We Call It Punk – When energy meets attitude

Ox Verlag, Hochstrasse 15, 42697 Solingen
www.ox-fanzine.de

This is a nice well crafted book from the german photographer Christoph Lampert and shows a selection of collected photographs from 1989 – 2008. Most of the text is in english, half of the photos are b/w (“Classic Years”) the rest is 4c (“Digital Years”) and all the photos are accompanied with text from one of the band members (or the author). Wow, especially from those bands from the 80is it certainly was not so easy to track those people down. The author managed to do so. As most of these books it starts with a foreword (by the publisher) and a intruduction (by the author). The first photo is a shot of HDQ 1989 in Hamburg – glad to see that TRUST-sticker on Dickie Hammonds guitar, that made me smile. Next are 3 shots of Youth of Today from 1989 and I have to comment on what the non-atheist Ray says. “YOT was one of the first Hardcore bands to head over to Europe.

There was no real touring circuit for bands.” This is the proof that not taking drugs does not necessarly help your memory. There have been many bands on tour before YOT and YOT used the already existing touring circuit, in other words, they jumped in a warm bed. Anyway, that is what you get, nothing can be done. I wish people would get their facts straight. YOT is long gone.. Berlins Jingo De Lunch are next, followed by great shots from:

So Much Hate, Soulside, RKL, Kina, False Prophets, Walter Elf, Life but how to live it, The Plot, Mega City Four, Nirvana and Tad – all these pictures are from 1989 and are classics. 1990 starts with Rubbermaids, Boxhamsters, 2 Bad, No Means No, Bad Religion, Samiam, Blyth Power, Sons of Ishmael, The Vernon Walters, Fugazi, All, Spermbirds, Victims Family. 1991 starts with a nice shot of Danbert, Alice and Lou aka Chumbawamba, Crowd of Isolated, Gorilla Biscuits, Nausea. 1993 features D.O.A. and Verbal Abuse. 1995 The Queers, 1996 Boris the Sprinkler and Snuff -Dackelblut and all of a sudden we are in 2000 with photos of Fun People, the Fixtures, Good Riddance, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, 2001: Flag of Democracy, Shock Treatment another jump to 2006: The Skreppers, The Thermals (now the digi years start), Mcrackins, 2007: The Rifles, Cursive, Zsk, The Creepshow, The Peacocks, Distemper, Deadline, Ignite, The Gaslight Anthem, Zatopeks, Deep Eynde, Uncommon Men from Mars, Crushing Caspars, Turbostaat, 2008: Mascow, Fake Problems, Peter Pan Speedrock, Gogol Bordello, Eläkeläiset, Far from Finnished, No Use for a Name, Pepper, Die ärzte, Bug Girl, Anti Flag, The Business, The Bottrops, The Turbo A.C.s, Brutal Polka, The Real Mckenzies and Dritte Wahl (the last 6 bands all from a bigger fesival).

The book starts so amazing and ends a bit dissapointing. While the first 3 years Christoph takes photos of all these great bands from a certain scene in almost chronological order, it is getting less documented after 1991 and the band selection in the end seems to be random and has certainly nothing to do with the first three years. But, this book claims not to be a documentary of the scene, but a documentary of the photographic output of Christoph Lampert – so you get what you get big gaps from 1989 to 2008 and to the end more and more random bands. And while in the beginning the words of the musicians are great fun to read and bring back nice memorys and the fact that our scene back then did change something and meant a lot. Later on you can tell the bands (not all!) have nothing to say and just babble some rubbish from touring or some storys – again, nothing one can do.

But I personally whished the band selection in the end would have been more in tune with all those bands the book starts with but, again – it is Christophs history. Anyway, it is still a great book and the first 3 years are worth getting it – if you are into books like this. At the end of the book is a photo index of all the photos with date/venue and city plus bandcontact – perfect. And, to top it all off there is a coloured 7″ in the book with unreleased live songs by: Vernon Walters, Soulside, Samian and Pascow.. I would not get it for the 7″.. but it is a nice bonus. 180 pages on nice coated paper, hardcover and limited to 444 copies. 29,80 euro
(dolf)

[Trust # 141 April 2010]