Cycles of Survival: The Dialectrix Manifesto
Working with hip hop has certainly been a challenging, but rewarding experience. Not one to have evolved within its history, the learning curve was sharp. One of my earliest press releases I wrote was for a Sydney-based MC who rhymed with machine gun efficiency and drank with as much effectiveness. This is probably the press release I enjoyed writing the most, written from a more abstract view of hip hop and its possibilities.
Bad Scene, Everyone’s Fault
This is less a review of The Getaway Plan live than it is a skewed, opinionated critique of the scene in which they inhabit. One for this purpose, I shall call the “New Youth Music Movement” which blankets the subgenres of punk, hardcore (including post), screamo, emo, and pop-punk covered and done by those just past their teens and just before. It is essentially rock music coated and covered with the anti-flags of generation now- the clothing, the hair, the tattoos, the styles, and the attitudes for which, I do not essentially have a problem with…
Bad Religion: The Reissues
“Punk was originally about creating new, important, energetic music that would hopefully threaten the status quo and the stupidity of the 1970s,” asserts Jello Biafra, and in a short amount time it seemed if the stupidity of disco and glam rock were given a solid boot up the keister by what perhaps is defined as “punk’s most recognizable period.” Recognizable because the immediate mention of the word and the majority would allude to what it embodied in the late 70’s – pins, Mohawks, leather jackets and a crusty old stick-it-to-the-man middle finger – and yet many question the validity of the fashion statements as subversive, but one may forget that during that time, wearing safety pins was almost on par with…
