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

By David a Ensminger and David Ensminger

Book Overview

Out of the Basement tells 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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1621067661
• ISBN13: 9781621067665
• Release Date: February 2017
• Publisher: Microcosm Publishing
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.29 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 6.9"
• Age Range: 14 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 9 and higher