It’s a shame that this book isn’t widely available. It’s essentially a scene report from Los Angeles and San Francisco in the late ‘70s to the early ‘80s. The best part is that there are few authorial voices involved. I love punk oral histories that are written in retrospect (Please Kill Me, We Got the Neutron Bomb, NYHC: New York Hardcore 1980-1990, etc.), but there’s something to be said for having a document that captures the thoughts, feelings, and viewpoints of people from the scene at the time it was happening. Short of reading issues of Slash, Search and Destroy, Flipside, or Ripper, you’re not going to get this kind of info anywhere else. I deliberately did not list punk Bible Maximum Rocknroll because that zine started at the tail end of the events covered in this book. In fact, it is striking to see it referenced as a radio show that “Tim Yohannon, Jeff Bale, Jello Biafra, Ruth Schwartz, and Ray Farrell” (p. 96) started as a way to get underground music and hardcore punk on the radio. That is the story, at least according to author and editor Peter Belsito’s write-up of the SF scene circa 1979. Contributors Craig Lee and Shreader (then only 16!) give their complementary perspectives on the LA scene in the first half of the book. With the analysis limited to these three voices (as well as a brief intro by Jonathan Formula and a Preface by Belsito and Bob Davis), you are getting an authentic take on what the scene was like at the time. Not a perfect image, not the final word, but a genuine reflection of what it meant to be in California and to participate in transition from punk to hardcore punk, art punk, post-punk, rockabilly, new wave, and more. This is an indispensable document.
What makes this contemporary account so fascinating is the double-edged sword of hindsight. On one side of the blade, it is wild to read in 2025 about the explosion of hardcore in 1981-1982 as some kind of death knell for the punk scene writ large. It’s humbling to think that just a few years, even months, after some of these bands had formed that the scene was dying or over or stale or on its way out. For many, that was the case. The violence, the popularity (in relative terms), the changing sound were all factors that participants could point to for proof that things had changed and it was time to move on. On the other side of the blade, you have many of these bands still going today in some form or another (e.g., BLACK FLAG, DEAD KENNEDYS, X, CIRCLE JERKS, The GO-GO’s). There are also plenty of bands that stopped in the timeframe of this book that are deeply influential to this day (e.g. GERMS, The MIDDLE CLASS, SCREAMERS, The BAGS, etc.). The reason it’s interesting to read about these bands in an account from that time is there is no consideration given to their legacy or their impact. They are just another band in the endless list of those around at the time. For instance, this is likely one of the only places you can read hickish as a description for DESCENDENTS. Both Lee and Shreader use that term to discuss the version of that band that had yet to record “Milo Goes to College.” You’ll also see a full-page spread of a crowd doing “The Huntington Beach Shuffle,” which is the beginning of moshing (as distinct from pogoing) as we know it. The fact that the location name is spelled out instead of being an initialism and that it’s the “shuffle” instead of the “strut” dates this book to a particular point in time. Anyone who has read about the history of Washington D.C.’s punk scene knows that its members took this style of dancing back with them to the east coast and told everyone it was “the HB strut.” Little moments like these capture the changes in language that occurred because of the changes in the scene. Noticing those details is part of the fun of reading something written for posterity but without the benefit of hindsight.
As interesting and informative as the words are, the photos are even more incredible. You’ve got some Glen E. Friedman and Ed Colver shots you’ve probably seen before (and do need to see again) along with others that for all I know are exclusive to this book. I hadn’t heard of f-stop Fitzgerald before opening this book; he has possibly the best punk photographer name I’ve ever heard. Some of the band photos are cool and all, but there are just as many pictures of punks who achieved enough notoriety to be worthy of photographing. Those images, along with flyers and album art, make this a great resource for learning about punk visual aesthetics. (Either Fucked Up and Photocopied or Radio Silence would be good places to look for additional info on visual manifestations of punk.) The bittersweet part of looking at the photos is knowing there were at least twice as many that didn’t make the final cut for the book. I love that they put a BAD POSTURE photo on the cover. You can hardly tell it’s them unless you know that their singer was seven feet tall. I didn’t know that until I read this book and their name suddenly makes a lot more sense. “Get Tough” is an all-timer.
Anyway, I’m rambling, so I will wrap this up with a rhetorical question that comes to mind every time I read a book like this one or hold an excellently done punk or HC reissue in my hands. Frank Hanney of FOURTEEN OR FIGHT asked it on “Aggressive Collector” from their demo and first record in 2002. He wondered “wouldn’t the scene today be infinitely better if angry kids from Bogotá to Wichita had access to the music and collective history of the disillusioned kids that came before them?” Yeah they would. And, as Frank laments on that song, eBay (and now Discogs) puts crucial documents like records, tapes, zines, books, and flyers beyond the reach of anyone but collectors who are willing to pay top dollar for these cultural artifacts. If not for the Chicago Public Library’s closed reserves, I never would have been so lucky to have been able to access this book and its incredible historical perspectives.
YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY THESE REVIEWS:
No comments:
Post a Comment