Arguments Yard

Thirty Five Years of Ranting Verse and Thrash Mandola

Launched into public consciousness by John Peel in the early 1980s, poet, musician, journalist, and political activist Attila the Stockbroker has since spent 35 years touring the world as a self-sustaining, one man DIY cottage industry. Having performed over 3,000 gigs in 24 countries, releasing 30 records and seven books of poetry along the way, he pauses here to relate his life story, a tale of ranting verse, punk rock, and his relationship with the ever changing, increasingly corporate-minded politics of the last five decades. An autobiography like no other, Arguments Yard bounces effortlessly from frontline tales of touring East Germany, the first ever punk performance in Stalinist Albania, being thrown out of one of his own gigs, and the fight—often literally—with the fascist thuggery which blighted the punk rock scene to more homely anecdotes concerning his coastal upbringing and love of his home in West Sussex, his involvement with Brighton and Hove Albion FC, and his journey into a career which has lasted far longer than the ranting verse fad which spawned it. Full of humor and intellect, and peppered with encounters with notable figures, Arguments Yard demonstrates a depth rarely found in the everyday performer's autobiography, and relates an important social history, being a left wing activist's eyewitness journey through the great political battles and movements of recent times. Rock Against Racism, the Anti Nazi League, the minters' strikes, the Wapping dispute, Red Wedge, the Poll Tax, and campaigns against two Gulf Wars are all analyzed from a ringside perspective before the author packs his bags and takes us on another tour of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the US, or Europe. Also containing much of Attila's finest poetry, Arguments Yard is the perfect antidote to the countless fake take splattered and empty headed celebrity autobiographies that increasingly fill bookshelves.