Dying Scene Book Club – Ian Ellis – “Punk Beyond the Music: Tracing Mutation and Manifestation of the Punk Virus”

Iain Ellis is a senior lecturer in the English department of the University of Kansas. Ellis has released Punk Beyond the Music: Tracing Mutations and Manifestations of the Punk Virus. The text tries to compare punk to a virus with how contagious its spread has been since its introduction. His goal was to find the multitudes of punk rock in different aspects and categories. While some of the information presented was accurate, it is very much up for debate whether he reached his actual goal. Ellis starts with some basic aspects of punk we can mostly agree on: its DIY aesthetic, being an outsider, the symbols, and politics. He also lists some characteristics of punk attitude: anger, frustration, sarcasm, swagger, bluntness, loathing, and hostility. For comparison purposes, he classifies thr...