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The Birth of Hardcore Punk In New York City (Part 2)

March 13, 2015
    The End of the Beginning
    (Or, Bitte, Kann ich haben eine Fribble?)

As discussed in Part 1, the first generation of New York City Hardcore Punk bands (1980 – ’82) were essentially musicians trying to reclaim punk and post-punk for a younger audience. Most of the contributors to the budding hardcore scene had been 12 – 16 years old when the Pistols and Ramones emerged, and had therefore been too young to actively participate in that “first wave.” But circa 1980, these same people (now in their late teens and early 20s) were very eager to create their “own” punk rock and post-punk, informed by the earlier music yet inclusive of a musical and iconographic style that reflected a changing social and creative environment.

Few of those ’80 – ’82 NYHC bands played music that would now be recognized as pure hardcore, and nor did they want to. I believe they considered themselves punk acts, post-punk acts, art-rock acts, activist rock acts, funny-rock acts, etcetera, but as they were swept away by the momentum of an exciting national movement, virtually all of them adopted some aspect of the iconography, lyrical harangue, and hyper-kinetic rhythm that was characteristically hardcore. In some ways, it is unfortunate that virtually every American “third wave” punk band (the first wave being the initial ’75 – ’77 explosion, and the second wave being the ’78 – ’80 group, typified by Stiff Little Fingers, Undertones, Ruts, et al.) were engulfed, to some greater or lesser degree, by the hardcore thing; ideally, a “pure” punk third wave should have been allowed to flourish in America, as it did (to a certain degree) in the U.K. (and although much of the U.K. “third wave” was lumped under the Oi Movement, in general there was more of stylistic and philosophical continuum between first/second wave punk and Oi then there was in the U.S. between first/second wave punk and hardcore. Now, that sentence sounded a bit academic, but if you stuck with me, I’ll buy you a Fribble one day).

False Prophets, Even Worse, the Undead, and Stimulators (to name four) were pretty much straight punk rock acts, each with differing stylistic and ideological accents; Reagan Youth, AOD, and Kraut were more-or-less straight-up punk bands, too, but they occasionally integrated double and quadruple-timed hardcore rhythms; and the wonderful Nihilistics seemed on one hand to borrow from Crass and on the other anticipate the Swans. In fact, in this “first” generation of New York Hardcore, the only acts I would label as being (more or less) “pure” hardcore would be Heart Attack, the Mob, and the Beastie Boys (let me note here that Heart Attack were a blunt, often stunning group, shattering and direct, and they’ve never quite gotten their due; after Misfits and Bad Brains, they were probably the best band on the scene).

(It’s important to note that the groups who are most frequently identified as being “early” NYHC bands – say, Murphy’s Law, Cro-Mags, Agnostic Front – evolved after this first wave. Those bands were a distinct and very powerful second generation of NYHC…but right now, we are discussing the diverse and occasionally shambholic first generation.)

Out of this small list, the clear leader was the Bad Brains; none of these groups could ever hope to hold a candle to the explosive, radical, original genius and nearly miraculous level of craftsmanship and showmanship the Bad Brains brought to every gig during this time.

The Bad Brains constant gigging provided the centerpiece for the first era’s socializing (and band forming), and the Bad Brains were also extremely supportive of the scene growing up around them. Although New York also laid a somewhat tenuous claim to New Jersey’s Misfits (who were also very damn fierce in terms of performance, songwriting, and iconography), the Misfits more or less abdicated as potential scene-leaders, choosing instead to focus on a more global and long-term game plan.

It is also very important to note that the Bad Brains changed radically towards the end of this first era; by the end of 1982, their gigs were largely oriented towards their reggae compositions, and by mid-1983 they had made a more-or-less full transition to reggae. I could theorize that the Bad Brains absolutely unchallenged musical superiority intimidated this first generation of bands from playing pure hardcore (and it’s true that the explosion of area bands playing music clearly identifiable as hardcore happened only after the Bad Brains stopped playing so damn fast); but I don’t think that’s true.

I think it’s far more likely that the ’80 – ’82 NYC scene bands played a more “traditional” form of punk simply because a) they wanted to, b) their prime desire was to interpret ’75 – ’79 punk in their own Lower East Side way, and c) their main interest was in the teen empowerment and generationally distinctive inconography implied by hardcore, not in the caricature hardcore sound itself.

By mid and late 1982, the next generation of New York hardcore was becoming established. This would be the generation that would perform music immediately identifiable as hardcore, and would later be more firmly identified with the story of NYHC. Personally, I lost interest; by late 1982, the on-stage efforts of any band you saw — even if it was a well known national or international act — were overshadowed by the antics of the audience, and personally, I couldn’t quite make sense of a musical scene where the moshpit and the stage-divers seemed more important than the music itself. I am not looking down my nose at that behavior, I’m really not; it’s just that not my, uh, thing. Circa ’82 I had also noted that some of the first-generation hardcore bands were trying to take steps away from their original sound, and were being (at best) ignored, and more frequently ridiculed; a perfect example of this was TSOL, whose outstanding, pre-goth, keyboard-driven second album, Beneath the Shadows, was largely ignored; similarly, Bad Religion’s second album, the synth-heavy, slower-rhythm’d Into the Unknown was subject to so much ridicule that the band later virtually denied that it had ever existed. A scene in which an act was prohibited from growing creatively was of little or no interest to me.

Now, none of this is to denigrate the next (post ’82) generation of New York-based ”pure” hardcore bands; not only did these groups contains some mighty players and some extraordinary characters (John Joseph of the Cro-Mags is one of the great frontmen in New York rock history), but the ultimate success and staying power of speed metal and death metal has validated these groups hunches and innovations.

Looking back, I recognize that the first generation of NYHC was, to a great degree, hardcore only in name. We had a tremendous desire to link the new “third wave” punk coming out of the East Village with the maelstrom of new punk (labeled as hardcore) coming out of the rest of the country. Ultimately, I believe that it may have been unfortunate that we had to “tag along” on a national movement (as ferocious as that movement was); it’s very interesting to consider what would have happened if we had allowed this “new” third-wave New York punk to assert itself without the stylistic and ideological limitations of hardcore and without having to be tagged with the label of a movement that ultimately became creatively restrictive.

Finally, Sting is a tool, and we warm ourselves with the salty tears he sheds over the failure of Come Sail Away or Ship’s Ahoy or Capeman, or whatever that musical he wrote was called.

In Part 3: New York Hardcore and My Part in it’s Upfall

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We All Know the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame Blows. Can We Try to do Something About It?

December 17, 2014

Listen, there is very goddamn little need to add my churning, gasping puffs of breath to the howl of outrage over the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame.  First of all, there are a lot more important things to wax indignant about; secondly, saying the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame is full of shit is like saying the rents in NYC are too damn high, or that Dick Cheney is a war criminal, or that buffalo chicken doesn’t belong on a slice of pizza, or that Sting, the Shabbos Goy of Reggae, is a tool:  it is so obvious that it no longer needs stating.

Sting: Shabbos Goy

Breaking News! The Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame is full of shit!  In other Breaking News, water is wet, the New York Yankees threw the 2014 season to make a billion dollars carting around the horny corpse of Derek Jeter, and Jim J Bullock is gay!  

(Nevertheless, we add parenthetically…The following artists are NOT in the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame:  Roxy Music, the New York Dolls, the Smiths, the Carpenters, Cheap Trick, the B52s, Joe Cocker, ELO, Joy Division, the Monkees, Sonic Youth, the MC5, and most horrifically – in my opinion – Kraftwerk, who ARE ONLY THE SECOND MOST INFLUENTIAL BAND OF ALL TIME. Let me also gurgle that in 2015, the Hall is presenting Ringo Starr with the Award for Musical Excellence – THAT’S NOT A TYPO.  Presenting Ringo Starr with an Award for Musical Excellence is a little like presenting Dave Grohl with an Award for Public Reclusiveness.)

But rather than CONTINUE the dialogue regarding how truly ridiculous and corrupt the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame is, instead I would like to suggest A CALL TO ACTION.  This is pretty straightforward:

FIRST.  I call on all my acquaintances/associates who are voting members of the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame to resign, and do so publicly.

I’ll be honest – I don’t know WHICH of my friends are voters, but I am goddamn sure I know a few.  This isn’t like the Student Council at Great Neck South, where you earnestly convince yourself that your Voice of Dissent will surely make a difference.  Friends, your intelligence, perception, and knowledge of musical history mean NOTHING within the overall context of the CLOWN COLLEGE that is the Hall of Fame.  This is a BULLSHIT organization and YOU KNOW IT, and WHOEVER YOU ARE, I GUARANTEE, I mean I one-hundred perfuckingcent GURANFUCKINGTEE that the STATEMENT YOU WILL MAKE BY RESIGNING AS A VOTING MEMBER WILL MAKE MORE OF A DIFFERENCE THAN WHATEVER IMPACT YOU CAN MAKE BY STAYING. Let me repeat (because I LOVE repeating myself, even more than I love those donuts they used to have at Stan’s Donuts in Westwood that had an entire peanut butter cup INSIDE the donut):  The MC5, the Dolls, Sonic Youth, and Kraftwerk are NOT in the fucking Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame.  How can you LEGITIMIZE being part of such an asinine group?

Stan’s Donuts in Westwood. Proof of God, both merciful and cruel.

You CAN’T.  Period…unless they are employing you and/or giving you health insurance.  It’s damn hard to get a job and it’s hard to get health insurance.  Shit, if you were a friend of mine and The Josef Mengele Memorial Institute For the Creative Exploitation of Twins was giving you health insurance, I would probably give you a pass, especially if they gave you Dental.

Secondly, I call on people I know of intelligence, taste, and influence to band together to form a RIVAL Hall of Fame that can TRULY honor the creative innovators, business pioneers, and commercial dynamos of pop and rock history. Of course, you don’t have to CALL it the Hall of Fame, we’ll think of another suitable name.

This time, I will name names, and suggest some people of influence and intelligence, all of whom are well aware of the intricacies, magical achievements, and beautiful dark alleys of rock and pop history, and who would be ideal to start this thing:  Danny Goldberg, Chris Morris, Steve Hochman, Tim Page, Michael Alago, Nik Cohn, Hugo Burnham, Ira Robbins, Merle Ginsberg, Evan Davies, Martin Atkins, Steve Wynn, Steve Lillywhite, Doug Herzog, John Rubelli, Karen Glauber, Jim Testa, Seth Swirsky, Leyla Turkan, Sally Timms,  Paul Sanchez, Perry Watts-Russell, Janet Billig,  Mitch Easter, Ben Sandmel,  Binky Phillips, Karen Schoemer, Jack Rabid, Carol Kaye, Moby, Martha Quinn, Matthew Kaplan, Roy Traikin, THIS IS ALL JUST OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD, but DAMN, wouldn’t you trust THESE PEOPLE to help honor the great men and women who helped make rock’n’roll the defining meme of our generation?

And I sincerely doubt ANY of these people would sit around making up awards for the E Street Band or putting Hall & Oates in the Hall of Fame BEFORE the MC5 or the Dolls.   Rock’n’Pop is a beautiful and meaningful story with powerful repercussions in so many aspects of our lives; the people who built this business and made this art form deserve to be commemorated in a legitimate way.

So do something, people, or stop fucking complaining.

A slice at Benny Tudino’s in Hoboken. Quite honestly, the only food worth dying for.

And I’ll underline this (since I love repeating myself more than I love the pizza at Benny Tudino’s, but less than I love Hawkwind):  IF YOU ARE A VOTING MEMBER OF THE ROCK’N’ROLL HALL OF FAME, RESIGN.  RESIGN NOW.  Make a statement that their BULLSHIT is, well, bullshit.

Godfather of Slocore OUT.  

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Darius Rucker, Race, and Turning a Moment in Time into a True Movement

December 15, 2014

I understand that Darius Rucker is on the pants-end of a social media ass-kicking because he sang “White Christmas” at the Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting, in the midst of a night of protest and outrage over the non-indictment of Officer Daniel Pantaleo for the choke-hold death of Eric Garner.

http://youtu.be/Gv0jE8fYrWM

I will admit that the rough lines of the story don’t look especially good.  But I want to say this: 

There is not a single white American who has ANY idea what it is like to spend FOUR SECONDS as a black man in America.  Repeat:  if you are white, all your wisdom, empathy, indignation, and activism does not qualify you to be an ANT standing in the SHADOW of the CHALK OUTLINE of the actual experience of being BLACK IN AMERICA.

So unless you are an African American, and SPECIFICALLY an African American descendent of a slave, do not even freaking open your gob.

I knew Darius Rucker, and YOU, no matter HOW full of IRE you are about Eric Garner or Michael Brown or ANY of the horrors inflicted by white America on people of color, ARE NO DARIUS RUCKER.  He is the real fucking deal and he shall NOT be crucified because of his success within the halls of white America. Darius was born and raised on the low-end of socio-economic spectrum in the U. S. of Inequality, and just because he fought his way out and achieved great successes on stage in front of (almost entirely) white audiences and made a hefty living off of the white man’s dollar DOESN’T mean that he HASN’T been made aware, constantly, in ways noxious and obscene, of his race.  I have seen it with my own fucking eyes; I have seen this princely, talented man be gruesomely harassed and harangued because of the color of his skin, I have seen dull, thick white manatees wave rebel flags in his face and I have seen him refused service, all because he dared to be a black man in a white man’s world.  So as far as I am fucking concerned, Darius Rucker can get on stage at the Chabad Telethon and sing “Mysterious Coon” (very cool old medicine show blues recording) and he would be ABOVE even ONE whispered syllable of criticism by ANY white man, because NO white man knows DICK about what it is to be a black man in America, even what it is to be a RICH SUCCESSFUL BLACK MAN IN AMERICA.

A moment from the Chabad Telethon.

Secondly, there’s a lot of chatter out there about how all the recent (and remarkable) protests of the police murders of young black men somehow represents the emergence of a “new” civil rights movement in America.  Nice thought, but…

As valuable as these protests are, as acutely necessary as the awareness of these crimes are, as wondrous as it is to see young people actually CARING about something other than Iggy Fucking Azalea and The Desolation of Flipping Smaug, I STRONGLY feel the following:

Until the voices of dissent and protest, young and old, can LINK the crimes of police and grand juries with voting rights, grotesque inequalities in available public education, and access to health care and social services for the poor and non-white, this ain’t a “New” civil rights movement.  Absolutely, as it stands it is indeed some long over-due noise about an important cause, and it might be the ROOT of something, but it NEEDS to coalesce into something more:  AT THIS VERY MOMENT, as I type these words, operatives of the Republican Party, LOADED with money and organized tighter than a Steely Dan rhythm section, are planning ways to keep POOR PEOPLE and BLACK PEOPLE and other outcasts from “their” version of the American Dream AWAY from the polls in the next Presidential election in 2016. 

FIGURE OUT A WAY TO LINK TODAY’S OUTRAGE OVER THE MURDERS OF ERIC GARNER, MICHAEL BROWN, TRAYVON MARTIN, et al with the plot to keep the blacks and the poor from voting in 2016; figure out a way to link it with the CHASM between public education available to the inner city poor and private education available to the scions of the white and wealthy; figure out a way to CHANNEL that outrage into creating reasonable options for healthcare and social services amongst America’s disenfranchised, and THEN you can call it a “New” Civil Rights Movement.

Seriously, let’s start here:  All you people at those beautiful and moving Die-Ins? STAY STRONG, STAY ORGANIZED, GET MORE ORGANIZED, AND GO TO STATES WHERE POOR VOTERS AND VOTERS OF COLOR NEED THEIR RIGHTS PROTECTED AT THE POLLS.  Because the next Presidential election is going to be decided based on YOUR ability to stand in the way of the Republicans very well-constructed plans to keep America’s disenfranchised OUT of the election booth.  Make plans NOW to use your new desire to “make a difference” and your ability to use social media to organize and GET YOUR ASSES TO THOSE STATES WHERE THE BLACK AND POOR ARE GOING TO BE STOPPED FROM VOTING. 

THEN you can lay a legitimate claim to being part of a new Civil Rights movement.

And leave Darius Rucker alone.  He is the real fucking deal.  However, Darius, if you’re reading this, I recommend the following:  GET SOME OF YOUR WHITE COUNTRY SUPERSTAR FRIENDS TO HELP PROTECT THE VOTING RIGHTS OF ALL AMERICANS IN 2016. 

And Sting is a tool.  

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Sting Inspires Me!

October 5, 2014

Recently, I was flipping around the TV, searching for a good documentary (perhaps one on Hitler’s relationship with Albert Speer, or Hitler’s down-time at Berchtesgaden, or what happened to the girls on Facts of Life, or the Third Reich’s fascination with Tibetan Buddhism).

But suddenly my attention was grabbed by a commercial which appeared to be an Old Spice ad featuring songs by the Dropkick Murphys performed by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Choir. Startled, dislocated, and addlepated, I wondered “What is this strange apparition befouling and befuddling my eyes and ears, distracting me from the briny, snappy pleasures of the tall glass of Clamato and horseradish I have in front of me?”

Soon, I realized I was watching an ad for Sting’s new musical, The Last Ship, which is set to open shortly, hopefully before either the Mammoth Lakes Caldera or the Yellowstone Caldera blows.

And I thought to myself, “My, this Sting fellow has certainly come a long way for someone who used to play bass with Wayne County. Now…I once played bass for Jack Rabid, so like Sting, my musical life began in some very humble crevices. Perhaps I, too, can aspire to the grand heights of musical theatre!”

Sting, a long time before he even dreamt of writing musicals that might be disrupted by the blowing of the Mammoth Lakes Caldera.

Now, I’ve met Sting, and he is a person, that’s for sure. He was endlessly pretentious and pretentious towards no end; which is to say, his pretension was neither charming nor impressive, and merely served to be offensive. He appeared to have a virtually Papa Doc-esque contempt for the common man, and he seemed like the kind of person who, if you were hit by a taxi, would say hissed “Good! He mis-pronounced ‘Borges’!” (As in Luis, not Victor). But nevertheless, he has inspired me take a stab at creating my own lasting monument to the great tradition of musical theatre.

Under the name Lucia Grande, I have composed a musical called You Can Put Skim Milk In Your Coffee…But You Can’t Put Half & Half on Your Cereal!

Polish people of varying happiness dancing the Zbójnicki. You thought I was making the “Zbójnicki” up, didn’t you? Nuh-uh.

You Can Put Skim Milk In Your Coffee…But You Can’t Put Half & Half on Your Cereal! takes place in a Northern English mining town located in the Polish countryside about 45 minutes outside of Gdansk. Lay-offs at the local shipyards have forced the school to fire their only dancing instructor, who hangs himself while listening to “The Logical Song” by Supertramp. The suicide greatly distresses a young boy who dreams of perfecting the difficult Polish folk dance the Zbójnicki; with the death of the dancing teacher, the Boy feels his hopes are smashed. Resigned to having to sell rags, light bulbs, and used Aglets (the little plastic bits at the end of shoelaces) on a street corner in Gdansk, the boy enters a local pub and begins to thrown back shots of Żołądkowa Gorzka, chased with a pint of Newcastle Brown Ale. A crippled, broken drunk dressed in newspapers hobbles in, sits next to the Boy, and explains to the lad that he has not worked since Charlotte Rae was a young girl, and that the local economy “smells worse than Tim Tebow and Jamie Shupak making love in an abattoir.” But it is soon revealed that when he was young, the drunk was renown throughout the North of England as the world’s greatest Zbójnicki dancer! The drunk, whose name is Desmond Child And Rouge, resolves to teach the young lad everything he knows about the Zbójnicki!

Jamie Shupak, a miniature traffic reporter who is going to wonder why the hell she is mentioned here.

Over the next six acts (an entire two acts will be devoted to the boy’s mother attempting to musically explain the plot of Tarkovsky’s version of Solaris, which she will keeps on confusing with an particularly uninteresting episode of Battlestar Galactica), the Boy attempts to master the Zbójnicki, with the hope that his courage and resolve will raise the spirits of the depressed, cucumber-eating townspeople.

Of course it all goes horribly wrong. A heartless industrialist from Birmingham, Poland decides to round up all the local puppies and sell them to Cruel Russians to be used as Dumpling Fodder. But a local internet hacker foils the plan by stealing the credit card info of the industrialist, using the money to hire the old drunk cripple as the town’s new dancing instructor! The hacker also finds a legendary surgeon, a charming female named Dr. A’tlanta R’hyhtm S’ection, to operate on the crippled dancing instructor and restore him to health. However, the surgery fails, and the dancing instructor dies a gruesome and painful death on the operating table cursing God and claiming that singer Gerry Rafferty and ventriloquists’ dummy Jerry Mahoney are fighting each other for his eternal soul. The Boy swears to honor his memory by teaching the whole town to dance! His pluck makes even the grumpy old people in the town laugh and dance, including Grzegorz the old Concentration Camp Guard (humorously played by Pat Harrington Jr.). The boy is resolved to lead his town into brighter times! He will revive the tradition of the Zbójnicki, and as the curtain falls on the penultimate act, the boy and the entire town is happily dancing the Zbójnicki, and the boy’s mother is explaining the plot of the entire series arc of Clarissa Explains It All, though she is confusing it with the film version of Graham Greene’s Our Man In Havana.

Christopher Eccleston. He has nothing to do with this story, but he was a GREAT Doctor.

But the Boy doesn’t care anymore! In Act 6, his new dream is to rename “Friday” “Frifftay” and in order to support this endeavor and bribe the necessary powers-that-be at the Oxford English Dictionary, he writes a “jukebox” musical based on the music of the Atlanta Rhythm Section; he then stages this in a small English seaside town outside of Gdansk called Morecambe. However, he falls in love with the musical’s star, Polish Jamie Shupak, and together, they move to “The Big City” (Warsaw) and start a dance studio. Polish Jamie and the Boy commemorate the opening of the studio by staging a production of Paul Simon’s musical The Capeman. The production fails miserably and the show ends with the Boy and Polish Jamie Shupak committing suicide by driving their Mopeds off of Brighton Pier and into the muddy Vistula River snaking through Gdansk. They survive the suicide attempt and vow to triumph over adversity via pragmatism and pluck, as exemplified by the stirring title song “You can put skim milk in your coffee, but you can’t put Half & Half in your cereal.”

Alternately, Jack and I can start another band. That will show Sting!

(This column is dedicated to one of the kindest and wittiest men I’ve ever known, Patrick Lee, a theatre critic who would not have tolerated, not for one nano-second, the kind of fuckery I suspect Sting is preparing to foist on Broadway.)

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