{"id":12474,"date":"2019-10-31T18:19:40","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T18:19:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/?p=12474"},"modified":"2024-05-01T13:16:00","modified_gmt":"2024-05-01T12:16:00","slug":"richard-cabut-speaks-to-eyeplug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/richard-cabut-speaks-to-eyeplug\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Cabut Speaks to Eyeplug"},"content":{"rendered":"
This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series DozenQ 5<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Richard Cabut<\/b> was born in 29 March 1960 and is a British author, journalist, playwright and musician. Educated Dunstable Grammar School<\/a> to1978, graduating Polytechnic of North London<\/a> in 1981. A member of the punk band Brigandage more recently co-editor and author of the anthology Punk is Dead: Modernity Killed Every Night<\/i> and authored Dark Entries<\/i> a novella. We recently had a chat with him…<\/p>\n

1 You\u2019re known for books like Punk is Dead: Modernity Killed Every Night, your work in the theatre. But your latest book is a short novel called Dark Entries.<\/h3>\n

Essentially Dark Entries is about addiction \u2013 about patterns of self-destruction \u2028and -negatation; a beatnik psycho pulp and an urban blues \u2013 naked confessional art\/talking in public, like we talk in private\/very verit\u00e9\/ inhuman condition\/psychic thrills and ills\/city sickness and slickness\/ banal sex… that kind of thing. It\u2019s a pretty savage look at the contemporary psyche. An honest peek at a modern lifestyle that\u2019s characterised by aimlessness and self-abuse via reliance on extreme pornography and alcohol.<\/p>\n

2. It sounds provocative and\/or controversial.<\/h3>\n

Art and culture has been flattened. Everyone has to be the same \u2013 nice. Any views outside of the bubble are frowned upon, ignored or attacked. It\u2019s group-think. And it\u2019s damaging and boring. Dark Entries has been described as \u2018London\u2019s most notorious book,\u2019 and \u2018A book too far.\u2019 It is about a guy who lives an extreme life \u2013 but people live extreme lives everywhere, and I think literature has to reflect that. Literature isn\u2019t there to make you feel nice and cosy. Sometimes, it\u2019s meant to disturb and prod. To create empathy and make human connections.<\/p>\nBUY DARK ENTRIES HERE<\/a>\n

3. In a way Dark Entries seems, at the same time, similar to and removed from punk \u2013 the subject of your Modernity Killed Every Night book, of course.<\/h3>\n

Well, there\u2019s the shock value in both books I suppose. But one of the most glorious aspects of punk was its power to bring together those people who didn\u2019t fit in \u2013 it created a community \u2013 a community of outsiders. In its confessional bite, Dark Entries \u2013 even though it is not actually based on myself \u2013 illuminates issues that lie largely outside of societal norms. Its sense of verit\u00e9 is all important. Stripping the veneer off the human condition. Truly exposing people, flaws and all. And who knows what that might give birth to? Maybe even a sense of true art in which the affirmation of individuality conveys universals to unite and make connections. Creating a greater sense of empathy and, yes, community. Maybe the same sort of community of outsiders forged by the advent of punk.<\/p>\n

4. How did you get started in the world of words?<\/h3>\n

I started my own fanzine, Kick. I lived in small-town, working-\/lower middle-class suburbia, Dunstable, Bedfordshire. Thirty miles from the capital. Here, kids left school and went on the track, the production line, at the local factory, Vauxhall Motors. If you could get some qualifications you could join the civil service. If, as the clich\u00e9\u0301 has it, escape from the ghetto could only be achieved by means of sport or showbiz, then either learning three chords or scrawling a fanzine was the easiest way out of the suburbs for bored punk rockers. I was rubbish on guitar at the time, and so I started my fanzine.<\/p>\n

5. Where did you see the first piece you had written in print, how did that feel?<\/h3>\n

I guess that would have been a live review of Dirt\/Flux of Pink Indians at the Moonlight Club in the NME, September 1982. Thumbs up for Flux, down for Dirt. I had mixed feelings actually. Echoing the 1960s\/1970s exodus of writers from the underground press to the mainstream, I jumped on the music press bandwagon. In doing so, I felt some small sense of guilt \u2013 selling out and all that rubbish. But, hey, this was more than tempered by the sense of personal acceleration and movement \u2013 and, in truth, despite the fact that all the punk fanzine writers had all sniped at the NME, we regarded it, in truth, with no little respect. We \u2013 those who took the IPC shilling \u2013 soon revelled in the attention and status that an NME by-line attracted and afforded.<\/p>\n

6. What was the main reasons that you started to write seriously?<\/h3>\n

Well, Franz Kafka said \u2018A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.\u2019 I starting writing seriously in order to avoid being taken away by the guys in white coats.<\/p>\n