GUY MANKOWSKI

I'm honoured to have an article in the current issue of the academic journal 'Punk & Post-Punk'. It's entitled 'I Can't Seem To Stay A Fixed Ideal: Self-Design & Self-Harm in Subcultures.' The piece looks at musical subcultures such as post-punk, New Romantic and Riot Grrl, and in them considers where self-design ends and self-harm begins. It includes a case study of the Manic Street Preachers' guitarist Richey Edwards- http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Article,id=17259/

I contacted singer Jehnny Beth about the manifestos she’s written on behalf of her band, the Mercury Music Prize nominated group Savages. I was honoured when Beth suggested us having a Q & A on the subject of phones at live gigs, as her manifestos have recently changed the conduct of audiences… Guy Mankowski : In one of your manifestos you write that the use of phones, to film and take pictures at gigs, ‘prevents us all from immersing ourselves’. How do you think we have got to the point where people have created such a barrier to immersion? Gemma Thompson (Savages guitarist, sat next to Beth at the time): I suppose that whilst technology has increased in the last century quicker than any other time, human instincts are pretty much the same as they’ve always been. It is more difficult to have a direct focus, to concentrate on one thing without distraction, people want to be involved in everything, all of the time. GM : Do you see gigs as places at which there shoul...