Just Drifting: Situationism and Rock
Just Drifting: Situationism and Rock: via Pearls, a pretty basic overview of the links between, well, situationism and rock (links which indie punk boy rockers down the ages have been far keener to emphasise than the situationists, it needs be said). The more purely influenced situationist rockers have tended to be the least interesting, I think. From McLaren on, via ZTT and the KLF and onwards, it’s been the bastardisation of situ by pop which has provided the best records, stunts and art, even if it’s ended up shifting the spectacle not one bit - probably reinforcing it, come to think of it. The author of this piece continues the rather smug punky ancestor-worship, even as he quotes the SI’s maxim that “the notion of situationism is obviously devised by anti-situationists”.
My favourite Situationist anecdote, which I nabbed from a book on the Angry Brigade, involved the explusion of the entire English Section of the movement. Legend has it that Guy Debord made a special visit from France to hear the English boys’ revolutionary plans for the overthrow of the Spectacle. He was expecting something pretty damn hot, and had endured a nightmarish journey, struggling to the agreed rendezvous only to find the entire English Section sitting on a sofa drinking lager and watching Match Of The Day. Infuriated, he returned to Paris and expelled them forthwith.
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