Once In A Lifetime: Post-punk and the subculture 1978-84

An evening of conversation and music with Justin Robertson and Andy Crysell, hosted by Rory Natkiel.

Between 1978 and 1984, the most influential musical explosion since the birth of rock and roll happened. Post-punk, new wave, ska, electro, hip hop, techno, and proto-house were a cluster of subcultures that erupted simultaneously, in dialogue with each other across cities and continents, through the first indepent music distribution networks. In the process, those involved created the foundations for popular music as we know it today.

On Friday 4 September, as part of the Wanstead Fringe community arts festival, we’re bringing together two people who were shaped by that moment and whose careers would have been very different without it.

Justin Robertson is one of the most respected DJs and producers in British music, whose career traces a direct line from the early post-punk scene through rave, house and beyond. He currently produces music under the post-punk influenced guise of Five Green Moons.

Andy Crysell is the author of Selling The Night, founder of No Way Back magazine, and one of the sharpest writers on music culture working today.

Together, hosted by Rory Natkiel (Rule Six), they’ll explore why this period remains so potent, so influential, and so strangely difficult to define. How did punk’s ethos become unstuck from its sound? What connected Gang of Four to the Bronx, Siouxsie to Sheffield, ESG to Factory Records? Why does this extraordinary explosion of creativity still not have a name?

The conversation starts at 7.30. At 9, Justin and Rory take over the decks for a night of music from the era and beyond, from Talking Heads, The Cure, The Beat, New Order and ESG through to LCD Soundsystem, Yard Act, !!!, Parquet Courts, Soulwax and more.