History
In this section I'd write something
about how the "genre hardcore" was born and developed in California.
I identified some topics that I'd like to have more clear:
Definitions: What hardcore is and/or was
Time: General Scheme - The beginning - The end - "Decadence" and Beyond
Place: LA vs SF (attitude - music) - From the City to the Suburbs
Music: To trash or not to trash?
Other Issues: Audience & Subgeneres - Violence
If anybody knows the answers for these questions please tell me, and pardon me if this seems trivial...
I still have difficulties
in defining what was hardcore and what was simple punk/rock, especially in
California were all the bands had lots of melody in their sound.
Today's critics contributed to my confusion because they have tendencies to
label "hardcore" all the groups that were in activity in the early
'80s, even when the musicians refuse this classification for their music.
And also yesterday's fans don't help me much because they have their personal
definition for this kind of music and call "hardcore" the groups
they liked :P
I understand that "hardcore"
back then referred to an "attitude" of the bands, even if such attitude
remains still quite gloomy and I don't get if it was more similar to a personal
proclamation or a divine investiture :P :P
Anyway I have the tendency to call a group "hardcore" or "punk/rock"
mainly according to the music they played. I am convinced that the first aspect
that should be influenced by the attitude of a band is the music they play:
for example, a group that plays more easy-listening and melodic songs to attract
a wider audience and sell more records, sure is not hardcore.
I also believe that a hardcore bands are those that give more importance to
their sound than to their looks, and that want to develop a fast music, with
confrontational lyrics and maybe with a weak linkage with the music of the
past...
So, for different reasons
I don't repute groups like Fear, X, Bad Religion, Youth Brigade, etc. as hardcore
bands and I won't talk much about them in this special about "hardcore"
punk. I don't mean to say these are not good bands or that they "sold-out",
but just that I don't believe they are hardcore "enough".
This are my ideas and probably you can think that I'm naive, but please let
me know if I am wrong!!!
I identified a common scheme in the evolution of punk bands in those years:
1- A wave of groups that started to play faster music, to have a more confrontational attitude and so on, but that still had a strong connection to the 77 music. (Before 1980)
2- Then the hardcore scene was formed and a hardcore way of songwriting was the standard. This is both good (if you like the fast, aggressive edge) and bad (many groups sounded too similar between one another) aspects. (After 1980)
3- Then I believe that the melodic, personal, melancholic edge (that was always present, in some bands more than in others) took over and became the main trend. Maybe also because they could attract a larger audience and sell more records?? (around 1984, in the US)
I think this describes well what happened in DC, but I'm beginning to doubt that such "straight-cut" categories fit properly for the scene in California. There were more overlaps and melody has always been a strong ingredient of West Coast music. What do you think about it?
There's
a common rumour saying that the name for our musical genre was invented by
DOA's LP "Hardcore '81" in 1981. Anyway several years before, in
California, DC, Canada and even Ohio there was a sense that a new form of
punk was taking shape...
* When did such bands begin to have a common sense of belonging to a new "species"?
* Would you consider bands like Middle Class (that almost completed the "speed-up"
process in the late '70s) as hardcore or a more structured scene (like that
developed after 1980) is essential?
Some
critics set the milestone for the ending of the "golden period"
of HardCore in California very early, in 1982, and consider the comp LP "Not
so quiet on the Western Front" its last genuine documentation.
I've heard also many opposite opinions (hardcore was in that years just beginning
to spread all over the world), but I generally agree because I think that
most of the bands that appeared in California since 1983 lacked originality
and even speed or other basic qualities of this musical genre and they were
a lot inferior to bands coming from other States. Of course there were some
good bands that came out later, but I believe that the Californian scene in
general became really deteriorated (as "native" groups, I mean,
because many good stranger groups still found California's venues the best
place to play).
I
made the analysis above based on the music, but I've read on magazines or
in the letters that they sent me, that many people who lived that scene or
were in famous bands have a quite different opinion. They blame the "growing
violence at the shows" for the decadence that happened after/during
1982. I'm quite puzzled about it: sure violence isn't a positive aspect, but
it was always present in the California punk scene. Jack Grisham's first band's
(Vicious Circle) shows were more similar to gang fights than ever and there
were ambulances waiting outside, I've been told! And it was before 1980, not
a novelty of 1982...
I don't know if they want to say that hardcore music inspired violence in
the audience just because it was wilder, but sure they couldn't go on playing
like the Weirdos, X or the Germs for much longer. And hardcore brought also
awareness against violence thru straight-edge etc. I'm not so naive to believe
that the guys in the hardcore bands never instigate the audience, but I'm
sure that also those who still now bring out this problem aren't completely
innocent...
Anyway, the violence issue was quite exclusive of California, so I wonder
if people who felt this problem despised only the hardcore bands from LA or
the whole HC movement... If the latter is true, this "increased violence"
issue sounds much like an excuse to me :P
Another similar issue is about intolerance... I don't believe that the hardcore
scene was intolerant to subjects that regarded race or personal choices, but
it contributed to fight against such prejudices. Of course (and luckily!)
it was made by individual characters who were more or less tollerant on different
subjects and maybe among them there were also some rednecks...
But I think it's different if they criticized bands or different subgenres
if they were more pop-oriented or acting like rockstars. I think that it was
right to criticize such groups because they had a traditional approach to
music and wanted to make money, but maybe were sold like "great indipendent
minds" and attracted a large number of kids "cheating" in some
way.
These above are, more than my unmoveable opinions, my doubts about an issue
that I never got explained clearly. Everybody just said "it sucked because
there was violence" or "they were rednecks". So maybe I'm the
one with biases, but I can understand if things are made clear; let me know
your opinions about this topics too!
These were the two major cities and I've heard that their bands and kids had a different attitude.
* Maybe the bands and
the scene in general was more political in SF?
* The shows were very violent in LA and often ended up in clashes with the
police... Did this happen in SF?
* I've heard also that the kids in SF went only to the shows of famous bands.
Is that true?
* And were the LA bands (those of the late 70's) acting and not being genuine
or was it just a joke??
More specific about the music:
* I think that besides
the Dead Kennedys, the bands that were around in SF at the very beginning
of the 80's still had a strong rock'n'roll influence and weren't affected
by hardcore... Am I wrong?
* Could it be because in SF there were great '77 bands like Crime and they
wanted to keep a strong link with them?
* A lot of people told be that LA did not have any '77 band, but so what were
F-word, Negative Trend and those on Dangerhouse?
It seems that, as time
went by, the ideas and novelties in the big cities dried out (or maybe and
that the scene gradually moved toward the suburbs. In LA, first the major
scene was in downtown and Hollywood (where most punks were art students, drug
addict, etc.) later the egemony was taken by bands who live in the suburbs
like Huntington Beach & Hermosa Beach and eventually there was a major
interest in Orange County, where the audience was mainly made by teenage surfers
and skaters. Something similar happen also in Northern California, I suppose.
(Around 1982?)
* How did the music follow such "migration"?
I had always considered thrashers the rawest (and probably best) expression of hardcore and also a typical american way of writing punk songs... I think of groups like Minor Threat, Teen Idles, SOA, Middle Class and Circle Jerks that already around 1980 played only short songs and recorded albums or 7" that contained only thrashers...
Anyway looking deeply
into the Californian Scene I noticed that most of the groups in that area
in the early 80's still wrote and played both short and long songs and that
maybe being more radical was peculiar of European, Discharge derivative bands?!?
Famous groups did that: Black Flags 7"s contain almost only short and
fast songs, but in their first LP "Demaged" they recorded also some
songs written in a traditional form; and even in DK's most radical work "In
God we trust INC" there are 6 thrashers plus a long track with cuts from
California Uber Alles and a cover of a country classic!
And also less famous groups used to mix traditional punk-songs with hardcore
thrashers. I can think of what Circle One did in the comp "Public Service"
or what many others did in the obscure comp "Who
Cares".
So I wonder why these
groups often didn't choose clearly and radically to play only the thrashers
or only the longer songs, even after that records that contained only thrashers
were released...
I should ask that to the people who were playing in those bands, but if someone
has ideas about it I'd like to ear them!
I often ear talking about
"strangely imbred" subgenres like Surf-Punk, Skate-Punk & Skate-Core
and I wonder if something made them different from the mother-genre.
* There was something valuable behind this definition or did these bands stay
alive only exploiting fads and vogues?
* And somehow did they try to "complete" the more straight forward
hardcore scene or maybe they wanted to "oppose" it?
There were kind of "factions" between the audience according to musical tastes or what-ever? Did quys that were into hardcore like also melodic punk? Or did they simply judge by how the bands played or by their attitude?
I also believe that in California there were (and maybe still are) more people that dressed like English punks and played English derived music. Was it only a fad? How did they relate with the others?
I also understood that the big audience explosion happened in 1982, but that not everybody liked the new people that was coming at the shows, right?