Left Of The Dial: Conversations with Punk Icons

(Paperback)

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Featuring interviews with leading figures of the punk underground, Left of the Dial probes the legacy of punk. It touches on the movement's politics, DIY traditions, rupture of social norms, trans-generational and transnational appeal and much more. Rather than focus on discographies and rehashed gig memories, the interviews aim to unveil the secret history of punk and hardcore ideologies and values, as understood by the performers. Passionate and far-reaching, these conversations illuminate punk's history with candour and humour.

Reviews

"David Ensminger is the right mix of intellectual and real-ass emotional punk. He is a historian and has walked the life...I recommend everything this man is up to!"
--Dave Dictor, MDC

"David is one of the rare scene insiders who also has a depth of knowledge of the social and political context for the punk and hardcore moment. His love for the scene and understanding of its importance is unique, well-researched, and valuable."
--Vic Bondi, Articles of Faith

"David Ensminger is one of the few music writers who 'get it.' He's a rockin' drummer, a knowledgeable writer who's actually engaged with the wide world, and he's done time on the front lines of punk rock. As an interviewer he gets the inside picture and know's where it belongs."
--Peter Case, Plimsouls, The Nerves

"David is one of the very few people that I've ever agreed to do an interview with. Why Because he grasps the relevant importance of the punk movement in a historical context, local and international, which is crucial to the subject."
--U-Ron Bondage, Really Red

"Ensminger burrows into punk's essential contradictions and creates space for the marginalized of the movement to make a riot of their own. The stories and observations collated here benefit from the author's street-scholar sense, as he makes critical connections between what bound the subculture together."
--Denise Sullivan, author of Keep On Pushin' Black Power Music from Blues to Hip Hop on David Ensminger's Visual Vitriol

Author Bio

David Ensminger is an instructor at Lee College and the author of Visual Vitriol. He lives Baytown, Texas.