Publication:
MaximumRockNRoll

Author:
Felix Von Havoc

MRR #243
OK, I want everyone to go back in time to about 1984-85. As I’ve discussed in this space before, I feel that 1984 was about the high point for hardcore and this form of music was partially destroyed by it’s own success in a very short time. As others have pointed out, hardcore was one of the very few artistic movements whose originators turned against it before it had run it’s course. With very few exceptions the great hardcore bands of the early 80’s broke up, went metal or college rock. But this is ground we have covered before. I’d like to look at this mid 80’s period from a different perspective. A record label and capital perspective. In the USA the labels that rose and benefited most from the early days of hardcore were Alternative Tentacles, SST and Dischord. You could add to that list Touch and Go, and many others, but lets stick to the above three for now. Consider that like most early hardcore labels these labels were formed out of necessity. No one at existing labels was interested in hardcore. Add to that the strong DIY ethic that grew with hardcore. It is also a given that these labels started from the ground up, with little in the way of capital or experience.

In this regard, SST, AT and Dischord are old fashioned American success stories. Small groups of young entrepreneurs saw an emerging market and created products to fill that market. They had the right bands at the right time for the right price. The labels grew, distribution expanded, and by the mid 80’s hardcore bands like Black Flag, Dead Kennedys and Minor Threat were known from coast to coast and around the world. These labels all found themselves in a pretty good situation. They had some of the top bands, and had built up an excellent distribution network, mostly while sticking to their DIY/independent principals. Which brings me to this. Thousands, indeed, tens of thousands of punk/hardcore kids made these labels what they were. These labels grew with hardcore into pretty large indie labels. What they did with it however, was weak as fuck. The huge windfall netted by the early hardcore labels was quickly squandered when those labels founders turned away from hardcore into more arty bands. Tens of thousands of dollars gained from Black Flag sales went to press up schlock like DC3, SWA and Tom Troccoli’s Dog. To this day, SST and Dischord have not released a current hardcore record and AT though much more respectable in it’s output must be sitting on thousands of unsold copies of Alice Donut and Jungle Studs Lps. Dischord has a great reputation for being honest and fair, but I’ll be god damned if they haven’t put out a good record since the days of Beefeater and Rites of Spring. And SST, what’s up with those guys? Why aren’t hardcore classics like the East LA Stains and Overkill re pressed? Overkill’s four song 7” buries everything SST did after B’last.

What I’m getting at is this. The KIDS made those labels what they were, and then they walked away from the kids. The kids didn’t give a fuck about grown up arty music like Saccharine Trust or the Meat Puppets. They wanted to hear hardcore punk rock. Buying records on those labels was like buying stock or taking out a loan. The kids expected that their support would be repaid with more rad hardcore. Instead, a whole new generation of labels had to start DIY hardcore up all over again a few years later and begin the slow climb of building a distribution network from scratch. Not that this was entirely a bad thing, as the new DIY movement that started in the early 90’s has brought us this far without dying out or falling victim to the whims of passing fads.

I wonder to this day, how much of those labels sales and income are based on sales of the essential back catalog. I haven’t heard of a “new” band on SST in many years. What this proves is something I’ve long known. Hardcore is at the center. It is the most raw and intense form of underground music. It’s sound and message are enduring and stand the test of time so much better than many of the other forms of music which preceded and followed it. Hardcore from 20 years ago is still relevant to kids who weren’t born yet when it was made. Other sub genres and splinter groups from hardcore have run their course and died out quite quickly, but the core at the center has prevailed to this day.

Hardcore was not daunted by it’s founders turn against it. Indeed, as I have noted before, the “suburban kids” like myself who flooded into the hardcore scene in the mid 80’s who ruined it for all the first wave visionaries, are still keeping the movement alive today. It was left to the next generation of kids to re learn all the hard lessons and not to be sucked into the same traps that the pioneers were.

OK, one last item. Back in the day there was talk of the “Boston Disease” or the “Boston Curse”. This was basically good hardcore bands succumbing to a desire to play hard rock or metal. I for one, come from the scene that spawned Heavy Metal Parking Lot. I am fond of metal and hard rock, although I am quite tepid about mixing either with hardcore. I will go right out on a limb and state that I listen to How We Rock more than Kids Will Have their Say. Although, I think Get It Away is the best by far. At present quite a few bands are starting to mix hard rock riffage into hardcore. Most notably: R’N’R, Suicide File, No Time Left and Tear It Up. So far these bands are doing it with style, finesse and power and no one has veered so far of course as to produce a Break It Up. In fact, I find the hard rock influence in all those bands to be pretty boss, fresh and original. If you haven’t checked out those bands latest releases you should for sure pick them up. I fear though, that as in many revolutionary art movements, that the genius of the master will be lost on the pupil and in the future there will be some wave of third rate bands trying to mix AC DC with DS 13 and it will bomb bringing discredit to any hardcore band that rocks out with the right amount of style. I would advance some words of advice, mixing hardcore with metal and hard rock is dangerous business. These are two volatile substances that if handled improperly could blow up in your face. Proceed with caution!

Publication Date:
January 1, 1984

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