Underground / Overground

The Changing Politics of UK Music-Writing: 1968-85

Friday-Saturday 15-16 May 2015

Underground/Overground is a two-day symposium at London’s Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, consisting of panel discussions and Q&As. Run by Mark Sinker, former editor of The Wire, it will bring together writers, editors and readers of the underground and trade music presses of the 1970s and 80s with academics and other media commentators, to discuss the emergence and evolution of the countercultural voice in the UK, as inflected through the rock papers between these dates. The proceedings are being recorded and transcribed, to form the core of a subsequent published collection, alongside additional memoirs and essays from participants (especially those unable to attend).

The two days of the conference will focus on the period when UK rockwriting emerged out of the conflict between a rising generation’s counterculture and the embattled establishment in the late 60s and early 70s, and how well (or badly) it reflected the turbulent times, and on the period when this distinctive milieu began significantly to be reintegrated back into the mainstream, the 1980s, and the form this reintegration took; it will also discuss the wider legacy, good and ill, from the 80s to the present day.

Attending speakers, panelists and contributors currently include:

Richard Williams, contributor in the 60s and later editor of Melody Maker, arts and sports journalist, currently artistic director of the Berlin Jazz Festival
Charles Shaar Murray, contributor (as schoolboy) to Oz (legendary schoolkids issue), NME (70s/80s)
Mark Williams, music editor at IT, contributor in the 70s to Melody Maker, motoring journalist
Simon Frith, Tovey Chair of Music at University of Edinburgh, sociomusicologist, author; former rock critic at Let It Rock and Melody Maker, pop columnist for the Observer and the Village Voice
Paul Gilroy, Professor of American and English Literature at King's College London, contributor to The Wire and other publications (80s)
Val Wilmer, writer-photographer since the 50s, historian of Black music in Britain, contributor to Melody Maker, Jazz Journal, Spare Rib, etc
David Toop, author, musician, editor-contributor atMusics (70s), Collusion (early 80s), columnist at The Face and The Wire (mid 80s and after)
Tony Palmer, rock critic at The Observer (1967-74),The Spectator (1969-74), film-maker inc. TV doc series on pop and rock All You Need Is Love
Jonathon Green, author of Days in the Life, chronicler of the underground
Nigel Fountain, L'Idiot International and Oz in the 60s, Street Life and Let it Rock in the 70s, edited City Limits (with John Fordham) in the 80s; historian of the underground press
Paul Morley, staffer at NME 70s/80s, media commentator
Penny Reel, on production at IT (60s/70s), writer on reggae and early rock’n’roll for Let It Rock, NME,Echoes, Select
Beverley Glick, wrote as Betty Page for Sounds in the 70s, editor of Record Mirror in the later 80s
John (aka Jonh) Ingham, contributor to CREEM, Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy, Sounds during punk, founded BOMP w/Greg Shaw
Cynthia Rose, contributor to NME 70s/80s, deputy editor The Wire, editor City Limits
Tony Stewart, deputy editor of NME (70s/80s), editor of Sounds then Select, currently assistant editor/columnist Daily Mirror
Liz Naylor, late 70s co-editor Manchester’s City Fun, writer, promoter, publicist, DJ, labelboss
Edwin Pouncey, cartoonist (Sounds, Forced Exposure, The Wire), musician, writer
Barney Hoskyns, NME 70s/80s, author of books on Prince and Glam Rock, founder and editor of the archive website Rock’s Back Pages
Mark Pringle, chief archivist at Rock’s Back Pages
Kodwo Eshun, contributor in the 90s to The Wire, The Face, i-D, author of More Brilliant than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction
Laura Snapes, freelance writer, features editor at NME till literally just now
Simon Warner, lecturer in popular music studies at Leeds University
Adam Gearey, professor of law at Birkbeck
Esther Leslie, professor in political aesthetics at Birkbeck
Toby Litt, novelist, senior lecturer in creative writing at Birkbeck
Hazel Southwell (nee Robinson), legend of angry internet pop writing from Popjustice toThe Singles Jukebox + many comments threads
Tom Ewing, founder of the pioneering Freaky Trigger blog and the I Love Music message board
Mark Sinker, NME 80s, editor of The Wire 90s, author and commentator
Bob Stanley of St Etienne, author for Faber of the recent Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern Pop