Much of the punk and skinhead influence on America developed into hardcore, growing from both the West and East coasts. In California, there were bands like The Dils, Black Flag, The Weirdos, The Avengers, The Germs, The Descendents, Adolescents, X, Minutemen, Dead Kennedys, The Circle Jerks, Bad Religion, Social Distortion, T.S.O.L. (True Sounds of Liberty), The Vandals, Fear and others; in Washington D.C. there was Minor Threat, Bad Brains and other bands on the Dischord label.Black Flag has often been considered America’s first hardcore band, beginning in 1978. By creating the still-surviving SST label (although it had recently declared bankruptcy), Black Flag single- handedly gave the West Coast hardcore scene international prominence. by the time their first EP Jealous Again came out in 1980, Black Flag had begun touring enough to become a major attraction in nearly every city and inspire others to get into the scene. While Black Flag and their peers wrote cutting songs like “T.V. Party,” about commercial culture and middle class suburban life, the sound they made was predominantly a joyful noise, and they rarely preached to their fans.The Dead Kennedys became an exception to the West Coast scene when they honed a self-righteously moral attack upon middle and upper-class values. Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, their 1980 debut on I.R.S., contained “Holidays In Cambodia,” their crowning achievement. The Dead Kennedys’s sarcastic diatribes bordered on the overbearing on In God We Trust, Inc. until they redeemed themselves with an improved sense of humor on Plastic Surgery Disasters in 1982. By 1981, they had formed the Alternative Tentacles label which became a grassroots force as productive as SST.The East Coast had much more in common with the Dead Kennedys than the more hedonistic California bands. While SST was just starting, Minor Threat helped establish the Dischord label. They issued the Bottled Violence EP in 1981, which revealed strong influence from the ideology of Crass and the music of The Ruts. The power of their own influence became apparent when, with one impassioned hardcore tune called “Straight Edge” they called for abstinence from drugs and booze. From that song, Minor Threat unwittingly would create a whole new American subculture which would adopt the same song title. A song that acknowledged both the aspirations and realties of political punk rock inspired a whole generation of skinheads and people without any label to denounce the self-destructive, nihilistic lifestyle that cultural icons like Sid Vicious romanticized. Ian MacKaye, lead singer for Minor Threat, would later emphasize that he was not telling people that they should restrict their own lifestyles. He was merely describing the choices he had made for himself at the time.Meanwhile, Bad Brains carried on the tradition of the 2-Tone movement to the states, pushing the hybrids even further. The black jazz-rock fusionists from Washington D.C. proved their mastery of hardcore early in their career with the 1980 single, “Pay to Cum!”. On the 1982 ROIR cassette album, Bad Brains featured radically contrasting excursions into dub and rasta reggae amongst the hardcore fury. As the band progressed, they shed some of the hardcore sound to create even more exciting blends of funk, reggae and metal wile continuing to espouse rastafarian principles.The Rise of Independent Rock
By the mid 1980s, it became nearly impossible to keep track of all the new bands and styles that were helped out by the essential fanzines to get their messages and names out. In addition to all the loyal hardcore fanzines inspired by Maximum Rocknroll based in Berkeley, CA, other fanzines such as Flipside, Your Flesh, and Chemical Imbalance have been able to attain an impressive level of slickness and circulation to make a reasonable impact on the independent music scene and its underground subcultures without compromise; resorting to getting paid by corporations and advertisements. They manage to include more variety than the uncompromising hardcore ‘zines than the unadventurous mainstream, with the notable exceptions of New York’s Trouser Press and Chicago’s Matter magazines.But mainstream culture has become increasingly aware of the multitudes of music coming out of the post-punk subcultures, shown by coverage of the most successful bands from SST, Dischord, Homestead, Twin/Tone, including The Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Butthole Surfers, Scratch Acid, Husker Du, The Replacements, Dinosaur Jr., Squirrel Bait, The Effigies, Big Black, Naked Raygun, Sonic Youth, The Swans, Fugazi, Bad Brains, to hip-hop artists like Boogie Down Productions to several inventive industrial bands and the retro “sludge” movement (The Melvins, Green River, Blood Circus, Mudhoney, Nirvana) initiated by the Sub Pop label in Seattle, reaching back to the pre-punk music of The Stooges, The MC5, Alice Cooper, Radio Birdman and even Blue Cheer and Black Sabbath.The Fall of Independent Rock?Suddenly the industries see big possibilities for mass consumption of the bands who once thrived (or starved) in the underground subcultures. A corporation called Joseph-Fox Communications, Inc. even tried to emulate the style of fanzines with a tiny, slick and laughably naive production called New Route: The new route to new music. Douglas Joseph, the Editor- in-Chief and presumably the former half of Joseph-Fox, wrote an editorial in the October 1989 issue where he brought up the Warner Bros.-Time Inc. merger, PolyGram buying out Island and eventually A&M, EMI buying out Chrysalis Records and Virgin Records taking in major equity partners. “CBS Records is owned by Sony, and RCA Records by BMG,” he said, brilliantly concluding that “the music industry is big business.”Joseph believes that the consequences of big business, the sales, distribution and in-store product placement being leveraged with merchandising, advertising and AOR radio play is a positive influence on the music scene. He believes the Godzilla corporations will generously spread increased profits to employees,
stockholders, and most importantly, toward developing new artists. “The future of the record business is with the young artists,” predicts Joseph.His theory is that stronger companies will be more apt to experiment with new ideas as well as new musicians, such as BMG funding a new “independent” label, First Warning, which is distributed “independently” by Rough Trade. All A&R and marketing is done independently of BMG, although if any band does or says something BMG does not like, they would disappear from the industry as a label-less band. But Joseph says “as the major labels get bigger, there is more opportunity for the independents.” Although independents fear the big squeeze of major labels, the money flowing into the alternative markets from the large companies strengthens the marketplace and supposedly creates more awareness for everyone.”So,” wrote Joseph, “as long as the music industry is healthy, properly managed and new artists continue to crete interesting music, we will hear great music from both major and [puppet] independent labels.”It is powerful people like Douglas Joseph and his New Route to brain-death who continue to remind underground fans of the reality of their worst nightmares. Even more dangerous to the underground culture than Tom Metzger’s White Aryan Resistance, it is this continuing threat of the corporate powers to control and exploit the independents for their own convenience and profit that continues to inspire youth around the world to do it themselves.