No Apocalypse: Punk, Politics, and the Great American Weirdness
by Al Burian Author
Selected Writing from Punk Planet, HeartattaCk, and the Skeleton
War seems to have frazzled the punks. That's an unusual turn of events considering punk is the subculture that gave us the phrases"let's have a war," "let's start a war," "war on 45," "my war," "wargasm," "war all the time," and so on. "Rock n' roll is war," said the band Frodus; but you know, it really isn't. "Rock n' roll is just rock n' roll," assessed AC/DC, somewhat more accurately, and, while not necessarily noise pollution, it is, in the estimation of the Archers of Loaf, "too bad that the music doesn't matter." Rock remains rock, war remains war, and, despite everything being subjective and meaning something else entirely from what it appears to under the tenets of post-modernity and end-of-historicism, the fact remains that having a lot of dead people is a terrible, terrible thing and having a lot of people voluntarily self-inducing hearing loss is a less terrible thing. Yes? We are all in agreement here?
Al Burian is the author of the zine Burn Collector. From 2000 to 2007 he was a columnist for various music magazines and DIY publications, including Punk Planet, HeartattaCk, and the Skeleton. NO APOCALYPSE presents the best of these writings, collected in book form for the first time.
by Al Burian Author
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Comments & Reviews
"Compiled for the first time, here are the writings of Al Burian for Punk Planet, HeartattaCK, and The Skeleton. A total of 30 small works of art that give a very good sense of what life was like in the late 1990s to the mid-2000s…It’s refreshing that Burian doesn’t take himself too seriously…”
"I love Al Burian. He is hands-down my favorite living author today, and certainly one of my favorite authors of all time. His take on punk culture is laced with existential despair and matter-of-fact commentary...What gets me most about No Apocalypse is how insightful it is...[Burian] makes himself easily relatable and one of punk's most talented literary figures of the past few decades."
"...Burian never fails in getting a point across by the end of each piece. It’s an interesting dynamic that keeps the audience engaged."
readerviews.com/reviewburiannoapocalypse
"Well shit, it’s like no time has passed, and Al is rolling in to work here at the bookstore, telling us a hilarious story about his weekend, and I’m sitting raptured, laughing and inspired."