Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McClaren

Mother of Punk

Vivienne Westwood is often cited as punk's creator, but the complex genesis of punk is also found in England's depressed economic and sociopolitical conditions of the mid-1970s.

Anarchy in the U.K.

Westwood, a former schoolteacher, was the seamstress in the SEX shop partnership with McLaren and made manifest their combined punk vision through her creations. Westwood designed both her and McLaren's clothing before they opened their first store, Let It Rock, in 1971. Let It Rock catered to the "Teddy Boy" subculture, which was a 1950s revival look. In 1972, they renamed the store Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die, and changed the focus to emphasize the emergence of the Marlon Brando-influenced rocker/biker style that was popular at the time. In 1974, they again changed the name of the shop to reflect McLaren's new shock tactics, this time to SEX, where they sold S&M (sado-masochistic) inspired clothing, met the Sex Pistols, and added their punk line, Seditionaries,⁴ in 1976.⁵ SEX was the center of the punk fashion scene and many young punks hung out, worked, or bought clothes there when they could afford them. Shrewd entrepreneurs, Westwood and McLaren were instrumental in defining and marketing the punk look at the precise moment that it was taking the streets of London by storm.

(www.metmuseum.org)

This extract is useful in that it pin points a strong female character as a key icon of the punk movement, it also  however highlights how superficial and short lived youth subcultures can be. We see this from the continuous rebranding of Westwood and Mclaren's shop to cater to the trends that seem to have changed every year or two in the seventies.

Interesting article on Punk feminism

Up the pinks! http://www.huckmagazine.com/perspectives/reportage-2/punk-feminism/

All you need to know about Pussy Riot

http://gokicker.com/2012/08/03/punk-heroes-fight-the-power-and-go-to-prison/#!BpIAS

Punk Music

Close to our blog name

Personally, my favourite punk song

Youth as a counter culture (punk included)

Similarities between both protests

+

Pussy riot protest in Russia, against Putin's ideology and anti-gay agenda

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/21/world/europe/russian-punk-group-ends-protest-tour-of-sochi.html?_r=0

SOCHI, Russia — For an Olympics that was anticipated by critics of the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, as a rare public platform to bring together and amplify Russia’s scattered voices of dissent, the protest here had largely turned out to be a bust. And then Pussy Riot came to town.

Anonymous Marches against invasion of privacy

http://rt.com/news/anonymous-million-mask-march-225/

Members and supporters of hacktivist collective Anonymous marked Guy Fawkes Day with a global ‘Million Mask March’ designed to protest against government corruption, corporate malfeasance and the expanding surveillance state.

A masked Russell Brand leads Anonymous march against austerity cuts

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2488128/Russell-Brand-joins-Anonymous-protesters-fireworks-fired-Buckingham-Palace.html

Funnyman-turned-activist joins protesters as they aim fireworks at Buckingham Palace

• Demonstrators throw glass bottles during confrontations with officers
• Taking part in a global march against austerity cuts in Central London
• Comedian Brand, 38, is pictured wearing Anonymous mask at protest
• Ashley Anderson Hunte-Smith, 25, from Morden, London, and Jordan Mark Perry, 21, from St Albans each accused of a public order offence
• Jemma McCarthy, 25, from Bourne, Lincolnshire, charged with two counts of assault on a police officer

SLC Punk - fighting to oppose structure through a structure

Discussion about the philosophical elements of the film 'SLC punk' at http://www.philfilms.utm.edu/1/slcpunk.htm

Steve discusses what might be called the violent-anarchist-paradox: he fights to oppose structure, but in doing so he thereby creates and defends his own structure. Is there a solution to this paradox?

"Even those anarchists with the most violent of leanings, will
dismiss chaos as an undesirable state.  The anarchist seeks a
productive world, where man can grow to his fullest potential. 
This is impossible if chaos exists.  Chaos is barbaric, anarchy is
as civilized as man can get.  "Anarchy as it is commonly
understood, and a well conceived form of society without
government, are exceedingly different from each other. 

-"http://www.spunk.org/texts/misc/sp000932.txt

Punk and Reggae

I’m going to come back to this because it’s hurting my head a bit at the minute and it’s so academically written but I’m using the ‘Subculture: the meaning of style’ book that was recommended. 

National Front (NF) - a British far-right wing political party for whites only. Strongly opposed to non-white immigration and committed to a programme of repatriation.

Reggae attracted punks because it gave the necessary conviction and political bite that was missing from contemporary white music. Punks were enviable of the Rastafarian’s dread - menace communicated on the street through colours, locks etc. 

Punk screams of Britishness and ‘local’, yet on the other hand was based upon the denial of place. Contradicting itself.

Punk and Reggae formed bonds; punk groups figured prominently in the ‘Rock against Racism’ movement campaign which was set up to combat the growing influence of The National Front.

The Mohican, described as a ‘petrified mane’ in ‘Subculture: the meaning of style’, was influenced by the black West Indian rude and Rasta styles.Some punks wore Ethiopian colours and bands like The Clash and The Slits wove reggae slogans and themes into their material. 

HoweverReggae and Punk were opposed audibly: punk depended on treble and reggae relied on bass. 

‘The punks’ open identification with black British and West Indian culture served to antagonize the teddy boy revivalists, and the ted/punk battles played out every Saturday afternoon along the King’s Road in the summer of 1977 provided spectacular evidence of the fundamental tension between the two subcultures. As early as 5 July, Rockin’ Mick, a 19-year-old teddy boy (fluorescent socks, black suede creepers and jacket emblazoned with the legends ‘Confederate Rock’ and ‘Gene Vincent lives’) was expressing his disgust for the punks’ lack of patriotism to an Evening Standard reporter, adding ‘We’re not against the blacks, let’s just say we’re not with them . . .’ (5 July 1977).

Hebdige, Dick. Subculture : Meaning of Style.

Florence, KY, USA: Routledge, 1979. p 78.

http://site.ebrary.com/lib/cumbria/Doc?id=10035308&ppg=78

Copyright © 1979. Routledge. All rights reserved. ‘

Anonymous- The Story of the Hacktivists (Full Documentary)

Anonymous Live on CNN 2013 broke into cnn

Women in Punk Documentary

http://youtu.be/NznmF9cyFpw

We see here that in the music industry, women were accepted as an important part of the punk subculture, even if their struggle for acceptance by critics was tougher.

How Subcultures Can Be Formed

Chapter 1: The Decade of the 1920's: The Flapper Era

The first chapter of this eBook discusses the cultural and historical context behind the flapper era and helps to explain how these factors can contribute to the formation of a subculture. For example it is suggested that factors such as WW1, prohibition, education and women's rights helped to give the flappers the freedom they needed to be who they wanted to be.

Girls And Subcultures (Resistance Through Rituals)

I've found it interesting reading about women's roles in subcultures and could maybe try and find examples that contradict the idea that they might be absent from them?

Manifesto

A subculture is a community of people with a shared set of ideals and values. Driven by genres of music, they attempt to rebel against the mainstream or parody elements of it, whether that would be through fashion, or political views. Elements of the subculture can become the norm, meaning it can gradually disappear into the mainstream once the generation it was formed within leave the youth culture, resulting in the ideals behind that subculture being lost. It is mostly centred within working class youth culture in an urban setting. 

Due to the birth of the internet and globalisation, the definition of subculture is starting to change. It is no longer born with a sector in society or culture, it can now be born between a group from many cultures, ages and background all sharing the same interests, ideals, humour or hobby.

posting on behalf of Jess

Jess still needs to be added into the group so she can post and I wasn't sure how to do it so Mitch(?) could you possibly do it please? I have her email here: jessicapjulien@gmail.com

I've explained to her what she needs to do and have been on the phone to her tonight and she's sent me links for the subcultures she's looked at which I'll post here.

Grime:

Grime draws from 15 years of dance music - from house through to jungle and the two-step garage sound popularised by So Solid Crew. It has its own culture, one that is almost entirely self-sufficient and bypasses traditional avenues of distribution and promotion. As well as specialist magazines such as RWD - born three years ago with a pounds 2,000 grant from the Prince's Trust and now the second largest dance music magazine in the UK - the scene also has its own version of MTV in cable station Channel U, which broadcasts roughly hewn homegrown promos for grime tracks alongside ultra-slick American rap videos. The pirate radio network is paramount in promoting and popularising the scene. In this culture, an appearance on 1Extra, Radio 1's digital urban music station, is about as overground it gets.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2004/may/23/urban1

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A3299204

Mods:

History of mod style: http://www.modyourspace.com/history-mod-style-origin-mod.html

The Mod Attitude: http://www.bbc.co.uk/britishstylegenius/content/21864.shtml

them Hipsters

http://www.academia.edu/349343/The_Search_for_Authenticity_How_Hipsters_Transformed_from_a_Local_Subculture_to_a_Global_Consumption_Collective#

http://nymag.com/news/features/69129/

http://nymag.com/news/features/69129/index1.html

http://nymag.com/news/features/69129/index2.html

http://nymag.com/news/features/69129/index3.html

http://thehipstereffect.com/2012/04/02/a-new-definition-of-hipster/

http://paulmullins.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/the-death-of-authenticity-and-the-outsider-consumption-and-hipsters/

Surfer culture

Some papers on surf cultures?? 

http://www.open.edu/openlearn/body-mind/health/sport-and-fitness/sport/surf-culture

http://surflibrary.org/popularculture.html

Punk Subculture

I was thinking to keep with a theme of protest a guerrilla subcultures, another one could be punk. Compare the two

http://www.academia.edu/156134/The_Death_and_Life_of_Punk_The_Last_Subculture

This PDF article is really really good.


General book on punk https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/609121.Subculture

Anonymous Book

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cole-stryker/4chan-book_b_962543.html

Guna try and grab either a physical copy, ebook or download the kindle version of this book. Also a great article with the guy who made it.

Books on Subcultures in General

Anonymous

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/anonymous

interesting articles on here about Anon! Reliable sources (The guardian)

1920's Flapper Subculture

http://history1900s.about.com/od/1920s/a/flappers.htm

Subcultures - ideas

Weird subcultures - Internet mainly
http://www.ugo.com/web-culture/subcultures-you-never-knew-existed

Anonymous
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=anonymous&oq=anonou&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.3436j0j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8

Subcultures listings

Subcultures
* a reference list of key texts relating to subcultures
* definitions of subculture - comparisons with mainstream culture etc
* research on 2 youth subcultures - focus on design & style elements (keynote designers etc) within each
* subcultures in the postmodernism age
* the emergence of subcultures in cyberspace