Publisher Description

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.

Notes

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. -- Matt Groening

Author Biography

Greil Marcus is the author of The Doors, 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 Cliche Citations Acknowledgments Permissions Index

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 *
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 * Rolling Stone *
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. -- Nick Pemberton * London Magazine *
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. -- Matt Groening
[As with] Adorno, and before him Wittgenstein and Nietzsche, Marcus's forteis 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. -- Ann Marlowe * Village Voice *
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. -- Gina Arnold * Metro (San Jose) *

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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. -- Matt Groening

Review Quote

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 siegrave;cle 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.

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