How did you become involved in the Punk Scholars Network? I first got involved in the Punk Scholars Network in the spring of 2013 after attending the 2nd event that the PSN had organised. It was a one-day symposium at Reading University titled Punk In Other Places: Transmission and Transmutation, and was in association with the University of Reading, London College of Communication and Tyne Metropolitan College. I had been made aware of the PSN from their first symposium in 2012 at Wolverhampton, which I was unable to attend. At this point I had just started my PhD on ageing anarcho-punks, identity and memory so thought it would be beneficial for me to go. Although I consider myself to be quite confident and articulate, I was sort of quite nervous to go into a symposium not knowing anyone, and I wasn’t even presenting a paper!! I couldn’t have been made to feel more welcome. Mike Dines (the PSN Chair) was the first person to approach me and we immediately got on, it was as if I had known him for years, and I had the same experience with everyone else I spoke to on that day. Mike, Russ and Gords did a very good job of trying to persuade me to get involved with helping get the PSN off the ground, though I think I did an equally good job of not committing as I had just started my PhD, which along with my teaching was about all I could handle. It was a really insightful and interesting day and driving back home that evening I felt inspired and motivated, so the next day got in touch with Mike and said I was up for getting involved. The rest is history as they say, and it has been an incredible and at times frustrating journey in taking on the role of General secretary and steering committee member. That said I am really proud to be part of what is now a globally recognised network.
Why do you feel it's important that a network for those involved in the study of punk/punks exists? It’s really important that punk academia, punk studies, punk research and punk culture more generally is recognised as a serious and influential field of study. Although I am probably somewhat biased I would suggest that it is one of the most discussed, researched and written about fields of popular music/popular cultural studies, but up until the last decade was always seen as a bit of an outsider from academia, perhaps of its anti-authoritarian, anti-orthodoxy stance, and wasn’t really taken that seriously. I think some of this came about from a mixture of misunderstanding on the part of academia, the often unwillingness of punk culture to be critically examined (I have often met punks who don’t want punk to be ‘owned’ by academia and wont cooperate in terms of research, investigation and exploration), and to some degree a bit of ego displaying, opinionated approaches and competitive cultural capital showboating. It has always intrigued me as to why such a cultural phenomenon like punk, which has permeated and influenced so many other contemporary music, art, fashion, literary cultures in its wake, was to some degree kept under the academic radar. Anyway, hopefully the PSN has helped in getting the recognition punk studies deserves.
Tell us a bit about your own (punk) research? In terms of my own research, as I have previously mentioned I have just completed my PhD which is concerned with the long tail of subcultural scene affiliation, where through their reflexive narratives my participants map their personal journey into and out of 1980’s British anarcho-punk. In doing so it raises a number of questions. What happens to their sense of self and anarcho-punk identification, when they relinquish their affiliation? How long and in what ways does a sense of belonging and acquired ideologies, values and beliefs persist and reside in the self beyond that youthful affiliation? How do the notions of ageing and adult responsibilities constrain those ideologies, values and beliefs? What role does narrative memory and nostalgia play in how one understands that past affiliation and residual identity? So many questions that were explored in my PhD which, without creating any spoilers, will be published as a monograph, so watch this space to find out!! One of the areas of research I am interested in that is linked to punk, is its continuing legacy within popular and underground culture. This brings into focus contemporary countercultures such as the new age traveller culture and acid house/rave/teknival culture, of which I was involved in during the late 1980’s and into the 1990’s, and more recently UKJ grime and trap culture, all of who take some inspiration from punk and the punk ethos of DiY, and anti-authoritarian. I am also interested in ageing within punk culture and the role memory and nostalgia plays in that, and DiY and anarcho-activism, especially contemporary countercultural and anarcho-punk communities and scenes. I also previously worked as a community media /radio producer, working with marginalised groups such as travellers and Gypsies, rural adolescents, LGBTQ+ groups, where I am interested in how media can be utilised for social change. So yep lots of research interests, but a as full-time senior lecturer and course director, little time to pursue them.
What is your connection to punk/background in punk? My connection to punk or relationship with punk began at the age of 13 when I heard the damned and the Sex Pistols on the radio and that was it, I was absolutely sucked into punk culture. By the time I was about 15 I really got into anarcho-punk through the introduction to Crass by a punk mate of mine. Hearing The Feeding of the 5000 by Crass was a total game changer for me and was life changing in terms of my political education. Crass had a way of articulating everything I was feeling as an angry 15-year-old punk but lacked the right vocabulary to do so. 1 year later I left school (early and without any qualifications) and moved into a number of punk squats, through the vibrant Brighton punk scene I was already involved in. I used to travel all over the place to see anarcho-punk bands and became part of a diverse cultural and political network. Towards the mid 1980’s, the anarcho-punk and squat scene in Brighton started to get a bit dark as hard drugs such as heroin started to get popular, and the utopian ideals that anarcho-punk suggested started to drown in a sense of internal partisan behaviour. So at that point, after spending the previous few summers at Stonehenge Free Festival, I got myself a living vehicle and hit the road joining the new age travellers, where I also met a number of punks who had done the same for the same reason. Living a nomadic lifestyle also brought me into contact with the emerging acid house scene and I started getting involved in illegal rave/ acid house and tekno parties in the countryside and empty warehouses in towns and cities across the country. What I liked, and still like, about the acid house/tekno culture was/is its hedonism, utopian ideals mixed with a DiY punk ethos and political activism, which reminded me so much of the early days of the anarcho-punk movement.
Matt is Course Director for the BA (Hons) Music Industries and a Senior Lecturer in Music Industries and Radio at Birmingham City University. Publications include the co-edited Punk Now! Contemporary Perspectives on Punk (Intellect, 2020) and Punk Identities, Punk Utopias: Global Punk and Media (Intellect, 2021). Find out more on our About PSN page and www.mgrimes.co.uk