Tearing Down the Orange Curtain
How Punk Rock Brought Orange County to the World
-
- $299.00
-
- $299.00
Descripción editorial
The untold story of OC punk—the loud, rebellious force behind the ‘90s explosion of the Orange County music scene, featuring stories about legendary bands.
When it comes to punk communities across the world, the Orange County punk scene stands out as an undeniable trendsetter that helped define the sound and style of the rapidly evolving genre. From hard luck storytellers Social Distortion and multi-platinum sellers like The Offspring to cult heroes like The Adolescents and T.S.O.L., there’s much insight to gain from the story of this popular though often misunderstood music scene.
In Tearing Down the Orange Curtain, journalists Nate Jackson and Daniel Kohn explore the trajectory of punk and ska from their humble beginnings to their peak popularity years, where their cultural impact could be felt in music around the world. Delving deep into the personal and professional lives of bands like Social Distortion, The Adolescents, The Offspring, and their ska counterparts No Doubt, Sublime, Reel Big Fish, Save Ferris, and more, this book gives readers a deeper look into the very human stories of these musicians, many of whom struggled with acceptance, addiction, and brutal teenage years in suburbia.
Through exclusive first-hand interviews, Tearing Down the Orange Curtain brings the 20-year period of OC punk and third-wave ska (1978-2000) to life, focusing specifically on the historical and musical roots of this creative explosion. Thought-provoking, meticulously researched, and refreshingly candid, this book presents a compelling narrative of how a suburban wasteland turned into a hub for rock-n roll culture, just over 30 miles away from the bright lights of LA.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Music journalists Jackson and Kohn debut with a vivid genealogy of Orange County, Calif., punk music. Tracing the genre's origins to Costa Mesa's Cuckoo's Nest club in the 1970s, where bands sought to "blow away the weak, square and boring rock and pop of the '70s" with a sound and style that broke all the rules, the authors capture its evolution from "escape from... middle-class life" for bored suburban youth through violent subculture to an established part of mainstream music. Along the way, the authors follow such bands as Sublime, T.S.O.L., and the Adolescents as they traded members, drew diehard fans, toured, and frequently dissolved thanks to drug abuse or infighting. Jackson and Kohn also document adjacent scenes (such as 1970s skate culture, which—like punk music—"relied on aggression, tension release, blood, sweat and devotion" and turned kids into cop targets) and highlight the tensions that arose when bands that hit it big were accused of selling out. Fluidly drawing from historical records and personal interviews, the authors employ colorful detail to bring alive the punk world in all its fist-swinging, house-destroying glory—while hinting at pitfalls that contributed to its eventual demise (including, ironically, acceptance by mainstream musical culture that threw the genre into something of an identity crisis). The result is a spirited portrait of an influential subculture.
