Essays

But one thing about us that’s a little bit different from the rest of you is our bars. A lot of you straight people go to bars to get drunk or watch baseball on television or sing karaoke or talk about books. We go to bars mostly to get our asses worked over. Sometimes we even suck cock right there in the bars. A good share of our bars have porn films playing right up there on the TV screen. We even have a few bars where we whip each other or lick each other’s boots.

By Bruce Benderson.

London was a turd placed strategically on the rim of a cesspit and lurking on the horizon, like some horsewoman of the apocalypse, was one Margaret Thatcher. Slaughter and the Dogs had wondered where all the boot boys had gone but we didn’t have to look far to answer their query. They’re in your bloody audience you myopic, bald headed gits. Gary Bushell sung their praises from the Sounds office in Long Acre. It was perched above the Underground and I could see him through my window. I very much wanted a sniper rifle for my birthday.

Bob Short of Blood & Roses infamy reminisces about the fag end of punk.

Not since Half Man Half Biscuit’s ’24 Hour Garage People’ has there been a more succinct distillation of lachrymose provincial despair and forceful urban belonging.

Andrew Stevens reviews Maximo Park‘s debut album.

The presence of Bolshy elements was not altogether absent — if the banners were anything to go by then the Communist Party of Great Britain, the Communist Party of Britain, the Socialist Party, the Socialist Party of Great Britain, Workers Power, the Indian Workers Association and, of course, the Socialist Workers Party were all in attendance. What was surprising was the presence of banners and placards from the kinds of ‘mainstream’ political parties that are usually otherwise preoccupied when these events take place — the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru (Welsh nationalists) and the Green Party.

Andrew Stevens reports on London’s February 15 Peace Protests.

“But the joke is that Christie becomes his own political party, a one-man anarcho-terrorist movement — a parodic composite of Angry Brigade / Baader-Meinhof Group / Red Army Fraction. By playing the system, by wanting to fit in as a consumer, while at the same time getting his own back against anybody who crosses him, Malry brings society to its knees. The novel operates like a great satiric fable, a anonymous Everyman or latterday Pilgrim whose Progress is one of selfish regress. There’s a nihilism and a knockabout glee to this book which is pure punk.”

By Paul Tickell.

As he stumbled into the caf é wearing an old jacket over a white t-shirt, a pair of cords and Timberlands, Dennis looked like he fronted an indie band, specifically The Fall. However, from the way he stared in fascination at a coffee stain on our table it quickly became apparent that Cooper didn’t share Fall singer Mark E. Smith’s penchant for booze. For a moment I’d thought Cooper was drunk but his boyfriend quickly corrected this erroneous impression. “Dennis is tripping,” Michael explained. Several minutes after I’d asked if I should order coffee, Cooper mumbled “Cool.” I took this to mean yes. Michael managed to pour coffee down his throat – Dennis spilled the beverage down the front of his white T-shirt. At this point I decided to cancel an order for egg and chips. The caf é’s staff appeared relieved as I coughed up the readies for the stuff we’d consumed and split.

Reprint of a classic Stewart Home ‘interview’ with Dennis Cooper.