David Ensminger is a Humanities, Folklore, and English Instructor at Lee College in Baytown, TX. As a writer covering music, art, and contemporary issues, he has authored Visual Vitriol: The Street Art and Subcultures of the Punk and Hardcore Generations, coauthored Mojo Hand: The Life and Music of Lightnin’ Hopkins,and contributed to Popmatters (where he publishes a monthly column), Maximum Rock’n’Roll, Houston Press, Art in Print, M/C Journal, The Journal of Popular Music Studies, Artcore, Postmodern Culture, Trust, and others. He is also a longtime drummer, including a stint in the Texas Biscuit Bombs with Biscuit of the Big Boys, and a digital archivist of punk and vernacular culture.
Left of the Dial: Conversations with Punk Icons
SKU: 9781604866414
Author: David Ensminger
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN: 9781604866414
Published: 6/2013
Format: Paperback
Size: 6 x 9
Page count: 296
Subjects: Music–Punk/Sociology
Praise
“David Ensminger is the right mix of intellectual and real-ass
emotional punk. He is a historian and has walked the life…I recommend
everything this man is up to!”
—Dave Dictor, MDC
“David is one of the rare scene insiders who also has a depth
of knowledge of the social and political context for the punk and
hardcore moment. His love for the scene and understanding of its
importance is unique, well-researched, and valuable.”
—Vic Bondi, Articles of Faith
“David Ensminger is one of the few music writers who ‘get it.’ He’s a
rockin’ drummer, a knowledgeable writer who’s actually engaged with the
wide world, and he’s done time on the front lines of punk rock. As an
interviewer he gets the inside picture and know’s where it belongs.”
—Peter Case, Plimsouls, The Nerves
“David is one of the very few people that I’ve ever agreed to do an
interview with. Why? Because he grasps the relevant importance of the
punk movement in a historical context, local and international, which is
crucial to the subject.”
—U-Ron Bondage, Really Red
“Ensminger burrows into punk’s essential contradictions and creates
space for the marginalized of the movement to make a riot of their own.
The stories and observations collated here benefit from the author’s
street-scholar sense, as he makes critical connections between what
bound the subculture together.”
—Denise Sullivan, author of Keep On Pushin’: Black Power Music from Blues to Hip Hop on David Ensminger’s Visual Vitriol
Book Events
october, 2024
No Events
Reviews
- You Can’t Annihilate This Band: Black Flag’s Legacy and Lore in Spray Paint the Walls
- Left of the Dial in Roctober
- Left of the Dial in the Indypendent Reader
- Left of the Dial on Pop Matters
- Left of the Dial on The Arts Fuse
- Left of the Dial on Psychobabble
- Left of the Dial: An Austin Chronicle Review
- Left of the Dial: A Razorcake Review
- Left of the Dial: A Scanner Zine Review