SOBER LIVING FOR THE REVOLUTION: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge, and Radical Politics Book

Straight edge turned 40 and the conversation about what it actually meant politically is still ongoing, loudly, at a show near you.

This book, edited by Gabriel Kuhn, is one of the more serious attempts to untangle the contradictions at the heart of the movement. Straight edge has always had a tension running through it, the same abstinence politics could show up in a Minor Threat record or a reactionary crew depending on the chapter, and Kuhn doesn't flinch from that. Contributors dig into the intersections of hardcore punk, radical left politics, animal liberation, feminism, and anarchism across scenes from the US to Europe to South America. It's not a hagiography, it's an argument, which makes it considerably more interesting than most music writing. Required reading if you ever had an X on your hand, or if you've ever argued with someone who did.

Paperback. Published by PM Press. Contributors include voices from across the global hardcore and punk underground.

Fans of: Minor Threat, Earth Crisis, Refused, Propagandhi, anything in the PM Press catalogue.