Beyond The Music: How Punks are Saving the World with DIY Ethics, Skills, & Values

Description

Punk is notorious for its loud music, aggressive attitude and safety pinned style. Less well known is the radical value system that has emerged hand in hand with the sound and aesthetic. Since the 1970s, punks have built their music, fashion and lifestyles around core values of social justice, creative freedom, community integrity, fiercely democratic politics and DIY ingenuity. From journalism to psychology, graphic design to the Occupy movement, these interviews with long standing stalwarts of the punk movement show just some of the ways punk has shaped mainstream life.

Joe Biel is a writer, activist, journalist, filmmaker, teacher, and publisher. He founded Microcosm Publishing and the imprint Cantankerous Titles, and cofounded the Portland Zine Symposium. He has been featured in Broken Pencil magazine, Maximumrocknroll magazine, theOregonian, Portland Mercury, Punk Planet Magazine, Readymade Magazine, and theUtne Reader. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

After reading this book, one feels an incredible urge to go out there and pursue that one project you've always thought you'd be good at. After all, that's what punk rock is about. - Ground Control Magazine Like a long car ride with your Uncle Hank. - Willamette Week A whole smattering of punks from vegan chefs (Joshua Ploeg) to polarizing pundits (Ben Weasel) are given a forum to relate their stories and philosophies. Some may be unfamiliar to you, some may be household names in your home, but there's something to glean from all of them, be it inspirational and/or informational. - Reglar Wiglar Interviewing an actress, bicyclist, Catholic Worker, chef, chocolatier, Cuban-American fan of Green Day, Fulbright Scholar working for Cambodia, a psychologist specializing in males, and lots of graphic designers, printers, and publishers, Joe Biel reveals the range of those who use the mechanisms of punk's self-motivated and communally based ethos to change our world by action. - Pop Matters