Left of the Dial

Overview

An in-depth look at hard-core music

Featuring interviews with leading figures of the punk underground, including Ian MacKaye, from Minor Threat and Fugazi; Jello Biafra, from Dead Kennedys; and Dave Dictor, from MDC, this book probes the legacy of punk's sometimes fuzzy political ideology, its homegrown traditions, and its rupturing of social norms. Passionate, far-reaching, and fresh, these conversations illuminate punk’s oral history with candor and humor by focusing on the history of ideologies and values as understood by performers, instead of as represented by discographies or gig memories. The book also features rare photographs shot during the heyday of punk and hardcore, and a massive punk flyer collection that celebrates a visual history of the bands represented.

Reviews

"While there is much history packed into these interviews, ... it is less a history lesson in the strictest sense than an attempt to document the threads of punk’s ideological framework, its common core motivations, and its unspoken philosophies." —Jimmy Alvarado, Razorcake

"Some of the most revealing and candid words spoken from inside punk rock can be found in Left of the Dial, the book." —Tim Stegall, Austin Chronicle

"[David Ensminger] gets the inside picture and knows where it belongs."  —Peter Case, guitarist, the Plimsouls

"Despite my familiarity with the interviewees, in these pages I'm getting to hear them say things I've never heard from them before."  —Roctober

"Left of the Dial offers a fascinating range of experiences from such subjects as The Dils’ Tony Kinman and Minuteman Mike Watt. The diversity is impressive too as we get perspectives beyond the white, hetero dudes who constitute the prevailing punk stereotype..."  —Mike Segretto, Psychobabble

“In these interviews, David Ensminger goes beyond questions of biography and discography to explore some of these artists’ more unlikely influences and their philosophies on not just punk, but life.”  —Adam Ellsworth, The Arts Fuse

"Left of the Dial provides a fitting tribute to punk’s intellectual and political energy, harnessed to a friendlier, if assaultive, approach that invites in all to play and listen. Better yet, it encourages audiences to become activists, to participate for principled change."  —John L. Murphy, popmatters.com

"The conversations in Left of the Dial speak to much more than the longevity of a particular sound or style, they speak to the very existence of a culture that has outlived those who declared it dead decades ago."  —Blake Underwood, Indypendent Reader

Author Biography

David Ensminger is an instructor at Lee College and the author of Visual Vitriol. He lives Baytown, Texas.