OMG, It’s The Brave Punk World 2017 Promo Event Schedule
Come see me read from, answer questions about, and sign copies of my latest book, Brave Punk World: The International Rock Underground From Alerta Roja to Z-Off, at the following venues. No, the cat will not be there.
11/16 – Quimby’s Bookstore (Brooklyn, NY) 8PM
11/24 – Books at Park Place (St. Petersburg, FL) 6PM
12/09 – Shakespeare & Co (Missoula, MT) 1PM
This is it, folks. No other live dates this year (no one else would have me!), so please come if you can. I honestly genuinely wanna interact with you all.
Like The Kraken Before It, Brave Punk World Is Released
My new book, Brave Punk World: The International Rock Underground From Alerta Roja to Z-Off, is now officially out, released as of October 15, 2017. It’s 350-ish pages exploring the history and development of punk rock music in regions outside the United Kingdom & United States, regions such as Asia, the U.S.S.R., Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Africa, Central America, South America, North America, and Oceania. Don’t worry, there are pictures.
This book is a labor of love I spent the past couple of years laborin’ on almost every minute of every day and I’m very excited for it to be out and potentially in your hands. So go get it at Amazon or Rowman dot com. Or some other place, if you find it there. Barnes & Noble? Barnes & Barnes?
Good news if you live in New York City or the surrounding area: at 8 P.M. on November 16, Quimby’s Bookstore in Brooklyn will be hosting yours truly for a Brave Punk World reading and signing. You will also be able to ask me questions, questions which I will answer. A real Q&A!
More promo events to be announced soon, I hope, in places not unlike New York City (and maybe a few very unlike New York City). Yeah, I know I said I wouldn’t be doing live public appearances for this book, but guess what? Things changed! So stay tuned!
ALSO, if you contributed to the Brave Punk World research fund last year on a rewards level (one or more autographed books), your rewards are coming to you in the next two to four weeks. Thank you so much for your patience and thanks to every single person who donated, rewards level or not.
Hey, big fat thanks to everyone who did anything to support or encourage this book and my writing in general. Wouldn’t be here without youse.
Happy reading!
Everything You Want To Know About Brave Punk World But Are Too Afraid Or Lazy To Ask
My second book, Brave Punk World: The International Rock Underground From Alerta Roja to Z-Off, is about to go to press and is scheduled to be released mid-October. Here now, an info dump covering pertinent deets.
What’s the elevator pitch?
Punk rock may have started in the United Kingdom and United States, but it certainly didn’t stay in either country. The genre flew around the globe like a contagion, touching off simultaneous movements in nearly every market imaginable. Performing punk rock in many of these places wasn’t just rebellious, it was legitimately dangerous, thanks to regimes both oppressive and brutal. Brave Punk World immerses readers in these foreign scenes, describing the lifestyles and art of passionate, hard-charging groups who remain relative secret to the punk majority but who are just as crucial as the Ramones or the Sex Pistols. Punk diehards and travel enthusiasts with a taste for chaos will enjoy the country-by-country cultural explorations and wild stories offered within these pages.
How long is it?
Listings on the Internet say 324 pages but the most recent manuscript draft I was given to proofread says 365. So somewhere in that area.
Are there pictures?
Yes. Enough to keep you flippin’ (I think).
Is every punk band from every country in the world covered?
Of course not, a book that robust and in depth would probably be six times as long. Though I did my absolute best attempting to outline the birth of punk across Asia, the U.S.S.R. & Eastern Bloc, Western Europe, Africa, Central & South America, North America, and Oceania, some regions and countries are absent because they proved too difficult for me to accurately and fairly convey, or I ran out of time, or both.
Name some of the bands you talk about in this thing.
The Saints, the Stalin, W.I.T.C.H., Black Power, Los Violadores, the Buttocks, Tits, Dirt Shit, Dead Nittels, Proud Scum, Free Sex Shop, Anal Babes, Ebba Grön, Dangerous Rhythm, Third World Chaos, George Imbecile & The Idiots, Brutal Verschimmelt, the Comes, Ghoul, Lip Cream, Ulster, Los Estómagos, Los Prisioneros, Size, the Dishrags, Solución Mortal, Fifth Column, Teenage Head, National Wake, Hubble Bubble, J.M.K.E., Kuzle. That really is quite a small sampling of the galaxy included.
You actually talk to any of these bands?
Yeah, some of ’em.
You go to any foreign countries for your research?
Yes, I went to Mexico, Norway, Japan, and Brazil (though that last one didn’t work out very well). A few years prior to the conception of Brave Punk World, when I was just some drip curious about other lands, I spent small portions of time in Germany, France, and Canada (high points were usually the hours spent in record shops or conversations with new friends about punk rock).
Oh, that’s right, you had crowd funding for your research last year. If I contributed to that on a rewards level, when will I get my book(s)?
The second they’re off the press! Figuratively, of course. I will not be at the pressing place. I don’t even know where it is. As soon as I get my hands on ’em, I send ’em to you.
Where can I pre-order Brave Punk World?
Click right here. Use the promo code RLFANDF30 to save 30% off.
Will you tour for it?
If the book is optioned to be a trade paperback, yes. Currently Brave Punk World is only scheduled for hardcover release; as such, it will be marketed toward libraries and colleges and probably won’t appear at your local book retailer. The opposite will be true if the book becomes a trade paperback. Then this thing’ll be all over the place, and I will have reason to traverse this great land of ours so I may promote my work in person at every Uncle Timmy’s Book Hole and READIN’ TOWN that will have me.
What factors play into the hardcover being optioned for paperback?
If the hardcover sells a metric shit ton. So if you’d really like me to come to your town and nervously read out of Brave Punk World at some point in 2018 or 2019, buy the hardcover (or convince someone else to, or both).
Will you do anything to promote the hardcover release?
Yes. Specifically, interviews with whatever media outlets come calling and appearances at whatever institutions of higher learning will have me.
What’s the advanced word? Is this book actually any good?
Rolf Yngve Uggen, a.k.a. Raldo Useless, guitarist for groups like the Lust-O-Rama and Gluecifer, read the thing and said, “I absolutely inhaled this book! Greene’s writing is filled with enthusiastic taste and warmth and fascinating tales of anti-establishment action.” What more encouragement do you need?
Here’s The Brave Punk World Pre-Order (& Other Info) Post
The hardback edition of my new book, Brave Punk World: The International Rock Underground From Alerta Roja to Z-Off, is now available for pre-order. CLICK RIGHT HERE to access the magical pre-order page and use the secret wizard’s code RLFANDF30 to get 30% off list price.
Brave Punk World (due for release this October) explores the evolution of punk rock outside the United Kingdom and United States, tracking how the genre took shape in regions like Asia, the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Bloc, Western Europe, Africa, Central and South America, North America (yes, there are countries other than the United States in North America!), and Oceania. It’s over 320 pages long and even offers fifteen pictures. You know how many pictures are in The Grapes of Wrath? Zero!
Is every single band from every single country covered in Brave Punk World? Of course not. That book would be six times as long. Unfortunately neither I nor the publisher could commit to that. Despite this handicap, advanced word is positive. Rolf Yngve Uggen, star rocker of Lust-O-Rama and Astroburger, signed off on the following pull quote: “I absolutely inhaled this book! [The] writing is filled with enthusiastic taste and warmth and fascinating tales of anti-establishment action.”
Yes, my friends, hot buttered anti-establishment action. There’s also sex, drugs, rock n’ roll, murder, suicide, robots, bluejeans, bowling, saran wrap, and one “CHiPs” reference. Larry Wilcox, I wish I knew how to quit you.
So there you have it. Pre-order Brave Punk World. Or don’t. It’s your life.
I Finished Brave Punk World
The manuscript for Brave Punk World: The International Rock Underground From Alerta Roja to Z-Off was due in early January. I completed it last week. Two months seems like quite a delay when you’re working on anything, but no one would talk about Chinese Democracy in the tones that they do if it had only been sixty days late.
Three hundred and fifty-ish pages turned in, give or take. Enough pictures to keep things interesting (I hope). Of course I feel relief getting it wrapped up, but those waves are cut with streaks of “I forgot to discuss x or touch on y, and I shoulda expanded upon z.” Similar emotions materialized once my first book, This Music Leaves Stains, was in the can. Par for the course, I guess. Interestingly enough, several aspects of Stains that I view as lacking have yet to come up in critiques. Will the same hold true for this book ass book?
Got me. All I know is I worked my crank off on BPW, it’s pretty close to what I envisioned when I pitched the thing to Rowman & Littlefield, and I can’t wait for everyone to read it when it comes out in OCTOBER OF 2017.
Below, the cover.
In case you’ve been wondering, the book is divided into seven sections by region—Asia, U.S.S.R. & Eastern Bloc, Western Europe, Africa, Central & South America, North America, and Oceania.
More info later. As always, I thank you for your readership and support.
Station Identification
My name is James Greene, Jr. (please, call me James) and I’m a freelance writer. My work has appeared in such publications as Crawdaddy!, Orlando Weekly, New York Press, No Recess!, and Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader. I also wrote the liner notes to Gluecifer’s best of / rarities disc Kings Of Rock (currently out of print).
My first book, This Music Leaves Stains: The Complete Story Of The Misfits, was published in 2013. Please to be consulting the TMLS F.A.Q. for pertinent details. According to the Austin Chronicle I “pull no punches” as I “accurately and respectfully” relate the tale of these New Jersey punks. Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster told me he “really liked” This Music Leaves Stains.
In 2017, I had a second book published. It’s called Brave Punk World: The International Rock Underground From Alerta Roja to Z-Off and it’s all about the development of punk rock around the globe. Learn more here. “I loved this book,” said online rock critic Mark Prindle in a Facebook post. The guy who mows my mom’s lawn hasn’t read it yet but tells me it’s on his list.
Personals: I was born and raised in the southwest corner of Connecticut, the Nutmeg State. Oh, what a state of nutmeg in which we lived and breathed. Brooklyn, Albany, and Florida have also been home. I’m married but I’ve never owned land. I’ve also never had my tonsils out.
I have a BA in organizational communication from the University of Central Florida. Yes, the college where they shot “Superboy.” Somehow Disney still reigns as Orlando’s most popular tourist destination.
You can hear the sound of my voice on Yaxzon Jackson, the podcast wherein I discuss Michael Jackson with Rollie Hatch.
That’s all for now. Thanks for visiting.