Roots Punk

Punk rock evokes dissent and disruption abrasive and anarchic musicality and a host of countercultural aesthetics. Featuring original interviews and over one hundred images <i>Roots Punk: A Visual and Oral History </i>by longtime music journalist and author David A. Ensminger focuses on how punk merged with roots music to create a rich style that incorporated honky-tonk rockabilly doo-wop reggae ska jazz folk blues and labor ballads. This engagement transformed the notion of punk to include a wide array of vintage source material that seems more aligned with bolo ties and Stetsons than Doc Martens and safety pins. <p/> Ensminger explores the music's aesthetics traits and themes. He contextualizes clarifies maps and probes roots punk's hybrid nature as well as its diverse queer-inclusive and multicultural strains. By painting a broad nuanced and well-documented picture of the genre from its earliest incarnation he forms a kind of people's history of the movement. <i>Roots Punk</i> features original interviews with members of Minutemen MDC the Dicks the Plimsouls Tex and the Horseheads Dils/Rank and File X the Flesh Eaters Beatnigs Alejandro Escovedo Robert El Vez Lopez Blasters and more. <p/> Whether covering sarcastic novelty forms or sincere embraces Ensminger reveals and revels in a punk tradition lined with blues records acoustic ballads country and hillbilly romp. In a time of growing conformity replication and commercialization roots punk (sometimes dubbed cow-punk) offers a tantalizing revitalization and reimagination of the American songbook.