Weird title, great book, good music

In the Fascist Bathroom: Writings on punk 1977-1992
By Griel Marcus
Penguin Books
Reviewed by Liam Mitchell Very rarely do you read an analysis of music — any music — such as Griel Marcus' works, published in a variety of magazines and brought together in this book. In a journey through the lives of punk bands and styles, the author brings the living movement, the politics, the music and the dreams of punk into a brilliant piece of work. Marcus has been a music and literary critic since the 1960s, as editor of Rolling Stone, as well as working as director of the US National Book Critics Circle. Most writings on punk music I have read have been along the lines of "punk arose suddenly when the Sex Pistols were formed and everyone else copied them". They have no real understanding of its origins, let alone what it is and where it is moving. Most write punk off as being dead by 1982. Marcus, on the other hand, lived this movement. More than this, his dialectical analysis of the politics and the music draws out the social and political issues these bands stood for, as well as the progressions that the music took. The title is taken from an article about Elvis Costello's album Punch the Clock and one of the songs from it, "Pills and Soap", a critique of Thatcher's Britain. This brings up one of the problems I have with the book. Marcus throws Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, some ex-hippies (post-hippies) and a number of others I certainly wouldn't classify as punks into the punk milieu. Costello might originally have had some roots common to the punk movement, but Springsteen? The other problem is that the book ignores too much of the punk movement that really counts — the Dead Kennedys get one mention, with one of their songs, "Holiday in Cambodia", being used merely as a benchmark, and a very brief one at that. However, the good certainly outweighs — in fact, it overwhelms — the bad. Marcus' writing about the political bands of early punk in England and the US, such as Gang of Four and Au Pair, as well as the Clash, is a good history of these strands of punk. Marcus draws out the politics of the Au Pairs. Two women and two men, they put sexual equality as one of their foremost banners. The band's politics, its music and indeed the acrid (and oh-so-non-feminine) tone of lead singer Lesley Woods "... pushes you to say no to it, and then wonder if you're wrong". But it is not a work that merely glorifies punk. The article "Crimes Against Nature" tells of the bands in the Los Angeles region (particularly the Adolescents, who have accepted the reactionary ideology of "... people like us are we, and everyone else is they". These LA bands have used punk, not as a questioning of fundamental societal beliefs, but to reinforce those beliefs and to express their alienation. Marcus describes the contradiction between the well-constructed music of the Adolescents and their "primitivist, mindless pose". He attributes this to the choosing of "Sid Vicious (prophetic thug) over Johnny Rotten (thuggish prophet) as avatar", but also to the US (capitalist) style of directing one's rage at the powerless. Marcus also writes of the movement's support for progressive causes, such as the anti-nuclear campaign and the struggles against the decaying social conditions in working-class areas of England. Overall, this book cannot be recommended enough.