Lester Bangs, (1949 - April 30), 1982 was an American music journalist, author and musician.. Bangs was an extremely influential voice in music writing from the end of the 1960s until his death in 1982. Bangs started out writing as a freelancer for Rolling Stone in 1969, and later worked for Creem Magazine, The Village Voice, Penthouse, Playboy, New Musical Express, and many others. His ranting style, similar to Hunter S. Thompson's gonzo journalism, and his tendency to insult and become confrontational with his interview subjects made him distinctive.

Billy Bragg is an important creative and political voice in contemporary music. With a mix of folk music reminiscent of Woody Guthrie and punk rock inspired by Joe Strummer and the Clash, Bragg's musical career is eclectic and uncompromising. In a career that spans over twenty years, Bragg has produced witty and clever music. Standout records include Talking with the Taxman about Poetry, Don't Try this at Home, and William Bloke. Bragg is also a political activist in the U.K. where he has helped to organize events like the Red Wedge Tour, a socialist musician collective that also featured Paul Weller. A fixture at political rallies, protests, strikes and benefits, Bragg recently released English, Half English.

Charlie Bertsch is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where he specializes in post‚1945 American literature, critical theory, and popular culture. He is a regular contributor to Punk Planet magazine and is co‚editor of its book review section. He is also one of the founders and present co‚director for the long‚running Internet publication Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life.

Dennis Broe's articles on film, music and media have appeared in Newsday, The Boston Phoenix, Social Justice, Framework, Cinema Journal and Science and Society. He is currently completing a manuscript on film noir tilted Outside the Law: Labor and the Crime Film 1941-55.He is Graduate Coordinator in the Media Arts Department at Long Island University. His was one of a group of American Journalists that interviewed The Clash on their US tour in 1979. He was five years old at the time. One of hip-hop's most commanding and instantly recognizable voices,

Chuck D has influenced an entire generation of fans and artists alike. Hailing from Long Island, he found fame as the frontman for Public Enemy, a group known for their revolutionary lyricism and groundbreaking production. PE's fiery rhymes and unique stage show won them millions of fans across the globe. They released four classic albums: Yo! Bum Rush the Show, It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Fear of a Black Planet and Apocalypse '91ÖThe Enemy Strikes Back. Chuck D has remained politically and musically active, working on a wide range of projects, including a solo album, Autobiography of Mistachuck, released in '96. He also fronts a hard rock band (Confrontation Camp), helps run two websites/online labels (Rapstation.com and SlamJamz.com), writes for various press outlets, and also hits the lecture circuit. He currently can be heard on Air America where he co-hosts the radio program Bring the Noise with Kyle Jason.

Luciano D'Orazio is a writer whose work appears in Flak, where he co-published its inaugural print edition in September 2003. This article appeared on January 13, 2003 in PopPolitics

Mikal Gilmore has covered and criticized rock & roll, its culture, and related issues for many national publications. He was music editor for the L.A. Weekly and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, and for twenty years has worked on the staff of Rolling Stone, where he has profiled many national figures. His first book, Shot in the Heart, won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Amy Phillips is a freelance writer who lives in New York City. She has contributed to The Village Voice, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Blender, CMJ New Music Monthly, Venus, Seventeen, Willamette Week, Kitty Magik and Philadelphia City Paper.

Not4Prophet is the lead singer/songwriter for the Puerto Punx band RICANSTRUCTION. Based in El Barrio, New York, Not4Prophet has been a longtime collaborator of La Lutta NMC's, participating in This Is A Movement, Speak the Words the Way You Breathe, In Defense of Humans among other political pop culture events. RICANSTRUCTION albums include Liberation Day and Love+Revolution. Along with Kid Lucky, he is part of the spoken noise (de)constructive duo known as the Renegades of Punk.

Greil Marcus is the author of In the Fascist Bathroom, Lipstick Traces, Mystery Train, and with Sean Wilentz co-editor of The Rose and the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad, published in 2004 by Norton in the U.S. and Faber & Faber in the U.K. He lives in Berkeley.

Kristine McKenna is a widely published critic and journalist who wrote for the Los Angeles Times from 1977 through 1998. Her profiles and criticism have appeared in Artforum, The New York Times, Artnews, Vanity Fair, The Washington Post and Rolling Stone Magazine, and she was the recipient of a National Endowment Arts Administration grant in 1976. In 1991 she received a Critics Fellowship from the National Gallery of Art, and she co-curated the 1998 exhibition "Forming: the Early Days of L.A. Punk," for Track 16 Gallery. In 2001, a collection of her interviews, "Book of Changes," was published by Fantagraphics, who published a second volume of her interviews, "Talk To Her," in 2004. She is archivist for the Charles Brittin Collection of Photography, and is presently writing the first authorized biography of Wallace Berman. She is co-curator of Semina Culture: Wallace Berman & his Circle, a group exhibition that opens at the Santa Monica Museum of Art in 2005, then travels to five U.S. museums. She is also the co-producer of ìFerus,î a documentary directed by Morgan Neville about L.A.'s first avant-garde gallery.

Joel Schalit is the Associate Editor of Punk Planet Magazine and is an editor of the world's longest-running online journal, Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life. He is the author of Jerusalem Calling: A Homeless Conscience in a Post Everything World and editor of The Anti-Capitalism Reader, both published in 2002 by Akashic Books. Along with Megan Prelinger, Schalit is co-editor of Collective Action: A Bad Subjects Anthology, published in 2004 by Pluto Press. Schalit's articles have appeared in the SF Bay Guardian, Tikkun, and XLR8R. He lives and works in San Francisco.

Anthony Roman is the lead singer and bass player for the New York City based group Radio 4. Radio 4's albums include The New Song and Dance, Gotham and the forthcoming Stealing of a Nation.

Ann Scanlon is the author of THE POGUES: THE LOST DECADE and THOSE TOURISTS ARE MONEY: THE ROCK'N'ROLL GUIDE TO CAMDEN. She has written for a number of music magazines and newspapers, including SOUNDS, MOJO and The London TIMES.

Peter Silverton is a writer and features editor for Sounds in its punk years. Joe Strummer got him the job. Contributor to Smash Hits. Co-author, with Glen Matlock, of I Was A Teenage Sex Pistol. Author of Essential Elvis. Writer for The Observer. Episodic contributor to Mojo. Compiler and annotator of If Loving You Is Wrong, I Don't Want To Be Right (Ace), an acclaimed collection of the 1970s soul songs that put the adult in adultery.

Sylvie Simmons has been writing about rock since 1977, when she left London for L.A to correspond for then-leading UK music paper Sounds. Long since back in London, her articles have appeared regularly in countless publications, including Creem magazine and The Guardian and Sunday Times newspapers. She is currently Contributing Editor at MOJO magazine. Her books include Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes (Da Capo), Neil Young: Reflections in Broken Glass (Canongate), and new short story collection Too Weird For Ziggy (Grove Atlantic).

Carter Van Pelt has a debilitating obsession with Jamaican music. He has written features for The Beat, Arthur, Mean, Signal To Noise, and other magazines. He was the last journalist to interview singer Dennis Brown before the singer's death and the first journalist outside Nigeria to examine in depth the legacy of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti after the artist's death in 1997. Carter is pursuing an M.A. in arts administration from Columbia University.