We're Not Here to Entertain

"Mattson looks at American punk of the early 1980s through excellent scholarship. His work reveals more than a music scene--which itself produced outstanding bands. He also examines anarchist thought, with roots in the nineteenth century, put into practice by youth creating their own way of life. This is a guidebook to a future for people who want it." --Krist Novoselic, founding member of Nirvana and author of Of Grunge and Government "Historian Kevin Mattson trains his eye on the US Hardcore Punk underground during the Reagan years and digs deep into archived fanzines and recordings of the era to shed light on a bunch of kids, scattered around the country, who were disaffected by the predominant culture and desperate to make their own. The good news is that Mattson grew up in this scene and he has a clear understanding of it. We're Not Here to Entertain is a great read that focuses on a vital and largely overlooked time and place in music history. When my friend and fellow Punk Rock War Veteran Steve Turner saw the galley of this book on my kitchen counter, he said, 'It's high time someone wrote that book'--a comment that sparked a discussion about Mr. Epp playing with Really Red at the Metropolis in '83, or was it Savage Republic at the Ground Zero Art Gallery, maybe it was Solger opening for Black Flag with Dez on vocals in 1980..."--Mark Arm, lead singer of Mudhoney "Firmly establishes American hardcore in the politics of the moment and the economics of the music industry at the time. An essential read for anyone wanting to understand the cultural history of the 1980s."--Vic Bondi, founding member of Articles of Faith "Authored by a co-founder of the D.C. 'political punk' organization Positive Force, this valuable book sheds light on the dynamics underlying the complex interrelationship between a mostly oppositional 1980s punk counterculture and the more conservative mainstream (including the corrupt corporate music industry). The punks may not have won their cultural battle against such a powerful Goliath. But by creating a viable underground alternative that still persists in various forms today, they didn't exactly lose, either." --Jeffrey Bale, Middlebury College; author of The Darkest Sides of Politics and former co-editor of Maximumrocknroll and Hit List "Among the many virtues of Kevin Mattson's book is the way it shows how millions of American youth found each other in their local punk scenes and contested President Reagan's 'Morning in America' bullshit. This was not merely political posturing; as Mattson demonstrates, early 1980s punk political thinking was serious and sophisticated. Mattson--a punk politico himself in Washington at the time--takes seriously the political potency of punk dissenters in that era. And guess what? In this new age of political polarization, they still have something to teach us."--Michael Foley, author of Dead Kennedys' Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables "Consistently fascinating... Fans of T.S.O.L., Fargo Rock City, Scratch Acid, and their like should rush to this invigorating history."--Kirkus, Starred Review "Absorbing."--AV Club "This is a book worth reading because it has so much direct relevance to American punks operating today... pretty terrific work."--PopMatters "We're Not Here to Entertain is a joy to read, erudite and stimulating, capturing the excitement of creating art and music against the grain."--Jacobin "[An] impassioned new history of punk politics and culture in the 1980s... We're Not Here to Entertain shows how punk taught a new generation of white, middle-class suburban kids to critique US foreign policy or call out the military-industrial complex. The punk world emerges in Mattson's telling as a definitive cultural formation--a successor to the New Left and counterculture of the '60s and the Popular Front of the '30s."--The Nation