Deindustrialisation and Popular Music: Punk and Post-Punk in Manchester, Düsseldorf, Torino and Tampere

222 Pages·2020·1.544 MB·English

by  Giacomo Bottà

DEINDUSTRIALISATION AND
POPULAR MUSIC
Popular Musics Matter: Social, Political and
Cultural Interventions
SeriesEditors:
EoinDevereux,AileenDillaneandMartinJ.Power
ThePopularMusicsMatter:Social,PoliticalandCulturalInterventionsserieswillpub-
lishinternationallyinformededitedcollections,monographsandtextbooksthatengage
in the critical study of popular music performance (live and recorded), historical and
contemporary popular music practitioners and artists, and participants and audiences
forwhomsuchmusicsembodyaesthetic,cultural,and,particularly,socio-politicalval-
ues.Theseriesseesmusicnotonlyasamanifestationofglobalpopularculturebutalso
asaformthatprofoundlyshapesandcontinuallyseekstoredefineourunderstandings
ofhowsocietyoperatesinagivenlocationandera.
TitlesintheSeries
SoundtrackingGermany:PopularMusicandNationalIdentity,MelanieSchiller
HeartandSoul:CriticalEssaysonJoyDivision,editedbyEoinDevereux,MartinJ.
PowerandAileenDillane
DeindustrialisationandPopularMusic:Punkand‘Post-Punk’inManchester,
Düsseldorf,TorinoandTampere,GiacomoBottà
DEINDUSTRIALISATION AND
POPULAR MUSIC
Punk and ‘Post-Punk’ in Manchester,
Düsseldorf, Torino and Tampere
Giacomo Bottà
London • New York
PublishedbyRowman&LittlefieldInternational,Ltd.
6TinworthStreet,LondonSE115AL,UnitedKingdom
www.rowmaninternational.com
Rowman&LittlefieldInternational,Ltd.isanaffiliateof
Rowman&Littlefield
4501ForbesBoulevard,Suite200,Lanham,Maryland20706,USA
WithadditionalofficesinBoulder,NewYork,Toronto(Canada),andLondon
(UK)
www.rowman.com
Copyright©2020byGiacomoBottà
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyformorby
anyelectronicormechanicalmeans,includinginformationstorageandretriev-
alsystems,withoutwrittenpermissionfromthepublisher,exceptbyareviewer
whomayquotepassagesinareview.
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationInformation
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
ISBN:HB978-1-78660-737-9
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:Bottà,Giacomo,1974-author.
Title:Deindustrialisationandpopularmusic:punkand'post-punk'inManchester,Düsseldorf,
TorinoandTampere/GiacomoBottà.
Description:Lanham:Rowman&LittlefieldPublishingGroup,2020.|Series:Popularmusics
matter:social,politicalandculturalinterventions|Includesbibliographicalreferencesand
index.|Summary:"Thebookoffersanewanduniquepointofviewonindustrialcitiesand
theirpopularmusicculturesbasedoninterdisciplinaryresearchandmethods"--Providedby
publisher.
Identifiers:LCCN2019057100(print)|LCCN2019057101(ebook)|ISBN9781786607379
(cloth)|ISBN9781786607386(epub)
Subjects:LCSH:Popularmusic--Socialaspects--Europe--History.|Punkrockmusic--Socialas-
pects--Europe--History.|Post-punkmusic--Socialaspects--Europe--History.|Deindustrial-
ization--Europe.
Classification:LCCML3917.E85B672020(print)|LCCML3917.E85(ebook)|DDC781.66--
dc23
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2019057100
LCebookrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2019057101
TMThepaperusedinthispublicationmeetstheminimumrequirementsof
AmericanNationalStandardforInformationSciencesPermanenceofPaper
forPrintedLibraryMaterials,ANSI/NISOZ39.48-1992.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction:MetalonMetal 1
SettingtheScene 6
DramatisingtheRhythmoftheFactory 11
BookStructure 13
Notes 17
1 TheIndustrialCity 19
Definitions 21
EconomicCrisis,Deindustrialisation,andIndustrialCities 28
IndustrialCrisisasAtmosphere 32
MaterialitiesandEmergentCulturalSensibilities 37
2 AGenealogyof‘IndustrialCityMusic’ 43
ArtMusicandIndustrialNoise 46
PopularMusicandIndustrialNoise 50
3 Manchester 67
TheNorth 69
AGigintheLesserFreeTradeHall 71
TheManchesterMusicscape 76
TheHaçiendaFAC51andtheNorthernQuarter 80
NighttimeEconomy,PopularMusicandtheCity 84
4 Düsseldorf 89
X-9200:PunkinDüsseldorf 93
RodenkirchenIsBurning 100
v
vi CONTENTS
IOnlyWanttoDancetoConcrete 101
MusicscapesfortheDigitalIndustrialRevolution 105
EndsandNewBeginnings 108
5 Torino 111
YearsofLead 114
Centrid’Incontro 116
PunkPolitics 117
VogliamounPosto!LookingforaPlace 120
Torinoise:CollectiveRecordedMusic 125
SoundsLikeTorino 126
MusicasPublizitätfromBelow 130
Notes 136
6 Tampere 137
Tampester/Manse 139
Manserock:CarnivalinDull-City 140
PunkinFinland,PartOne 143
FromPunktoHardcore 147
DoItYourself! 152
SiberianHardcore 155
Note 159
7 IndustrialHeritages 161
CulturalHeritageandtheBuiltEnvironment 162
PopularMusicasHeritage 166
IndustrialCitiesandMusicHeritages 168
8 FromVanishingMediatortoCulturalCatalyst:Music,
Space,andPlace 177
MusicasVanishingMediator 178
MusicToday:CulturalCatalyst 182
MusicandPlace 186
Conclusion 189
References 197
Index 209
AbouttheAuthor 213
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
T
he idea for writing this book came during my fellowship as a Von
Humboldt Foundation experienced researcher at the Zentrum für
PopuläreKulturundMusik of the University of Freiburg, in Germany.
I hereby thank Michael Fischer and Nils Grosch for their support dur-
ing my application and during my stay in Freiburg. I am grateful to
Eoin Devereux, Martin J. Power, and Aileen Dillane for several great
conferencesinLimerickandforacceptingthisbookintheseriesPopu-
lar Musics Matter: Social, Political and Cultural Interventions. Thanks
alsotoalltheeditorialpersonnelatRowman&LittlefieldInternational.
Chapters or sections of this book have been presented as papers at
international conferences. The International Association for the Study
of Popular Music (IASPM) biennial conferences have been, over the
years, the place to discuss my ideas in a friendly, safe, and supportive
environment.IherebythankallIASPMmembers I metovertheyears,
in particular: Antti-Ville Kärjä, Geoff Stahl, Tony Mitchell, Rosa Reit-
samer, Fabian Holt, Johan Fornäs, Franco Fabbri, Alenka Barber-
Kersovan,GonnieRietveld,ChristophJacke,ChrizziHeinen,andMar-
tin Cloonan. Thanks to Paula Guerra and all the KISMIF family in
Porto; to Matthew Worley and the Interdisciplinary Network for the
Study of Subcultures, Popular Music and Social Change; to Iñigo San-
chez,whoinvitedmetopresentsomeofthefindingsofthisresearchin
a keynote speech in Lisbon; and to Leonard Nevarez, whose Music
Urbanism blog has provided me with inspiration, critical insights, and
greatmusic.
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many people helped me while I was spending time in industrial
cities.IthankHelgeSchreiber,inOberhausen;RudiEschandFernand
Hörner, in Düsseldorf; Heikki Uimonen, Severi Helle, Juho Karisaari,
Juho Kaitajärvi-Tiekso, and Lasse Ullvén, in Tampere; and Alberto Va-
nolo, in Torino. All the people I interviewed in the course of this re-
search—too many to mention—have given precious accounts of their
livesandtheirmusicmaking. I herebythankthem all:lospirito contin-
ua.
TheUniversityofHelsinkihasbeenmymainaffiliationoverthelast
fifteenyears.IthankAnuKorhonen,AnneHaila,andallmycolleagues
inurbanstudiesattheFacultyofSocialSciencesand in Europeanarea
andculturalstudiesattheFacultyofArts.
The Finnish Cultural Foundation funded my research and partially
thewritingofthisbookwithafulltwo-yeargrant.
Love to Tanja, Joel, Anton, and Martta. Cyril Connolly allegedly
statedthat‘thereisnomoresombreenemyofgoodartthanthepramin
the hall’. I think this is untrue; it just takes a little more time to get
thingsdone.
This book is dedicated to G. P. Bottà, my papà, who couldn’t see it
finished.
INTRODUCTION
Metal on Metal
I
n the late 1980s, I was an Italian pupil in a two-week school exchange
programinWuppertal,WestGermany.Wuppertalisatypicalindustrial
city, where German metallurgical concerns developed and grew across
various historical eras until the late 1970s Strukturwandel (paradigm
change, deindustrialisation). Since the 1970s, these concerns have sys-
tematically disappeared, leaving behind a huge amount of empty and
vacantindustrial-builtenvironment.
One evening during my stay in Wuppertal, I was shyly attending, in
my host’s home, a party in honour of a family friend artist who made
abstract sculptures out of industrial debris. Some of her works were
placed in the living room and on the stairs. I was trying my best to
decipher what the guests were talking about, and they were mostly
chatting about Tanztheater or national politics, while smoking and
drinking Rhine white wine. At the end of the evening, as the artist was
leaving,shedecidedtogiveusasmallperformance;shetookoutofher
bag a small bar of metal and started banging on one of her rebar art-
works on the stairs. This went on for minutes. The noise was loud,
repetitive, and mesmerising. I didn’t understand exactly what was hap-
pening,andIwasnotawareofthefact thatnotfar fromthere(actually
just30kilometresfromthere,inDüsseldorf),DieKrupps’JürgenEng-
ler was banging on something quite similar onstage. However, I sort of
understood that the particular noise of rusty metal on rusty metal had
1