The City is Ablaze!: The Story of a Post-punk Popzine, 1984-1994Karren Ablaze
Taschenbuch
Founded by Karren Ablaze in 1984, Ablaze! was a music fanzine which operated out of bedroom headquarters in Manchester and Leeds during what was arguably one of the most exciting decades in British musical history. The City Is Ablaze!, which could well have been subtitled ' The Art of Upsetting Pop Stars', tells the story of the Ablaze! fanzine and its precursors. Alongside hundreds of pages from these notoriously outspoken publications, the book also includes new writings by Karren and other members of the Ablaze! team, as well as interviews with other fanzine writers of the time, essays by D I Y cultural commentators, a re-examination of the Riot Grrrl movement and an epilogue by Gary Jarman ( The Cribs). The City Is Ablaze! captures an era where D I Y was de rigeur and indie actually meant something. This book is jam packed interviews with dozens of the era's most successful bands, including The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Sonic Youth and Inspiral Carpets, and includes irate letters from Morrissey and Thurston Moore. " It's a cacophony of voices. It's the most moving music-related thing I've read since Kristin Hersh's memoir a couple of years ago. In its dreaming, its manifestos, its desire to change the world, it reminds me of those old Situationist journals more than anything else. You can even argue that Riot Grrrl was their May '68, a brief fleeting moment when the revolution they'd hoped for seemed inevitable. " - Scott Creney, Collapse Board " Not only a valuable document of the underground media of its period, but a sharp reminder of the ideology of the underground. " - John Robb, Louder Than War
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