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WORK TITLE: We Are the Clash
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Washington
STATE: DC
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
http://www.positiveforcedc.org/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in MT; married Tulin Ozdeger.
EDUCATION:Attended Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and activist. Positive Force DC, cofounder, 1985; We are Family Senior Outreach Network, cofounder, 2004.
WRITINGS
Contributor to books, including We Owe You Nothing: Punk Planet, the Collected Interviews (expanded edition), 2008; Sober Living For the Revolution: Hardcore, Radical Politics, and Straight Edge, 2010; Rad Dad: Dispatches From the Frontiers of Fatherhood, 2011; and Rock Politics: Popular Musicians Who Changed the World, 2012.
SIDELIGHTS
Writer and punk rock community activist Mark Andersen is cofounder of an organization that held benefit concert for community and activists groups and another organization with his wife that continues to focus on helping low-income seniors in the Washington, DC area. Andersen grew up in Montana and moved to Washington DC in 1984 for graduate school. He is also a writer whose writings focus primarily on the punk music scene.
Dance of Days
In his first book, Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation’s Capital, Andersen and coauthor Mark Jenkins draw from interviews with more than 100 people to document the punk scene in Washington, DC. Andersen was involved in the punk scene and had numerous friends among both the musicians and club owners. According to the book, Washington, DC developed one of the most influential punk underground scenes of the 1980s and 1990s. In the book, Andersen and Jenkins discuss performers and bands such as Bad Brains, Henry Rollins, Fugazi, and Bikini Kill.
Despite his friendship with many people in the punk music scene, Andersen provides a honest look at both the good and bad side of the artists. For example, he and Jenkins discuss the homophobia of the lead vocalist for Bad Brains. “It would be a betrayal of that punk ethic or spirit for this to be something that created icons blowing people up to be larger than life,” Andersen told Thrasher contributor Oakland L Childers. An updated and expanded edition of the book was published in 2009. In a review of the expanded edition, a California Bookwatch contributor called Dance of Days “a fine history.”
All the Power
After his next book, All the Power: Revolution without Illusion, which is a guide for young activists that dispels illusions concerning activism, Andersen coauthored with with Ralph Heibutzki We Are the Clash: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Last Stand of a Band That Mattered. The book examines the complexity of the British punk band the Clash, which combined its commercial ambitions with a strong revolutionary conviction. The Clash came to the forefront in the late 1970s and early 1980s when Great Britain and the world faced numerous crises, from a life-or-death strike by British miners to the sale of U.S. guns in Central America that helped kills thousands of people. Drawing from archival research and original interviews, Andersen and Heibutzki tells a story of an idealistic group of musicians and a band that ultimately fell apart due to human frailties.
The Clash’s self-named first album was released in 1977, and the band reached its peak in popularity with its 1979 album London Calling. By 1984 frontman Joe Strummer was intent on maintaining the band’s relevance while looking to take the band in a new direction. The band and its members, however, faced numerous problems, from troubles with family to issues with its manager. The band’s drummer, Topper Headon, was fired earlier due to his heroin addiction. Strummer later fired his collaborator and the band’s lead guitarist Mick Jones as Strummer remained intent on maintaining the band’s relevance.
Dedicated to political causes, especially workers rights, Strummer was a vocal opponent of Great Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and U.S. President Ronald Reagan, especially in relation to what he viewed as their attack on workers’ rights. Meanwhile, the Clash struggled with its final album, which received widespread bad reviews. A Publishers Weekly contributor noted the authors’ “enlightening reevaluation of this period,” noting the book’s exploration into the band’s busking tour of Great Britain in 1985 “as a remarkable act of defiance against Thatcher’s policies.” The band fell apart while looking to change and officially disbanded in 1986. Strummer would die from a congenital heart defect at the age of 50 in 2002. A Kirkus Reviews contributor called We Are the Clash “more than a footnote to the rise and fall of one of the last great rock bands.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
California Bookwatch, April, 2010, review of Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation’s Capital, fourth edition.
Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2018, review of We Are the Clash: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Last Stand of a Band That Mattered.
Publishers Weekly, May 14, 2018, review of We Are the Clash, p. 51.
Thrasher, December, 2001, L. Oakland L. Childers, review of Dance of Days, p. 60.
ONLINE
City Pages Online, http://www.citypages.com/ (July 31, 2018), Jim Walsh, “Mark Andersen on the Lasting Legacy of the Clash.”
Washington City Paper Online, https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/ (June 24, 2013), Dan Singer, “Punk Historian Mark Andersen on His Forthcoming Book, We Are the Clash.“
Mark Andersen
Mark Andersen
MARK ANDERSEN is the coauthor of Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation’s Capital and author of All The Power. He lives in Washington, DC. We Are The Clash is his latest work.
'The band is gone, and we are the only Clash that remains': Writer Mark Andersen on the lasting legacy of the Clash
Tuesday, July 31, 2018 by Jim Walsh in Music
The Clash
The ClashPhoto provided by the author
If Mark Andersen strikes an evangelical tone when talking about the Clash, there’s good reason.
Andersen is a pastor and political activist from Washington, D.C., and his recently published We Are the Clash: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Last Stand of a Band That Mattered (with co-author Ralph Heibutzki) chronicles both the end of the band and Joe Strummer’s avowal that “the future is unwritten.”
Andersen talked with City Pages via email about the Clash’s legacy in the here and now in advance of his appearance at Moon Palace Books on Wednesday.
City Pages: The title of your book refers to the Clash as a band that mattered. Their slogan back in the day was “the only band that matters.” What did that mean then, and what does it mean now? How does a band “matter”?
Mark Andersen: Actually, the band never used the slogan “the only band that matters”; it was tagged on them by their record company CBS around 1978-79. I am sure they were ambivalent about it, as the claim is pretty arrogant. Nonetheless, despite its dodgy provenance, the line stuck because it represented something real about the band, that they promised something more than simply entertainment, that their aim was far higher than virtually any other rock band. In short, it meant that their music could revolutionize your life, and through you, maybe even the world. This aspiration might seem pretentious, but indeed was the case for myself and many, many others. Their music and ideas still are an inspiration for me in my political protest and broader community work.
Having said that, Ralph and I had no desire to suggest that no other band mattered (or matters), hence the book's subtitle only refers to them as “a band that mattered.”
CP: In writing the book, what struck you about revisiting the Reagan-Thatcher ‘80s, and how it led to Trump and Brexit?
M.A.: What struck me most profoundly is how much we can learn from this time, and how much inspiration we can also draw from that struggle, despite the very real defeats and failures. We need both that lesson and the fuel for our work right here, right now. That is why Ralph and I write history, as we believe that the past, properly understood, can be essential right now in building a better future.
CP: What’s your Clash story—what was it like as a fan, discovering the band in rural Montana?
M.A.: While I grew up on a farm and ranch in Sheridan County, Montana, I first encountered the Clash in a magazine called Rock Scene at Service Drug in Williston, North Dakota in spring 1977 in a feature on the exploding London punk scene. I was absolutely riveted by the picture of them playing live... their look was extraordinary, and they seemed to be attacking their instruments, ripping out the song with savage conviction. The caption said the song was "White Riot" and also quoted lyrics from another of their songs, "1977": "NO ELVIS, BEATLES OR ROLLING STONES IN 1977!" I was a fervent fan of the Stones but thought this idea was amazing, the idea that we could start again and make something of our own, that could bury (or at least build upon) past glories.
I had to hear this band, but living in rural northeastern Montana this was easier said than done. It took about a year—and a move to Bozeman, a college town in Western Montana—before I finally was able to track down a copy of their first record, which remains one of my all time favorites... it--like all of the best of punk--was an outlet for my rage and confusion, but even more than that it was a window into a universe of possibilities, of a life all my own, one truly worth living... it was a revelation and a revolution, at least personally.
CP: How did the Clash sound to you under that small town Big Sky?
MA: Like anything was possible, if you were willing to fight for what you wanted, what you believed. The Clash sounded like raw courage, and brutal, saving truth.
CP: Tell me about your political protest and community work in D.C., and how that has been influenced by the Clash.
MA: The Clash was one of my main inspirations to go to college—many of my peers in Sheridan County did not go, it was not assumed that you would—and take classes in political science and history, classes that I cared about but that didn't necessarily train you for a lucrative career. I had been warned not to make too much of a stir, to not get tagged as a “radical” by my parents and peers, that this could destroy my life options... but against all conventional wisdom in the rural working class, I became a college radical, an activist.
For me, as there was not really any punk music scene in Montana—even in a college town—activism was an obvious way to express my values, so that's what I did. Even though I had tended to be a pretty reclusive kid before, punk—and especially the Clash—got me to stand up and speak out.
While everything that is best in my life now largely flows from that basic decision, made as a teenager, the Clash in their final form revolutionized my life again in 1984-85. By this time, I had excelled as a student and was headed to a fancy school in the east—Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies—with massive student loans all aimed to purchase a route into the lower ranks of the American ruling class. This was a huge deal for a kid from nowhere... but when I heard Strummer question their Top Ten success, and call for the Clash to get back to punk roots and political barricades, it helped me realize that I was selling myself out to achieve society's idea of success, and that I needed to get back to punk in some real way, to something real, something grass roots, something really that stood for the underdog, the throwaway people... that inspired me to help co-found the punk activist collective Positive Force DC, to focus my energy on serving the people... which led me into being part of DC punk's Revolution Summer of 1985 , into making that commitment the center of my life and into work in the inner city with groups like the outreach/ advocacy group We Are Family DC. That work brought me to my wife, and in time to our two kids, now five and eight, who are playing next to me as I write these words.
In other words, the journey(s) that the Clash helped spark are the most precious parts of my life today, valuable beyond the power of words to describe.
CP: Most fans of the Clash regard the era chronicled in “We Are the Clash” as an afterthought, or weaker sauce than what they once were, post-Mick Jones and Topper Headon. Your book is a defense of that era. What did you learn in researching the book that negates or supports the idea that the Clash Mark II was a pale imitation of the original?
MA: The irrefutable evidence of the power of this final version of the Clash is on the live tapes that fans made of their about half of their 120-plus shows across Great Britain, Europe, and the United States, which form the backbone of our narrative, along with interviews from that time and those done more recently, including about 100 hours of our own interviews with as many of the key folks involved as we could get to talk to us... and almost all of them did.
The existing tapes include their astounding miner strike shows, some incredible performances from the busking tour, where the band went out throughout northern Great Britain playing for free to whomever they encountered on the streets, in parks, town squares, bars and colleges without promotion, without amps, without any entourage... just the band and their audience together in an extraordinary and unprecedented way. One of the most punk endeavors ever, done by anyone. And I make this claim as the person who organized the first Fugazi show, and collaborated with that band on dozens more, working with them from before their first show till now as a friend and co-conspirator.
CP: You’ve reported on two of the most vibrant political punk movements in history—the Clash and the Washington, D.C. hardcore scene of the ‘80s. From your prism, where have the seeds of those scenes taken root, in terms of urgency and reacting to these times?
MA: The seeds have taken root just where they should: In the hearts and minds of people around the world, who have been emboldened to live in a more creative, compassionate and courageous way. These ideas are eternally relevant, just waiting for us to have the guts to try to live them, whatever stage of life we are in. I write history because I believe lessons and inspiration can be found there, and surely this story has plenty of insight and spark to share, even if parts are heartbreakingly painful.
NOW is always more important than THEN, and the roots of Trump and Brexit lay in the battles fought and lost then, in the mistakes that were made, and in the passion that still burns. We need to know why we lost then so that we can win now. We also need to know that nobility does not lay in success necessarily, but in striving to do what is right no matter what the cost. In this way, failure can be more valuable and essential than success, because at least you tried to do something and didn't just go along with the flow of the times... and because failure can be the school in which wisdom and endurance can be fostered.
We need wisdom, courage and compassion right now, and a commitment to pursing truth, no matter what the cost. This is the story of the Clash; it is also the tale of the clash we all face in this scary, but possibility-filled moment. We all have to do what we can with what we have wherever we are RIGHT NOW. That is the best of punk, and it is the lifeblood the Clash spilled for us on stages around the world. Now the band is gone; and we are the only Clash that remains... just as Joe Strummer suggested in those final, hard-fought months before the band imploded.
Mark Andersen
Where: Moon Palace Books
When: 7 p.m. Wed. Aug. 1
Tickets: Free; more info here
Punk Historian Mark Andersen on His Forthcoming Book, We Are the Clash
DAN SINGER JUN 24, 2013 10 AM 2 Tweet Share
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Clash Pauljoe Roskilde850005Per Ake Warn1024x976
Longtime District punk activist Mark Andersen is a passionate fan of The Clash, and he's teamed up with musician and writer Ralph Heibutzki on a book called We Are the Clash, an in-depth look at the band’s often overlooked "Clash Mark II" period of the mid-1980s, when they kicked out pivotal members Topper Headon and Mick Jones and released the poorly reviewed album Cut The Crap. Andersen believes that this part of The Clash's story deserves a richer telling, and that the band’s music during this time reflected major societal struggles in the United Kingdom and America that continue to linger.
Andersen and Heibutzki created a Kickstarter campaign to help cover research and publishing costs, and last weekend they surpassed their goal of $15,000. We talked with Andersen about the campaign and his work on the book.
Washington City Paper: How does it feel to have reached your Kickstarter goal?
Mark Andersen: We're very happy. It’s been a lot of hard work and it’s also been energizing. People are excited. People are supporting it and want to see the book happen.
WCP: Were you worried about meeting your goal since it came down to the last few days of the campaign?
MA: There was a point when it was unclear to us if we were really reaching the people who were interested, so we just had to work a little harder to send the message out a little further. These campaigns are kind of a leap of faith. You believe something you’re doing is something that matters to people, but you don’t know. You do your part, but the rest is whether or not it touches people. In the end we felt very gratified. It did really touch people. Beyond the financial assistance, the moral support we felt is just a huge boost to our work.
WCP: What was the fundraising process like? Did you have specific challenges with the Kickstarter model?
MA: This was the first time that either Ralph or I had run a Kickstarter campaign. Fortunately, I’ve had a number of friends who have done them in the past, and those friends were generous with their time, giving us advice on how to do it. We really have so much gratitude for them and all the folks who helped us because it was a little bit of unexplored terrain for us. It was good to have some folks who could show us the ropes.
WCP: What’s next for you and Ralph?
MA: We want to continue with what we’re already doing, gathering all the documents we can from that time: photographs, interviews, old ticket stubs—-any of the little bits and pieces that can help us flesh out the story. We need to continue to do our interviews. We’ve had tremendous ones, but are still hoping to talk with Paul Simonon and Kosmo Vinyl—-we hope and we believe that we will win their trust, and they’ll see that what we’re doing with this book is very truehearted and in the best spirit of The Clash. We’re trying our hardest to do justice to this story, and support from Kickstarter will obviously help that.
WCP: Are you targeting hardcore fans with We Are The Clash, or do you think the book will resonate with a wider audience?
MA: We’re certainly hoping to touch a larger audience. We know, of course, that the test of this in a certain sense is with the die-hard audience, and we definitely want to make a book that will resonate with them and be worthy of a band like The Clash. Part of what is different is the fact that we’re trying to place the story of The Clash into a larger context, the sociopolitical context. That ‘s what gave The Clash their vibrancy, their relevance.
1984 to 1985 was a turning point politically, not only in the U.K., but also here in the United States. With the breakthrough of Thatcher and Reagan, a certain right-wing economics and politics gained ascendance. That moment set the stage for the challenges we face today. We’re trying to place this poignant, sometimes inspiring, sometimes heartbreaking story of The Clash into a broader context, in which their struggles parallel and echo the larger struggle in British and American society. In the end, I hope we’ll be making a book that has a broad relevance.
My approach to history is not simply looking backward. We’re looking backward in order to get beyond, to quote Rites of Spring. The study of history informs us and inspires us in the present moment, and this book is absolutely about the last years of The Clash. But in a deeper sense it’s about now, where we as individuals and a broader community want to go, what kind of a city, country, and world we want to have. In that sense, it’s about not simply examining the past—-it’s about inspiring action now. [The Clash] are one of the most significant and lasting inspirations in my own activism and study of the world.
Photo by Per-Ake Warn
Mark Andersen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For other people with the same name, see Mark Anderson (disambiguation).
Mark Andersen is a punk rock community activist and author who lives in Washington D.C. He was born and raised in rural Montana, and moved to Washington D.C. in 1984 to attend graduate school at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
Andersen co-founded the punk activist organization Positive Force D.C. in 1985, and the We Are Family Senior Outreach Network in 2004. Together with his wife Tulin Ozdeger, he is the co-director of We Are Family, which serves low-income seniors in the Shaw, North Capitol Street and Columbia Heights neighborhoods of Washington, D.C. We Are Family aspires to bring advocacy, services, organizing, and companionship into the homes of the elderly, while helping to build friendships across boundaries like race, class, religion, age, culture, and sexual orientation.
He is the author of two books, Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capitol (Soft Skull Press, 2001)[1][2][3] and All The Power: Revolution Without Illusion (2004), and a contributor to several others including Sober Living For the Revolution: Hardcore, Radical Politics, and Straight Edge (2010), We Owe You Nothing: Punk Planet, the Collected Interviews (Expanded Edition) (2008), Rad Dad: Dispatches From the Frontiers of Fatherhood (2011), and Rock Politics: Popular Musicians Who Changed the World (2012).
References[edit]
Jump up ^ Andersen, Mark; Jenkins, Mark (2001). Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capital. Soft Skull Press. ISBN 9781887128490.
Jump up ^ Andersen, Mark; Jenkins, Mark (Soft Skull Press, 2001). Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capital. Updated ed., 2009. Akashic Books. ISBN 9781933354996.
Jump up ^ Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capital, Updated edition 2009. akashicbooks.com. Retrieved July 9, 2015.
External links[edit]
Positive Force D.C.
Interview with Mark Andersen in 'Engine' a now defunct zine, by Mark Average
Authority control Edit this at Wikidata
WorldCat Identities ISNI: 0000 0000 3998 1468 LCCN: no2001071214 VIAF: 11006584
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Categories: Living peopleAmerican activistsPaul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies alumniAmerican activist stubs
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We Are the Clash: Reagan, Thatcher, and
the Last Stand of a Band That Mattered
Publishers Weekly.
265.20 (May 14, 2018): p51.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
We Are the Clash: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Last Stand of a Band That Mattered
Mark Andersen and Ralph Heibutzki. Akashic, $18.95 trade paper (400p) ISBN 978-1-61775293-3
In an ambitious look at the last days of the Clash, music writers Andersen and Heibutzki examine Clash
front man Joe Strummer's struggle for relevance beginning in 1984, nearly a decade after the band was
formed. Dazed by stardom, family trouble, and the machinations of manager Bernard Rhodes, Strummer
dismissed his guitarist and collaborator Mick Jones from the band (drummer Topper Headon had already
been kicked out for his heroin addiction). Without Jones, Strummer worked to combine his R&B roots with
his interest in world music; at the same time he was trying to juggle his commitments to political causes, his
recording label, and his family. Meanwhile, the authors write, Thatcher and Reagan were attacking workers'
rights and social welfare. During this time, the Clash disintegrated while producing the controversial 1986
album Cut the Crap, which consisted of unfinished songs and was reviewed harshly in the British press.
Andersen and Heibutzki's enlightening reevaluation of this period highlights the band's final, rabble-rousing
1985 busking tour of Britain, which saw the band play acoustic sets in parking lots, parks, and on street
corners, as a remarkable act of defiance against Thatcher's policies. This is an inspiring take on the rockband
bio format, as much a political history of the 1980s as it is a look at an influential band in its final
years. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"We Are the Clash: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Last Stand of a Band That Mattered." Publishers Weekly, 14
May 2018, p. 51. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A539387462/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=5cb6be1d. Accessed 13 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A539387462
8/13/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1534181083052 2/5
Andersen, Mark: WE ARE THE CLASH
Kirkus Reviews.
(May 1, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Andersen, Mark WE ARE THE CLASH Akashic (Adult Nonfiction) $18.95 7, 3 ISBN: 978-1-61775-293-3
When did the Clash quit being "the only band that matters"?
This fascinating book faces a challenge: documenting the final years of the British band that its record label
had promoted with that slogan. It's a period the band has disavowed and that critics have generally reviled,
resulting in one album released after this version of the band had effectively disbanded and which the Clash
has omitted from its authorized anthology. The best that Andersen (co-author: Dance of Days: Two Decades
of Punk in the Nation's Capital, 2009) and Heibutzki (Unfinished Business-The Life and Times of Danny
Gatton, 2003) can say about the album, "Cut the Crap," recorded with only two original members, is that it
was "indeed unique, if also sometimes a bit of a car wreck." As much as the Clash as a band, the authors
focus on the Clash as an idea, an interchange of rebellious fervor between artist and audience and perhaps
more timely than ever with the ascent of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. The authors risk
oversimplifying what led the Clash to this juncture: a split between Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, whose
more commercial-sounding hits were at odds with the band's activist urgency. There's also a bigger tension
at work: how rock can possibly fight the system from within the system--recording for a huge
conglomerate--and how it can become popular enough to wield significant influence without succumbing to
the temptations of rock stardom. Following a large festival payday, Strummer and the band sacked Jones
(after their drummer had already been sidelined by heroin addiction) and recruited a new lineup under the
old name. However, they could never agree on what the new Clash was supposed to be, and Strummer and
his manager ultimately found themselves at irreparable odds. The band may no longer have mattered, but its
legacy mattered to the authors, who make it matter to the readers.
More than a footnote to the rise and fall of one of the last great rock bands.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Andersen, Mark: WE ARE THE CLASH." Kirkus Revi
8/13/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1534181083052 3/5
Dance of Days, fourth edition
California Bookwatch.
(Apr. 2010):
COPYRIGHT 2010 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
Full Text:
Dance of Days, fourth edition
Ark Andersen & Mark Jenkins
Akashic Books
Box 1456, New York NY 10019
9781933354996, $21.95 www.akashicbooks.com
DANCE OF DAYS: TWO DECADES OF PUNK IN THE NATION'S CAPITAL offers a compelling
account of the culture and nature of punk rock, with a narrowed focus on Washington, D.C.'s insurgent punk
scene. This fourth edition updates and expands prior information and provides a fine history of a grassroots
rock movement that came of age in the early 90s. Popular music collections will relish its approach and
depth.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Dance of Days, fourth edition." California Bookwatch, Apr. 2010. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A223823904/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=418e7c97.
Accessed 13 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A223823904
8/13/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1534181083052 4/5
DANCE OF DAYS: Two Decades of Punk
in the Nation's Capitol
Oakland L Childers
Thrasher.
(Dec. 2001): p60.
COPYRIGHT 2001 High Speed Productions, Inc
http://www.thrashermagazine.com
Full Text:
For a lot of people, Washington, DC is not just the nation's seat of power or the home of countless
museums, monuments and memorials. It is also a city where a musical revolution started more than 20 years
ago. Mark Andersen spent a good part of the last two decades documenting DC punk scene in all its glory
and folly After interviews with over 100 people, Andersen and his colleague Mark Jenkins have published
Dance of Day Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capitol, a 400 page behind-the-scenes documentation
of DC punk subculture Besides the sheer enormity of the task that is writing a book, Andersen-an activist
and co-founder of Positive Force, a punk collective--had the added problem of trying to be as honest as
possible showing both the good and bad side of people in the scene, many of whom are his friends and
neighbors. Dance of Day details Bad Brains vocalist HR's homophobic rantings and Ian MacKaye's fiery
temper as a young punk, among other things. "Many of the people in the book, I'm not just a far o f," says
Andersen, "they're also my friends; however, what's the central impulse of punk? For me it is looking for
the truth. Truth is the great liberator, but that doesn't mean that it's going to be easy. It would be a betrayal
of that punk ethic or spirit for this to be something that created icons blowing people up to be larger than
life." Andersen says airing people's dirty laundry wasn't always easy, but in the end, made the book more of
a historical document than a PR fluff piece. "I admit that there are places where there was stuff had to put in
the book that I felt uncomfortable about, that I knew would make some of my friends uncomfortable," says
Andersen. "But by and large I think people understand that the factual basis to what I'm doing is pretty
solid. My intent is an honorable one. History that falsifies itself is less than worthless." Showing DC's punk
elite as mortals was part of the aim of the book according to Andersen, who says that such simple honesty
can be the catalyst for many people to explore their own creativity. It's not to get people to look back 'then'
and wish they'd been there," says Andersen. "It's to get people to understand how important and filled with
possibility it right now is. What made the first Ramones record so empowering? You listen to it and you're
saying, 'Damn, I could do that.' The point is that essential spark of punk which is pointing people toward
their own possibilities and encouraging them to be creators rather than just simply consumers," Check Soft
Skull Press at www.softskull.com.
Childers, Oakland L
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Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Childers, Oakland L. "DANCE OF DAYS: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capitol." Thrasher, Dec.
2001, p. 60. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A79827953/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ade8ff0f. Accessed 13 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A79827953