Hardcore, the hard-edged second generation of punk rock, whose peak period ranged from 1980 to 1986, has never before been captured in the way Steven Blushs authoritative, extensively illustrated oral history revisits its dynamic and sordid past. All the major hardcore scenes, particularly in Southern California, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Boston, New York City and Texas are given provocative voice through its major players, from drugged-out suburban Metal misfits to shit-kicking skinheads to vegan anti-drug pacifists. American Hardcore; A Tribal History not only recapitulates an important and influential scene, its provocative sociological snapshots reveal the apocalyptic desperation of a singular time in American history. Author Steven Blush was a prime mover in the scene he writes about; in the 80s, he promoted many hardcore tours and shows, DJ an influential college radio show, and ran a record label. Later Blush published Seconds magazine, and wrote for Paper, Spin, Interview, Village Voice, Details and High Times magazines. The primary photographers included in this volume are Edward Colver and Karen O Sullivan. Flyers, set lists, logos, and record covers have been provided by many collectors, and the book includes an extensive discography of Hard core rock releases from 1980 to 1986.
"American Hardcore sets the record straight about the last great American subculture"—Paper magazine Steven Blush's "definitive treatment of Hardcore Punk" (Los Angeles Times) changed the way we look at Punk Rock. The Sony Picture Classics–distributed documentary American Hardcore premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. This revised and expanded second edition contains hundreds of new bands, thirty new interviews, flyers, a new chapter ("Destroy Babylon"), and a new art gallery with over 125 rare photos and images.
A singular document of the aesthetic of American Hardcore music and culture, this collection brings together unseen photographs, personal letters, original artwork, rare albums, 45s, T-shirts, fanzines and various ephemera from the hardcore scene circa 1978-1993. It includes more than 500 images and illustrations presented in a manner that abandons the aesthetic cliches normally used to depict the genre by letting the subject matter speak for itself. With contributions from such luminaries of the scene as Jeff Nelson of Minor Threat, Dave Smalley and Pat Dunbar.
The product of decades of work and multiple self-published editions, Going Underground, written by 1980s scene veteran George Hurchalla, is the most comprehensive look yet at America’s nationwide underground punk scene. Despite the mainstream press declarations that “punk died with Sid Vicious” or that “punk was reborn with Nirvana,” author Hurchalla followed the DIY spirit of punk underground, where it not only survived but thrived nationally as a self-sustaining grassroots movement rooted in seedy clubs, rented fire halls, Xeroxed zines, and indie record shops. Rather than dwell solely on well-documented scenes from Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, DC, Hurchalla delves deep into the counterculture, rooting out stories from Chicago, Philadelphia, Austin, Cincinnati, Miami, and elsewhere. The author seamlessly mixes his personal experiences with the oral history of dozens of band members, promoters, artists, zinesters, and scenesters. Some of the countless bands covered include Articles of Faith, Big Boys, Necros, Hüsker Dü, Bad Brains, Government Issue, and Minutemen, as well as many of the essential zines of the time such as Big Takeover, Maximum RocknRoll, Flipside, and Forced Exposure. Going Underground features over a hundred unique photos from Marie Kanger-Born of Chicago, Dixon Coulbourn of Austin, Brian Trudell of LA, Malcolm Riviera of DC, Justina Davies of New York, Ed Arnaud of Arizona, and many others, along with flyers from across the nation.
As a homeless child prodigy, Harley Flanagan played drums for bands at Max’s Kansas City and CBGBs, and was taught to play bass by the famed black band Bad Brains, and drank with the notorious Lemmy of Motörhead. Most famously, Harley became a member of the famous hardcore band The Cro-Mags, and disputes accusations of stabbing two band members.
Zen, plain and simple, with no BS. This is not your typical Zen book. Brad Warner, a young punk who grew up to be a Zen master, spares no one. This bold new approach to the "Why?" of Zen Buddhism is as strongly grounded in the tradition of Zen as it is utterly revolutionary. Warner's voice is hilarious, and he calls on the wisdom of everyone from punk and pop culture icons to the Buddha himself to make sure his points come through loud and clear. As it prods readers to question everything, Hardcore Zen is both an approach and a departure, leaving behind the soft and lyrical for the gritty and stark perspective of a new generation. This new edition will feature an afterword from the author.
Uncompromising and innovative, hardcore punk in Washington, DC, birthed a new sound and nurtured a vibrant subculture aimed at a specific segment of the city's youth. Shayna L. Maskell explores DC's hardcore scene during its short but storied peak. Led by bands like Bad Brains and Minor Threat, hardcore in the nation's capital unleashed music as angry and loud as it was fast and minimalistic. Maskell examines the music's aesthetics and the unique impact of DC's sociopolitical realities on the sound and the scene that emerged. As she shows, aspects of the music's structure merged with how bands performed it to put across distinctive representations of race, class, and gender. But those representations could be as complicated and contradictory as they were explicit. A fascinating analysis of a punk rock hotbed, Politics as Sound tells the story of how a generation created music that produced--and resisted--politics and power.
Introduction : a brief history of the recent past -- The (near) death and life of postwar American cities : the roots of contemporary placemaking -- The roaring '90s -- Into the twenty-first century -- Growing place : toward a counterhistory of contemporary placemaking -- Producing place -- Creating place -- Conclusion : Placemaking is for people.
"The pictures, which include some posed portraits but are mostly concert shots, are the chief attraction. They freeze moments of adolescent release, vein-bulging intensity and sweaty communion that fuses performer and audience...Vivid and evocative." --Washington Post "Scott Crawford, the man behind the acclaimed documentary Salad Days, has given us another taste of the best-kept secret of 80s in his new book Spoke: Washington DC’s hardcore punk scene." --Dazed "With music by Minor Threat, Void, Rites of Spring, Government Issue, and many others propelling the story of hardscrabble, Reagan-era D.C. as the hotbed for a new artistic outlet in Salad Days, Crawford saw the book as a way to scoop up important narrative from the cutting-room floor and find a new home for it." --Fast Company "Pockmarked with burned-out buildings and boarded-over storefronts, Northwest DC was once home to a vibrant and sometimes violent punk movement beginning in the early 1980s. For geeky 12-year-old Scott Crawford, that changed everything: He chucked comic books for punk rock and self-published a music zine from his mother’s kitchen table in Silver Spring. This month, Crawford releases a book about those days, Spoke--a companion to his 2014 documentary, Salad Days--featuring stories from local players such as Dave Grohl, Henry Rollins, and Ian MacKaye." --Washingtonian Magazine "Spoke...adroitly uses both photographs and oral histories to capture the importance of what can best be described as a cultural revolution within the nation’s capital." --Shepherd Express "This coffee table version of the documentary [Salad Days] follows the D.C. scene’s often politically-charged brand of punk rock, from Bad Brains to Jawbox, and of course the legendary Fugazi. And there’s even the near-forgotten SOA, whose frontman Henry Rollins took his D.C. energy to L.A. where he stepped in as the singer for Black Flag." --Yellow Scene Magazine "A must-have for any rock historian or pop-culture buff...The perfect punk coffee table book." --Shockwave Magazine "Highly recommended...A must read for punk fans." --Chorus.fm/HiFiNoise "A worthy addition to the growing amount of literature on the American hardcore/punk scene, Spoke will look great on any aging punks’ coffee table as a document to a vital, electric time." --Ink19.com "A forthright testament to a kaleidoscopic community. This is a rounded collection, with surprises on every page...It’s collection that rocks." --Shelf Awareness for Readers The Washington, DC punk music scene of the 1980s gave birth to influential bands like Bad Brains, Minor Threat, and Fugazi. Here that era is portrayed in its purest form: an oral history by the creators themselves, including nearly two hundred photographs capturing the power and spirit of this politically progressive corner of American underground music. This stunning and intimate collection features rare images from Jim Saah, Cynthia Connolly, Bert Queiroz, and many others who documented this vibrant community. Compiled by Scott Crawford—whose critically acclaimed film Salad Days provided an unprecedented exploration into the 1980s DC punk scene—Spoke delves deeper into one of the most dynamic movements in US music history. Featuring: BAD BRAINS, THE TEEN IDLES, BLACK MARKET BABY, SOA, MINOR THREAT, GOVERNMENT ISSUE, VOID, IRON CROSS, THE FAITH, SCREAM, MARGINAL MAN, GRAY MATTER, BEEFEATER, KING FACE, RITES OF SPRING, DAG NASTY, EMBRACE, SOULSIDE, FIRE PARTY, SHUDDER TO THINK, IGNITION, FUGAZI, SWIZ, THE NATION OF ULYSSES, and JAWBOX.