Been listening to a lot of my old hardcore records and CDs, so we'll make this scrabble rabble Friday one of the slammers. One of Black Flag's old slogans was "What the fuck, fuck shit up!" Here they are doing just that, with early singer Ron Reyes singing, the great slammer "White Minority". Have a...

Ball-Hog Or Tugboat? was Mike Watt's first solo album, and when it came out in 1995, I had never heard of the Minutemen. But I bought it anyway because of "Against the '70s," which was about the '70s being bad (of which I was aware) and was sung by Eddie Vedder (of whom I was very, very aware). When...

Många av oss har väl velat säga ta det här jobbet och stoppa upp det nånstans till jobbiga chefer. Här en spellista fylld med inspiration för dig som planerar att göra det. Bland andra Jeffrey Lewis (med en fantastisk Crass-cover), Dead Kennedys, Ramones, The Queers, The Nomads, Black Flag, ...

The Institute For The Future Of The Book sums up my ill feelings about John Updike: His death is, in a sense, another nail in the coffin of a kind of literary vanguard. I can understand why this blog’s readership might relish, openly or in private, the extinction of these writers, particularly...

I’ve never been a big fan of John Updike, but anytime we lose a big literary figure like him it is probably worth taking another look.  The Guardian offer their view on the essential works of Updike. Conversational Reading has been publishing a series of interviews about publishing during a r...

Thank you to Dr. Tompkins for passing along this encouraging article from Inside Higher Ed about the current crisis in English jobs.  Some of the ideas discussed in this article are very similar to my own thinking about what my eventual career path may entail. Via Jill, I am slowly engrossing mysel...

Voici un documentaire de Don Letts sur l’histoire du punk, de Chuck Berry à Kurt Cobain avec la participation de Roberta Bayley, Jello Biafra, Bob Gruen, Mary Harron, John Holmstrom, Chrissie Hynde, Jim Jarmusch, David Johansen, Mick Jones, Wayne Kramer, Glen Matlock, Legs McNeil, Thurs...

The lessons from my vacation reading continue. This time it’s from a book recommended to me by Geno (WOM at work!) called Under the Black Flag – The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates (Cordingly, 1996). In the vast majority of cases, pirates were violent and vicious – even barbaric....

Black Flag Hair: A Timeline Click image for enlargement. Same hair. Just a larger view. (via WFMU's Beware of the Blog! )...

Recently read: Raymond Pettibon: A Reader Growing up on punk and hardcore, Raymond Pettibon’s flyers for Black Flag and SST Records’ bands in general were a big influence on me. It is kind of weird that he is revered by the larger art scene now, but this is a cool reader put together for...