Punk rock evokes dissent and disruption, abrasive and anarchic musicality, and a host of countercultural aesthetics. Featuring original interviews and over one hundred images, Roots Punk: A Visual and Oral History by longtime music journalist and author David A. Ensminger focuses on how punk merged with roots music to create a rich style that incorporated honky-tonk, rockabilly, doo-wop, reggae, ska, jazz, folk, blues, and labor ballads. This engagement transformed the notion of punk to include a wide array of vintage source material that seems more aligned with bolo ties and Stetsons than Doc Martens and safety pins. Ensminger explores the music's aesthetics, traits, and themes. He contextualizes, clarifies, maps, and probes roots punk's hybrid nature as well as its diverse, queer-inclusive, and multicultural strains. By painting a broad, nuanced, and well-documented picture of the genre from its earliest incarnation, he forms a kind of people's history of the movement. Roots Punk features original interviews with members of Minutemen, MDC, the Dicks, the Plimsouls, Tex and the Horseheads, Dils/Rank and File, X, the Flesh Eaters, Beatnigs, Alejandro Escovedo, Robert "El Vez" Lopez, Blasters, and more. Whether covering sarcastic novelty forms or sincere embraces, Ensminger reveals and revels in a punk tradition lined with blues records, acoustic ballads, country, and hillbilly romp. In a time of growing conformity, replication, and commercialization, roots punk (sometimes dubbed cow-punk) offers a tantalizing revitalization and reimagination of the American songbook.

- 216 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
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Subtopic
EthnomusicologyTable of contents
- Cover Page
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- 1. Roots Punk, a Reckoning
- 2. The Blasters: They Play American Music
- 3. Elvis vs. El Vez
- 4. Gary Floyd: Heart and Mind with the Power of a Freight Train
- 5. Dave Dictor: My Story Is a Little Weird
- 6. Jeffrey Lee Pierce: Ghost on the Highway
- 7. Texacala Jones: Oh Mother
- 8. Chris Desjardins: A Hard Road to Follow
- 9. Rank and File: The Conductor Wore Black
- 10. Peter Case: Beyond the Midnight Broadcast
- 11. Alejandro Escovedo: A Man of Certain Influence
- 12. Mike Watt: Portrait of the Artist as a Bass Man
- 13. The Hickoids: Harness the Corn Demon
- 14. The Beatnigs: When You Wake Up in the Morning
- 15. X: Under the Big Black Moon
- References
- Index
- About the Author
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Yes, you can access Roots Punk by David A. Ensminger in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Media & Performing Arts & Ethnomusicology. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.