Agit Disco – Japanese expanded edition

Out from 野田努（ele-king）
150-0031東京都渋谷区桜丘町21-2 池田ビル2F
株式会社Pヴァイン内ele-king編集部
03-5784-1256
http://www.ele-king.net/

pp352

ISBN 978-4-907276-92-8

Three copies of the Japanese translation of Agit Disco have arrived. It is a Very beautiful edition! Superb book design!

All in all much more comprehensive and complex than the British edition. I’m impressed by the footnotes they have added to each playlist which I can only imagine they make the esoteric, mostly London network, nature of it accessible to a wider audience in Japan. These notes make it a valuable cultural history of a period of the London music/art underground, as well as the more international Anglophone references of the playlist contents.

The 10 ‘bonus’ Japanese selector playlists are a great idea. They are in a section at the end of the book that is printed on cream paper. There is some English so I can read most of the tracks have been chosen. I’ve put images of these above this post. (or click on the selector’s names below)

They have used my (new) long Afterword which gives update agit disco tunes that drifted across my media screens from 2008 though 2016. Lots of links to eg ‘Music of the miners Strike’ mix by Neil Transpontine.

The book is in black and white but they used the CD graphics with the original playlists to funky effect. Fragments of these graphics are used in a collage form to create the cover design with a woodcut/screen print look. There is an orange silk place-keeping ribbon which reflects the orange splash used on the cover. All very cool.

I’m SO pleased with the result.

The new Japanese selectors are:
Hiroshi Egaitsu, Kizu Tsuyoshi, Kurihara Yasushi,
Kuwahara Moichi, Sakamoto Mariko, Koya Suzuki with Love Kindstrand, Brady Mikako,
Masato Matsumura, Yosuke Yukimatsu, Itaru W. Mita,

Good that writers in Japan were actively engaged as selectors! You can follow the name link to my short comments on parts of their playlist and a photograph or two of their pages.

Its a  pity that the new edition couldn’t have included:

https://szczelkuns.wordpress.com/…/french-agit-disco-2014/

and

http://archive.furtherfield.org/features/reviews/agit-disco-vs-zombie-apocalypse

but they are linked to in the afterword…  http://stefan-szczelkun.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/afterword-to-new-japanese-edition-of.html

The new Afterword basically a concentrated summary of the agitdisco posts I’ve done since the UK book came out… here and on Youtube!

Conclusion: Of course there are many other questions that may or may not have been answered by these new selectors. It seems that the Hardcore Japanese punk bands in the 1980s had a level of protest – examples are SS, The Stalin and GISM. Was/is hip hop and rap absorbed into J-Pop without any of the oppositional content of global non-commercial hip hop culture? Going back further, what about those early ‘hippy’ era experimental bands like Les Rallizes Dénudés?

The post-war peace settlement seems to have had a dark shadow of USA cultural imperialism attached to it. For instance, I understand that it was only around the year 2000 that pop songs were sung in Japanese. Perhaps such subtle imperialist pressures stymie working-class musics and are the reason that Japanese people have insisted that there is ‘no Japanese protest music’.

The original English selectors were mainly my own contacts with others added who were friends of friends. So the British group of selectors probably had some cultural values in common. I have no idea how the Japanese selectors came to be assembled or who invited them to contribute; I was not involved. Anyway the point is that, whether they knew each other or not, they have a completely new approach to the idea of Agit Disco. This adds to the genre busting diversity that was one of the values of the first edition.

http://www.ele-king.net/books/006107/

 

 

‘Play and talk about’ – Agit Disco 45s by Stefan Szczelkun and other tracks by guests Shirley Cameron and Roland Miller – SITE gallery in Sheffield on 28th October 2014

Stefan played his 45s first. Chronological with a few themes interwoven:  class and language; class oppression; local musics; post colonial solidarity; subversive B-sides; Psych-pop and youth consciousness forming on a very emotive plane.

1958 ‘Life of a Millionaire’ by Scrapper Blackwell  (record 1967) Replacement for a lost Sonny Boy Williamson 2 EP

1958  ‘Three O’clock Thrill’ by Kalin Twins. One hit wonders.  Subversive B-side theme  Media gatekeeping good taste/ vulgarity/ key word= BOWDLERISATION

1960  ‘My Old Mans a Dustman’ by Lonnie Donegan – Royal Variety story  theme: class and language  Smash Deference/ class oppression theme. Connection to music hall.

1964 ‘In The Bath’ by Flanders and Swann – Genteel English rap music?!  Hygiene? Class dirt?  class oppression theme. Connection to music hall via respectable and regulated Variety.

1965  ‘My Generation’ – The Who  “Why doncha all FFFF… fade away!” Primetime TV fracture of the media screen.

1966 ‘Shanty Town’ – Desmond Dekker. Lived in Thornton Heath.

NOT THIS ONE !  1978 Sex Pistols do ‘God Save the Queen’ in the UK conspicuous by its absence among my 45s – now very rare. Smash deference!

1977 Oh Bondage Up Yours – X Ray Spex. Poly Styrene at Oval House workshops in Seventies. (not played in Sheffield – left of the printed list I used)

1979 ‘Common as Muck’  – Ian Dury  theme: class and language.

‘Reasons to be Cheerful’   an artwork, or as young Rocko said “Lots of detail”.