Thesis

During the tempestuous finale of this performance it was as if every possible sound or tone was crushing down together like mountain crests which fall with a frightful uproar on sheets of sand mixed with blocks of rock and stone. We felt uncertain whether the edifice, which seemed to rock with these sudden displacements of sonorous currents and vibrations, would not really fall upon our heads; such was the crushing nature of the instrumentation of the concerto which all the conservatoires of the world would certainly have condemned and even we found to be just a trifle risky.

Franz Liszt: The Gipsy in Music, trans. Edwin Evans (London: William Reeves, 1926) p.139. (Vol. 1).

My PhD thesis is about Gypsy Punk, which has emerged as a genre of music and form of subculture during the past decade. At the centre of Gypsy Punk is Gogol Bordello, a band founded by Ukrainian Eugene Hütz, and comprised of migrants from five continents who came together in New York. Gypsy Punk music combines the underpinnings of punk with influences from gypsy music, as well as other musical styles such as klezmer and reggae. The Gypsy Punk subculture also has its foundations in the attitude and style of punk, but draws heavily on the romanticised figure of the gypsy and the mythology of the Balkan region.

My research explores the significance of Gypsy Punk not only as a musical and cultural movement, but also in the ever-topical areas of immigration and globalisation. Gypsy Punk is an immigrant culture, but it also appeals to those who are not immigrants, and this tells us much about the position of the contemporary immigrant, and perceptions of this figure. An exploration of the Roma people and the way they have been simultaneously romanticised and vilified is another important part of the project. Gypsy Punk is a multicultural phenomenon that both draws from and comments on a wide range of global sources, and the aim of my thesis is to explore it in the context of these.

Gypsy Punk can be treated as a form of immigrant music that uses gypsy culture and music as a way of realising the hybrid nature that is typical of immigrant musics. The figure of the gypsy, which has always been subject to both denigration and exoticism, is placed alongside that of the punk, which has a history of migratory associations. This marriage lays the foundations for new ways of looking at migrant cultures and the mythologies that they produce and propagate.