The subjects interviewed for Underground Rhode Island were selected, among many possibilities, for several reasons. The eldest were likely to have been part or the "hip" scene around jazz and the Celebrity Club of the 1950s. More than a few had a connection with AS220 and its circle, at some time in the past. And the youngest members have been active in the Rhode Island arts scene, in one way or another, during the last twenty years or so. Not all are either "lost" or "unknown"; some of them have long been prominent. And yet they represent a self-consciously offbeat take on the mainstream culture of Middle America. They are "underground" even when "overground," part of a world more recognizable to Allen Ginsberg (or Bruce Springsteen) than the people in the White House or Wall Street. And they were intriguing to the students who chose to interview them.
You may expect to find a photo--not necessarily from the recent past--a short biography, a recording of the subject's own voice, a verbatim transcript of the interview, and links to related materials. Not all these are present for each interview--some are still being gathered (or recovered)--but they definitely represent a sense of a life and creative work within that life.
Steven Clinkenbeard was born outside of Boston. He spent part of his childhood growing up in the suburbs of Boston, and part of his childhood in Athens, Greece, during the time of a brutal military junta imposed by the United States. He came to Providence to study at Brown in 1977. He lived in Milhouse, one of the Brown co-ops, for several years, and was very involved in the administration of the co-ops. He was also involved in campus activism during the late seventies, and published a radical newspaper called "The Rake" out of the Millhouse basement. He then went on to live in an intentional community in Philadelphia and was involved in the anti-nuclear movement in the '70s and '80s.
© 2005