Out of the Basement: From Cheap Trick to DIY Punk in Rockford, Illinois, 1973-2005 [Paperback]

Out of the Basementtells the story of underground music (and mainstream rock that sometimes rose out of it) in post-industrial Rockford, Illinois. This is a bracing, candid, democratic, and cutting edge portrayal of a rust belt city full of rebel kids making DIY music despite the odds. It combines oral history, brutally honest memoir, music history, and a sense of blunt poetics to capture the ethos of life in the 1970s-2000s, long before the Internet made punk accessible to small towners. From dusty used record stores and frenetic skating rinks to dank basements and sweat-piled gigs to the radical forebears like the local IWW chapter, the book follows the stories of rebels struggling to find spaces and a sense of community and their place in underground history.

David Ensminger writes a fascinating story about the development of punk in Rockford, Illinois. He weaves engaging personal narratives with interesting historical accounts of proto-punk, power pop, punk rock, and hardcore in this Midwest town. —Daniel Makagon, author ofUnderground: The Subterranean Culture of DIY Punk Shows

A vivid portrait of late 20th century 'rust city kids' skateboarding through a kind of pulp noir 'dead-end America,' sustained by punk and its DIY ethos. As so often happens, punks crafted community and beauty out of the ruins. It is, at once, both a typical story and a singular one, and Ensminger captures it all. —Michael Stewart Foley, author ofDead Kennedys' Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables

This latest dispatch from David Ensminger emits in vigorous detail the lineaments of the sweat-drenched musical underground nestled in his rock hard hometown. Wild, subterranean notations and sense impressions combine with slices of scholarly reflection and the author's own energy and timeless enthusiasm to deliver not only the glory of a youth movement on the page, but the nearly lost art of punk itself. —Denise Sullivan, lC$