Ian Glasper

A veteran himself of the UK punk scene (having played bass for Decadence Within, Burnside, Flux Of Pink Indians, Stampin’ Ground, Suicide Watch, Betrayed By Many, Freebase and, in the present day, Thirty Six Strategies), Ian Glasper‘s trilogy (plus one) of books about the UK’s turbulent Eighties (and Nineties!) punk and hardcore scenes are widely regarded as the definitive accounts of those periods. A proud father of two, who cut his journalistic teeth with the popular Record Collector and Terrorizer magazines, not to mention various underground fanzines, he digs vegetarian food, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and gratuitously violent films, and is currently summoning up the courage to start a fifth book.

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Praise

Praise

“It’s all here: the genesis of the band, the practising, the song-writing, the recordings, the gigs, the original split and the reformation … in fact everything you could possibly want to know about this very special band.”
—Tony Whatley of Suspect Device

“Ian Glasper captures the emotion and excitement surrounding one of the most enduring punk bands on the planet. With an extensive—some might say forensic—narrative, this book really gets under the skin of a perennial favourite who have rarely put a foot wrong.”
—Nathan Haywire, Louder Than War

“Subhumans have integrity in spades, and you can’t buy that. They were important then and are important now.”
—Sean Forbes of Wat Tyler and Hard Skin

“Subhumans are special both on and off stage. It’s the passion that’s evident onstage, with those beautifully constructed lyrics spat out with every breath—and that charged energy they generate, that sweeps through the crowd and leaves us feeling changed.”
—Ruth Elias of Hagar The Womb

“They’re one of my favourite bands in the world, but a band is only as good as the people in it … and the Subhumans are the real deal.”
—Stu Pid of Police Bastard

“Their songs seem to exist out of time, somehow always relevant. And they’ve stuck to their guns—there’s this stubborn defiance in the face of fashion, and a glorious, unaffected honesty.”
—Winston Smith

“They are the ultimate punk band, with the most genuine, inclusive, informative, approachable attitude, and such amazing music … tight and edgy as fuck, and so professional—a joy to watch.”
—Peter Jones of Paranoid Visions

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Praise

“Ian Glasper’s chatty, engaging history follows the regional lines along which UK punk’s ’second wave’ scene divided, as well as talking about the record labels involved and what the main protagonists, from the Anti-Nowhere League to Vice Squad, are up to now.“
—Iain Aitch, Guardian

“Glasper is thorough and democratic. He lets everyone speak, tell their own story, edits out the rambling and bullshit, and presents a fair picture of all the main bands from all over the UK and Ireland. Geographically divided up. It’s an encyclopaedic but down-to-earth reference book, full of detail and anecdotes.“
—Ged Babey, LouderThanWar.com

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Praise

“The oral testimony assembled here provides an often-lucid participant’s view of the work of the wider anarcho-punk milieu, which demonstrates just as tellingly the diversity as well as the commonality by which it was defined. The collection hints at the extent to which—within a militant antiwar, anti-work, anti-system framework—the perception and priorities of the movement’s activists differed: something the movement’s critics (who were always keen to deride the uniformity of the ’Crass punks’) rarely understood.“
—Rich Cross, Freedom

“With a backdrop of Thatcher’s Britain, punk music became self-sufficient and considerably more aggressive, blending a DIY ethos with activism to create the perfectly bleak soundtrack to the zeitgeist of a discontented British youth. Including such iconic bands as Crass, Conflict, Flux of Pink Indians, Subhumans, Chumbawamba, Oi Polloi, Amebix, Rubella Ballet and Zounds to name but a few, Ian Glasper’s history of punk stands out as an important and relevant history of the genre.“
—Dave Faulds, Dulwich Books Review

“Glasper is thorough and democratic. He lets everyone speak, tell their own story, edits out the rambling and bullshit and presents a fair picture of all the main bands from all over the UK and Ireland. Geographically divided up. It’s an encyclopaedic but down-to-earth reference book, full of detail and anecdotes.“
—Ged Babey, LouderThanWar.com

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Book Events

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Reviews

• “Silence is No Reaction… is as comprehensive a biography as you could wish for. Essential.”
• Suspect Device reviews the new Subhumans book
• Sober Living on Thoughts Words Action
• Burning Britain on Thoughts Words Action
• Glasper’s “Burning Britain” for the fans only
• The Day the Country Died: A History of Anarcho Punk 1980–1984 in Musique Machine
• The Day The Country Died
• The Day The Country Died: A Freedom News Review
• The Story Crass & The Day The Country Died

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Interviews

• The Subhumans & Punk Historiography with Ian Glasper on Minor Compositions
• The Day the Country Died: A History of Anarcho Punk 1980–1984 in Musique Machine
• “I have many strings to my bow”. Interview with Ian Glasper.

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Mentions

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Blog

• Why the hell did I ever get into punk rock?