In “The Operable Man,” German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk stated, “It is neither our failure nor our accomplishment that we live in a time in which the apocalypse of man is an everyday occurrence.” The music of Killing Joke is the sonic corollary to this existential predicament. Let me show you how. More»
Pioneers of Postpunk
Warsaw changed their name to Joy Division to avoid conflict with the band Warsaw Pakt. Coincidentally, the name change also served to mark the break between Joy Division’s punk phase and their later, better-known postpunk era. More»
Deathrock: A Brief History, Part I
As the first wave of punk evolved into hardcore, no wave, postpunk, and a variety of other subgenres, a singular strand of the punk explosion developed in Southern California: deathrock. More»
Apocalypse Now, Forever
All of Killing Joke’s LPs have been meditations on the apocalypse. Throughout their thirty-three year career, and with every release, singer and frontman Jaz Coleman has prophesied the end of the world. Ominously titled MMXII (that’s “2012” for those of you who are Roman numeral-challenged) the original lineup of Killing Joke has delivered another sonic missive squarely in this fiery, millenarian tradition. More»
The Sellout Era
Punk had a midlife crisis during the summer of 1994. “Corporate whores” and “ass-kissing sellouts” were shouted at the Offspring during that show, the Sacramento Bee reported. “So you guys know us for our whole album and not just one song, right?” frontman Dexter Holland reportedly told the crowd. “We’d like to think so, but we’ll now patronize the ones who only know that one song, anyway.” More»
Home of the Free
I could smell the alcohol on his breath as he leaned towards me from his window seat. I had hoped to write on my red-eye flight. But something in this soft-featured redhead’s manner suggested that it would be hard for me to stay focused on my essay. Even though it was past midnight, he was eager to talk and a little too intoxicated to feel self-conscious about sharing his thoughts with a stranger. More»
The New Postpunk
If the mission of ’77 punk was the resuscitation of rock & roll’s antisocial roots, postpunk amounted to an unfettered exploration of the musical and cultural spaces that punk had made possible. In England’s Dreaming, Jon Savage noted that as early as 1978, punk had fractured into two camps: The social realists on one side (The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers) whose fans would become the street punk, Oi!, and hardcore movements. More»
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