means no money is safe anywhere, not in your purse, your wallet, or even your bank. The metal material has also, of course, been invented by the professor and the girls are agents of his.
The plan is is to destroy as much money as possible so that financial chaos ensues throughout the world leaving the professor and the forces of global crime embodied by the T.H.R.U.S.H organization to step in with their own currency and become the new financial rulers.
It's all good, ludicrous stuff and preposterous with it but weirdly it all makes sense and makes for a ripping yarn. U.N.C.L.E agents Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin are given brief mention whilst the weapons of choice are Karate chops, gas guns and high explosives in the form of saliva-activated chewing gum.
As an aside, there's an unexpected and very good description of Dartmoor (where the professor has his secret base) that Simon Latter should be quite proud of that anyone with any knowledge of Dartmoor - of its beauty but also of its hidden dangers - should recognise: 'Like a woman full of promise, beckoning you to her scented embrace. And two men friends waiting behind the curtains with coshes.' Isn't that so very spot-on? Next time you go hiking on Dartmoor remember this.
As stated, The Global Globules Affair is pulp fiction for the broad of mind, and you can take it or you can leave it. Interestingly, the fact that Stefanie Powers name has been misspelt on the cover - spelling it with a 'ph' instead of an 'f' - serves only to add to the overall kitschy, daft but enjoyable quirkiness of it all.
Some might find it hard to believe and others impossible to comprehend but there was a time when the Internet didn't exist. A time when there was no Facebook, no X, Instagram or even MySpace. 'But how did you message anyone?' all the children ask in wide-eyed wonderment 'Or did you not message anyone ever and just sit instead around the piano of an evening singing songs?'
'Well, we had landline telephones and there were these things called 'pens' that you could write a letter with and send to people by something called 'post'. Have you heard of it?'
But by this time the attention of all the children has wandered so you instead open up your copy of Not Just Bits Of Paper and cast your mind back to slightly more interesting times when communication required effort and was a means to an end rather than an end in itself.
Not Just Bits Of Paper is a portal into a world now diminished, a world where the importance of specific bits of paper cannot be overstated. Not that these bits of paper had any intrinsic purpose beyond the sole reason they were produced for - that being to advertise and publicise events - though paradoxically, without it ever being stated or even considered they also represented nothing less than a vision.
The bits of paper we're talking about here are the flyers and posters created to announce upcoming concerts of the more 'earthy' punk rock type prevalent throughout much of the 1980s. Black-and-white, made with scissors, glue, pens, Letraset and found images. Utilising the 'cut'n'paste' method rather than desk-top publishing, then photocopied, fly-posted, stuck up in record shops, given out by hand and sent out by post enclosed with fanzines and cassette tapes purchased from various mail-order lists.
This was the way we communicated before the advent of the Internet and social media. Slow, time-consuming, sometimes wearisome but effective.
Many of these flyers and posters could be really basic in design and layout whilst others could be veritable mini-works of art. All, however, whatever the quality of them were meant to be throwaway. Ephemeral. To serve their one purpose then binned, which is what most people tended to do with them once the publicised event had passed. Very few people thought of saving them and those who did so saved them essentially for the sake of it. Not for having an eye on one day them being collectible or of any possible future monetary value to anyone. They saved them without thinking and for no reason but saved them - thankfully - they did.
Unlike nowadays, back then hardly anyone took photographs at concerts so the flyers and posters advertising these events are the only physical evidence of a lot of them ever happening. For sure, they're held in memories but memories tend to fade so the flyers and posters compensate, prod and serve to remind. Just as importantly if not more so, however, these flyers and posters - these bits of paper - acted at the time as seeds blown on the wind, as conduits for messages. Weaving gossamer-thin threads between not only friends and neighbours living in the same city, town or even village but between strangers and people of like-mind living in cities throughout the whole country.
It was subliminal. Unspoken. Like tiny beacons being lit on top of hills or flares being shot up into the night sky. These bits of paper acted as signals announcing an alternative to mainstream entertainment, mainstream news and even mainstream values. Announcing a vision. They were the corpuscles in the bloodstream of an underground punk culture that sought legitimacy not through commercial success but through the instigation of consciousness raising, further creativity and political action. Just as fanzines and concerts themselves were deemed to be, these bits of paper were the very life-blood of that punk culture.
Co-edited by Greg Bull and Mickey 'Penguin', Not Just Bits Of Paper collates a wide selection of flyers, posters and handouts from the anarcho punk era of the 1980s and for posterity lays them out and presents them in all their ragged, torn and tattered glory. As to be expected, Crass are heavily represented alongside The Mob, Flux Of Pink Indians, Antisect, Conflict, Poison Girls, Chumbawamba plus many more others. Thoughts are collected also in essays of various length and size written by some of those who were there at the time. Noticeably and interestingly they're all written from the audience point of view rather than from any band members and in doing so adds a whole other dimension to the book. Quality-wise these essays differ and again that's only to be expected but in among them are some very well-written pieces indeed, most noticeably from Ted Curtis, Rich Cross, Tristan 'Stringy' Carter and in particular one by Tim Voss.
Not Just Bits Of Paper documents a period in time that is unlikely to be ever repeated again. A period in time that impacted mightily upon a significant number of people to such an extent that their lives were inexorably altered - some say 'ruined' - for the better. A period in time that though now long gone still resonates, and that under the noise and technology-driven haste of modern day living still echoes.
