S.O.B.s Dont Be Swindle

This book chronicles the Kyoto/Kansai 1980s hardcore punk scene through the album Dont Be Swindle by S.O.B., with a focus on Kyotos main venues and the networks they created. Apart from being the center of Japans cultural heritage, Kyoto is home to one of Japans leading avant-garde art and music scenes. The Kyoto University-affiliated venue Seibu Kodo has historically been the focus of this scene, creating an ethos and organizational core which hosted major international acts such as Frank Zappa and Talking Heads while pushing more local experimental and political acts. The hardcore punks in Kyoto, most of whom were high-school dropouts, borrowed the organizational structure and interacted with Seibu Kodo and its committees to create their own scene. By focusing on the seminal hardcore album Dont Be Swindle by S.O.B. and using rich archival material, this book explains the connections and entanglements of space and scene in 1980s punk.