Ben Watson (born 1956) is a British writer on music and culture of Marxist views, known especially for his writings on

Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American guitarist, composer, and bandleader. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed Rock music, rock, Pop music, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestra ...

. Watson is well known as a regular contributor to ''

The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime fiction, crime Drama (film and television), drama television series created and primarily written by the American author and former police reporter David Simon for the cable network HBO. The series premiered o ...

'', as well as the author of numerous books, often entailing studies of popular culture from the perspective of Marxist aesthetics. Watson was a member of the British

Trotskyist Trotskyism (, ) is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an ...

Socialist Workers' Party; his writing combines this background together with influences from

Theodor Adorno Theodor is a masculine given name. It is a German form of Theodore. It is also a variant of Teodor. List of people with the given name Theodor * Theodor Adorno, (1903–1969), German philosopher * Theodor Aman, Romanian painter * Theodor Blue ...

and the

Frankfurt School The Frankfurt School is a school of thought in sociology and critical theory. It is associated with the University of Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, Institute for Social Research founded in 1923 at the University of Frankfurt am Main ...

, the

Situationists The Situationist International (SI) was an Proletarian internationalism, international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and Political philosophy, political theorists. It was prominent in Eu ...

and wider cultural interests including the writings of

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...

and

J.H. Prynne Jeremy Halvard Prynne (born 24 June 1936) is a British poetry, British poet closely associated with the British Poetry Revival. Prynne grew up in Kent and was educated at St Dunstan's College, Catford, and Jesus College, Cambridge. He is a Fellow ...

. His first full-length book, ''Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play'' argued that Zappa's work was part of the protest against capitalist society. Watson calls his own field of study in this area Zappology. He is also an experimental poet and novelist; his first novel ''Shit-Kicks and Dough-Balls'' was published in 2003. Watson's partner is the Marxist philosopher (and scholar of

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( ; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Jewish mysticism, Western M ...

and

Georg Lukács Georg may refer to: * ''Georg'' (film), 1997 *Georg (musical), Estonian musical * Georg (given name) * Georg (surname) * , a Kriegsmarine coastal tanker * Spiders Georg "Spiders Georg" is an Internet meme that began circulating on the mic ...

) Esther Leslie with whom he has collaborated on various works. Watson has written of going 'mad' in 1984 and being 'sectioned' under the Mental Health Act, later finding inspiration in the Mad Pride movement which he likened to the earlier work 'Psycho-Politics' by the Marxist Peter Sedgwick. Since 2003 Watson has broadcast a weekly radio show on Resonance FM called ''Late Lunch with Out To Lunch''. In 2010, he and Andy Wilson founded the Association of Musical Marxists; together with Keith Fisher the AMM started up the Unkant imprint. In 2015 Wilson and Watson parted ways, but Watson carried on with a musical unit named the AMM All-Stars featuring drummer Peter Baxter.

Publications

* ''28 sliverfish macronix out to lunch'' (1992) * ''Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play'' (1994) * ''Art, Class and Cleavage: A Quantulumcunque Concerning Materialist Esthetix'' (1998) * ''The Complete Guide to the Music of Frank Zappa'' (1998) * (with Robert Deller, Esther Leslie and Ted Curtis) ''The Mad Pride: A Celebration of Mad Culture'' (2000) * ''Shit-Kicks and Dough-Balls'' (2003) * ''Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation'' (2004) * ''Frank Zappa: The Complete Guide to his Music'' (2005) * (with Esther Leslie) ''Academy Zappa: Proceedings of the First International Conference of Esemplastic Zappology'' (2005) * ''Adorno for Revolutionaries'' (2011) * ''Blake in Cambridge'' (2012)

References

External links

– Ben Watson and Esther Leslie's site.

– site of Association of Musical Marxists (AMM). {{DEFAULTSORT:Watson, Ben (music writer) British Marxists 1957 births British non-fiction writers Living people British male writers Socialist Workers Party (UK) members British male non-fiction writers