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MORE THAN : AMERICAN , 1980-1985

______

A Thesis

Presented

to of

California State University, Chico

______

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

in

Interdisciplinary Studies

American , 1865-Present

______

by

 Andrew M. Traulsen 2009

Summer 2009 MORE THAN MUSIC: AMERICAN PUNK ROCK, 1980-1985

A Thesis

by

Andrew M. Traulsen

Summer 2009

APPROVED BY THE INTERIM DEAN OF THE SCHOOL OF GRADUATE, INTERNATIONAL, AND INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES:

______Mark . Morlock, Ph.D.

APPROVED BY THE GRADUATE ADVISORY COMMITTEE:

______Sara Trechter, Ph.D. Susan M. Green, Ph.D., Chair Graduate Coordinator

______Jeffery C. Livingston, Ph.D. PUBLICATION RIGHTS

No portion of this thesis may be reprinted or reproduced in any manner unacceptable to the usual copyright restrictions without the written permission of the author.

iii DEDICATION

This research is dedicated to punk rock – for changing my life.

iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the following people, without whose assistance, advice, support or contributions this project would never have come together: my family—

Nicole, Flannery and Jesenia; my comrade in academic oblivion—Rob “Cubby”

Haworth; the guilty parties—, Vic Bondi, Byron Coley, Peter Davis, Chuck

Dukowski, Lisa Fancher, Michelle Flipside, Tim Kerr, Dan Kubinski, Ian MacKaye, Jeff

Nelson, Jack Rabid, Corey Rusk, , Joey Shithead, Shawn Stern, Mike

Watt, and ; my trusted advisors—Susan Green, Jeff Livingston, and Robert

Tinkler; and, of course, my comrade in all things rock, Jim Howell, for sharing my passion for music.

v TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

Publication Rights ...... iii

Dedication...... iv

Acknowledgments ...... v

Abstract...... vii

CHAPTER

I. Introduction...... 1

II. Literature Review...... 23

Analysis of Survey Text ...... 24 Analysis of Specific Text ...... 39

III. Guerrilla Journalism: Culture ...... 63

IV. DIY: Punk Indie Labels...... 91

V. Punk Rock on the Road ...... 114

VI. Conclusion...... 129

Bibliography...... 137

vi ABSTRACT

MORE THAN MUSIC: AMERICAN PUNK ROCK, 1980-1985

by

© Andrew M. Traulsen 2009

Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies

American Popular Culture, 1865-Present

California State University, Chico

Summer 2009

American punk in the early an underground community that op- erated completely independently of any mainstream outlets, yet both why and how it was able to do so and, more importantly, why any of this was important goes relatively undocumented. Researchers and filmmakers do an accurate job, for example, highlight- ing the key bands and scenes that dominated or made a lasting impact on the larger community, but the most notable omissions have to do with the significant role that fan- , indie labels, and touring played in nurturing and facilitating the regional and na- tional scenes. Without these peripheral elements, the key bands and scenes would not have been able to exist, flourish, and expand. The purpose of the following analysis is to document those peripheral elements that have gone unreported.

vii This research begins by examining the available literature on punk rock with particular emphasis given to how each covers American punk rock of the early 1980s— especially their deficiencies. Next is an examination of primary source materials that relate to the topic. Along with both mainstream and underground media sources, as well as available audio recordings, a more significant emphasis will be culled from personal interviews conducted with key participants from the American punk rock community.

Interviews were conducted with members, fanzine publishers, and owners. The findings prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only did American punk rock of the early 1980s flourish and become influential, but that there were also important peripheral elements outside the most widely known bands of the period that have been left out of the larger narrative.

viii

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Punk rock is old and few would disagree that it has had a long and influential history. The swath of current books available on the topic is a testament to this fact. At present, each phase of the punk rock movement (e.g., mid- American, late 1960s

American, early-to mid- , late-1970s and , and early

1980s American) has been documented to one extent or another and in one form or another (e.g., books, film, audio compilations, etc.). Yet, of all the phases the punk tradition has undergone, it is the early 1980s that consistently receives short shrift— especially when discussing elements other than bands and they created. The most notable omissions have to do with the significant role that and indie labels as well as touring played in nurturing and facilitating the American punk scene in the early 1980s. The purpose of this analysis is to critique the available literature on the

American punk scene of the early eighties and, hopefully, begin to fill in these missing pieces.

Perhaps it would be prudent to begin with a brief overview of the punk tradition. Although there are numerous secondary analyses on punk, many seem to disagree on the genre’s exact birthplace. , critics, and fans have long debated the issue and this author will offer no definitive answer. Instead, in an attempt to provide the laymen with a cursory overview of punk’s early history, as well as to introduce the

1 2 larger purpose of this thesis, I will address the different schools of thought that have dominated this lingering debate within a discussion of punk’s early history, 1966-1980.

The contemporary punk rock movement traces its roots to the mid-1960s.

Following the unprecedented success of the , begun with the February

1964 Ed Sullivan performance by and followed by four months later, many aspiring American musicians took to garages across the with a desire to create and a hope of being heard. Unfortunately, most never were. As explained by writer Robot A. Hull,

Garage rock was, in essence, teenage desire directly translated into twanging and pounding and thump-thumping.…Garage music (and let’s just call it “punk,” okay?) was shaped by the more adolescent need to make noise and to create disharmony wherever possible…inept, crummy, loose, primitive fun.1

These garage bands multiplied in regional scenes across America. Bands such as The

Electric Prunes, The Vagrants, Mouse & The Traps, The Remains, Zakary Thaks, The

Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Count Five, The Golliwogs, and countless others set out to create music, regardless of whether or not they ever made it big.2 Typical for these bands at best were “a few singles on a local label, a privately pressed , and a few devoted listeners at the small-scale gigs and parties they played.”3 As noted by Richie Unterberger in his book Unknown Legends of Rock-n-Roll: Psychedelic Unknowns, Mad Geniuses,

1 Robot A. Hull, “The Original Punks: The Greatest Garage Recordings of the Twentieth Century,” in ’s Alt-Rock-a-Rama, ed. by Scott Schindler (New York: Delta, 1996), 9-10.

2 To hear a detailed overview of the 1960s garage phenomenon see Rhino Record’s Nuggets anthologies.

3 Richie Unterberger, Unknown Legends of Rock-n-Roll: Psychedelic Unknowns, Mad Geniuses, Punk Pioneers, Lo-Fi Mavericks and More (: Miller Freeman, 1998), 67.

3

Punk Pioneers, Lo-Fi Mavericks and More, so obscure were the recordings by these bands that,

When rock histories began to be written in the late ’60s, most critics remained largely or wholly unaware of the sheer tonnage of wild and interesting sounds that had been recorded. Most of these records sold in quantities of a few thousand at most, and often only in the hundreds or dozens, making the task of finding the true gems a considerably difficult one.4

It was this spirit of “” creation, seemingly without a care for critical opinion or monetary reward, that would become a cornerstone of the punk ethos.

Although use of the term punk to describe a musical style was not en vogue during the 1960s, musicians, critics, and music historians consider this fertile era to be punk’s birthplace. As a matter of fact, the earliest known use of the word punk to describe music came in 1972. When asked to provide liner notes for a of mid-

1960s “no-hit-wonder” garage bands from America’s underground rock scene, rock historian and , Lenny Kaye and Rolling Stone co-founder, , concluded that such acts were “punk-rock…because they exemplified the berserk pleasure that comes with being onstage outrageous…[with a] relentless middle-finger drive and determination offered only by rock-n-roll at its finest.”5 Therefore, these mid- sixties garage bands, as described by Kaye and Shaw, could easily be considered punk’s

“first phase.”

Unfortunately, discerning the origins of punk in absolute terms is a convoluted task. Another school of thought maintains that punk began in the middle to late 1960s and

4 Ibid., 67-68.

5 Lenny Kaye, “The Hemi-headed, Decked-and-Stoked, Highly Combustible Juggernaut of the New (aka the Original Nuggets Notes),” in Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First , 1965-1968 (Los Angeles: Rhino Records, 1998), liner notes.

4 was dominated by three seminal American bands: from New

York City, and Motor City 5 (MC5) and from Ann Arbor, . Each of these artists encompassed the best of rock-n-roll’s traditions while simultaneously rejecting the worst of the state of music at the time.6 Equally as important, each band pushed the standard rock-n-roll boundaries through musical, lyrical, political, and aesthetic exploration. Without a doubt, this musical triumvirate had an incalculable effect on the future of punk rock.

The most well known of the three groups was The Velvet Underground, who initially operated out of Andy Warhol’s New York “Factory” with Warhol acting as art director, stylist, and manager. Formed in 1965, the Velvet’s penchant for fusing art with musical performance, not to mention their lyrical content, covering such topics as heroin addiction, sadomasochism, and dark imagery, made the chart topping Beatles pale by comparison. As guitarist/singer recalled, “To my mind nobody in music was doing anything that even approximated the real thing, with the exception of us…It wasn’t slick or a lie in any conceivable way.”7 For Lou Reed and many of his followers, rock-n- roll was supposed to be gritty and experimental as opposed to clean and formulaic. Reed continues, “At the time people thought that we were being very negative and bleak and

‘anti’ where, as the lyricist, I though we were an accurate reflection of segments of New

York that you can’t ignore.”8 With almost minimalist production values and their arty

6 Gary Stewart, “It Was the Worst of Times, It Was the Best of Times,” in No Thanks: The 70s Punk Rock Rebellion (Los Angeles: Rhino Records, 1998), liner notes.

7 Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk (New York: Penguin, 1996), 7.

8 Katherine Charlton, Styles 5 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008), 252.

5 aesthetic, including a non-traditional ensemble consisting of both a female drummer and a viola player, the Velvets could be the first real punk band –a group of individuals who did whatever they wanted with little or no serious consideration paid to critical or monetary success.

Equally as significant as The Velvet Underground were two bands from

Middle America: Motor City 5 (MC5) and The Stooges. Formed in 1965, the MC5 fused traditional rock-n-roll with an overtly militant political ideology. Calling themselves the

White Panther Party, claiming an obvious solidarity with the and openly working with other radical 60s groups, MC5 adopted a radical political platform and even included within the band a non-musician “Minister of

Information,” . As noted in their 1968 White Panther Statement and

Platform, the MC5 believed that

Money sucks! Leaders suck! School sucks! We don’t want it! Our program of rock- n-roll, dope, and fucking in the streets is a program of total freedom for everyone…We are totally committed to carrying out our platform. We breathe revolution!9

This “fuck you” political ideology and rebelliousness would ultimately have a significant influence on what would become punk rock. Obviously, the MC5 considered themselves the vanguard of a rock-n-roll guerrilla movement whose political message was pushed through their music. This notion of extreme, almost anarchic, rebellion was not lost on future bands both within and outside the punk rock community.

The last of the three progenitors of modern punk were The Stooges. Founded in 1967 and fronted by , the band was an almost sophomoric attempt at rock-n-

9 John Sinclair, “White Panther Statement and 10-Point Platform,” in Power Trip: MC5 (Burbank: Alive Records, 1994), liner notes.

6 roll. What set them apart from other bands of the era, though, were their live performances. On stage, Iggy would oscillate between complete artistic control and utter physical abandon. Not only was he known for spreading peanut butter over and spray painting his body, walking or jumping on the heads of audience members, rolling in broken glass, or contorting his wiry frame into all sorts of unnatural poses, but also for, on more than one occasion, throwing up or urinating on the audience. Iggy maintained that he was simply doing an exaggerated impersonation of ’ Jim Morrison. As he once noted, “I loved the antagonism…not only was Morrison pissing them off, but he was mesmerizing them at the same time…It made a big impression on me.”10 For Iggy, the live performance was geared toward both antagonizing and enthralling audiences at the same time. He not only believed that this dichotomy was the basis of the perfect live aesthetic, but also that such antics were a necessary and natural extension of rock-n-roll’s inherent rebellion. The Stooges’ minimalist musical proficiency and penchant for shocking and self-destructive live performances, without a doubt, provided a blueprint for future punk rockers.

Although The Velvet Underground, MC5, and Stooges did not consider themselves anything but rock-n-roll bands, aspects of their legacies can easily be linked to what would coalesce into the later punk rock movement. Whether it was The Velvet’s artistic experimentation, MC5’s militant political rebellion, or the Stooges’ outrageous and confrontational live performances, each of these bands provided key elements to what would become punk rock. Couple this with the fact that each band made little or no

10 McNeil and McCain, 40.

7 money in the mainstream yet forged ahead regardless, and it is easy to see how the reverberations made by each group are still being felt today. As a matter of fact, these three bands could be considered the “second phase” of what would later become known as the punk rock movement.

Although The Velvets, MC5, and Stooges fought on into the early 1970s, their lack of mainstream commercial viability sounded death knell. During the early part of the decade soft-rock and pop-rock dominated the music industry charts. Artists such as The

Carpenters, Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond, Barbara Streisand, Wings, Peter Frampton,

Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, Rod Stewart, Linda Ronstadt, Boz Scagg, and the

Doobie Brothers sold millions of records and helped double the size of the mainstream music industry, passing the $2 billion yearly profit mark by the early 1970s and jumping to $4 billion by 1978.11 Music was quickly becoming a corporate commodity where marketing, promotion, radio exposure, and touring almost guaranteed millions of dollars in returns. Music had been co-opted and rationalized by corporations. As noted by music historian, Rebee Garofalo:

Beginning in the mid-1970s and continuing well into the 1980s, groups like Bob Seeger and the Silver Bullet Band, Foghat, Styx, and , followed by Foreigner, Journey, Air Supply, and REO Speedwagon, relied on tried and true music and business practices to produce guaranteed sales. It wasn’t that their music was incompetent, it’s that it was uninspired. It appeared that the mainstream music industry had become a well-oiled music machine that, with precious little in the way of innovation and nothing approaching passion, any second-rate group could be assured radio play, full stadiums, and platinum record sales.12

11 Rebee Garofalo, Rockin’ Out: in the U.S.A. (: Prentice Hall, 2002), 249.

12 Ibid., 251.

8

For many rock fans the division between band and audience was too pronounced in this corporate environment. The true anti-establishment rebellion inherent in early rock-n-roll had been corrupted.

Once again, as if history was repeating itself, small regional scenes began to develop across the United States as musicians moved to reclaim the music. To prove this point one must look no further than music scenes that developed first in

New York City and later in Los Angeles during the early1970s. These scenes initiated what many believe is the “third phase” of the punk rock movement.

New York during the early 1970s was a melting pot of musical styles and influences. Amateur musicians of all stripes and abilities looking for places to play began congregating around two small clubs, and Max’s Kansas City. Within this relatively unknown bohemian underground developed such influential acts as The New

York Dolls, and the Voidoids, , Television, ,

Talking Heads, Blondie, and The .13 By the mid-1970s, taking its cue from this

New York scene, Los Angeles began developing a similar movement with such bands as

The Runaways, Weirdos, , and later, The Go-Gos and X.14 In each scene, regardless of location, the primary impetus was twofold: first, the overriding need to reclaim rock-n-roll’s musical and performance rebellion from the prevalence and

13 See Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk (New York: Penguin, 1996); or Clinton Heylin, From the Velvets to the Voidoids: The Birth of American Punk Rock (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2005).

14 Mark Spitz and Brendan Mullen, We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001).

9 popularity of both soft-rock and the arena-sized monsters of ; and second, to push the parameters of musical experimentation and performance aesthetics.

As far as the future of punk was concerned though, one New York band stood head and shoulders above the rest. Formed in 1974, The Ramones was comprised of four high school dropouts from the Queens, New York neighborhood of Forrest Hills. As explained by vocalist, :

When the Ramones started in the mid-seventies, we were reacting against how bloated and serious and self-indulgent rock-n-roll had become…by the mid seventies music was all about…corporate rock and “ Duck” and “Convoy”…There was no spirit left, no spark, no challenge, no fun, and so many artists had become so full of themselves. We just weren’t hearing any music that we liked anymore, so we stripped it back down and put the passion and energy and emotion in that were missing from the music we were hearing at the time.15

Each member of the Ramones was an avid rock-n-roll fan, an appreciation which included many of the previously discussed mid-1960s “no-hit-wonder” garage bands, not to mention the Velvet Underground, MC5, and Stooges. With these influences in mind and minimal musical dexterity, Johnny, Dee Dee, Joey, and Ritchie Ramone redefined music as a “sparse, intense, three-minute buzzsaw blast dominated by eighth-note unanimity from strummed, distorted , bass, and drums.”16 Add the fact that each member sported a leather jacket, bowl haircut, and juvenile delinquent attitude to their very limited yet aggressive musical assault, and you have the quintessential punk rock band. During their 1976 tour of Great Britain, The Ramones performed for, met, and, without a doubt, made an immense impact on members of the burgeoning pub-rock scene

15 Joey Ramone, “Punk Then and Now,” in Rolling Stone’s Alt-Rock-a-Rama, ed. by Scott Schindler (New York: Delta, 1996), 34.

16 Paul Friedlander, Rock-n-Roll: A Social History (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996), 250.

10 there, a scene rebelling against contemporary rock music much like its American counterparts had. As a matter of fact, seminal English Punk bands such as the ,

The Clash, The Damned, and credit The Ramones with being the impetus for their foray into music.17

Within the avant-garde underground scene that spawned The Ramones developed the second claim to the origins of the term “punk” to describe a musical style.

Realizing the reluctance of the mainstream media to recognize or cover this underground scene, three New Yorkers, John Holstrom, Legs McNeil, and Ged Dunn, decided to start their own magazine in 1974.18 As Legs McNeil notes:

Holstrom wanted the magazine to be a combination of everything we were into – television reruns, drinking beer, getting laid, cheeseburgers, comics, grade-B movies, and this weird rock-n-roll nobody but us seemed to like…So I said, ‘Why don’t we call it Punk?’ The word seemed to sum up the thread that connected everything we liked –drunk, obnoxious, smart but not pretentious, absurd, funny, ironic, and things that appealed to the darker side.19

In essence, Holstrom, McNeil, and Dunn thus became the first American journalists to cover this developing scene. Consequently, the label “punk” was adopted by both the mainstream media and some underground musicians to describe the

17 , End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones, DVD (New York: Rhino Video, 2005).

18 “Magazine” is a misnomer. In actuality, Holstrom, McNeil, and Dunn started a “fanzine.” The term “fanzine” is a combination of two words: “fan” and “magazine” (also called “zines”). They are noncommercial, nonprofessional, small circulation publications, often produced, published, and distributed by a single individual. The fact that they are privately funded, have irregular publication schedules, and are privately distributed, sets them apart from professionally published magazines. They are generated and sold by independent individuals who operate without the editorial and publishing controls placed on the major media outlets and are usually produced for fun and the sheer will to be heard rather than for profit. Fanzine topics vary and include almost anything imaginable. Fanzines will be discussed in more detail in Chapter IV.

19 McNeil and McCain, 203-4.

11 music. Although initial use of the term punk to describe a (offered by

Lenny Kaye and Greg Shaw two years earlier) was less refined or precise, Legs McNeil continues to claim right of ownership over the term as it is used today. Regardless of , though, punk rock music has become synonymous with shocking, rude, and obscene behavior, confrontational dressing, minimalist music, and confrontational .20 As the underground punk scenes in New York and Los Angeles started to percolate, other scenes were developing across the United States. Yet, because of little or no media exposure, the punk movement failed to fully develop in America. Oddly, an

English import initiated the “fourth phase” of punk and became the genre’s unwitting .

There are several arguments as to why punk rock developed in England during the 1970s. The first maintains that the English economy was deteriorating and along with it, economic and educational opportunities. Working class youth were looking at a bleak future of subsistence living and government handouts.21 This sense of desperation could have emerged in music through reactive lyrics and the anti-authoritarian nature of their stance.22 The second rationale states that English punk directly resulted from the art school backgrounds of punk mentors and band members. Art school concepts such as shock value, performance art, fashion, and situationist theories of subversion all surfaced in the punk movement and, as a matter of fact, members of the Sex Pistols, ,

20 Friedlander, 258.

21 Jon Savage, England’s Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2001), 108-112.

22 Friedlander, 250.

12 and Siouxsie and the Banshees had art school backgrounds.23 Perhaps a more relevant discussion as to the origins of English punk would include elements of both arguments.

Add to this the fact that these bands, much like their American counterparts, were also reacting to the overindulgent, hedonistic, pretension of contemporary corporate music and it perhaps becomes clear both how and why the British Punk scene evolved.

Arguments aside, the Sex Pistols ultimately pushed punk rock into the open.24

The Sex Pistols were the product of Malcolm McLaren. As a former art school student, avant-garde clothes designer, and self-described music impresario, McLaren had also lived in New York and had witnessed the birth of the punk underground there, at one point even managing The . Returning to England, McLaren was set on fomenting an English equivalent to the New York scene. As he states,

By the dawn of the seventies, the philosophy was that you couldn’t do anything without a lot of money. So my philosophy was back to, ‘Fuck you, we don’t care if we can’t play and don’t have very good instruments we’re still doing it because we think you are all a bunch of cunts’…I think that’s what created the anger—the anger was simply about money, that the culture had become corporate, that we no longer owned it and everybody was desperate to fucking get it back. This was the generation trying to do that.25

It was not difficult. The stage was partially set, as an underground movement of rock-n- roll and R&B was already underway in England. The Ramones’ 1976 tour of England ultimately convinced many of these bands to reevaluate both their aesthetic and

23 Ibid., 251.

24 For a detailed biography of the Sex Pistols, see Jon Savage, England’s Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001).

25 McNeil and McCain, 245.

13 performance codes.26 All McLaren had to do was assemble a band, dress them up, and unleash them on the world. Almost overnight, the Sex Pistols became the poster children for punk rock. Their dress, language, behavior, and music became synonymous with the term punk.

As the punk phenomenon spread during the late 1970s and began to show even the smallest sign of profitability, major labels took an interest in underground music. While there were bands who intentionally avoided corporate advances, choosing instead to and distribute their music independently, others gave in to pressure and signed record deals. American punk bands such as The Ramones, Blondie, Talking

Heads, , Go-Gos, and X, ultimately signed with major labels. Unfortunately, because of the shocking and controversial actions of the Sex Pistols and the bad press which they garnered, the mainstream media branded punk as violent, nihilistic, and anti- authoritarian. Although not all punk bands practiced the Sex Pistols’ shock-rock style, the damage was quickly done. For example, a 1980 news article from the whose headline read “Violence Sneaks into Punk Scene,” concluded that “accounts of violence, vandalism and mutilation at some area rock clubs read like reports from a war zone.”27 The result of such sensationalism was both reactionary and quick. The police soon targeted and shut down any punk shows. In Los Angeles, there were even several police initiated riots.28

26 Fields, End of the Century.

27 Patrick Goldstein, “Violence Sneaks Into Punk Scene,” Los Angeles Times, June 29, 1980.

28 Spitz and Mullen, 188-191.

14

Aside from the negative press, major labels that had signed punk bands could not move the desired units and subsequently become disinterested in the genre. To both retain profits and simultaneously distance themselves from punk’s controversial side, record executives decided it was time the genre undergo a makeover. Seymour Stein, president of and the man responsible for signing acts such as Blondie and

The Ramones, crafted a new moniker for the genre.29 “New wave” became the standard bearer for bands that retained punk’s critical lyrical properties and fashion, but rejected its more shocking and controversial elements. Most bands who opposed tempering their personalities were summarily dropped by their labels.30 Although many artists perceived this as a sell-out-or-get-out environment, many bands such as The Go-Gos, B-52s, Cars,

Talking Heads, Blondie, Elvis Costello and the Attractions, The Police, and Billy Idol

(formerly of the punk band, ) saw limited success with the majors.31

Those bands that chose to stay true to the independent, non-commercial spirit of original punk, headed back to the underground. But the American underground started to change in the early 1908s. Bands just coming up, resentful of what they perceived as the pretentiousness of established punk bands, not to mention those who had, in their opinion “sold out” to the majors, were about to set off a revolution within the scene.

Times were changing and the music was set to change as well. As the 1980s dawned, a scene within a scene developed and this new scene literally dominated the punk underground for the next decade. It also formed the basis of punk rock’s “fifth phase.”

29 Fields, End of the Century.

30 Spitz and Mullen, 178.

31 Garofalo, 273.

15

By 1980, the Los Angeles punk scene, like those in both New York and

England, had witnessed the co-optation of its music, fashion, and name by major labels and corporations. Slowly but surely, some punk bands began to show the same signs of overindulgence and pretension that had destroyed rock-n-roll a decade earlier. In this environment, some punks felt alienated from their own scene. In the suburbs of Los

Angeles, California, an underground movement was initiated to take back the scene and return the rebelliousness and anti-authoritarian stance that had been the benchmark, not only for original rock-n-roll, but original punk as well. This revivalist movement drew momentum from its contemporaries in New York and England but chose not to repeat their mistakes. It was an extension of punk rock in that it “mimicked or reacted to punk; it appropriated some aspects yet discarded others. It reaffirmed the attitude, and rejected the new wave.”32 Adherents deemed it “hardcore” because it was the extreme: the absolute most punk. Where punk had been a subset of rock-n-roll, hardcore was a subset of punk and its appeal was both popular and infectious. As one fan aptly concluded “When punks said ‘hardcore,’ other punks knew exactly what they meant.”33

Musically speaking, was totally unique. Although its guiding philosophy implied “no rules,” the music was neither avant-garde nor experimental, nor did it have unlimited possibilities and, in most cases, it was simply about playing as fast as possible. To clarify:

There was a quantum difference between early punk and hardcore—it was something like the difference between bebop and hardbop in , or the leap from

32 Steven Blush, : A Tribal History (New York, Los Angeles: Feral House, 2001), 13.

33 Ibid., 16.

16

Chuck Berry’s affable rock-n-roll to Jimi Hendix’s freaky electrocution of the . It was all about the intensity of the delivery.34

Hardcore was a younger, faster, and angrier form of punk that embodied all of the pent- up and dysfunction of adolescence. One writer summed it up thusly:

Hardcore punk drew a line in the sand between older avant-rock fans and a new bunch of kids who were coming up. On one side were those who considered the music (and its fans) loud, ugly, and incoherent; to the folks on the other side, hardcore was the only music that mattered….Hardcore punks were happy, even determined to limit their appeal. The music was resolutely unmelodic, humbly recorded, and vastly unsexy. It was a point of honor not to reach out beyond their nationwide tribe. It was not only a way to cement a fledgling community, but…it was also a way to feel powerful at a time in life when one can feel particularly powerless.35

Another commentator surmised that, “dispensing with all pretension, these kids boiled the music down to its essence, then revved up the tempos…and called the result

‘hardcore.’”36

Hardcore punk was unique from its predecessors in a number of important ways, the first of which was its scale. What had previously been a bi-coastal phenomenon had grown to include seemingly unconnected yet strangely united communities across the

United States. Small regional scenes had developed in places like San Francisco and

Orange County, California; , D.C.; , ; Reno, Nevada;

Minneapolis, Minnesota; Chicago, ; Austin, Texas; as well as Los Angeles and

New York.37 Not only did the hardcore scene expand the geographic base of punk rock, it

34 , Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 (New York: Little Brown & Co., 2001), 130.

35 Ibid., 13-14.

36 Ibid., 13.

37 Paul Rachman and Steven Blush, American Hardcore: The History of American Punk Rock 1980-1986, DVD (New York: Sony Pictures Classics, 2006).

17 also expanded the “do-it-yourself” (DIY) movement to an extent never seen before. At a time when there were no internet, cell phones, or digital cameras, and word processing, home computing, and copy machine technologies were all in their infancy and very expensive, countless fanzines sprang up to spread the word and establish communication strains. Dozens of independent record labels released and distributed music, as well as, inspired and taught others to do the same. Most importantly, punk bands learned to use the communication networks established in the fanzines and by word of mouth to venture outside their local/regional scenes – coordinating and undertaking multiple-date, regional and national tours.38 In other words, not only was the American punk scene of the early

1980s completely self-contained, it was also self-sustaining.

The significance of this “fifth phase” of punk rock, those bands that flourished between 1980 and 1985, is clearly documented.39 In 1991, with the major label acquisition of and the unprecedented success of Nirvana’s “” album, punk rock broke into the mainstream. Within months, every major label was trolling the underground music scene in hopes of scoring the next big thing. In the wake of this signing frenzy, artists such as The , , , Hole,

The Smashing Pumpkins, , , Rancid, and Blink-182 found comfortable homes not only on major labels, but on the pop and rock charts as well.40

Equally as significant, was a diverse array of artists, including , Jane’s

38 Azerrad, 6.

39 David Markey, 1991: The Year That Punk Broke, DVD (Los Angeles: Geffen Home Video, 1992).

40 Ibid.

18

Addiction, Pearl Jam, , Run DMC, , Red Hot

Chilipeppers, and (to name but only a few), that paid homage to or cited, in both and interview, the influence that early 1980s punk rock had had on their careers.

Almost overnight punk rock, which had been branded as both nihilistic and violent not to mention commercially unviable and therefore insignificant by both the music industry and mainstream media, became hip – the next big thing.

Given punk rock’s rise to mainstream acceptance during in , one might conclude that the time had come for a detailed and carefully researched history of the genre. As a matter of fact, given the recent swath of published works dedicated to punk rock and its richly complex history, such an examination has obviously begun.

Unfortunately, of the books specific to punk rock, many mention only key bands, labels, or scenes while survey texts on rock-n-roll gloss over or completely ignore the impact, significance, and legacy of 1980s American punk rock. As journalist Kelefa Sanneh duly noted, the1980-1985 period “has never been as glamorous as the ’70s punk that came before or the ’90s alt-rock that came after…there are few fashion statements to revive…And there are scarcely any celebrities to celebrate.”41 Another maintains that many American punk bands from the 1980s have “been edited out of rock history, but their spirits are very much alive in current rock.”42 If so, it begs the question, how could this be? As music historians Joe Stuessy and Scott Lipscomb have noted, these early

41 Kelefa Sanneh, “The Fast and the Furious,” Blender, November 2006.

42 Roni Sarig, The Secret History of Rock: The Most Influential Bands You’ve Never Heard Of (New York: Billboard Books, 1998), 2.

19

1980s punk bands “form a direct link between punk rock of the late 1970s and the emergent forms of alternative music of the 1980s and 1990s.”43

By late 2006, it appeared this unbalanced history of punk might be righted. On

September 22, 2006, the documentary film American Hardcore: The History of American

Punk Rock 1980-1986 was released by AHC Productions, LLC. Many of the critical reviews were favorable. The trade publication Variety, for example, rated it “excellent.”44

Entertainment Weekly referred to it as “illuminating,”45 while Rolling Stone called it “raw and riveting.”46 hailed it as “a valuable chronicle”47 and the Los

Angeles Times concluded that the film was “an enlightening journey to a dark corner of contemporary punk’s dank little basement.”48 The critical acclaim was highlighted when both Sundance and Film Festivals named the work an Official Selection, leading to its purchase by Sony Pictures Classics for wider distribution and DVD release. It would seem, given the favorable critical acclaim as well as the interest of a major film

43 Joe Stuessy and Scott Lipscomb, Rock-n-Roll: Its History and Stylistic Development (New Jersey: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2006), 442.

44 Dennis Harvey, “American Hardcore,” Variety.com, February 14, 2006, http://www.variety.com/review/ VE1117929628.html?categoryid=31&cs=1&s=h&p=0 (accessed February 21, 2006).

45 Gregory Kirschling, “American Hardcore,” EntertainmentWeekly.com, September 27, 2006, http://www.ew.com /ew/article/0,,1539959,00.html (accessed February 21, 2006).

46 Peter Travers, “American Hardcore,” RollingStone.com, September 21, 2006, http://www.rollingstone.com/ reviews/movie/9144826/review/11756524/american_hardcore (accessed February 21, 2006).

47 Ann Hornaday, “American Hardcore,” WashingtonPost.com, October 19, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com /ac2/wp- dyn?node=cityguide/profile&id=1124973&categories=Movies&nm=1 (accessed February 21, 2006).

48 Scott Martelle, “American Hardcore,” LosAngelesTimes.com, September 29, 2006, under “Filmmaker Paul Rachman Cobbles Together a Narrative of Anarchy,” http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/calendar/cl-et-hardcore29sep29,0,4614323.story (accessed February 21, 2006).

20 company, that early 1980s American punk rock music had finally gained the recognition it had long been lacking.

Unfortunately, American Hardcore: The History of American Punk Rock

1980-1986, also had its flaws and its critics were quick to pounce. Stephen Holden of the

New York Times, for example, concluded that “the movie scrambles to cover so much territory there is only room for musical shards and shivers; few complete are heard, and no signature anthems stand out…The documentary might have benefited from a broader perspective.”49 Lisa Fancher, founder of seminal Los Angeles punk label,

Frontier, agrees: “Many, many people, bands, and labels were left out of the story.”50 Rob

Nelson of the Village Voice called the film another “rock doc that keeps critics off screen at the expense of greater context,”51 a notion echoed by Will Crain of the San Francisco

Chronicle who surmised that, although interesting, the film’s reliance on firsthand recollections “doesn’t offer any real analysis…and the film suffers from a lack of narrative focus.”52 Continuing, Crain called the film’s cutoff date of 1986 arbitrary considering the numerous hardcore and punk bands of the post-1985 to present period. 53

Kevin Seconds, vocalist and founding member of Reno, Nevada’s 7Seconds—an

49 Stephen Holden, “American Hardcore,” NewYorkTimes.com, September 21, 2006, under “It Was loud. It Was fast. But What did it mean?” http://movies.nytimes.com/2006/09/21/movies/21hard.html?ref=movies (accessed February 21, 2006).

50 Lisa Fancher, telephone interview by author, December 28, 2008.

51 Rob Nelson, “American Hardcore,” VillageVoice.com, September 12, 2006, http://www.villagevoice.com/film/ 0638,nelson,74504,20.html (accessed February 21, 2006).

52 Will Crain, “American Hardcore,” SanFranciscoChronicle.com, October 13, 2006, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/13/DDGV9LNKB61.DTL#flick2 (accessed February 21, 2006).

53 Ibid.

21

American punk band from the early 1980s that was strangely absent from the film— agrees with Crain:

I think it’s really arrogant and it pisses me off to no end that some of these talking heads—and some of are my friends and I love them to death—but for them to sit and lay out how it came and went with them alone just drives me up the fucking wall. I’ve never been cool with that. While I will say that ’80 to ’85 was the peak, the heyday, the beautiful part of the American punk thing was that there were still people out there after ’85 putting in the work and still being creative and contributing.

While the film did its best to provide a window into the American punk rock scene of the early 1980s, it unfortunately joins a long list of historical works with more weaknesses than strengths. Most of the current scholarship on American punk in the

1980s is primarily flawed because it fails to paint a complete picture. Most researchers and filmmakers do an accurate job, for example, highlighting the key bands, scenes, and record labels that dominated or made a lasting impact on the larger community.

Unfortunately, and almost across the board, the same researchers and historians fail to illuminate the significance of peripheral aspects of the American punk scene without which the key bands, scenes and record labels would not have been able to exist, flourish, and expand. Amongst these neglected areas are the hugely significant roles played by the fanzine community, independent record labels, and touring undertaken by punk bands.

American punk in the early 1980s was an underground community that operated completely independent of any mainstream outlets, yet both why and how it was able to do so and more importantly, why any of this was important goes relatively undocumented. The purpose of the following analysis is to right this imbalance and document those peripheral elements of the American punk scene of the early 1980s that have gone unreported.

22

Such an endeavor will require a specific methodology. This research will begin by examining and critiquing the available secondary literature on punk rock in general as well as current survey texts on rock-n-roll, with particular emphasis given to how each covers American punk rock of the early 1980s—especially their deficiencies.

The hope is to illuminate the fact that the history of American punk rock of the 1980-

1985 period is severely lacking. Next will be an examination of primary source materials that relate to the topic. These sources are abundant given the patience, persistence, and wherewithal of the researcher. Such sources will fall into two categories. The first have to do with media coverage of American punk rock in the early 1980s and will include, to a lesser extent, mainstream news/media coverage, followed by a more detailed concentration on available fanzine sources. The second primary source examination will focus on independently recorded, released, and distributed music by several bands from various indie labels of the era. The final and most significant research and analysis will be culled from personal interviews conducted with key participants from the early 1980s

American punk rock community. Interviews were conducted not only with band members, but also with fanzine publishers and record labels owners. The resulting findings will be organized into three primary chapters, each dealing with one of the peripheral aspects most commonly left out of other histories on the era—fanzine culture, indie labels, and touring. The net result of this examination will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only did American punk rock of the early 1980s flourish and become influential, but that there were also important peripheral elements outside the most widely known bands of the period.

CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

When consulting the available secondary sources on American punk rock, in particular those that include the 1980-1985 period, there are two types of research available.1 Taken together, a well-grounded and broad perspective of the topic should be provided.2 The first types of research considered here purport to be an overview or survey of -n-roll music in general and include chapters or sections specific to punk rock.3 These analyses are typically authored by individuals from within academe

(e.g., professors or lecturers in the field of Music) and therefore should provide some sort of authority or respectability on the subject. They are organized here in descending order, from most recently published to most distant. It should be noted though, that as of this writing, no professional historian or musicologist has authored a specific work on

American punk rock.

1 Due to the lack of book-length scholarly works on the subject of punk rock, 1979-1985, only major works (i.e., book-length text) were considered for this analysis.

2 To ease comprehension, the following secondary analysis is categorized by topical headings. It begins with a consideration of survey texts on rock music and their coverage of American punk rock, 1980-1985 (titled: “Analysis of Survey Text”). This is followed by a discussion of the works specific to American punk rock, 1979-1985 (titled: “Analysis of Specific Text”).

3 The survey texts selected for analysis here are the most popular and widely used works on the subject of popular music/rock-n-roll at the college level. These books were recommended by Dr. Paul Friedlander who holds positions as the Director of the Music Industry Program and Rock History Professor at California State University, Chico, and is also a highly regarded author on popular music and rock-n-roll as well.

23 24

The second type of research considered here are books tendered by journalists/critics or fans/participants from within the punk rock community. These offerings, while less academically grounded, are more specific to the American punk of the 1980s and should provide more of a bottom-up, or in some cases firsthand, perspective of both the genre and period.4 Many of these works defy specific and therefore, easy, categorization. For example, one book might discuss a particular scene in great detail, while another might attempt an overview of influential bands, and a third might discuss the artwork generated within the scene. These are organized based on topical relevance, from least relevant to most.

Analysis of Survey Text

The most current rock survey text is Rock Music Styles 5, a widely used history in both music appreciation and rock history classes. Published in 2008 and written by Katherine Charlton, musician and Instructor of Music Literature Survey, Introduction to Music Appreciation, and Rock and Appreciation at Mt. San Antonio

College in California, the book “blends musical commentary into an historical and social framework as it traces the development of rock music from its roots in country and blues to the most contemporary trends.”5 Charlton’s hope is that readers “develop an understanding of both the musical and cultural roots of rock music and the ability to hear

4 These works are the most popular and therefore easily accessible texts in current retail circulation.

5 Katherine Charlton, Rock Music Styles 5 (New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2008), back cover.

25 a direct relationship between those roots and the music currently popular.”6 Most relevant to this analysis is chapter 16, titled “Punk Rock and New Wave.”

Charlton is quick to note, albeit in brief, not only the influence the garage bands of the mid-1960s would have on the future of punk rock but also the philosophical roots planted by the Beat poets of the 1950s. With this foundation established, short discussions of the Velvet Underground, MC5, and Stooges are provided before addressing the New York punk scene of the 1970s. Key to her focus on New York are short biographies on the New York Dolls, Patti Smith Group, and, of course, the

Ramones with specific emphasis given to their impact on British punk. In reference to

England, Rock Music Styles 5 spends the most time on the Sex Pistols while The Clash, and to a lesser degree the Damned, Generation X, Buzzcocks, and X-Ray Specs, receive less emphasis. In opening her analysis of American hardcore punk in the 1980s, Charlton correctly surmises that tours by British punk bands like the Sex Pistols and the Damned,

“while not commercially successful, struck a nerve in both San Francisco and Los

Angeles and sparked a punk movement there.”7 Unfortunately, she fails to mention the impact of these tours on other regions like the Midwest and East Coast.

Charlton’s analysis of American punk is cursory at best. While San

Francisco’s receive the lion’s share of discussion, the hugely influential

Los Angeles scene and several of its bands (e.g., X, Germs, Black Flag) warrant only passing reference. As for the East Coast, there is no mention of the seminal ,

6 Ibid., ix.

7 Ibid., 260.

26 while ’s sole impact is reduced to a brief definition of the straight-edge philosophy they espoused. This alone is a huge disservice considering the role Minor

Threat played in establishing in 1980 – a label that independently records, releases, and distributes music to this day. To its credit, Rock Music Styles 5 does underscore the fact that:

One of the most important results of the punk movement was that it took rock out of the big arenas, out of the control of the big marketing executives, and put it back in the control of the bands and fans. Punk brought rock music back to its roots in small clubs with lots of communication between the performers and the listeners.8

Unfortunately, with no mention of the Midwest scene (including such influential bands as

Husker Du, The Replacements, Articles of Faith, etc.), and nothing on the role of fanzines, independent record labels during this period, Charlton’s analysis is far from complete.

Joe Stuessy (Texas State University, San Marcos) and Scott Lipscomb

() analyze punk rock within the larger context of the “” movement that followed. In, : Its History and Stylistic Development, the stated purpose is to interpret rock-n-roll music as “a broad generic term under which a diverse subsystem of styles can legitimately exist.”9 Rather than attempt a discussion of every major or influential artist, Stuessy and Lipscomb endeavor to “determine major trends and primary influential performers, thus painting the history of rock and roll in

8 Ibid., 337.

9 Joe Stuessy and Scott Lipscomb, Rock-n-Roll: Its History and Stylistic Development (New Jersey: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2006), 4.

27 broad brush strokes.”10 The authors provide a brief discussion of punk rock within a larger chapter titled “Alternative Styles” (chapter 18).

The narrative structure of Rock and Roll: Its History and Stylistic

Development is confusing in its treatment of punk rock. Beginning with a misplaced discussion of the early 1970s glitter rock of and passing references to acts such as T. Rex, Elton John, and , Stuessy and Lipscomb segue into a discussion of punk that mistakenly begins with the Sex Pistols and The Clash. This confusion is compounded when the authors state that English punk was based on “bands from the United States (e.g., the Ramones and the New York Dolls)”11 without yet addressing either of those artists or any other American punk bands within their text. The result is to further confuse the laymen by inferring that punk rock was a British import rather than a U.S. export. Mistakenly, the analysis then advances with a brief look at the

Velvet Underground, MC5, and Stooges of the late 1960s and their influence on the New

York bands that congregated around CBGBs in the early 1970s, with no reference made to the American garage bands of the mid-1960s. The new wave phenomenon, or those punk bands who tempered their musical and fashion edge, is only briefly discussed.

Aside from the haphazard, confusing, and lacking chronology, Stuessy and Lipscomb should be credited for realizing that “ of alternative music can be found in the

10 Ibid., 2.

11 Ibid., 435.

28 return to the basics of rock considered essential by the punk movement: Keep the music simple, limit the number and length of instrumental solos, and play ‘with attitude.’ ”12

In reference to American punk of the 1980s, Stuessy and Lipscomb offer four paragraphs. Within this paltry discussion are found only passing mention of several bands and the naming of a single . No reference is made to the significant “do-it-yourself” (DIY) movement that developed, including no discussion of the development of regional scenes or the fanzine tradition and its role in facilitating both the growth of those scenes or the development of touring circuits. To its credit though,

Rock and Roll: Its History and Stylistic Development, does conclude that the American punk bands of the 1980s “form a direct link between the punk rock of the late 1970s and the emergent forms of alternative music in the 1980s and 1990s.”13 Unfortunately,

Stuessy and Lipscomb are quick to relegate American punk to a mere footnote, justifying their minimal emphasis on the fact that it only “served as a bridge between punk music of the 1970s and the alternative movement of the late 1980s,”14 before moving to a discussion of the phenomenon of the 1990s.

A third survey text is Paul Friedlander’s 2006 work, Rock-n-Roll: A Social

History.15 While Friedlander’s analysis fails to mention the significance of mid-1960s

12 Ibid., 442.

13 Ibid., 442.

14 Ibid., 443.

15 In the spring of 2005, I was asked by Dr. Friedlander to revise and expand Chapter 17, “Punk Rock: Buzzsaw Bravado and Shock Politics.” Although I did not receive a precise writing credit, please note that I was responsible for writing the last several pages, those dealing with the hardcore punk rock era and the foundation it laid for the 1980s alternative rock scene.

29 garage bands in relation to the larger punk narrative, it does include a brief but incisive discussion of the Velvet Underground, MC5, Stooges, and New York punk scene – all of which played an influential role in punk’s development in England. Along with longer biographies on the Sex Pistols and Clash, as well as references to several smaller English punk bands, Friedlander provides a well-rounded survey. With insightful discussion of the new wave phenomenon, or the co-optation of punk by the mainstream music industry,

Friedlander succinctly sets the stage for the movement that would become the American punk rock scene of the early 1980s.

Rock-n-Roll: A Social History does a decent, albeit brief, job at presenting hardcore punk rock. Placed squarely in the sell-out-or-get-out environment of the new wave era, the analysis notes specifically that hardcore “was an extension of the punk aesthetic in that it both mimicked and reacted to it. At its core were the rejection of the new wave and the reaffirmation of an earlier attitude. It was called hardcore by its adherents because it was the extreme: the absolute most punk.”16 To its credit, the analysis begins where it should: Los Angeles, California and its surrounding suburbs.

Unfortunately, only passing reference is made to Black Flag and several lesser bands.

Although limited detail is provided, the significance of fanzines, independent record labels, and touring are mentioned.

In chapter 19, “Notions From Underground,” Friedlander discusses important underground bands from the early 1990s. Beginning with two post-punk alternative rock bands, and R.E.M., who had signed to major labels in the early 1980s, his discussion

16 Paul Fiedlander, Rock-n-Roll: A Social History (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2006), 254- 255.

30 turns to several bands inspired and nurtured by the American punk scene. Among them are the , Pixies, Jane’s Addiction and, most notably, Nirvana.

Friedlander is correct in noting the integral role punk rock played on the alternative rock era:

…punk and underground acts charted their own road map for touring the United States and reaching the disfranchised mass of listeners…Embracing the D.I.Y. work ethic, these underground groups established their own touring circuits and scenes through homemade magazines, or “zines,” and independent promoters and record labels including L.A.’s SST, San Francisco’s , Washington, D.C.’s Discord, and ’s .17

Nirvana, began their career in the punk scene, toured extensively, and released their first recordings on an independent label (Sub Pop), and would push Michael Jackson out of the #1 chart position with their Nevermind album in 1992. This begs the question though, if the American punk scene was so influential, why such a limited discussion of the bands, independent labels, and fanzines that it included?

Piero Scaruffi’s A History of Rock Music: 1951-2000 is another survey text that attempts to cover American punk rock of the 1980s. With 30 years of experience as both a critic and journalist, Scaruffi is quick to note:

The History of rock music is not a history of the charts, but a history of the great ideas introduced by rock musicians over 50 years of relentless innovation…It ends up being more focused on “alternative” rock than on “mainstream” rock, simply because alternative musicians tend to be more innovative and sincere than mainstream musicians.18

While his stated philosophy might seem to bode well for an inclusive discussion of

American punk rock, the structure of Scaruffi’s text leaves something to be desired. As

17 Ibid., 278.

18 Piero Scaruffi, A History of Rock Music: 1951-2000 (New York: iUniverse, Inc., 2003), ix- xi.

31 with the previously mentioned works, A History of Rock Music: 1951-2000 is limited in its analysis of American punk rock. The work is divided into chapters that are further divided into to smaller sections. For example, the Chapter titled “Punk and New Wave” includes sections such as “New York’s New Boheme,” “Punk-rock: ’s Burning,”

“Hardcore,” etc. In turn, these sections are often broken into sub-sections (“Hardcore” for example, includes sub-sections like “New York’s Scum, 1977-81,” “Punk-metal, 1983-

85,” “Washington’s Art-punk, 1980-85,” etc.). Each of these sub-sections includes a very brief historical backdrop followed by discussion of bands the author deems noteworthy along with some extrapolation on their significant releases.

Interestingly, Scaruffi does not consider the importance of the mid-1960s garage bands or Velvet Underground, MC5 or Stooges as an influence on the New York musicians who congregated around venues like CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City. As a matter of fact, they aren’t even mentioned. Instead, Scariffi gives careful analysis to the

New York scene and its influence, via only the Ramones, on England. Par for the course, careful consideration is paid to both the Sex Pistols and The Clash with only passing reference made to the likes of The Damned, Generation X, The Buzzcocks, and Sham 69.

When introducing his discussion of American punk rock in the 1980s, Scaruffi succinctly notes, “It took a while for ‘punk-rock’ (as in ‘violent, fast, loud’) to conquer the USA the way it had conquered Britain. When it happened, this ‘hardcore’ form of punk-rock became a national idiom for millions of kids and would remain so for two decades.”19

19 Ibid., 213.

32

Such hyperbole would seem to foreshadow a significant discussion of American punk rock. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

Scaruffi’s discussion of American punk rock in the 1980s is convoluted at best. Within the chapter “Punk and New Wave” and under the section titled “USA &

Europe: Hardcore” are several sub-sections that, unfortunately, render the information presented difficult to follow. For example, the hardcore punk movement of the early

1980s began in California (Los Angeles and San Francisco) then spread to the East Coast

(Washington D.C., Boston, and New York) and Midwest (Chicago and ), yet

Scaruffi’s analysis begins under the sub-section title “New York’s Scum, 1977-81.”20 His analysis then moves to a confusingly placed sub-section titled “Punk-metal, 1983-85,” before discussing “Washington’s Art-punk, 1980-85.” Los Angeles and San Francisco, although first chronologically, follow New York and Washington D.C. Aside from this,

Scaruffi offers no analysis or discussion of the prevalent do-it-yourself ethic, touring, fanzine tradition, or independent record labels that facilitated the American punk scene.

Add this negligent lack of information with a haphazard chronology, and the result reads more like a confused list of bands and their releases rather than a structured narrative history.

Another survey text, Rockin’ Out: Popular Music in the USA, was published in 2002. As a professor of Music and American Studies at the University of

Massachusetts, Reebee Garofalo’s intent is clearly stated:

Since its inception, popular music has been a source of pleasure for millions of people all over the world. This, of course, is reason enough for listening to it. But

20 Ibid, 213.

33

popular music is also a social and political indicator that mirrors and influences the society we all live in. This is the reason for studying it.21

Unfortunately, such strong reliance on the notion of “popularity” when looking at punk rock in particular is, for the most part, a non-starter. Further complicating this is

Garofalo’s insistence that he “attach a certain amount of importance to sales data. A record that no one hears has no impact.”22 Interestingly, Rockin’ Out: Popular Music in the USA, does include a section on punk rock but only in its relation to the more popular

“alternative” music that followed. Albeit in brief, Garofalo’s discussion of punk rock includes all the requisite pieces: The influence of the Velvet Underground on the Stooges and their impact on , and both the Sex Pistols and The Clash, and the birth of new wave. Much like the previously discussed work by Steussy and Lipscomb,

Garofalo offers only a handful of paragraphs on American punk rock of the 1980s; much of it is fraught with serious omissions and several factual errors.

Garofalo correctly begins his analysis of American punk of the 1980s stating,

“As new wave journeyed toward mainstream success, there were other artists who sought to retain and anticommercialism of early punk.”23 This is followed by name- dropping six West Coast bands, Black Flag, X, the Minutemen, , the Germs, and the

Circle Jerks, with little or no discussion. While correctly focusing on the West Coast as hardcore punk’s epicenter, his analysis fails to include San Francisco Bay Area bands such as the Avengers and Dead Kennedys. With minimal attention given to the Midwest

21 Reebee Garofalo, Rockin’ Out: Popular Music in the USA (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002), ix.

22 Ibid., xii.

23 Ibid., 276.

34

(Husker Du) and East Coast (Minor Threat), there is no mention of seminal bands such as the Bad Brains (Washington, D.C.), Articles of Faith (Chicago, IL), (Austin,

TX), or DYS and SSD (Boston, MA). With no mention of the DIY ethic, fanzines, or touring and discussion of only one independent record label (SST), and the result is negligent at best.

As stated previously, Rockin’ Out: Popular Music in the USA seems more concerned with how the American punk scene of the 1980s affected the emergence of alternative rock in the 1990s. To his credit, Garofalo notes,

While white groups labeled “alternative” also sounded different from one another, they derived from a more coherent lineage of forbearers, including those groups associated with the hardcore SST label (Black Flag and the Minutemen from Los Angeles; Sonic Youth from New York; Dinosaur Jr. from Massachusetts; and Husker Du from Minnesota), the Dead Kennedys from San Francisco, from Washington, D.C., and R.E.M. from Athens, Georgia. Athens and Minneapolis had established the viability of regional alternative scenes, but it was Seattle that put the music over the top.24

Unfortunately, without a more careful analysis of the genre this offhanded mention of

1980s punk does the larger narrative a huge disservice.

Newly expanded in 2002 by University of Washington in Seattle history

Professor David Szatmary, Rockin’ In Time: A Social History of Rock-and-Roll promises not to “present an encyclopedic compilation of the thousands of well-known and obscure bands that have played throughout the years, it deals instead with rock-n-rollers who have reflected and sometimes changed the social fabric.”25 Given punk rock’s influence on contemporary music, fashion, and culture, such a grandiose statement might bode well

24 Ibid., 368.

25 David Szatmary, Rockin’ in Time: A Social History of Rock-and-Roll (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002), xiv.

35 for the inclusion of and emphasis on American punk rock of the 1980s. In fact, of all the survey texts presented here, Rockin’ In Time: A Social History of Rock-and-Roll includes the most comprehensive overview of 1980s American punk yet.

Szatmary’s discussion of punk rock is spread over two chapters. In chapter 13,

“Punk Rock and the New Generation,” he emphasizes is placed squarely on the 1970s

New York scene and its influence on English punk. Unfortunately, he does not mention the garage phenomenon of the mid-1960s and says very little about seminal bands such as the Velvet Underground, MC5, and Stooges. After brief discussions of Talking Heads,

Blondie, Television, Patti Smith Group, Richard Hell, and the Ramones, the analysis shifts to England, most notably the Sex Pistols and to a smaller degree, The Clash.

Interestingly, unlike any of the other survey text reviewed here, Szatmary provides a short overview of the Jamaican influenced ska movement in England – going as far as detailing several of ska’s independent record labels. This is immediately and somewhat surprisingly followed by a discussion of new wave and the decline of punk; surprising, of course, due to the fact that American punk in the 1980s did anything but decline.

Szatmary’s discussion of American punk comes in chapter 16, “Generation X

Blues.” Providing a stark economic description of the early 1980s, Szatmary maintains that the “desperate generation, which followed the baby boomers, was drawn to a loud, aggressive, angry music…especially hardcore, thrash, industrial, and grunge, all of which reflected the alienation of the post-baby boom generation.”26 He is quick to point out the development of punk scenes not only in Los Angeles and San Francisco, California (e.g.,

26 Ibid., 274.

36

X, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, and the Germs), but also the in the Midwest (e.g., Husker

Du and The Replacements in Minneapolis) and East Coast (e.g., Minor Threat in

Washington, D.C.). While still deficient, the inclusion of the Midwest in particular stands in stark contrast to the other survey text discussed previously. More noteworthy is

Szatmary’s discussion of the DIY nature of 1980s punk through independent record labels such as , Bomp, SST, Alternative Tentacles, Frontier, Posh Boy, Epitaph,

Twin/Tone, and Dischord, as well as fanzines like Slash and Flipside. Although Szatmary fails to mention several seminal American punk bands (e.g., Bad Brains, Zero Boys,

7Seconds, Articles of Faith), fanzines (e.g., Touch & Go, Big Takeover, Maximum-Rock- n-Roll, Your Flesh), and the importance of touring within his discussion, Rockin’ In

Time: A Social History of Rock-and-Roll presents the most comprehensive overview of

1980s American punk yet.

The final work in the larger discussion of survey text on rock music is Randall

Snyder’s An Outline History of Rock and Roll. Published in 2001 and intended for use as a supplement for his classes at the University of Nebraska, Snyder is quick to note, “This book is a practical overview of Rock music and not intended as a work of historical scholarship.”27 He maintains that it should be used in conjunction with more detailed histories, including but not limited to several works discussed previously such as

Katherine Charlton’s Rock Music Styles, Paul Friedlander’s Rock-n-Roll: A Social

History, or David Szatmary’s Rockin’ In Time: A Social History of Rock-and-Roll.

27 Randall Snyder, An Outline History of Rock and Roll (Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 2001), v.

37

Snyder’s work is truly an outline as opposed to a narrative – complete with bulleted points rather than paragraphs and run-on sentences instead of grammatically complete ideas. For example, his definition of punk reads, “Punk: primitive anti- establishment reaction to Glam (Sex Pistols, The Clash) later evolved into more mainstream New Wave (Talking Heads, Police, Devo).”28 The result is twofold. While its abbreviated form makes for an easy read, it subsequently lacks necessary backdrop. It should be noted that each larger section, for instance “Unit Twelve: Punk—The

Underground Fights Back (late 1970s),”29 begins with a paragraph-length synopsis to introduce the topic. Here Snyder expands his bulleted definition of punk:

Reaching its peak in the late 1970s, Punk Rock, the inevitable grass roots reaction to the excesses of Metal and Glam combined the dilettantism of the garage band with cutting edge avant garde of the art world. In addition to a musical style, Punk, performed almost exclusively by Whites, represented a counter-culture, anti- establishment attitude (similar to early Rock & Roll) by attempting to eliminate the distinction between audience and performer by purposeful casual dressing and deemphasizing musical technical proficiency.30

Aside from this cursory definition, the remainder of the unit/chapter on punk is relegated to bullet points and abbreviated sentence fragments.

Snyder’s analysis of punk rock has four components: Proto-Punk (The Velvet

Underground, Stooges, and interestingly, New York Dolls), New York Punk (Ramones,

Talking Heads, Television, Patti Smith, and Blondie), British Punk (Sex Pistols and

Clash), and West Coast Hardcore Punk (Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, and X). Within

28 Ibid., ix.

29 Ibid., 85.

30 Randall Snyder, An Outline History of Rock and Roll (Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 2001), v.

38 these sections is little more than a synopsis of influences and career landmarks for each band. For example, to introduce the Clash, Snyder states: “comprised of more professional musicians, criticized for signing to CBS records, ‘’ 1980 including Guns of Brixton using .”31

In reference to American hardcore punk, Snyder devotes almost nothing.

When speaking of San Francisco’s Dead Kennedys, for example, he notes, “Formed in

San Francisco in 1978.”32 When speaking about Los Angeles Snyder posits, “Black Flag: influenced by Sex Pistols; X formed in 1977, produced by Doors’ Ray Manzarek, featured Doe and Exene Cevenka chanting.”33 This abbreviated approach is arbitrary and lacks proper depth. Not only does this analysis fail to mention the national scope of

American punk rock in the 1980s, it also gives no mention of the role of fanzines, independent record labels, and touring. The result, unfortunately, is the worst representation of punk rock in general or hardcore specifically of any of the survey texts presented here.

Taken together, there are many similarities found in the previously discussed survey text on rock-n-roll. For instance, each included, to varying degrees of emphasis, brief discussions of the origins of punk rock music found primarily in the American underground rock scene of the mid-to-late 1960s. Each work also included a limited discussion of the New York punk scene of the early 1970s and its effect on the British

31 Ibid., 85.

32 Ibid., 85.

33 Ibid., 85.

39 punk scene of the mid-to-late 1970s. Unfortunately, given the focus of this thesis, each of these analyses are also similar in the minimal discussion they provide on, or the outright exclusion of, the American punk scene of the early 1980s. In particular, most of these authors fail to address the significant role that the Midwest scene, fanzines, indie labels, and touring played in facilitating, nurturing, and maintaining the American punk scene— a scene that fell squarely between the late 1970s punk phenomenon and the explosion of punk into the mainstream in the early 1990s. Not only does this exclusion oversimplify the larger historical narrative, but it also leaves a gaping hole in understanding the complexities of the American punk rock scene of the 1980s. Perhaps recent histories specific to the early 1980s punk scene might include a more concise or inclusive approach.

Analysis of Specific Text

An analysis of books specific to punk rock, especially those dealing with the

American punk of the early 1980s, is bound to include a number that, for one reason or another, are less relevant than others. This said, a number of books have been excluded

40 from the larger analysis.34 For this reason, we will focus only on those books that attempt to be inclusive in their coverage. They are organized from least relevant to most relevant.

Published in 1998, the intention of Roni Sarig’s book, The Secret History of

Rock: The Most Influential Bands You’ve Never Heard, was to “celebrate those groups, , and performers whose influence on modern music far outshines their

34 Since this thesis is concerned only with American punk rock of the 1980 to 1985 period, certain works specific to punk can be excluded from discussion because they are either focused on the pre- 1980 or post-1985 period or they provide an author’s theoretical or philosophical assumption at the expense of a larger historical narrative. Among the former are Clinton Heylin’s From the Velvets to the Voidoids: The Birth of American Punk Rock (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2005), which makes only passing reference to the punk scene of the 1980s by mistakenly referring to its bands as “the New Wave ragbag” (xiii); Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain’s book, Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk (New York: Penguin, 1996), regardless of the all-inclusive title, shares a similar focus with Heylin and is therefore irrelevant; Stephen Colegrave and Chris Sullivan’s tome, Punk: The Definitive Record of a Revolution (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2001), can be excluded due to the fact that, regardless of their misleading use of the word “definitive” in the title, it ends its focus in 1979; Dave Laing’s, One Chord Wonders: Power and Meaning in Punk Rock (: Open University Press, 1985), is focused only on British punk between 1976 and 1978 and, although it contains a chapter titled “Punk Exported,” only discusses the impact of British punk on the European mainland; Jon Savage’s Sex Pistols biography, England’s Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2001), regardless of the misleading use of the expression “and Beyond” in the title, is fixated on British punk although the appendices include a brief and exclusive discography that discusses some American punk bands of the 1978-1980 era (e.g., Middle Class and Dead Kennedys); Bri Hurley’s Making a Scene: in Photos, Lyrics, and Commentary (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1989), is primarily focused on the post-1985 New York scene; Beth Lahickey’s All Ages: Reflections on (Huntington Beach, CA: Revelation Books, 1997), only discusses the Straight Edge philosophy with individuals primarily from the post-1985 period; Daniel Sinker’s We Owe You Nothing: Punk Planet – The Collected Interviews (New York: Akashic Books, 2001), is derived from interviews of key punks from the 1990s; and Gina Arnold’s Kiss This: Punk in the Present Tense (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1997), which wrestles with the argument over punk’s relevance in the wake of Nirvana’s mainstream success and the bands that followed them onto major labels. Among books from the latter are ’ opus, Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Press, 1989), which opines that British punk and the punk that followed was an extension of the Dadaist art traditions of the early twentieth century – an idea that might make sense in the abstract or in retrospect, but in reality is hard to prove, especially since Marcus himself is quick to note that, “The question in ancestry is spurious” (608). Similarly, Craig O’Hara’s The Philosophy of Punk: More than Noise (San Francisco: AK Press, 1999), mistakenly asserts that punk rockers are motivated by leftist social, political, and economic philosophies – an opinion that is justified in most, but not all cases (e.g., the racist skinhead/nationalist element). And lastly, Stacy Thompson’s Punk Productions: Unfinished Business (New York: State University of New York Press, 2004), which, aside from giving an overview of several key punk scenes of the 1980s (e.g., California, Washington, D.C., and New York), uses Marxist theory and psychoanalysis to draw the assumption that punk rock’s ultimate goal is the overthrow of capitalism (and instatement of what she terms “punk economics”) – a notion that would fly over the heads of many punk participants.

41 commercial notoriety.”35 To do so, Sarig composed a list of more than two hundred and fifty bands and interviewed eighty prominent and lesser known musicians regarding their favorite bands and influences to compile short narratives on key bands.36 Sarig relied on musicians to compose the list because, in his estimation, “people inspired enough by music to make their own are usually the same people most motivated to dig beneath the surface in their own listening and absorb the influence of lesser-known groups.”37

The clear intent was the inclusion of bands that have been edited out of rock history when, in reality, “their spirits are very much alive in current rock.”38

Unfortunately, the list of punk and hardcore bands chosen for inclusion in The

Secret History of Rock is pedestrian at best. Although it includes several lesser-known acts such as the , Flipper, and , Sarig’s focus on such bands as the

Germs, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Minutemen, Husker Du, Bad Brains, and Minor

Threat is largely predictable given each band’s prominence and traceable significance within the American punk tradition. Surely a “secret history” would include some of the lesser known, yet equally significant bands of the early 1980s period – bands like Youth

Brigade (Los Angles, California), the Big Boys (Austin, Texas), 7Seconds (Reno,

Nevada), Articles of Faith (Chicago, Illinois), or SSD or DYS (Boston, Massachusetts).

35 Roni Sarig, The Secret History of Rock: The Most Influential Bands You’ve Never Heard (New York: Billboard Books, 1998), 2.

36 It should be noted that Sarig’s collection of bands runs the gamut from the blues and jazz to and punk/hardcore.

37 Sarig, 2.

38 Ibid.

42

Equally troubling is how Sarig structures his analysis. Each section is preceded by some sort of context. In the case of early 1980s American punk, Sarig provides an extremely short (three paragraphs) introduction that attempts to cover not only the DIY tradition of fanzines and indie labels, but also the impact of touring within the regional and larger national scenes. Unfortunately, relegating such significant aspects of the scene to such minimal discussion does the entire analysis a huge disservice. Couple this with the short biographies (between one and three pages) of each band and the book reads more like a series of encyclopedia entries rather than a history book. It should also be noted that the interspersed commentary by most of the contemporary artists offers little insight into the significance of the band being discussed. In most cases the commentator provides only superficial praise or adoration and little historical analysis.

Similar in many ways to Sarig’s structure in The Secret History of Rock is journalist Gina Arnold’s 1993 book, Route 666: On the Road to Nirvana. In it, Arnold attempts to map the American punk and underground music scene that transpired between the demise of the Sex Pistols in 1978 and the rise of Nirvana in 1991. Many of the chapters are comprised entirely from journalistic writings previously published in the likes of Option, the L.A. Weekly, the Reader, and Image. Unfortunately, performing such an immense task within the confines of a single volume proves impossible and is further complicated by an inherent bias that permeates the larger narrative. Indeed, Arnold’s lack of objectivity renders the book a difficult read.

To her credit, Gina Arnold is quick to note both the scope of her project and the fact that her research is inadequate:

43

The sad fact is, given the time I had at my disposal (like none) and the time period—twelve years—I was covering, it wouldn’t have been possible to do the exhaustive interviewing of everyone involved. Besides, after years of writing abbreviated twelve-hundred-word stories in newspapers and magazines, I really wanted to give certain people a good long stretch to tell their tale in. So I settled on doing a few extremely broad interviews, making my story into a mythic, rather than specific look at this life…Each place I wrote about deserves a book of its own— preferably one written by someone who was there all along.39

Surely, in the case of authors who endeavor to cover the American punk/underground scene in its totality, such a disclaimer is necessary. Yet the inclusion of the phrase

“making my story into a mythic, rather than specific look” is troubling because many myths are fiction, and such an approach has the potential of leaving scores of stories untold.

The early eighties American punk bands that Arnold chooses to include are predictable at best. Beginning with her hometown of the San Francisco Bay Area, Arnold is quick to note the importance of the Dead Kennedys, before discussing Los

Angeles/Southern California bands like X, Black Flag, and . From there the focus shifts to Washington, D.C. and Minor Threat, with no mention of the influential

Orange County, New York, or Boston scenes, and their bands, zines, or labels. After an out of place focus on R.E.M., the emphasis shifts to the Midwest, in particular two

Minneapolis bands, Husker Du and the Replacements, with no reference made to the larger Midwest scene and its many influential bands. To its credit, Route 666 does include at least a mention of several key indie labels (Bomp, Slash, Frontier, SST,

Dischord, and Twin/Tone) but fails to even make note of such mainstays as B.Y.O, New

39 Gina Arnold, Route 666: On the Road to Nirvana (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), vii.

44

Alliance, or Touch & Go. Arnold’s coverage of fanzine culture is even worse as Bomp,

Slash, and Search and Destroy are mentioned with no reference to their significance within the scene while both Flipside and MaximumRockandRoll, the two most significant and large circulation publications in the early 1980s, are barely mentioned. Also important is the fact that Arnold fails to address that any of these bands ever hit the road and toured in a significant way during the early 1980s.

Perhaps the most troubling aspects of Route 666 are the obvious examples of the author’s personal bias that infect the larger narrative. It is obvious that Arnold struggles with the fact that punk/underground music has come to be accepted by the mainstream. Early on, for instance, she refers to the underground as “my world, the world of the underground…”40 When introducing the Washington, D.C. scene she refers longingly to the early 1980s as the “the glory days of punk.”41 In her discussion of

Minneapolis’ Replacements, Arnold takes and relates great pleasure in the fact that lead singer knew her by name.42 But most strikingly, in her conclusion,

Arnold even injects herself into the successes of punk in the mainstream:

This was supposed to be the summer of our content, not just for Nirvana, but for Pearl Jam, for the Screaming Trees, for , and for me…we’d forced the masses to their knees. We’d made them love what we loved, buy what we bought, think what we think, do what we do. We’d made them make us rich. We’d made them make us famous.43

40 Ibid., 5.

41 Ibid., 45

42 Ibid., 80

43 Ibid., 206.

45

Whether simple hyperbole or blatant bias, Arnold’s incessant injection of personal opinion into the larger narrative, coupled with the lack of attention paid to fanzines, indie labels, and touring, is a significant distraction not too mention a bad journalistic practice.

In an ironic twist, the book used as the structural backdrop to the film

American Hardcore: The History of American Punk Rock, 1980-1986, is, arguably, one of the worst books on American punk rock in the 1980s. Written by Steven Blush and published in 2001, American Hardcore: A Tribal History attempts to chronicle the

American punk scene of the early 1980s through firsthand oral accounts by significant participants and band members. Primarily organized into three sections, the book first addresses issues found within the scene (e.g., straight edge, , fashion, , adolescent angst, etc.) before tackling a scene-by-scene breakdown of the national punk community and its many bands in part two. Part three discusses the DIY ethic (e.g., fanzines, indie labels, art, etc.) and mass media perceptions of hardcore punk while the final section is comprised of a short conclusion and a remarkably detailed discography of the era. Blush, having worked in the punk scene as a promoter, college radio deejay, indie label owner, band manager, and tour coordinator, not to mention having lived in both

Washington, D.C. and New York during the formative stages of those influential scenes, would seem uniquely suited for such an undertaking.

American Hardcore is primarily an oral history with introductory contributions and clarifying remarks by Blush interjected as needed. The ultimate goal, as stated by the author was to “purge [himself] of all punditry, stereotyping, sloganeering,

46 gut feelings, and knee-jerk reaction developed over the years…”44 Unfortunately, Blush violates each of these promises constantly throughout the book. For example, when discussing female participation in the scene he notes, “Most hardcore chicks rejected femininity. Their ideal was the tomboy…The truth is, few gorgeous women participated…many of them were nasty, ugly trolls.”45 On the topic of gays in the scene,

Blush makes a strange swipe at , singer for Black Flag: “Is Henry Rollins gay? The truth is he just does a lot of ‘gay’ things like and bodybuilding.”46 Of the highly influential Bad Brains, Blush notes that, “H.R. may go down as one of rock’s greatest frontmen, but he’s also one of the biggest jerks you’d never want to meet: a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, mentally ill loser…”47 Discussing the development of the Chicago punk scene, Blush notes, “…by the late 60s came the ‘niggerization’ of the entire South Side.”48 Or, in a description of Texas punk band the Big Boys, Blush opines,

“250-pound homosexual frontman Randy ‘Biscuit’ Turner wore tattered dresses onstage—which wasn’t just unhip, it was downright distressing.”49 While these are just several examples, Blush’s injection of personal bias permeates the book. Aside from being a poor writing practice and exposing himself as something of a bigot, the main result constitutes a significant distraction from the larger oral history being presented.

44 Steven Blush, American Hardcore: A Tribal History (Los Angeles: Feral House, 2001), 9.

45 Ibid., 35.

46 Ibid., 67.

47 Ibid., 130.

48 Ibid., 219.

49 Ibid., 235.

47

Add this to a writing style that lacks grammatical skill and is replete with constant misspellings, sentence fragments, and run-on sentences, and the result is far from professional.

Another significant problem with Blush’s work is its tone. If American

Hardcore: A Tribal History has an overriding thematic tone it is both violent and nihilistic and Blush’s construction of the larger narrative seems overtly fixated on these negatives. One has to look no further than the cover photo as proof of this point. The infamous Ed Colver photograph of a bloodied Danny Spira, vocalist of Los Angeles’

Wasted Youth, is a perfect example. Not only is it a misrepresentation of the whole scene, it stands to brand the scene as violent. This strange sensational bent on the part of the author flies in the face of the image that punks were trying to live down or prove a fallacy throughout the early 1980s. As a key member of the scene, Blush should know better. Also, Blush’s personal bias seems to have tainted which oral accounts by were included in the book. While the majority of individual recollections by participants and band members point to the positive and nurturing aspects of the scene, Blush’s reliance on presenting the hateful, violent, bigoted, and misogynistic elements does the true history a disservice. Did those elements exist within the scene? Absolutely, but they were far outweighed by the positive. Perhaps the best way to read American Hardcore is to avoid any and all of the author’s commentary, instead focusing on only the recollections of band members and participants.

Bryan Turcotte and Christopher T. Miller offer an interesting perspective on

American punk rock in their stunning visual history, + Photocopied: Instant

Art of the Punk Rock Movement. The authors do an unbelievable job in compiling

48 thousands of flyers, artwork, and posters generated by the punk between 1977 and 1986. Not surprisingly, given the scene stratification which developed in the 1980s, the book’s contents are divided into chapters based on local or regional scenes across the

United States (e.g., Northern California, Southern California, , the

West, Texas, Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C.). As noted by Turcotte and

Miller, the book “shows you that the punk scene is a one, it has no limits or boundaries, and we just displayed the best of what we found. One small part, stapled, folded, spilled on, written on, ripped, torn, fucked up, and photocopied.”50

To its credit, Fucked Up + Photocopied is an amazing collection of primary source material from the punk underground. Not only does the work collected show the great diversity of local and regional scenes, bands, and their stylistic traits, but also the extent to which these bands performed in a live setting, both locally and on tour.

Unfortunately, discerning which bands toured and how far they went is a difficult task at best. For example, when looking at the flyers from Texas, the laymen would have to know which bands on the flyer were not from Texas and therefore deduce that those bands were on tour. Also troubling is the lack of any form of introduction to each chapter.

While there are narrative reminisces by noteworthy participants sprinkled throughout, the lack of a structured narrative can be confusing. This is only compounded by the reluctance of most flyer designers to include the year.51 Regardless of these criticisms

50 Bryan Turcotte and Christopher Miller, Fucked Up + Photocopied: Instant Art of the Punk Rock Movement (Corte Madera, CA: Gingko Press, 1999), 5.

51 In other words, the typical flyer only provided the date (minus the year), time, location, and bands performing.

49 though, Fucked Up + Photocopied stands as an excellent supplement to any book on

American punk rock currently in circulation.

Very similar to Fucked Up + Photocopied and also compiled by Bryan

Turcotte is the 2007 book, Punk is Dead, Punk is Everything: Raw Material from the

Martyred Music Movement. Essentially recreating the same structural formula and content as his previous book, Turcotte expands Punk is Dead, Punk is Everything to also include set lists, photographs, and fanzines from the American punk rock movement.

Also different in this volume is the starting point of the early 1970s and the inclusion of a limited amount of British punk ephemera. While no chapter introductions are provided, there are narrative reminisces by key participants sprinkled throughout but, as stated previously, the lack of any tangible narrative or year of origin for the artwork displayed is troubling. It should be noted that the inclusion of fanzines is a marked improvement from the previous volume; unfortunately, most are only cover shots and offer little or no insight into their contents, construction, or relevance within the local, regional, national scenes. Yet, given the fact that fanzine culture is glossed over or left out of the majority of narrative histories on punk, their inclusion here is both long overdue and welcome.

Published in 2008 and also centered on American punk ephemera is Nathan

Nedorostek’s and Anthony Pappalardo’s book, Radio Silence: A Selected Visual History of American Hardcore Music. The authors’ stated purpose is to document “the ignored space between the Ramones and Nirvana through the words and images of the pre- internet era where this community built on do-it-yourself ethics thrived.”52 Nedorostek’s

52 Nathan Nedorostek and Anthony Pappalardo, Radio Silence: A Selected Visual History of American Hardcore Music (New York: MTV Press, 2008), vi.

50 and Pappalardo’s collection only differs from the previous art-centric books in two aspects. First, the range of years covers 1979 to approximately 1995, and second the focus includes not only what was produced, but also stylistic discussions on how it was produced and its larger impact within the punk community. To its credit, aside from an introductory and concluding essay, each piece of artwork, design, or photography is accompanied by a short description that includes both the source and date of origination.

Unfortunately, like many books that attempt to cover such a wide scope, Radio Silence: A

Selected Visual History of American Hardcore Music is limited in focus and leaves far too many important pieces out.

Perhaps not surprisingly, of the punk specific works in circulation, Get in the

Van: On the Road with Black Flag by Henry Rollins is one of only two books that discuss touring during the 1980s in any significant manner. Largely credited with blazing the trail across the United States and Canada that all subsequent bands have followed,

Los Angeles’ Black Flag has definitely secured its place in the historical record on punk rock. As noted by the author, “I was in the band Black Flag from summer of 1981 to summer of 1986 when the band broke up.”53 During this time Rollins kept a daily journal of both tour and non-tour related subjects. The book is organized by year, month, and day, and contains predominantly tour related entries with the addition of important non- tour accounts. In lieu of the lack of any other significant study of touring during the early

1980s, is a noteworthy primary source.

53 Henry Rollins, Get in the Van: On the Road with Black Flag (Los Angles: 2.13.61, 1994), 5.

51

Unfortunately, while an excellent account of the trials, tribulations, and potential victories of touring, Rollins’ book has several significant flaws. First, and noted in his introduction, is the fact that the author kept no journal for his first two years in the band (1981 and 1982). While he has written and included a memoir-like account of those early years, they are a far cry from the day-to-day recounting of the 1983 to 1986 period.

Considering those early years have the potential to provide key information on the formative stages of both the booking process and tour experience, the exclusion is troubling. Also, and no fault of the author, is the fact that this book is solely fixated on one band and, in particular, only one member of that band. In other words, Rollins’ experience may or may not have been the definitive experience shared by all those involved. All criticism aside, as one of the only tour specific primary documents available, Get in the Van is both noteworthy and important.

A less noteworthy source on touring during the early 1980s is Greg Jacobs’

1994 book, Hell on Wheels: A Tour Stories Compilation. Jacobs’ work has several distinct flaws. First and foremost, Hell on Wheels is comprised of recollections by only a handful of early 1980s bands or band members (e.g., Circle Jerks, ,

Minutemen, and ). Instead, the majority of stories come from bands who toured in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Not only are the bands presented a small sampling at best, they fail to provide a national scope of America punk rock in the 1980s.

The other major flaw with the compiled interviews is the inclusion of the salacious, dramatic, violent, or scandalous with little or no reference given to the positive affects of touring. While good stories do sell books, the result is not only misleading, but negligent at best. No reference to the scene-sustaining possibilities of touring is mentioned let alone

52 how tours were planned and carried out. In terms of the broad historical narrative, Hell on

Wheels offers little more than the very limited interesting vignette.

Of the several scene-specific books on American punk rock in the 1980s,

Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in he Nation’s Capital by Mark Andersen and

Mark Jenkins is a standout.54 Arguably, the most influential American punk scene next to

Los Angles was Washington, D.C., which gave birth to such notable artists as the Bad

Brains, Minor Threat, Henry Rollins, and later, Fugazi, not to mention Dischord Records.

The scene which developed in the nation’s capital has cast a long shadow over both punk and alternative music. Covering roughly 1977 to 2002, the book is an almost perfect encapsulation of the D.C. music scene, its politics, and beyond.

As D.C. natives present within the scene at its inception, Andersen and

Jenkins are perfectly capable of the immense task. Dance of Days begins where it should, with the D.C. new wave scene of the late 1970s. The authors cite the animosity of the older scene toward the younger scene as the flashpoint of D.C. punk. All of the requisite bands are covered (e.g., the Slinkees, Bad Brains, Teen Idles, Minor Threat, S.O.A., D.C.

Youth Brigade, , the Untouchables, etc.) as the authors weave firsthand accounts, fanzine interviews, lyrics, and numerous photographs into the larger narrative.

The result, especially when compared to other authors’ attempts at telling the story of the

D.C. scene, is masterful. If the book warrants one criticism, it is the fact that certain early

1980s bands are given more importance than others. While this might be a natural

54 Mark Andersen and Mark Jenkins, Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation’s Capitol (New York: Akashic Books, 2003).

53 response given the influential status of certain bands (e.g., Bad Brains and Minor Threat in particular), it nonetheless creates an unmistakable imbalance in the larger narrative.

Equally as significant as Dance of Days is the photo history Banned in DC:

Photos and Anecdotes from the DC Punk Underground, 1979-1985, by Cynthia

Connolly, Leslie Clague, and . As noted by the authors:

The original idea was to portray the active participants in the Washington, D.C. punk scene from 1979-85 through photographs…This initial idea developed into a project that would include anecdotes and flyers to compliment the photos. The overall goal was to let people speak for themselves rather than to analyze the situation.55

The result is amazing. Culled from a variety of D.C. area photographers, the book is crammed full of excellent pictures that are accompanied by captions that include reference to those individuals/bands pictured and, more often than not, both the date and location where the photo was taken. As far as the anecdotal contributions are concerned, a wide variety of scene participants are interviewed and included, from band members to audience members. Taken together the book combines both photo journalism and oral history and is therefore a perfect supplement to any historical overview of American punk rock.

Arguably, one of the most influential and longest surviving scenes in the world, the California punk scene’s epitaph has yet to be written. Regardless of this fact,

Peter Belsito and Bob Davis give it their best shot in the 1983 book, Hardcore

California: A History of Punk and New Wave. While the title might portend something inclusive, the authors note that they attempt only “to impose historical linearity upon an

55 Cynthia Connolly, Leslie Clague, and Sharon Cheslow, Banned in DC: Photos and Anecdotes from the DC Punk Underground, 1979-85 (Washington, D.C.: Sun Dog Propaganda, 1988), 1.

54 account of overlapping, prolonged and mostly simultaneous events that took place in two particular cities, San Francisco and Los Angeles over a particular period of time, 1977 through 1983.”56 Such a focus is probably too much of an undertaking considering the countless number of bands, both important and forgotten, which each city spawned.

Nonetheless, Belsito and Davis give it a valiant effort.

Given the years of focus, 1977 through 1983, Hardcore California was both researched and conceived as many of the events were occurring. Such coincidence both has benefits and drawbacks. To their credit, the authors do a decent job discussing the key early bands from Los Angeles (e.g., , Screamers, Dils, Alley Cats,

Dickies, Flesheaters, Bags, X, etc.) and San Francisco (e.g., , Crime, The

Mutants, etc.) before segueing into a discussion of later bands like Los Angeles’ Germs,

Fear, Black Flag, , Wasted Youth, Minutemen, etc.; and San Francisco’s

Avengers, Dead Kennedys, and Flipper. Also Belsito and Davis discuss several key record labels (Slash and Bomp from Los Angeles and Alternative Tentacles from San

Francisco) and several zines (Slash and Flipside from Los Angles; and Damage and

MaximumRockandRoll from San Francisco).

Unfortunately, given the publication year of 1983, Hardcore California winds up leaving out a significant amount of information on key bands, labels, and zines due to the fact that it was both researched and written in the early stages of the 1980s punk explosion in America. For example, while Los Angeles punk bands are covered well, in an overview fashion, equally significant bands from Orange County—usually tied to Los

56 Peter Belsito and Bob Davis, Hardcore California: A History of Punk and New Wave (San Francisco: The Last Gasp of San Francisco, 1983), 5.

55

Angeles due to proximity—are strangely absent. While the Middle Class (Fullerton) and

T.S.O.L (Huntington Beach) are included, for example, The Descendents (

Beach) and Agent Orange (Fullerton) are not. This is strange given the significant

Agent Orange received on area radio at the time and the hugely influential nature of the

Descendents melodic style. This could be due to the fact that both authors are from

Northern California and therefore lack a detailed understanding of the Southern

California scene, but could also be attributed to a geographic bias. Also, the book suffers from a lack of firsthand accounts. It reads more like a single-minded opinion piece rather than a comprehensive history. Inclusion of primary material or interviews would have benefited the larger narrative. Lastly, the fact that several fanzines and record labels are mentioned yet little or no emphasis is given to the role they played in facilitating the larger regional scene, and the result, if not completely negligent, is subjective at best.

A second bok on the California punk scene, but focused solely on Los Angeles, is

We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk. In their introduction, authors

Marc Spitz and Brendan Mullen are quick to offer a disclaimer:

We knew that with this project, we might pollute the whole thing. But the need to record the history of Los Angeles punk remained, if only to combat those who still deny its existence. So we opted for oral testimony: a forum that gives these fucked- up, brilliant, neglected souls a chance to get it right or wrong along with us. To expose their warts or clam up (and have them exposed by another punk). Primarily, we labored to keep the content as appropriately pure as the requisite editing for space and time allowed (call us enlightened vampires). Still, we admit that our story remains an endless work in progress. A first step towards getting it right.57

57 Marc Spitz and Brendan Mullen, We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001), xvi.

56

The importance of such a statement cannot be overemphasized. Much like Gina Arnold had done in her introduction to Route 666: On the Road to Nirvana, Spitz and Mullen unequivocally announce futile scope of their endeavor: “A definitive work is impossible. Our objective was to simply begin the process of reparation. To get people talking again. To show others what they have been missing.”58 Disclaimer aside, We Got the Neutron Bomb is an excellent oral history on the Los Angeles punk scene of the

1970s and early 1980s.

Organized in similar fashion to the other oral histories such as Clinton

Heylin’s From the Velvets to the Voidoids and Legs McNeil’s and Gillian McCain’s

Please Kill Me for example, each chapter of We Got the Neutron Bomb is assembled around a single year or span of several years (e.g., chapter 23 is titled “I Totally Hate

Cops To The Max (1979)”). More importantly and unlike the other oral histories, Spitz and Mullen provide a brief description of the content found in each chapter (e.g., chapter

23 reads: “The LAPD declares war on Punk Rock at the Elks Lodge riot on St. Patrick’s

Day”59). Not only is this helpful in locating pertinent information, it also provides a linear chronology which is easy to follow. To their credit, Spitz and Mullen include key voices from the L.A. fanzine community, like Claude Bessy of Slash and X-8 and Pooch of

Flipside. Include this with the wide variety of band members and scene participants interviewed, not too mention the numerous photographs, and the results are excellent.

58 Ibid., xvi.

59 Ibid., x.

57

Although a wonderful firsthand source on the L.A. punk scene, We Got the

Neutron Bomb does have several flaws. For instance, it is heavily weighted toward the early L.A. punk scene of 1971 to 1978. Whereas the early scene is given thirty three chapters of coverage, for example, the later and more hardcore punk scene of 1980 to

1985 receive only four. Given the topic of this thesis, such a limited focus is proof that the punk scene of the early 1980s has received short shrift in the histories available on

American punk rock. This imbalance is far from fair and does the larger story of L.A. punk a huge disservice because key L.A. and Orange County bands—again, tied to Los

Angeles by proximity—go unmentioned (a perfect example is the Descendents, from

Manhattan Beach). Also, the strange absence of from the cast of contributors is peculiar given the incredible influence not only of his band Black Flag, but more importantly his record label, SST. The significance of SST is incalculable when assessing the impact of the punk underground of the early 1980s. The fact that Ginn’s voice is missing is troubling.60 Regardless, Spitz and Mullen give an unbiased voice to a much underrepresented yet highly influential American punk scene.

Another book attempting to tell the story of American punk rock in the 1980s and written by a scene participant is George Hurchalla’s Going Underground: American

Punk, 1979-1992. As noted in his introduction:

Too much history has been repeated ad nauseam by the usual suspects, while many bands that were every bit as good or better have been largely ignored. Since punk rock was supposed to be an anti-hero movement, it’s a tragedy to let the winners write the history of it, and to make counterculture heroes of people who were never meant to be more than inspirational peers…You would need an encyclopedia to

60 It should be noted that Spitz and Mullen mention the key players who to participate in their brief introduction. Aside from Greg Ginn are and of the Germs.

58

thoroughly cover the history that I delve into in this book, and I make no claims to documenting every important band or scene that existed during that time…This is a work in progress, and by necessity is biased toward what I familiar with, though it has taught me more than anything about how little I knew about the totality of American punk.61

To his credit, and unlike Steven Blush in the previously discussed American Hardcore: A

Tribal Hisrtory, Hurchalla warns of his bias up front. Also, his insistence that many bands have been left out of the larger narrative is promising, hopefully, of a more inclusive history. Add to this the fact that he realizes the futility of his task and these are promising admissions. It should be noted though, that Going Underground is a DIY endeavor—written, edited, financed, published, and sold by the author and his Zuo Press.

It is, quite literally, a word document with inserted pictures that has been bound and is sold as a book.

Going Underground has several pluses. Rather than focus large parts of coverage on the predictable, big name, or influential bands, like the previously noted books by Sarig and Arnold, Hurchalla gives as many bands coverage as he can (this cuts both ways – see below). No band or scene is too obscure in this book and ample coverage is given to all the important scenes including the Pacific Northwest, Desert Southwest,

Midwest, East Coast (most notably, Boston), and the South (most notably, Florida). Also to his credit, Hurchalla discusses venues and promoters that were key to certain regional scenes, thus filling a hole left by other histories. To shape the larger narrative Hurchalla weaves together personal recollections with interviews done in fanzines, all of which are nicely footnoted.

61 George Hurchalla, Going Underground: American Punk, 1979-1992 (Stuart, FL: Zuo Press, 2005), x.

59

Unfortunately, Going Underground has many flaws as well. For example,

Hurchalla only includes brief discussions of the importance of touring, fanzines, and indie labels within the scene. Most obvious, and similar to Steven Blush, is the fact that

Hurchalla is not a professionally trained writer. Combined with the fact that the book is solely edited by the author and the numerous grammatical errors are to be expected. In reference to structure, Hurchalla uses phrases from punk lyrics as chapter titles with no accompanying references as to the location being discussed or date range. The result can be confusing at best. Lastly, Going Underground has several out of place chapters that seem thrown in as an afterthought. Chapter sixteen for example, “Every Song Is A

Revolution,” deals with the political nature of punk lyrics—an analysis perhaps better situated with the band in question rather than given its own chapter. Similarly, chapter twenty four is very confusing. Titled “Punks on Film” and beginning with the author’s trip to Australia, it ends with a discussion of television stereotypes of punk rock as well as some of the more famous punk documentaries (e.g., Decline of the Western

Civilization and Another State of Mind) of the early 1980s. Although a flawed piece of both history and writing, Hurcahlla’s effort is nonetheless leaps and bounds above the overwhelming bias and bigotry of Blush’s American Hardcore.

In a strange turn of events, one of the better books on punk rock is a piece of history that leaves far too much out. Journalist Michael Azerrad’s 2001 Our Band Could

Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 is similar to

Gina Arnold’s book, Route 666: On the Road to Nirvana, in that it attempts to connect the dots of the American punk scene of the 1980s not by attempting to tell the whole

60 story, which is impossible, but by focusing in on the most important and influential bands of that era. As Azerrad is quick to note:

…the American independent scene in the Eighties contained many, many bands, from those that made a mark on the national stage to bands that began obscure and stayed that way, sometimes by design. Many of the bands known only to a very few are personal favorites, but it was a matter of excluding them or turning this book into an encyclopedia…Instead this book profiles a series of bands who not only represented a musical innovation, a philosophy, a region or label, or contributed a noted character to the community, but illustrated a particular point in the evolution of the American indie scene in the Eighties, from aggressive pioneer days to a diverse scene struggling with its own success. And it’s about giving credit where credit is due. These bands are legendary, but many folks don’t know why.62

While such a focus does the larger narrative a huge disservice by leaving out smaller, lesser known bands, the research and writing is of such a caliber that the omissions almost seem moot.

Our Band Could Be You Life begins with an introductory overview of the

1980s underground music scene. In it Azerrad defines DIY, explains how the scene differed from the mainstream music scene, mentions several indie labels and fanzines, and, interestingly, discusses the role played by college radio in the mid-to-late 1980s. The result, albeit brief, is a decent encapsulation of the American underground music scene that developed during the 1980s. The remaining body of Our

Band Could Be Your Life is comprised of chapter length biographies of key punk bands.

Those chosen for inclusion and larger discussion are predictable at best (e.g., Black Flag,

The Minutemen, Minor Threat, Husker Du, and The Replacements), but again, the caliber of research and writing is at such a high degree that the exclusions seem almost acceptable. Azerrad closes his tome with an epilogue that discusses the successes and

62 Michael Azerrad, Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 (New York: Little, Brown, 2001), 4.

61 failures of the once vibrant American indie scene in the wake of the Nirvana phenomenon of the early 1990s.

As good as Azerrad’s research and writing are the book leaves something to be desired. The limited emphasis given to the role of fanzines and indie labels in the regional and national scenes, for example, is negligent. To his credit though, Azerrad discusses both of these factors throughout the chapter length biographies and, in the case of zines in particular he references them from time to time by title and number or date.

Unfortunately, the dilution of these two important aspects of the larger scene does their legacy a huge disservice and the exclusion of bands like the Dead Kennedys and Bad

Brains, at a minimum, results in a pedestrian overview at best. It should be noted that the book was, most likely, written for the laymen and therefore such omissions matter little, but to an individual well versed in the bands, zines, and labels of the early 1980s punk scene, those omissions become treasonous. Add to this the lack of focus on the importance of touring during the period and Our Band Could Be Your Life can be added to a long list of flawed histories.

Of the books specific to the totality of American punk rock in the 1980s, there are several standouts. The caliber of Azzerad’s research and writing, for example, regardless of the significant omissions, place Our Band Could Be Your Life near the top.

Structural and grammatical flaws notwithstanding, even Hurchalla’s Going Underground or Blush’s American Hardcore do decent jobs as well. Even the scene specific histories like Belsito and Davis’ Hardcore California, Spitz and Mullen’s We Got The Neutron

Bomb, and Andersen and Jenkins’ Dance of Days, are adequate. Yet, almost universally, these books fail to give proper significance to several indispensable subjects. First is the

62 role of fanzines and indie labels in nurturing and facilitating the larger punk scene of the early 1980s. Secondly, none of these specific works give enough emphasis to the important pollinating effect of touring during the period. This begs the question, how can this be? It is not because the historical record is lacking. There are an abundance of primary sources available to be mined as well as a wide variety of living participants yet to be interviewed.

CHAPTER III

GUERRILLA JOURNALISM: FANZINE

CULTURE

American punk in the early 1980s was in the crosshairs of the mainstream media, , and parent groups. Like many alternative, underground, or bohemian that had come before, punk too was perceived as a threat to the status quo.

For this reason it was either marginalized and ignored or stereotyped and distorted in the press and negative representations, bias, and sensationalism were common in the mainstream media coverage of punk. One news article from the Los Angeles Times titled

“Violence Sneaks into Punk Scene,” for example, concluded that “accounts of violence, vandalism and mutilation at some area rock clubs read like reports from a war zone.”1 A

20 December 1981 article from the Chicago Tribune maintained that, “The sounds of such groups as the Germs, Black Flag, China White, Fear, Agent Orange, Christian

Warfare, and Bow Wow Wow are to music what anarchy is to politics. It grates, it pounds, it lashes out at its audiences.”2 An Austin, Texas paper from 3 September 1982 ran the headline, “Punk Band Cause Big Disturbance Saturday Night.” In the accompanying article, staff writer W. Gardener Selby explained the fallout: “Though the

1 Patrick Goldstein, “Violence Sneaks Into Punk Scene,” Los Angeles Times, June 29, 1980.

2 Ronald Yates, “Who Cares What Parents Think? I’m a Punker!” Chicago Tribune, December 20, 1981.

63 64

Union Theater has no policy against any kind of music…the Union will now book bands in the future after a background check.”3

Shawn Stern, founding member of the Los Angeles punk band Youth Brigade, described the media coverage as follows: “Punk always got bad write-ups in the press – always concentrated on the kids with safety pins through their cheeks, the weird clothes, the dyed hair, all that shit.”4 He continues, “The media always exploited the scene. It has always sensationalized the negative aspects – like violence. They never talk about the positives…and we were sick and tired of having this negative image.”5 Vic Bondi, vocalist for the Chicago band Articles of Faith took it a step further when he lamented that, “They wanted all this stuff to just die and go away.” Tesco Vee, vocalist for the

Washington, D.C. band , asserts, “We felt that we needed to get our side of the story out there.”6 Dan Kubinski, vocalist for the punk band Die Kruezen, simultaneously agreed and prophesized the coming “do it yourself” (DIY) explosion:

“Anything new or different was shunned…What a bullshit attitude. That’s part of why we had to just do things ourselves.”7

The mainstream press was not the only mass media outlet to enter and soon Hollywood also weighed in. Playing on the stereotypes and sensationalism

3 W. Gardener Selby, “Punk Band Causes Big Disturbance Saturday Night,” The Daily Texan, September 4, 1982.

4 Shawn Stern, telephone interview by author, January 30, 2009.

5 Adam Small and Peter Stuart, Another State of Mind, DVD (New York: Time Bomb Recordings, 2004).

6 Tesco Vee, telephone interview by author, December 17, 2008.

7 Dan Kubinski, telephone interview by author, November 19, 2009.

65 perpetuated in the press, television shows began to work punk rock into their storylines.

In a now infamous episode of the hit drama Quincy, M.E., which aired 1 December 1982, a kid is stabbed while slam dancing to a song by Mayhem Ground Zero. The episode’s most preposterous dialog read:

Quincy: You’re not blaming what happened to that girl on music? Dr. Hanover: Don’t underestimate this particular kind of music, Quincy. You tell a kid over and over again, that life isn’t worth living, that violence is its own reward and you add to it the kind of intensity this music has, and you just might convince her.8

Quincy, of course, later attributes the to punk rock music opining, “I believe that the music I heard is a killer. It’s a killer of hope. It’s a killer of spirit. The music I heard said that life was cheap and that murder and suicide was okay.”9

In an eerily similar episode of CHiPs, which aired on 31 January 1982, a local new wave band, Pink, has their van’s tires slashed and stolen by a gang of punk rockers. Later, at a battle of the bands, Snow Pink must perform with a punk band called Pain who destroy the bathroom and harass Snow Pink during their set. When Snow

Pink realizes that Pain is using their stolen guitars, the punks are asked to leave. Members of Pain brandish knives and initiate a riot before fleeing. The members of Pain are chased down and apprehended and, in the aftermath, Ponch takes the stage and performs a cover of “Celebration” by Kool and the Gang.10 While the episode presented punk rock in a

8 Ryan Cooper, “A Dubious Moment in Punk Rock History – December, 1982 – The Punk Episode of Quincy M.E.,” About.com: Punk Music: Ryan’s Punk Music Blog, August 2, 2007, http://punkmusic.about.com/b/2007/08/02/a-dubious-moment-in-punk-rock-history-december-1982-the- punk-episode-of-quincy-me.htm (accessed February 9, 2009).

9 Ibid.

10 CHiPs, “The Battle of the Bands,” episode 516, originally aired January 31, 1982.

66 sensationalized and stereotypical manner, it also inadvertently declared new wave, if not disco, to be a safe and wholesome alternative.

Accounts such as these, both sensationalized and fictional, were enough to facilitate the establishment of a Southern California organization called Parents of

Punkers. Headed by youth counselor Serena Dank of the Community Counseling

Associates in Norwalk, the group was designed to help families cope with the punk rock phenomenon. “Parents are scared, enraged, and embarrassed. Punk Rock is so alien to them they don’t know where to go,” Dank maintained. “Parents feel like they are losing their children to it...This is a very self-destructive movement.”11 Fueled by news stories on Los Angeles area television, by late 1981 Parents of Punker’s membership had swelled from a handful of parents to a network of families across Southern California.

Shawn Stern, founding member of the Los Angles punk band Youth Brigade and founder of the Better Youth Organization believed, “Parents of Punkers was ridiculous – as if punk rock was a sickness that could be cured? Like they tried ‘curing’ – it was just ridiculous that they were trying to cure you. It was absurd.”12

Is it any wonder then, faced with such a one-sided representation in the media and persecution by parent and psychiatric groups that punk rockers took to creating their own forms of mass communication? Following in a long tradition of independent DIY

11 Ronald Yates, “Who Cares What Parents Think? I’m a Punker!” Chicago Tribune, December 20, 1981.

12 Stern, interview.

67 publication, punk rockers began publishing their own fanzines.13 The term “fanzine” is a combination of two words, “fan” and “magazine” (also called “zines”). They are noncommercial, nonprofessional, small circulation publications, often produced, published, and distributed by a single individual. The fact that they are privately funded, have irregular publication schedules, and are privately distributed, sets them apart from professionally published magazines. They are generated and sold by independent individuals who operate without the editorial and publishing controls placed on the major media outlets and are usually produced for fun and the sheer will to be read rather than for profit.14

Interestingly, punk rockers were not the first American subculture to embrace the tradition. The earliest fanzine on record is Hugo Gernsback’s 1926 venture titled

Amazing Stories.15 Gernsback, an avid science fiction fan and storywriter, wanted to collect and publish stories written by like-minded individuals. In a move that both galvanized the science fiction community and began a wave of other fanzine publications, Amazing Stories started printing the full addresses of each contributor.

Readers were encouraged to submit suggestions or discuss the published works. In this way, Amazing Stories served as much more than a science fiction publication; it also

13 Elements of the following ten paragraphs were written by the author and originally published under the title “Guerilla Journalism” in Contemporary Youth Culture: An International Encyclopedia, Volume 2, edited by Shirley Steinberg, Priya Parmar, and Birgit Richard, © 2005 : Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. Reproduced with permission of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., Westport, CT.

14 Andrew M. Traulsen, “Guerilla Journalism,” in Contemporary Youth Culture: An International Encyclopedia, Volume 2, ed. by Shirley Steinberg, Priya Parmar, and Birgit Richard (Westport. CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., 2005), 478.

15 R. Seth Friedman, “A Brief History of Zines,” essentialmedia.com, n.d., http://esentialmedia.com/shop/ seth.html (accessed 14 November 2003).

68 established a sense of community among fanzine creators and readers that survives to this day.16

One of the many discussion groups formed out of Amazing Stories’ practice of printing full addresses of its contributors was The Science Correspondence Club (SCC).

In 1930, the SCC published its own science fiction fanzine titled The Comet.17 The

Comet was significant for two main reasons. First, it set the standard for science fiction/fantasy based fanzines for the next three decades (one of which, Science Fiction, was run by Jerome Siegel and Joe Shuster, who would later become famous as the creators of the Superman comic).18 Secondly, and more importantly, The Comet utilized the new invention of the mimeograph-duplicating machine to cheaply print each issue.

Use of new technology, a dominating force in revolutionizing the journalism industry, would repeatedly influence the fanzine community over the ensuing decades.19

As the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties gave way to unemployment, homelessness, and starvation of the Great Depression, a new form of fanzine evolved. Out of the left-wing movement and led by such notable individuals as Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Lee Hays, and Alan Lomax, sprang People’s

Songs Incorporated.20 People’s Songs was run not only by musicians, but also by average

16 Traulsen, “Guerilla Journalism.”

17 Friedman, “A Brief History.”

18 Fredric Wertham, The World of Fanzines: a Special Form of Communication (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1973), 39.

19 Traulsen, “Guerilla Journalism.”

20 Robbie Liberman, My Song Is My Weapon (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989), xvi.

69 people interested in the power of music and its ability to foment change. This belief that protest music could inspire and motivate people was based on longstanding American social traditions such as the abolitionist, labor, populist, and socialist movements.

Through songs and live performances, musicians cried out for labor equality, civil rights, civil liberties, and peace. In an attempt to raise awareness of social issues, People’s Songs

Inc. began publishing the People’s Songs Bulletin in 1945.21

The People’s Songs Bulletin was much more than a collection of sheet music and lyrics; it also established booking/management services, a song archive, and recording opportunities for folk musicians.22 Much like the science fiction fanzines of the preceding decade, People’s Songs Bulletin encouraged song submissions and published letters from readers and labor unions covering a wide range of social topics. In their submissions disclaimer the editors noted that “People’s Songs is interested in folk songs, work songs, and the best in song tradition, but not to the exclusion of new songs. It works not as a folklore society, but as an organization serving the cultural needs of the people.”23 In this way, the People’s Songs Bulletin maintained two traditions that have dominated fanzine culture: first, it provided a publication outlet to those who had none, and second, it fostered a sense of community by inspiring readers to submit and communicate with one another. Although the People’s Songs Bulletin was a short-lived

21 Liberman, 68; Traulsen, “Guerilla Journalism.”

22 Liberman, 68.

23 Ibid., 86.

70 venture, its replacement, Sing Out!, first published in 1950, continues many of the same traditions to this day.24

As World War II gave way to the Cold War, a new generation of marginalized individuals took up the fanzine tradition. Beats, such as William Burroughs, Babs

Gonzales, , and espoused ideas of individuality, mysticism, and a relaxing of social and sexual inhibitions. Some of these individuals, as well as fans of their work, began issuing small audience, small circulation zines called “chapbooks.”25

Chapbooks were collections of literary work such as poetry or short stories and artwork either shunned or deemed culturally irrelevant by mainstream publishers. By seizing the opportunity to publish their own work, the Beats were, in essence, carrying the fanzine tradition forward. Such endeavors, and their creators, would inspire a whole new generation of literary and radical fanzines as the homogeneity of the 1950s gave way to the turbulent decade that followed.26

The 1960s and its political and social upheavals spawned a revolution in the publication of alternative media. Although not referred to as fanzines, these publications became commonly known as the “underground press.” The during this period sought an alternative because the mainstream press was not concerned with issues important to them. Underground publications responded “by editorializing on civil rights, social welfare, colonialism, flower children, international peace movements and the

24 Traulsen, “Guerilla Journalism.”

25 David Gross, “ But Not Heard,” Time, 144, no. 10 (September 5, 1994).

26 Traulsen, “Guerilla Journalism.”

71 inhumanity of war.”27 With time, these topics expanded into “fan” related subjects such as literature, art, music, and drug use. The most recognized papers of this movement formed the Underground Press Syndicate (UPS) in 1967. Publications of the UPS included the Los Angeles Free Press, New York’s East Village Other, the Berkeley Barb,

San Francisco’s Oracle, ’s Fifth Estate, Chicago’s Seed, and Austin’s Rag.28 With time, the UPS included more than a hundred other alternative publications.29

The underground press immense affected the future of fanzine publication.

The first of its two significant legacies was the DIY ethic or individual control over all aspects of the publication process. Whether conceiving story ideas, researching, interviewing, taking pictures, doing graphic design/paste-up, or delivering and selling the final product, many alternative journalists were exposed to every aspect of the process.

The second important legacy of the underground press was the reliance on new technologies such as inexpensive offset printing, justifying typewriters, and the camera- ready copy processes. Together, they gave voice to the dissenter and led to a proliferation of alternative media.30

By the late 1960s, the underground press included not only social and political commentary, but literary experimentation and critiques and analyses of the rebelliousness of sex, drugs and rock-n-roll music.31 Counterculture musicians such as , The

27 Robert J. Glessing, The Underground Press in America (Bloomington: University of Press, 1970), xiii.

28 Friedman, “A Brief History.”

29 Traulsen, “Guerilla Journalism.”

30 Glessing, xiv; Traulsen, “Guerilla Journalism.”

31 Friedman, “A Brief History.”

72

Fugs, The MC5, Joan Baez, Country Joe MacDonald & The Fish, ,

Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were all vocal critics of American policies both at home and abroad. In response, more than 500 underground publications began monitoring, recording and publishing the activities and opinions of rock musicians and counterculture figures.32 This expanded focus led to a wider readership as young people not initially drawn to the underground press were intrigued by the focus on rock-n-roll music. The effect of such a shift ultimately increased the number of zines and created a tight-knit network of countercultural individuals. This network later inspired a whole new wave of fanzines in the coming decade.33

Despite rock-n-roll’s evolution into a strong countercultural force, the mainstream media tended to ignore it. On the other hand, large record companies realized the huge marketing potential of the underground press and began pouring large amounts of money into .34 As a result of corporate co-opting of the counterculture’s views, media, and music, by the mid-1970s rock-n-roll degenerated into overproduced, corporate, that had lost its rebellious edge. The stage was set for nothing short of a new counterculture, music, and fanzine revolution.35

The emergence of punk rock music in the mid-1970s significantly impacted the history of fanzines. Punk rock attacked the overindulgent lifestyle of rock musicians and the overproduced nature of their music. This new form of music was characterized by

32 Rodger Streitmatter, Voices of Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 200.

33 Traulsen, “Guerilla Journalism.”

34 Streitmatter, 212.

35 Traulsen, “Guerilla Journalism.”

73 stripped down songs and edgy, anarchic, and nihilistic anthems that railed against status quo. Punk rock became the new counterculture as adherents opposed the corporate stranglehold on rock music, fashion, and the press. Like history repeating itself, a fresh wave of fanzines covered this new movement. Two that ultimately shaped the future of the fanzine tradition were New York’s Punk and England’s Sniffin’ Glue. Punk used slick printing and an almost comic book design while Sniffin’ Glue utilized sloppy hand lettering or a typewriter and poorly reproduced photographs.36 Each of these zines covered the punk rock scene and reported on issues the mainstream media found unimportant or irrelevant. While their artistic styles were widely different, both Punk and

Sniffin’ Glue set the bar for a wave of fanzine production the likes of which had never been seen before.37

An important element in understanding the fanzine explosion of the early

1980s is context. Both designing and printing a zine was a struggle at best. At that time there were no internet, cell phones, or digital cameras, and word processing, home computing, and copy machine technologies were in all their infancy and very expensive.

As one zine publisher noted, “It was a typewriter, camera, and Xerox. You’d type it up and hope there were no typos…in most cases it was straight to the copy machine.”38

An individual interested in publishing a fanzine was relegated to either hand writing, typing, or using expensive rub-on letters. The Letraset and Chartpack

Companies, for example, offered a wide variety of fonts in varying sizes that could be

36 Friedman, “A Brief History.”

37 Traulsen, “Guerilla Journalism.”

38 Peter Davis, telephone interview by author, January 11, 2009.

74 transferred from Mylar sheets onto paper by lining up the desired letter and rubbing the back of the Mylar. This process would then have to be repeated for each letter of the text and was incredibly laborious. Since halftone photography, a photographic process in which photos are translated into a series of shaded dots for better reproduction value was expensive, most photographs were simply glued straight into the layout. One publisher described it this way, “…there was no halftoning involved – we had no money for that kind of shit.”39 The result was crude and, if pictures were involved, the possibility of indiscernible images was a constant possibility.

Printing could also be a struggle and there are numerous examples of handwritten zines that utilized a sheet of carbon paper for creating multiple copies.40 In this process the writer first wrote up the text, then alternate sheets of carbon and paper before tracing over the original text. The carbon sheets then translated the words onto each succeeding page. Also used was the hand-cranked mimeograph machine. A mimeograph machine could reproduce multiple copies of one page at a time from a single carbon copied master. While the mimeograph machine was more convenient than handwriting a zine, it still entailed a significant amount of effort. For most zine publishers, the proliferation of the copy, or Xerox, machine during the 1980s was a

Godsend. By 1982, the majority of fanzines were Xeroxed and stapled endeavors. Keep in mind, though, that early copy machines only turned out 1:1 ratio copies, in other words they had no reduction or enlargement capabilities. The most expensive option available was offset printing. In the case of a fanzine publisher with either seed money or a revenue

39 Davis, interview.

40 Dave Parson’s Miami based Mouth of the Rat is a good example.

75 stream, offset printing was the best choice for both text and photographic clarity. While several of the larger circulation fanzines initially began as photocopied ventures, most, with increasing circulation, made the switch to offset printing.

It was in this technological milieu that Al Flipside founded what would become one of the most important punk fanzines of the 1980s American punk scene.

Born in Los Angeles in 1977, Flipside catered to the large and dynamic punk scene that flourished in Southern California. Al explained his motivation:

Flipside started out of boredom. We were bored teenagers who had no specific message to convey…I had seen fanzines from England that covered the Sex Pistols and the early English punk scene. Fanzines were so great. You would die to read these little news articles about your U.K. heroes and eventually American bands like the Avengers.41

Originally produced as a 5 ½ by 4 ¼ inch fanzine, Flipside was crude but passionate. Al remembers:

When we did Flipside it was more from the street level. We were music fans who had no idea how to do a magazine. We learned by doing and with time, the fanzine came together. Getting material to print was very easy back then because there were so many bands and all of them were good.42

As co-editor and contributor Pat “Pooch” Dipuccio noted, “we had nothing to lose, so we could be brutally honest, a trait we tried to retain for 25 years.”43

As far as contents were concerned, early Flipside was pretty simple. Each issue included news and gossip sections, photographs, and as many reviews as would fit.

41 Martin Sprouse, Threat By Example: Words and Art Form (San Francisco: Pressure Drop Press, 1990), 116.

42 Ibid., 118.

43 Bryan Turcotte, Punk is Dead, Punk is Everything: Raw Material from A Martyred Music Movement (Los Angeles: Gingko Press, 2008), 167.

76

Aside from well-documented show reviews that included date, location, and information on the bands performing, Flipside also ran very interesting album and single reviews. As described by Pooch, the process was to put on a record album and sit around and “talk around the record player and type our conversational reviews that way.”44 The result was anything but a conventional record review; it read more like an ongoing discussion of the individual song or album. Two of the most important aspects of Flipside’s contents, and tying them squarely to the longstanding American fanzine tradition, were the constant call for contributions (e.g., letters, pictures, stories, records, tapes, etc.) and the printing of a fanzine directory. The directory was a list of submitted fanzines and a brief description of their contents, cost, and contact addresses. As one zine publisher remembers, “They would have lists in each of their issues of forty or fifty other fanzines with maybe a write-up on how you could get one. All you had to do to get on the list was send them a copy of your zine.”45 It was through this directory that other zines spread the word. Following Flipside’s lead, most of the major zines also assisted smaller ones. With time, Flipside slowly began taking on advertisements as well.

Distribution was carried out by selling at shows or working on consignment at local stores. Pooch remembers:

Our way of distribution was to drive clear across town to put five copies in a store’s magazine rack to sell them on consignment. We’d return to the store to drop off the next issue, collect our nickels and dimes and head back home. It wasn’t the most cost effective means of distribution, but it was the only way to get our zine a little shelf space.46

44 Ibid.

45 Jack Rabid, telephone interview with author, December 4, 2008.

46 Rabid, interview.

77

The result was slow in coming, but Flipside soon began to have an affect outside the Los

Angeles area. By 1980, what began as a .10¢ Xeroxed zine with twenty quarter-sized pages, a per issue run of only one hundred, and a sporadic publication schedule, had mushroomed into a .75¢ cent full sized and offset printed zine (8 ½ by 11 inches) with a run of fifteen hundred, a glossy cover, and a more consistent publication schedule.47 By

1985, the run was ten thousand copies at a cost of $1.50 per issue. As far as legacy is concerned, Al maintains, “I think the spirit of Flipside has been the ‘Do It Yourself’ philosophy which is something we stood by since the beginning; we did all the production and distribution…I would hope that this method would inspire other people to also do things themselves.”48

As New York and England’s punk dominance waned in the late 1970s, the

California punk scene took up the call. In Southern California in particular, the punk scene exploded and began influencing smaller scenes across the U.S. Soon every scene had at least one, but usually numerous, fanzines. Most of these initially focused on their particular local or regional scene only, but as bands started to tour, some zines stated interviewing bands from far outside their individual scenes. As a result, and using

Flipside as a model, by the early 1980s large circulation fanzines such as Michigan’s

Touch & Go (1979), New York’s Big Takeover (1980), Minneapolis’ Your Flesh (1981),

Boston’s Forced Exposure (1982), and San Francisco’s MaximumRockandRoll (1982),

47 Michele Flipside, “Flipside Fanzine Database,” www.flipsidefanzine.com, 2007, http://www.flipsidefanzine.com (accessed November 14, 2007).

48 Sprouse, 116.

78 not to mention hundreds of smaller publications, catered to the American punk underground.49

The motivations of fanzine publishers were very similar. Peter Davis, co- founder of Your Flesh fanzine, asserts, “Punk was just not being covered…The fanzine was a means of having a voice in something – calling attention to something the mainstream press was ignoring.”50 Jack Rabid, founder of Big Takeover, concurs: “It was a concerted effort of people writing about something and passing it around just so these bands could get a little extra attention so more people would find out about them and seek out their records.”51 Tesco Vee, founder of Touch & Go fanzine, continues in that vein:

“The mainstream press was turning their noses up at punk rock…they thought it was half- baked and we thought it was fully-charged…We felt that we needed to get our side of the story out there.”52

If motivations were similar, publication tactics varied greatly. Big Takeover, for example, initially started as a single-sided 8½ by 11 inch photocopied sheet with no pictures and focus on only one band, New York’s Stimulators. As described by Rabid,

“I’d go into the copy shop and print up three or five hundred copies and give them away at every gig I went to.”53 By issue two, and continuing through issue seven, Big Takeover had expanded to a double sided 8½ by 14 inch photocopied sheet with no pictures and

49 “Large circulation” is defined here as anything over 1,000 copies.

50 Davis, interview.

51 Rabid, interview.

52 Vee, interview.

53 Rabid, interview.

79 was folded in half (into four pages). Not until issue eight, in early 1981, did Big Takeover became a full-sized (8 ½ by 11 inch), copied and stapled zine with crudely reproduced pictures. Rabid notes, “By the time of issue seven I got a job working for a shipping company in the World Trade Center and got a crack at their Xerox machine – this lowered the cost quite a bit.”54 Big Takeover wasn’t the only fanzine to publish through illegal methods, Touch & Go also utilized guerrilla tactics early on. Tesco Vee explains,

“I was working at an elementary school as a teacher and I’d sneak into the office and print off as many copies as I could…I was always scared I might leave a page on the machine and get busted.”55

Some zines slowly evolved into offset printing or used a combination of both processes. Offset printing was usually conducted by making photo negatives of each page of the layout, which ensured good photo quality, and running the job on a printing press rather than a copy machine. The paper type was usually newsprint like a newspaper. The best examples of this were later issues of Flipside and MaximumRockandRoll. Peter

Davis describes the Your Flesh foray into offset printing:

Issue two had a run of five hundred. A friend of ours who worked at the local NBC affiliate was the foreman of the in-house print shop. He said, “Give me your layouts and we’ll slide them out the back door on the sly.” We did that for issues two through four – five hundred copies each. We only had to go to pocket for the cost of the paper.56

Some fanzines which lacked the funds for such an expensive process used a combination of methods. As noted by Tesco Vee, the covers of Touch & Go had the offset look

54 Rabid, interview.

55 Vee, interview.

56 Davis, interview.

80 because his cohort, Dave Stimson, “was taking Graphics classes at Lansing Community

College and did those there, so we got a slick look. At least the cover was slick – the rest of it had the grayscale, crappy Xerox look from the school’s copier.”57 Some zines, especially smaller ones, continued to use copy machines as their modus operandi. Big

Takeover, for example, still photocopied each issue well into the late 1980s.

When it came to contents, punk zines had one thing in common: they all centered on punk rock. Whether interviewing bands, writing local scene reports, or reviewing live shows or recordings, fanzines definitely spread the word. Some zines also covered other topics as well. Your Flesh, for example covered skateboarding, comics, and horror movies.58 Touch & Go often skewered bands and the local mainstream press.

Tesco Vee remembers, “We slagged David Winkelstern who was the local Lansing State

Journal newspaper entertainment guy. We were like young whippersnappers taking potshots at the established media and at bands if we thought they sucked.”59 Byron Coley, co-founder of Boston’s Forced Exposure fanzine, remembers having a little fun by

“getting with Tesco and writing fake record reviews to see if anyone would take the bait

– just messing with people’s minds.”60 Strangely, of all the topics available to cover in the early 1980s, for most fanzines politics seemed almost taboo. The only major fanzine to take on politics during this era in a major way was, not surprisingly given their city’s liberal tendencies, San Francisco’s MaximumRockandRoll.

57 Vee, interview.

58 Davis, interview.

59 Vee, interview.

60 Byron Coley, telephone interview by author, January 18, 2009.

81

MaximumRockandRoll got its start as a community radio show of the same name. The first issue, released in 1982, was a newsprint booklet (called “issue #0”) of artwork and lyrics that accompanied the Northern California/Nevada compilation album

Not So Quiet on the Western Front released on Dead Kennedys’ label, Alternative

Tentacles. Founded by the late Tim Yohanon, a thirty-eight year old who was considerably older than most band members and participants and had actively participated in many Bay Area protests of the late 1960s, MaximumRockandRoll became the social and political barometer of the American punk scene. Yohanon’s philosophy was deeply rooted in the philosophical ideals of the 1960s counterculture. He saw the fanzine as:

…a way to show other kids that it is possible to be creative, to learn responsibility, and decision making, to find the value of work without the pay incentive – that all benefit one’s self as well as the larger body of humanity…I enjoy being able to provide material, resources and opportunities for others to experience growth, to see that there are alternatives to “growing up” and “,” that one can live by alternative” values and have dignity that money and prestige aren’t really the important factors in one’s self-image, that we don’t have to give in to “their” way of doing things.61

Although rooted in this social and political philosophy, MaximumRockandRoll soon grew from a to a publication that offered opportunities to artists as well as activists, but politics would play a major role. The political articles published by the zine were anything but juvenile. In most cases, the political writing was both well researched and written, often including sources cited as well as opportunities for further reading or research.

61 Sprouse, 47.

82

Even a cursory scan of the early issues of MaximumRockandRoll reveals the zine’s strong political bent. In issue number one, for example, columnist Peter “AK-47”

Urban opposes Israeli incursions into Lebanon and offers support to striking Bay Area railroad workers.62 Also from the first issue in, “I Don’t Want to Die,” Mark Berlin that rails against President ’s proposed military budget. In issue number seven,

Jerry Booth offers a detailed analysis of the U.S. role in Nicaragua.63 Les Gatesman of the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee submits a detailed history of and report on the Ku

Klux Klan in issue fourteen.64 A British contributor, using the pseudonym Digger, analyzes of the offensive U.S. military presence in Great Britain and its Cold War ramifications in a July 1984 article titled, “The Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier: American

Military Power in Britain.” That same year, another contributor, Louise Billotte, tenders a well developed and nicely referenced essay on multinational corporate encroachment into

American politics and the possibility of a coming fascism in issue number sixteen.65

Matters of political import were not the only issues MaximumRockandRoll tackled. Numerous social issues also received attention. In issue two, for example, Eva

Larke contributes a well substantiated article on sexism and gender roles in the mass media and their affect on women in society.66 Tim Tonooka offers an interesting take on media stereotypes of punk rock in the aftermath of the infamous Quincy, M.E. television

62 Peter Urban, “Know Your Weapon,” MaximumRockandRoll, July 1982.

63 Jerry Booth, “How far will the C.I.A. go in Nicaragua?” MaximumRockandRoll, July 1983.

64 Les Gatesman, “The Klan and the Face of Amerikkkan Facism,” MaximumRockandRoll, June 1984.

65 Louise Billotte, “Friendly Fascism,” MaximumRockandRoll, August 1984.

66 Eva Larke, “Too Many Assumptions,” MaximumRockandRoll, September 1982.

83 show in his 1983 article, “Guns Don’t Kill People, Songs Do.” Another contributor, using the alias Noisebush, provides commentary on the pervasiveness of child abuse in

American society.67 Editorialists Ruth S., Erikka, Lynn, and Anna present their poll results on gender roles in their 1983 article, “Annihilate Sex Roles!” Not surprisingly, vegetarianism appears in a detailed discussion by Michael Lerner.68 Interestingly, one of the more obscure offerings was a 1983 article titled “Punk First Aid and Self-Defense,” which included common medical practices for dealing with cuts, abrasions, sprains, broken bones, and overdoses, as well as basic self-defense strategies for use against common assailants and law enforcement.69

Aside from its social and political bent, MaximumRockandRoll, like all other zines, was also deeply rooted in facilitating, nurturing, and growing the punk rock community—not just locally, but regionally, nationally, and internationally as well. A perfect example is the September 1982 article, “Warning! This Label may be Hazardous to you Health.” In it, Ruth Schwartz details not only the trials and tribulations of bands working for major labels, but also offers advice on how punk bands might record, release, and distribute their music independently.70 Similarly, independent distribution of music is discussed and debated in issues fifteen and sixteen. Originally sparked by an angry letter written by Affirmation Records’ founder Paul Mahern, which railed against independent

67 Noisebush, “A Word on Child Abuse,” MaximumRockandRoll, May 1983.

68 Michael Lerner, “Beyond Meat,” MaximumRockandRoll, September 1984.

69 Jerod Poor, “Punk First Aid and Self-Defense,” MaximumRockandRoll, May 1983.

70 Ruth Schwartz, “Warning! This Label may be Hazardous to your Health,” MaximumRockandRoll, September 1982.

84 distributors, the debate is given full discussion in an article titled “The Ups and Downs of

Distribution” in issue sixteen. The ultimate goal was to both foster open discussion and reach practical solutions.71 In a similar vein is the November 1984 article, “How to Tour the U.S.A.” Written by Wouter of Holland’s BGK, the article includes helpful advice on passports and working papers, transportation, equipment, advertising, and getting paid.

This article was coupled with a similar one written by Shawn Stern of the Los Angeles punk band, Youth Brigade. Stern provides information for American bands who wished to tour in .

Another important element of MaximumRockandRoll was its scene reports.

Where most fanzines covered their individual scenes as a matter of both loyalty and necessity, MaximumRockandRoll would publish scene reports from anyplace willing to submit. Scene reports were authored by motivated participants and usually included information on bands, records, live shows, and venues, as well as the contributor’s contact information. What began as a regional scene report in the first issue slowly grew to encompass other North American scenes as well. By issue two for example, published in September 1982, the California, Washington State, New York, and Washington, D.C. scenes were represented. With the inclusion of key Midwestern scenes such as ,

Chicago, and Minneapolis in issue three (November 1982) MaximumRockandRoll had essentially united the fledgling American punk scene. The later addition of scene reports from the Desert Southwest, South, and Canada only strengthened the American punk community. This had huge ramifications as bands, labels and fanzines began to network

71 Joseph, Stephanie, and Gary, “The Ups and Downs of Distribution,” MaximumRockandRoll, August 1984.

85 with other bands, labels, and fanzines to establish lines of communication and distribution, as well as touring circuits.72 Also appearing in issue three were the first scene reports from Europe. By 1985, MaximumRockandRoll provided scene reports from

South America, Asia, and the South Pacific. Considering the fact the

MaximumRockandRoll was the only large circulation fanzine that published on a regular monthly schedule, and its legacy becomes obvious.

Circulation and distribution were a common concern of most fanzine publishers and their numbers and range differed wildly. Los Angeles’ Flipside, for example, circulated ten thousand copies per issue worldwide in 1985.73 San Francisco’s

MaximumRockandRoll had a similar number and range. These runs seem staggering when compared to the approximately one thousand copies that New York’s Big

Takeover, Michigan’s Touch & Go or Minnesota’s Your Flesh were turning out by

1983.74 Yet, in each case, advances in distribution soon increased circulation and prompted limited ad revenues. As noted by both Jack Rabid and Peter Davis, for example, early distribution was handled by answering mail generated by the Flipside or, later, MaximumRockandRoll zine listings, by giving them away for free at shows, or leaving them on local record store counters.75 With increased interest and escalating runs, though, most zines turned to large independent distributors. As Peter Davis notes,

72 Independent release and distribution of music is discussed in Chapter IV; touring in Chapter V.

73 Michele Flipside, “Flipside Fanzine Database,” www.flipsidefanzine.com, 2007, http://www.flipsidefanzine.com (accessed 14 November 2007).

74 Rabid, interview; Vee, interview; and Davis, interview, respectively.

75 Rabid, interview; and Davis, interview, respectively.

86

“Before we knew it, we’d been approached by Rough Trade and Systematic out in San

Francisco and Dutch East India in New York because there was a sudden demand on the distribution front. That’s how the distribution started to grow.”76

Although for many publishers the potential prospects were fleeting, the increase in circulation and better distribution pushed some toward paid advertising. The acceptance of advertising and the possibility of turning a profit entered only some zine publishers’ minds. It might seem obvious to a person with reasonable business acumen that ad revenue would facilitate larger runs, in turn reaping larger profits, but this rarely entered the equation. As Byron Coley noted, “You couldn’t sell ads. If things got so serious and you decided to take ads, you became beholden to schedules…and you had to print a decent number.”77 Tesco Vee admits, “I don’t recall I ever took money for ads.

Actually, I would ask people for ads just to have ads in each issue—never charged them for it.”78 Yet, some zines did receive ad revenue. As Jack Rabid explains:

Every now and then someone would throw me an ad—if it was a cause I wanted to support, like Rat Cage Records, I’d print it for free or some of the other records stores would give me a business card and I’d print it. Again, that was the spirit. I wanted to help the organs that were selling the records—to let people know they were available. I don’t know when we took our first “real” paid ad. It was probably 1983.79

76 Davis, interview.

77 Coley, interview.

78 Vee, interview.

79 Rabid, interview.

87

Peter Davis concurs, “I wanted to be a bit more commercially minded about what we were doing and actually get paid…move to a point where we didn’t have to go to pocket for the magazine.”80

Regardless of some publisher’s profit motives, the fanzine tended to be a labor of love rather than an economic engine. As was the case with many zine publishers, profits were fleeting. Jack Rabid, for example, describes an interesting conversation he had with his concerned father:

He said, “Why don’t you make a profit off of it? This is a waste of your time and money.” I responded, “This is a hobby. You belong to a golf club—you have to pay to play golf. You don’t seem to mind that it costs you money and that you lose money on your golf habit. This fanzine is my golf habit and I think it’s a lot more lasting because no one will remember that round you played in December of 1982 in Santa Barbara, but there are people writing and quoting things I said six years ago…I’m trying to have a cultural impact. I’m trying to foster a community.”81

Also noted by Rabid, “I started breaking even in 1988. It started turning a profit in

1995—but a very modest one.”82 Byron Coley has a similar memory: “We eventually got it to a point where we could each make $150 a week. He was living at home and my wife was working, so it kind of worked out.”83 Perhaps Tesco Vee sums it up best: “I’m sure if

I could go back and see all the time and money I spent doing it versus what came in, it would be laughable.”84

80 Davis, interview.

81 Rabid, interview.

82 Rabid, interview.

83 Coley, interview.

84 Vee, interview.

88

Far from laughable is the lasting significance of the fanzine tradition in relation to early 1980s punk rock. The opinions of both publishers and readers are very similar yet run the gamut between the obvious and the profound. Jack Rabid of Big

Takeover, for example, maintains that fanzines came from a “…beautiful idea of doing something because it’s worth doing. It’s exciting to be chronicling it…You tried to get involved in every creative way you could. It was fun.” Vic Bondi, vocalist for Chicago’s

Articles of Faith, asserts, “There was no press. There was the press that we created.

Fanzines were the Samizdat of the Reagan years. We were cranking out these little mimeographed newsletters. That was the way our news made it across the country.”85 Ian

MacKaye, cofounder of Dischord Records and vocalist for Washington, D.C.’s Minor

Threat concurs: “That was the conduit. It was how we got information around.”86 Kevin

Seconds, vocalist for the Nevada band 7Seconds, agrees, “Those little Xeroxed jobs were so good at giving outsiders a view into what was going on in other parts of the country— in other parts of the world.”87 , bass player for Los Angeles’ Minutemen, asserts, “Fanzines had the same ethics as Rolling Stone but were writing about trippy records and trippy gigs.”88 Peter Davis of Your Flesh agrees, “Zines are where people found out about stuff. You certainly weren’t reading about punk rock in Rolling Stone or

Creem and local weekly alternatives were just scraping the surface of punk.”89 In the

85 Vic Bondi, telephone interview with author, November 25, 2008.

86 Ian MacKaye, telephone interview by author, December 4, 2008.

87 Kevin Seconds, telephone interview by author, December 21, 2008.

88 Mike Watt, telephone interview with author, January 26, 2009.

89 Davis, interview.

89 same vein, Touch & Go’s Tesco Vee maintains that zines provided “a window into these individual locales—these different scenes and what was happening…these small scenes were somehow connected by a common thread.”90 Byron Coley of Forced exposure makes the larger point:

Fanzines existed because they were written by fans, for fans—to blast information into the darkness of America. Fanzines were the only way anybody was getting information on punk rock in those days. As a means convince people to check things out—that’s what zines were all about. There’s been a lot of talk about community organizers lately. Well, a lot of the people who did fanzines were the people organizing this punk rock community—trying to keep it going.91

Shawn Stern, vocalist and guitarist for Los Angeles’ Youth Brigade, concludes that punk rock “was a huge network of people and fanzines were a very important part of it.”92

Regardless of the varying opinions on the importance of fanzines, by the mid-

1980s the combination of punk rock’s underground spirit, the DIY ethic, and new technology had led to an explosion in fanzine publication. This explosion was so vast, estimated at around five thousand separate publications by 1985, that a fanzine titled The

Factsheet Five (F5) was born with the intent of reviewing and cataloging all other zine publications. Founded by Mike Gunderloy in 1982, each issue of F5 described submitted fanzines and listed both their prices and contact information. Through the efforts of F5 a whole new generation of fanzine enthusiasts found an opportunity to correspond with one another. The F5 was so popular that, by 1985, its size had increased from a two-page

Xeroxed pamphlet to a bimonthly with close to 150 pages and a circulation of more than

90 Vee, interview.

91 Coley, interview.

92 Stern, interview.

90

10,000.93 This fact alone should surely merit at least some discussion in the current survey and specific text on punk rock. Unfortunately, this has not been the case.

93 Jim Romenesko, “Fanzines Explained,” obscurestore.com, 1993, http://obscurestore.com/zinesajr.html (accessed 14 November 2003).

CHAPTER IV

DIY: PUNK INDIE LABELS

Considering the mainstream media’s reluctance to report fairly and rationally on the American punk underground, is it any wonder then that the mainstream record industry tended to ignore it as well? Realizing the potential market for punk-like music some labels courted and signed punk bands that agreed to temper or completely abandon the harsher musical, lyrical, and fashion aesthetics of punk rock for more accessible, or marketable traits.1 A perfect example is Sire Records (a major independent) founded by

Seymour Stein in the late 1970s. As CEO, Stein coined the term “new wave” to describe these bands. Many new wave bands pursued and released by major labels during this period tended to have a hyper-exaggerated pop sound and wear skinny ties or dayglo colors. Some American punk bands flirted with the major labels. The Go Gos, X, and

Dickies from Los Angeles and the Ramones from New York, for example, found somewhat uncomfortable homes on major labels and, especially in the case of the Go

Gos, limited success, but what about the rest? The explosion of American punk rock in the early 1980s, especially the younger and more aggressive hardcore scene, needed an outlet or outlets to release its music as well, and into this vacuum stepped numerous

1 Danny Fields, End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones, DVD (New York: Rhino Video, 2005).

91 92 individuals who sought to record and distribute music of the burgeoning American punk rock underground of the 1980s.2

The independent release and distribution of marginalized musical forms has had a long pedigree in the United States. The best examples would be the entrepreneurs in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s who took it upon themselves to release and distribute black music such as the rural and urban blues, jazz, rhythm & blues, and . At a time when, like the larger society as a whole, the American music industry— including distribution, retail sales outlets, performance venues, and radio markets—was segregated, countless individuals, both white and black, took it upon themselves to release, distribute, and support black music and its numerous artists.3 Some of the best examples are labels such as Syd Nathan’s Cinncinnati based King Records, Leonard and

Phil Chess’ Chess Records from Chicago, Lou Chudd’s Los Angeles based Imperial

Records, and , owned and operated by Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun.4

Each of these independents not only challenged the dominance of the major labels like

RCA/Victor, Columbia, Capitol, and Decca, but most importantly persevered and, in most cases, saw significant success. If not for those independent labels, generations of black music might have been lost to obscurity.

2 Indie punk labels were not a product of the 1980s. They were merely carrying on a tradition that has run through music history for several decades. During the late 1970s in Los Angeles, for example, Bomp!, Slash, and Dangerhouse were all releasing and distributing small quantities of music by local and regional punk bands.

3 Music written and performed by during this period was typically segregated in retail outlets under a category called “race music.” This market segregation also spilled over into radio play as well as “hit” or “pop” music chart calculations.

4 David Axelrod, The History of Rock-n-Roll: Rock-n-Roll Explodes, DVD (New York: Warner Brothers Video, 1995).

93

Furthering this tradition were countless American punk rock aficionados and band members during the early 1980s. Not willing to have their music deemed irrelevant and doomed to extinction, punk indie labels of all types and sizes were born. Some labels were small, intended only to self-release their bands’ music, while other endeavors were organized by fans dead set on documenting their hometown scene; still others were motivated by the desire to document any band worth releasing without loyalty to a particular scene or region. Well researched and documented labels such as Greg Ginn’s

Los Angeles’ based SST or Jello Biafra’s San Francisco based Alternative Tentacles seem to garner the lion’s share of attention from writers and scholars, but they were far from the only labels operating during this period. Into this breach stepped the likes of

Frontier (Los Angeles, California, 1980), Dischord (Washington, D.C., 1980), New

Alliance (Los Angeles, California, 1981), Touch & Go (Lansing, Michigan, 1981), and

Better Youth Organization (Los Angeles, California, 1982). Of the hundreds of lesser known indie labels of the 1980s, these five bear particular mention because each released some of America’s seminal punk rock bands, and each still operates independently to the present day.

The process of manufacturing record and running a record label in the early 1980s was foreign to most would-be punk label owners. For most it was a trial by fire. Mike Watt, cofounder of New Alliance Records, for example recalls, “Fuck, we didn’t even know anything about this shit…Punk seemed like some repository for getting your hands dirty with the doin.’ We were lame and we saw all these other lame dudes

94 doin’ it. They weren’t part of the machine—they made their own.”5 Corey Rusk, founder of Touch & Go Records, continues in that vein, “Business model would be a funny term.

In terms of inspiration, all of us had bought SST’s first single…which they had put out themselves…That made all of us feel like it was possible.”6 Ian MacKaye, cofounder of

Dischord Records, admits, “Who’s gonna put out a kid punk rock band from Washington,

D.C.? Nobody was gonna do that…It took us quite a few months to figure out how to do it.”7 Sawn Stern, founder of Better Youth Organization Records, continues “We never had a big plan…we never made plans about ‘ten years down the road’…We just didn’t care about that stuff—it wasn’t important to us.”8

Necessity as the mother of invention seems to have spurred on many indie label owners. A perfect example is Lisa Fancher. Having cut her teeth in the late 1970s

Los Angeles punk scene as a fan, employee at Bomp! Records, and publisher of her own fanzine, Biff! Bang! Pow!, Fancher was perfectly poised to start her own record label.

Through her fanzine, Fancher met the Flyboys in late 1979. “I’d seen them a lot—they were strictly opening band status,” Fancher recalls. “Because of working at Bomp!, I knew how you had a record jacket made and I knew how to master a record. So I found the cheapest studio.”9 As far as a name for her new venture, Fancher originally chose

Frontierland because of her affinity for all things Disney, but warnings from friends

5 Mike Watt, telephone interview by author, January 26, 2009.

6 Jason Crock, “Interview with Corey Rusk,” PitchforkMedia.com, September 5, 2006, http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/38254 -interview-corey-rusk (accessed 12 November 2008).

7 Ian MacKaye, telephone interview by author, December 4, 2008.

8 Shawn Stern, telephone interview by author, January 30, 2009.

9 Lisa Fancher, telephone interview by author, December 28, 2008.

95 forced the shortened version. As she notes, “I liked the way it was real generically Los

Angeles, you know Western sounding—like Frontier Airlines or Frontier Bank or whatever.”10 Unfortunately, the Flyboys single was a disaster.11 “It took a whole year to put that record out, the band broke up before the record came out, and it didn’t sell,”

Fancher remembers. Undaunted, another situation soon presented itself.

In early 1980, Fancher heard that the Circle Jerks, a Los Angeles hardcore band who had formed around vocalist after he had quit Black Flag, were circulating a demo tape and looking for a label because they did not have the resources to release it themselves. Not happy with Posh Boy, a Southern California label that had released several compilation records on which the Circle Jerks had appeared, and considering the bad blood between Black Flag’s SST Records and Keith Morris, Frontier was perfectly poised to sign the band. The decision to release the Circle Jerks’ Group Sex

LP in 1980 was the watershed moment for the label.12 As Fancher remembers, “…it turned things around for Frontier—it was far more encouraging than the Flyboys because

I could not keep it in stock at all. I didn’t even have enough money to keep up with the orders I was getting. Then I had a record label.”13 Flushed with success, Frontier now

10 Fancher, interview.

11 The terms “single,” “seven inch,” and “EP,” can be used interchangeably. In each case they refer to a record of seven inch diameter that could have been mastered at 33RPMs or 45RPMs. Usually, a single only contained one song per side and played at 45RPMs. Punk bands with shorter songs could fit more music within the same space by mastering seven inch records at 33RPMs. In the case of the latter, those releases were typically called “EPs,” meaning “.” Occasionally, labels would also release 10 inch EPs.

12 The term “LP” refers to a record with a twelve-inch diameter that was mastered at 33RPMs. “LP” means “Long Play.”

13 Fancher, interview.

96 faced a difficult decision that many indie labels would have to make: continue releasing records that showed loyalty to her Southern California scene, or broaden her options by considering bands from anywhere. As Fancher recalls, “I was a fan of bands from all over the place, but it just seemed beyond the scope of my capabilities to try and put out bands from, let’s say, Texas. I don’t even know how I would have approached it…It seemed wildly improbable I would release bands from far outside the L.A. area.”14

With the tough choice made, Frontier began to develop a local roster. In the following year records by two Orange County bands were released.15 The first was the self-titled LP by Fullerton punk band the Adolescents, whose pop-punk hooks and angst- ridden lyrics proved both popular and influential. This was immediately followed by a release from the True Sounds of Liberty (TSOL) from Huntington Beach. Having previously released an EP on Posh Boy and been unhappy with their treatment by that label, 1981 saw TSOL’s only Frontier LP, Dance With Me. Given the fact that Frontier was releasing TSOL at the height of their popularity, decent sales figures were assured.

Perhaps not strangely then, Fancher took a chance with the release of Suicidal

Tendencies’ self-titled LP in 1982. As noted by Fancher, “The was one of the worst selling records I ever put out. I knew ‘Institutionalized’ was a hit, but they had no following and such a horrible reputation in L.A.”16 The gamble paid off in spades when the band self-financed their own video for “Institutionalized” and scored massive airplay on the new MTV network. In turn, radio began to play the song and sales

14 Fancher, interview.

15 Orange County is typically tied to Los Angeles due to proximity.

16 Fancher, interview.

97 went through the roof. The rest is history. As noted by Fancher, “That early stuff is what keeps me alive and probably keeps a lot of the people in those bands alive as well. All the early stuff…Circle Jerks, Adolescents, TSOL, Suicidal Tendencies…still sells very well.”17

After more than five years releasing punk and hardcore bands, Frontier switched gears. The label’s new focus became the nascent scene developing in Los Angeles—a scene more akin to the music of than that of the

Sex Pistols. Of that scene’s many bands, Frontier released music by the Salvation Army,

Long Ryders, and Three O’clock, to name but only a few. As Fancher notes, “I didn’t do punk after ’83. I was completely done with it. The scene was so lame and horrifyingly violent that I wanted nothing to do with it. I had moved on.”18

Yet, while Frontier had flirted with and abandoned punk rock, there were others still carrying the torch. One such torch bearer was Washington, D.C.’s Dischord

Records. Formed in 1980 by high school friends, and Ian MacKaye, Dischord was originally just a vehicle for releasing a seven inch record by their defunct band the

Teen Idles. Ian MacKaye remembers:

…when we broke up, we literally had a cigar box with $700 dollars in it. That represented all the money we had saved up over the prior year of gigging…We also had a demo tape and we thought, well, we could split the money four ways – take the $170 bucks each or whatever it would be – or we could use that money to press up a thousand copies of a single, which nobody in our town had ever done…There was no other label that was going to put it out. Who’s gonna put out a kid’s, you know a kid punk rock band from Washington, D.C. that was breaking up? Nobody

17 Fancher, interview.

18 Fancher, interview.

98

was gonna do that. So we figured it would be like a yearbook, a keepsake for us…So we thought we would just document this band.19

This presented a problem because in the months that it took to figure out how to press a record and create record covers, other D.C. punk bands formed. Along with Nelson and

MacKaye’s new band Minor Threat, for example, were bands like , The

Untouchables, Government Issue, and the D.C. Youth Brigade. MacKaye notes:

…at that time, at least in our community, there was a little bit of suspicion about someone putting out a record. It seemed like a sellout because in our mind, music was always about the show, just the gig, and putting out a record was an attempt to make it…so we decided that, in the unlikely event that we could sell these records and there is actually more money coming back than we put into it, all the money we made would go toward putting out another band’s record…So all the money kept going back into the label and we kept doing that.20

With this model in mind, by 1981 Dischord had not only released the posthumous Minor

Disturbance EP by , but also S.O.A.’s No Policy EP, Minor Threat’s self- titled EP, Government Issue’s Legless Bull EP, and the D.C Youth Brigade’s Possible

EP. The following year saw the release of the label’s first LP record, .

Comprised of thirty two songs by eleven D.C. bands, Flex Your Head proved somewhat prophetic. Much like Fancher had done with in Los Angeles,

MacKaye and Nelson decided that Dischord would document only the music of the D.C. community. MacKaye recalls:

Because in each area or city there were these thriving scenes, our thinking was, well, we’ll document what’s going on here, Alternative Tentacles is going to document what’s going on in San Francisco, SST and Dangerhouse will cover what’s going on in Los Angeles, Touch & Go would do Detroit, and XClaim would do Boston. That was our sense. That was the idea – all the labels would continue

19 MacKaye, interview.

20 MacKaye, interview.

99

tending to their local community and that would grow. We just happen to be the only label that kept on doing that.21

Nelson concurs:

Mainly, since D.C. was not known as a musical city and it was such a small punk scene, I think everybody banded together and was proud of the fact that we were from D.C. or the D.C. area, so that’s what we focused on or limited ourselves to. It was just Ian and I and our friends and our bands – there was lots of D.C. pride…I don’t know how conscious it was as opposed to just automatic. In other words, number one, we were not being approached early on by bands from other cities, and, number two, we were mainly busy enough with our band and our friends’ bands and showcasing what we had locally. I think the formality of it just grew into place.22

This “D.C. bands only” requirement set Dischord apart from most other independent labels and resulted in the release of influential records by local bands throughout the early

1980s.23 The list included, but was not limited to, the Faith/Void split LP in 1982,

Scream’s Still Screaming LP, Minor Threat’s Out of Step 12” EP, and Faith’s Change 12”

EP in 1983, Marginal Man’s Identity 12” EP in 1984, and Minor Threat’s Salad Days EP in 1985.

Unlike Frontier records, though, Dischord was not above helping out labels and bands from other scenes. After their first several releases, Dischord found itself inundated with release requests by bands from all over the United States. Wanting to help out friends from other scenes, yet having painted themselves into a corner with their

“D.C. only” requirement, Nelson and MacKaye formulated a compromise. Nelson recalls:

21 MacKaye, interview.

22 Jeff Nelson, telephone interview by author, January 12, 2009.

23 Dischord Records maintains the “D.C. only” requirement to this day.

100

…we started doing half-Dischord releases early on as a way to work with people who wanted to work with us because we thought it would be cool to put out records together. I think the half-label release thing was, from very early on, how we dealt with bands that were interested in us or friends we made in other cities and wanting to do things jointly, but to have a full Dischord catalog number assigned to your record, you had to be a D.C. band.24

Under this Dischord could selectively release bands from outside the D.C. area as a split endeavor with another label. Early examples include Dischord 4½, the self- titled EP by Ohio’s in 1981, between Touch & Go Records and Dischord, or

Dischord 7½, Boston’s Society System Decontrol (SSD) 1981 LP, The Kids Will Have

Their Say, as a split between Xclaim Records and Dischord.25 MacKaye remembers: The half-Dischord release “was just to help them get started. Both of those labels had no idea how to do records, so we told them what we knew. By making releases half-Dischord it showed an alliance, like these guys and us are connected.”26

Unlike the local emphasis maintained by Dischord and Frontier, there also were many labels willing to release bands from far outside their local or regional scenes.

An early example is Los Angeles’ New Alliance Records. Originally founded by Martin

Tamburovich and Mike Watt and D. Boon of the Minutemen in 1980, their motivation was simple; as noted by Watt, “…we were part of a movement…this is just what people did. They wrote songs, they put out records, they put out fanzines, they put on shows, they made content, they did expression. was very infectious to us.”27 Nothing

24 Nelson, interview.

25 Dischord Records maintains the “half-Dischord” policy to this day.

26 MacKaye, interview.

27 Watt, interview.

101 influenced New Alliance more than Greg Ginn’s SST Records. As Watt notes, “Greg had a ham radio company, hence the name Solid State Transmitters (SST), so he knew about selling things—he had some kind of acumen, but we had no idea. We learned from him.”28 Throughout the early 1980s, New Alliance released a number of compilation records as well as EPs and LPs from some of the most influential bands of American punk rock. As noted by Watt, “We wanted to make as many records with as many bands as we could…If we thought it was good enough to come out, it came out…All we had to do was pay the record plant man.”29

In the first five years, New Alliance put out a number of various artist compilation records that focused primarily on the local scene. Examples include 1980’s

Cracks in the Sidewalk 12” EP, 1981’s Chunks LP, 1982’s Feeble Efforts EP, and 1983’s

Mighty Feeble LP. More significant were releases by bands that became some of the most influential in American punk—some, like Minnesota’s Husker Du for example, from far outside the Los Angeles area. Among these were the Minutemen’s Joy EP in 1981 and

Politics of Time LP in 1984; Husker Du’s first LP, Land Speed Record in 1981, and In a

Free Land EP in 1982; and the Descendents’ Fat EP in 1981, LP in

1982, 12” EP in 1985, and I Don’t Want to Grow Up LP in 1985. In reference to the label’s willingness to release a variety of styles from geographically diverse areas,

Watt maintains: “We didn’t have a regular record company, like in a professional business sense. It was more important to us to get these sounds out.”30

28 Watt, interview.

29 Watt, interview.

30 Watt, interview.

102

Similar to New Alliance, especially in their willingness to establish and release a geographically diverse roster, was Michigan’s Touch & Go Records, based out of Lansing. Originally founded in 1979 by Tesco Vee and Dave Stimson as a side project to their Touch & Go fanzine, Touch & Go Records would initially put out several EPs by local area punk bands. The first was an EP by the Fix in 1979. In 1981, Corey Rusk, bass player for the Necros, joined Vee and Stimson to help run the label. Realizing the amount of work necessary to run a successful indie label, he quit the Necros to concentrate more on Touch & Go Records. Rusk remembers, “…when I quit the band it just kind of made sense because by ’83 we were putting out full-length albums, whereas in ’81 or ’82 it was all seven inches, so it was getting a little bit more time consuming”31 The second Touch

& Go record was the previously discussed split endeavor between Touch & Go and

Dischord, an EP by Ohio’s Necros (Dischord 4 ½/Touch & Go #2). Rusk remembers the partnership: “…we started corresponding with the D.C. guys and quickly got to be friends. We’d go to D.C. and hang out…we were all in high school—the D.C. guys were our age.”32 Other early EP releases included Lansing come D.C. transplants the Meatmen and from Detroit.33

In 1983, when Vee and Stimson decided to relocate to Washington, D.C.,

Rusk took the helm. Under Rusk’s leadership Touch &Go Records underwent several relocations, first to Detroit before permanently settling in Chicago.34 Rusk remembers,

31 Crock, “Interview with Corey Rusk.”

32 Ibid.

33 Tesco Vee, telephone interview by author, December 17, 2008.

34 Crock, “Interview with Corey Rusk.”

103

“We only knew three people there, the guys in Big Black, and we’d been to Chicago two or three times.”35 Although he had already decided to move in a more serious direction,

Rusk is quick to note that, “When it started, no one of us even thought of it as a company or a way to make money. It was just fun…It was all trial and error, and meeting other people that were doing it, asking them what they did, just trying to figure it out as you go along.”36 Touch & Go figured it out quickly and soon developed a musically and regionally diverse roster that included such notable bands as Michigan’s Negative

Approach, Wisconsin’s , Naked Raygun and Big Black from Chicago, and the from Texas.

Similar to Touch & Go and New Alliance, especially in the willingness to develop and release a regionally diverse roster, was the Los Angeles based Better Youth

Organization (B.Y.O.). Founded by brothers Shawn, Mark, and Adam Stern, B.Y.O. was not initially seen as a record label. As Shawn Stern recalls:

There was a show at the Parkside Hotel where the cops came in and started beating everyone up and that was what gave me the idea…It was an idea for an organization to help further the positive things we saw in the punk rock scene. Punk always got really bad write-ups in the press—always concentrated on kids with safety pins through their cheeks, the weird clothes, the dyed hair, the supposed violence, all that shit…We wanted to show that punk kids were intelligent. They might get attention because of the way they looked or how their music sounded, but they are talking about things that meant something—things the were talking about, but didn’t anymore. There were a lot of fucked up problems in the world that needed to be addressed. Sure we were kids, but we had something to say—we thought the world needed to change and that it was our responsibility to scream out that it needed to be changed…We were promoting shows as B.Y.O. We started a big communal house as B.Y.O.37

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid.

37 Stern, interview.

104

Making into releasing records was not a huge leap for the Stern brothers.

Shawn notes, “The record label came later. Everything just worked out of necessity…no one was going to put our records out—so we’ll just put them out ourselves. In 1982 we stated the record company.”38 Like other indie punk labels, B.Y.O.’s first record was a local music compilation LP called Someone Got Their Head Kicked In, which included songs by some of Southern California’s most prominent punk bands: the Adolescents,

Aggression, Bad Religion, the Battalion of Saints, the Blades, the Joneses, Social

Distortion, and the Stern brothers’ own Youth Brigade. With the B.Y.O. name established, the label went on to release not only an LP by their own band Youth Brigade,

Sound & Fury (1982), and an LP by the Los Angeles area band Aggression, Don’t Be

Mistaken (1983), but more significantly, the international compilation album, Something to Believe In (1983).

Something to Believe In was important for a number of reasons. Not only was it an excellent cross-section of North American punk at the time, but the contributing bands came from geographically far flung regions and scenes. While Channel 3, Rigor

Mortis, the Tourists, and Youth Brigade all hailed from California, for example,

Something to Believe In also included songs by 7Seconds from Reno, Nevada, Kraut from New York City, The Big Boys from Austin, Texas, as well as tracks by Canadian bands like D.O.A., SNFU, Personality Crisis, the Nils, Stretch Marks, the Unwanted, the

Young Lions, Youth Youth Youth, and Zeroption. Much like Touch & Go Records did, the Stern brothers used B.Y.O. to provide a larger emphasis than merely releasing bands

38 Stern, interview.

105 from their local or regional scene. As Shawn Stern notes, “We were open to any band…We were all about putting out records by bands we liked and thought we could help.”39 In the case of both 7Seconds and SNFU in particular, B.Y.O. established long lasting and mutually beneficial relationships with each band—releasing records by each well into the late 1980s.

When it came to handling relationships between bands and indie labels, there were no set rules. Relationships ran the gamut from simple verbal agreements to handshakes to contracts. In the case of Dischord Records, for example, Ian maintains:

We’ve never used a contract – ever. Not even handshakes – just an agreement. We work with our friends and, ultimately, contracts are only relevant in a court of law and the only way we would get there is because a dispute over money. For me, if it gets to that point, I’m not going to go to court. I’m just going to give the band what they want and head on down the road. People might say that’s crazy, but I say how much have I saved by not having lawyers over the last thirty years? I’m just not interested in that. Another pragmatic aspect of being a local label is that we can always sit down with the people. If I can’t trust them and they can’t trust me, we shouldn’t work together anyway.40

Touch & Go and New Alliance held similar notions, but both Frontier and B.Y.O. chose to use legal contracts. As B.Y.O.’s Shawn Stern states: “We realized early on that no matter how good a friendship was that this was still a business. So we tried to have a basic contract with people because you never know with the nature of musicians and bands how long a band will be around. We learned pretty quick. We tried to make it a very fair document.”41 Lisa Fancher, of Frontier Records, has similar feelings: “I started

39 Stern, interview.

40 MacKaye, interview.

41 Stern, interview.

106 the contract era with the second record…I used contracts so everybody knew what to expect of each other.”42

As far as the details of the contract or verbal agreement, most indie labels used the same system. Requiring bands to agree to a relationship of a number of years or a certain number of albums was typical with major labels, but proved a non-starter for both punk labels and bands. More important to indie labels and their bands was the royalty rate, or rate at which each would be paid for their efforts. Ian MacKaye, of

Dischord Records, explains:

The costs get taken out first and whatever is left, the band and label split fifty/fifty. Furthermore, we consider the recording as a cost as opposed to most labels and certainly with major labels where the recording cost comes out of the band’s end. We consider that a shared expense and we also don’t charge back for advertising. There’s no charge for that – it doesn’t go against the projects. The only thing that goes against each project is the origination and the manufacturing – that’s it. It’s fifty/fifty after that.43

Shawn Stern, of B.Y.O., concurs:

We didn’t do a typical royalty/mechanical license deal because I thought that was really unfair. What we did was a profit share with our bands. It’s a fifty/fifty split of the net profits after costs – recording the record, manufacturing the record, and promoting the record. All that would come off the top and whatever was left we’d split fifty/fifty with the band. There were some bands that wanted the standard mechanical royalty deal and we did it for them, but we didn’t like doing it that way.44

42 Fancher, interview.

43 MacKaye, interview.

44 Stern, interview.

107

For Lisa Fancher and Frontier Records things changed after 1983, but “the early (classic punk) records were fifty/fifty split after expenses. After that it was all over the map, but extremely fair to the bands.”45

After recording and manufacturing was complete, labels faced their biggest hurdles: monetary solvency and distribution. While some labels, such as Frontier, were buttressed by early success, most struggled with one key problem: having the funds to keep records in print while recording new bands and manufacturing their records. In the case of B.Y.O., the Stern bothers were limited in the number of releases they could maintain at one time. As noted by Shawn Stern, “The biggest struggle was trying to break even. Between 1980 and 1985 we never made a profit or took a salary.”46 While Mike

Watt’s New Alliance received assistance from SST, Dischord and Touch & Go formed an alliance with a record company in Europe. As MacKaye explains:

We always had to pay for our records C.O.D., but the distributors had 90 days (which usually turned into 5 to 6 months) to pay us. We were having a hard time deciding whether to use what little money we had to repress one of the earlier records, or to release something new. It was at this time that we first heard from John Loder. His company, in London, had released the records. Crass were a hugely important British punk band, so we were flattered by his interest in releasing the Minor Threat “Out of Step” 12” in Europe. Because he was able to press records on credit (instead of C.O.D.), and because it was so much cheaper to do so in Europe, we asked him if he thought he could help distribute the record in the U.S. as well. The demand for the record was much higher than we had anticipated, and we didn’t have enough money to keep it in print. He agreed to give it a try. This was the beginning of a partnership with Southern that lasts to this day.47

45 Fancher, interview.

46 Stern, interview.

47 MacKaye, interview.

108

Corey Rusk concurs, “…we started working with them over in Europe. They were doing our manufacturing and distribution…then we helped them get their operation set up over here.”48

Without assistance, distribution could be a difficult proposition. The most common way to get your records around was to sell them at shows. Every label and most bands partook of this method. Unfortunately this relegated sales to small numbers and, often, only local or regional scenes. As noted by Mike Watt, “We kept it small—within the reality of our situation. We didn’t pretend it was bigger than anything it was, but it was fine.”49 Shawn Stern remembers:

We’d sell records at shows…when we first started you went store to store by yourself putting them on consignment…It was all consignment—you were taking a chance. I went to a distributor called Bonaparte and convinced them to take some stuff—we just started talking to other people who were putting out records themselves and we got information or found people who would be interested.”50

Soon other distributors began taking an interest in punk rock. Corey Rusk recalls, “As word spread, we started hearing from distributors. There was a distributor in San

Francisco called Systematic who contacted us and said they’d heard of our records and would like to carry them.”51 Dealing with distributors could be dicey. Shawn Stern describes the B.Y.O. philosophy thusly:

It was always a dance to spread the stuff around and keep your label going through as many different distributors as possible so you had different sources of income and, hopefully, if one distributor went bankrupt it wouldn’t cripple you. People who

48 Crock, “Interview with Corey Rusk.”

49 Watt, interview.

50 Stern, interview.

51 Crock, “Interview with Corey Rusk.”

109

went exclusive with one distributor and then that distributor didn’t pay them or went bankrupt – they were screwed because all their money was tied up in that one . They were at the mercy of that distributor.52

Of course, there were other methods to distribute your records. Advertising in or sending review copies to fanzines offered another, albeit slower, avenue of distribution. The role that fanzines played for punk indie labels cannot be overstated. As discussed in Chapter 3, the fanzine tradition was an integral part of American punk in the

1980s. The most obvious relationship between label and zine was through advertising, but more often than not advertising was not cost effective for punk labels. Instead, many labels relied on the common fanzine practice of reviewing and listing records. As Ian

MacKaye recalls, “The fanzine played an important role because that’s how people found out about the record and started mail ordering. Because if your release got a review, the fanzines would always list your address at the end of the review so people could write you a letter and order the record.”53 Shawn Stern agrees, “Fanzines were invaluable.

Fanzines were a cheap source for reaching people who were most likely to buy our music. We sent review copies to fanzines – and they’d print the price and our address as a part of the review or maybe run a free ad.”54 In relation to specific and deliberate advertising, most labels chose to shoulder the expense in hopes of bigger returns. As noted by Lisa Fancher, “I had some distribution, but it wasn’t phenomenal and it wasn’t nearly nationwide. Fanzines were pretty crucial because nobody would have ever had any clue that the records were out because only some stores would carry them. I took out ads

52 Stern, interview.

53 MacKaye, interview.

54 Stern, interview.

110 in Flipiside, Big Takeover, maybe New York Rocker – whatever I could afford or with whoever would give me a deal.”55 Shawn Stern takes this notion one step further, recalling that, “We tried to do what made sense…We tried to support everybody, but obviously the larger circulation a fanzine had the more likely we were to spend money on an ad.”56 In an interesting yet symbiotic twist, Ian MacKaye maintains, “We did a lot of ads. We made it a point to advertise in so many fanzines, not because of advertising purposes, but rather we felt it was our job to support the fanzines.”57

Aside from manufacturing and distributing their wares, most indie labels also provided tour assistance to the bands on their rosters.58 While the tour support offered by labels could run the gamut from none at all to the extravagant, the result was always the same: to help support, foster, and maintain the fledgling scene. As noted by Ian

MacKaye, for example:

We put out records and they deal with their own touring. They can tour if they want to or not. We don’t take money from their tours and we don’t put any money into their tours…When major labels put their bands out on the road it’s to advertise for the record. We put out records so that bands can go on the road and people will know their music. We weren’t trying to sell music, we were trying to document bands. That’s just the way we do it.”59

Mike Watt concurs, “Tour assistance was getting the records out and getting the word out.”60 Of course there are examples of labels playing a more active role as well.

55 Fancher, interview.

56 Stern, interview.

57 MacKaye, interview.

58 Touring will be discussed in detail in Chapter V.

59 MacKaye, interview.

60 Watt, interview.

111

MacKaye is quick to note that, in some cases, Dischord bands traded royalties for tour support. Scream, for example, used the Dischord telephone to book a tour and received assistance getting a new engine for their van in lieu of royalties for their 1982 Still

Screaming LP.61 B.Y.O., as with many other labels, was all about as much non-monetary assistance as possible. Shaw Stern recalls, “We have always offered bands stock to take on the road – LPs and later, cassettes and CDs. They were often given as an advance against royalties, often at discounted prices.”62 Of all the labels discussed here, only Lisa

Fancher’s Frontier provided any significant assistance to its bands early on, and that policy came back to bite her. As Fancher remembers:

If nothing else I would rent the van…I would use my personal credit card and rent the van. On one of the tours the tour manager ran over a guy and I got sued – which was really bitchin.’ The plaintiff tried to pretend that the van was an employee of mine – clearly a van is not an employee. This was deemed logical – going after a musician who has nothing or going after me, who had slightly more than nothing. It involved flying to Boston a couple of times to do depositions. The insurance companies all settled it somehow. After that I said, “You guys need to use your credit card and I’ll pay you back.” Nobody’s van went on my credit card any more.63

Although Fancher’s experience left much to be desired, it nonetheless confirms the willingness on the part of most indie labels to assist their bands with touring.

While tour assistance could be problematic at worst and financially impractical at best, there is no denying the significance of punk indie labels during the early 1980s. Nothing proves this point better than sales numbers. As Lisa Fancher of

Frontier recalls, “There is huge interest in the 1980-1985 catalog – more than ever,

61 MacKaye, interview.

62 Stern, interview.

63 Fancher, interview.

112 definitely…it’s what keeps me alive.”64 Dischord’s Jeff Nelson agrees, “Especially since

Nirvana and Green Day and stuff like that…the perennial best seller is Minor Threat, but for a certain number of years it was the compilation album that contained the first four singles, Scream – some of that because of drummer , later of Nirvana and Foo

Fighters, also Void – I think because they were so crazy sounding, and later Dag

Nasty.”65 Shawn Stern of B.Y.O. continues in that vein:

…when Nirvana got big it renewed interest in punk rock and that’s what, in my view, helped propel bands like Green Day and the Offspring to have platinum records, which made punk the biggest it ever was in this country and the world as far as selling records. After that you had the success of NOFX, Rancid, Pennywise, and on and on and on – that’s definitely when sales increased for us. If we have a big release that brings more attention and interest on the label which spurs interest in some of the older bands. With the success of the internet, kids can easily access information about these bands. People always ask if it bothers me when bands that call themselves punk, like Blink 182 and or stuff like that, get popular and sell all these records when we and bands we worked with don’t sell millions of records. I always say no because I hope that the kids that buy that stuff will seek out those bands’ influences, which will lead back to what we did. I think it has. I wouldn’t call it cyclical, but obviously if there’s a punk band that does well it seems to always help us – sales go up.

In the case of New Alliance, Mike Watt and Martin Taburovich were able to sell their interest to SST Records in 1987, a lucrative move for both parties.66 Similarly, Touch &

Go, which is still run by Corey Rusk, has seen significant success with the Butthole

Surfers and Big Black, as well as recent bands like and TV on the

Radio.67

64 Fancher, interview.

65 Nelson, interview.

66 Watt, interview.

67 Crock, “Interview with Corey Rusk.”

113

American punk indie labels of the early 1980s filled the void being ignored by the mainstream music industry and the level of their significance and influence depends upon who you ask. As Jeff Nelson, cofounder of Dischord Records aptly concludes, “The small independent label was not invented by our ilk…Although we reinvented the wheel, perhaps the wheel has to be reinvented within each genre.”68 Mike Watt of New Alliance aptly surmises, “You didn’t have to submit for approval on anything. If we thought it was good enough to come out, it came out. To us that was pretty intense, having grown up with arena rock, major labels, and all this.”69 Shawn Stern of B.Y.O. sums it up thusly:

We didn’t do this with the idea that we were gonna make money or be big stars. That was never our interest or intent or our thought process. Not to say that if a record got huge or sold a million copies that we’d be upset about that. We never intentionally said we don’t want to be popular or reach a lot of people, our intent was to reach people but on our terms. We never wanted to compromise the way we were doing the things that we did. We just did it and if it worked, it worked. If it didn’t, at least we did it on our own terms.70

Perhaps Frontier’s Lisa Fancher hits the nail on the head when she concludes that,

“Definitely the most interesting stuff or stuff that would go on to be so influential was certainly coming out on indie labels…You can’t really argue with that.”71

68 Nelson, interview.

69 Watt, interview.

70 Stern, interview.

71 Fancher, interview.

CHAPTER V

PUNK ROCK ON THE ROAD

One of the most glaring omissions or flaws found in both survey and specific text on American punk rock in the early 1980s has to do with touring. The role that touring by American punk bands played in facilitating and nurturing the regional and national scenes has, most often, been overshadowed by tales of automobile breakdowns, run ins with the law, sex, violence, or misery. Such notable books as Get in the Van: On the Road with Black Flag by Henry Rollins, Hell on Wheels: A Tour Stories Compilation by Greg Jacobs, or various vignettes in works such as American Hardcore: A Tribal

History by Steven Blush have consistently focused on the salacious and the negative while the positives have gone unreported. The significant role of touring within the early

1980s American punk community is far less one-sided and deserves a more balanced recounting.

In the music industry, touring is usually seen as a necessary component of the larger business model where the record, or product, is pushed through massive press- driven advertising campaigns and large-scale tours. Given the outsider status of punk rock, not to mention its lack of a popular audience, these were hurdles of almost insurmountable proportions for punk bands. In the case of the former, punk fans initiated their own small-scale alternative press. Unfortunately, in the case of the latter, establishing independent/underground touring circuits proved more difficult, but not

114 115 impossible. It should be noted that American punk bands of the early 1980s were not the first punk bands to tour. The Ramones, Sex Pistols, and Clash, for example, all toured the

United States to varying degrees during the late 1970s. Not only were the avenues of advertising, booking, and promotion wide open to such bands, they were also given entrée to the best, or at least traditional, venues as well. What must be remembered, though, is the fact that each of these bands was signed to a major label and therefore able to benefit from that association.

The fact that indie punk bands hit the road and toured in any significant way cannot be overstated. As noted by Ian Mackaye, of Washington, D.C.’s Minor Threat:

I will say that prior to the American hardcore punk, there were no small market bands that toured. Bands at that time did residencies. They’d play every Tuesday night at the local bar in town and they did cover songs. Every town had cover bands. It never would have occurred to them to go on the road because…people did cover songs in hopes of getting money and, hopefully, getting regular gigs—people just wanted to see the songs they knew…The idea of going from town-to-town and playing, nobody was doing that – nobody. It just wasn’t done. We had delineated ourselves as punks – we had seceded from the nation in a way. We had decided to start our own nation and when we’d travel we’d always have a place to land because fellow punks, in some capacity, you would know because you’d be in touch with them. You’d arrive and the scene would be there and it would be slightly different than yours, but it would be like you – it was tribal thing. Maybe they weren’t directly connected to you, but you knew that there were fellow tribespeople in each town. That idea of touring did not exist prior to the early ’80s hardcore stuff. Despite the continuing attempts to commercialize it, kids always take it back to the basement.1

The amount of touring undertaken by punk bands in the early 1980s is simply astounding given the almost impossible odds stacked against them. Like it had done with both the fanzine tradition and independent release of music, American punk rock in the early

1980s proved its vitality and determination by establishing its own touring networks as

1 Ian MacKaye, telephone interview by author, December 4, 2008.

116 well. Punk bands, especially in the United States, fared much worse than their well- connected predecessors: venues were hesitant, large-scale advertising and promotion were uncommon, and getting a guarantee or even paid for performing were constant challenges. Nonetheless, American punk bands in the early 1980s persevered.

As far as pinpointing the significance of touring by American punk bands in the early 1980s, opinions run the gamut between the pretentious and the profound. As noted by Vic Bondi, vocalist and founding member of Chicago’s Articles of Faith, for example, touring “was really important. I think that any band who wanted to get popular really needed to get out and tour incessantly…The big bands—Dead Kennedys, Black

Flag, Husker Du—toured constantly. That’s why they were big bands.”2 Dan Kubinski, vocalist and founding member of Wisconsin’s Die Kreuzen, has another opinion:

“Touring was important for a small indie punk band…it added to our fan base, sold records and t-shirts, and was a damn fun way to see the world.”3 , bass player for Black Flag, maintains that “touring was how people were most effectively reached on all levels from the audience member, to the customer, to the listener, to the reader, to the owners of the various affected venues. It’s best done all at once so that the band is playing, the radio is playing, the store is stocking, and the paper or zine is writing about the group.”4

Regardless of the differing opinions on the importance of touring, there seems to be an almost unanimous belief in which bands were most important in blazing the trail.

2 Vic Bondi, telephone interview by author, November 25, 2008.

3 Dan Kubinski, telephone interview by author, January 19, 2009.

4 Chuck Dukowski, telephone interview by author, February 9, 2009.

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Jeff Nelson, drummer for Washington, D.C.’s Minor Threat, maintains, “I think it’s kind of pointless to try and figure out who did what first…but I would give Black Flag, Dead

Kennedys, and D.O.A. all the credit.”5 Kevin Seconds, vocalist of Reno, Nevada band

7Seconds, concurs: “The big bands—D.O.A., Dead Kennedys, Black Flag—had gone out and done all the hard work.”6 As noted by Dan Kubinski, “The early touring bands were

Black Flag and D.O.A.”7 Minor Threat vocalist Ian MacKaye agrees, “It was Black Flag and D.O.A.”8 Shawn Stern, singer and guitarist for Los Angeles’ Youth Brigade, maintains, “Black Flag Blazed a lot of trails, definitely. I give them all the credit in the world.”9 Vic Bondi’s memory is similar but expanded: “The bands that blazed the trail for everybody were Black Flag, D.O.A., Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains, and Husker Du.”10

Interestingly, the key players in Black Flag, D.O.A., and Dead Kennedys have very similar opinions. Joey Shithead Keithley, vocalist/guitarist for D.O.A., for example maintains, “I always figured it was us and Black Flag at about the same time. D.O.A. started earlier, in 1979 and Black Flag began traversing North America in 1980 I believe.”11 Chuck Dukowski concurs, “The groups that helped us the most in the beginning were the Dead Kennedys and D.O.A. These people had all toured, D.O.A.

5 Jeff Nelson, telephone interview by author, January 12, 2009.

6 Kevin Seconds, telephone interview by author, December 21, 2008.

7 Kubinski, interview.

8 MacKaye, interview.

9 Shawn Stern, telephone interview by author, January 30, 2009.

10 Bondi, interview.

11 Joey Keithley, e-mail interview by author, February 9, 2009.

118 most extensively, in North America.”12 Jello Biafra, vocalist for the Dead Kennedys agrees, “It was Black Flag, D.O.A., and Dead Kennedys – in that order.”13

Of course, of the three key trailblazers, Black Flag garners the most credit, not for being first, but for the intensity with which they took to the task. As noted by Mike

Watt, bass player for Los Angeles’ Minutemen:

The Dead Kennedys were friends with Black Flag and D.O.A. and they were all touring early – yes, but Chuck actually put the thing together. He had the phone book…Nobody toured as much as Black Flag…All of these people were involved, but Black Flag is a very key figure in this thing. D.O.A. – very important; Dead Kennedys – very important, but you cannot belittle the contribution of Black Flag. I mean, their tours were massive – they were three, four months out at a time. They were out there doin’ it – playing places that a lot of bands wouldn’t play. Black Flag would play anywhere for anyone. In some small towns they were the only band that would come around all year – or twice or three times a year. They were really all about takin’ it to the people. Not to discount D.O.A. or Dead Kennedys.14

Jeff Nelson agrees, “I think I would give Black Flag credit for the grueling, ridiculous type of tour—the likes of which certainly never went on. Theirs was a crazy schedule. It was non-stop.”15 Vic Bondi concurs, “Black Flag was famous. They did the fastest trans- continental drive—from New York to Los Angeles—in thirty six hours straight. They were famous for the religious intensity with which they hit the road.”16 Ian MacKaye makes a similar point:

Black Flag were just enormously important – their ideas about going and figuring out how to do shows and playing anywhere. They’d tour, get home and turn right

12 Dukowski, interview.

13 Jello Biafra, e-mail interview by author, March 15, 2009.

14 Mike Watt, telephone interview by author, January 26, 2009.

15 Nelson, interview.

16 Bondi, interview.

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around and get back out and play every other city. They would play in Omaha on one tour and in Lincoln the next. They’d have their main cities and their ‘B’ cities.17

Obviously, then, and without question, it was Black Flag and, most notably, their bass player Chuck Dukowski’s phone list that had the most impact on punk touring during the early 1980s.

Aside from being a co-owner/employee of SST records and the bass player for

Black Flag, Chuck Dukowski was also both the band’s and label’s primary booking agent. As noted by Dukowski:

There were no established networks when I started doing it…I took the info I got from D.O.A. and Dead Kennedys and used it as the first steps in building a more extensive set of relationships. Black Flag toured more than all of those others put together. Once I had it going I put other groups into the network with a fair amount of success and was able to have each help the other in further developing and sustaining the network…Often our shows were firsts or firsts for a touring group, at least an independent one…We were always on or preparing for a tour unless we were recording. Touring was how we supported ourselves. We could not play enough locally to support ourselves.18

The list of contact information on promoters and venues that Dukowski developed and maintained is legendary. As noted by Ian MacKaye, “Black Flag toured so much that I could always call Dukowski and say, ‘Do you have a number for this town? What are you guys doing here, what are you doing in this place?’”19 Mike Watt agrees, “Dukowski’s phonebook was an incredible thing – it had all the connections. There really wasn’t a codified scene – there were little scenes here and there, but no real network in place. A

17 MacKaye, interview.

18 Dukowski, interview.

19 MacKaye, interview.

120 lot of people were exchanging information. It was all about phone calls and phonebooks.”20

The fact that Dukowski provided assistance to and accepted input from other bands is a cornerstone of the American punk rock scene of the early 1980s. Such networking and the relationships it established both facilitated and fostered the larger regional and national scenes and created a tight knit sense of community. As Kevin

Seconds recalls, “You knew that if you were going to D.C., to get in touch with Ian

MacKaye; if you were going to Boston, get ahold of the guys from SSD; the Big Boys in

Austin and Die Kreuzen had Madison—every scene had defined leaders that would help you out. 7Seconds were the point guys in Reno.”21 Vic Bondi concurs. Dukowski

“…would create these lists and rosters of places to play and people to get in touch with— literally it was a mimeographed sheet they’d hand you as they were coming through town.”22 Aside from crediting Dukowski, Jeff Nelson also highlights the significant role played by the fanzine in fostering the touring network:

When you are in a band, these little fanzines from around the country were invaluable when trying to figure out where on earth to call to get your band a show or painstakingly put together a tour from one city to another to another. You’d come to have an idea from these fanzines, which clubs were the ones that would possibly let you play there and you’d contact them. Slowly, by visiting other towns and playing with other bands you’d establish friendships, crash on their floors, whatever. When their band would come on tour, of course, you would help them get a show when they came to your town. That network of people, bands, and clubs, slowly grew over the years and made it much easier for bands to tour.23

20 Watt, interview.

21 Seconds, interview.

22 Bondi, interview.

23 Nelson, interview.

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Shawn Stern describes the networking thusly, “It was pretty neat how there was an underground network of punks in every major city went to…putting on shows themselves. It was really neat.”24 Kevin Seconds continues, “I was really excited by the networking…Everybody was always exchanging information—part of your day was getting on the phone and talking about who was coming through town. We just became a part of that bigger network.”25

More interesting than the list Chuck Dukowski had developed, maintained, and shared, were the ways in which bands used that information to book their own tours.

Most punk bands lacked the monetary resources to book tours. Since the primary mode of communication was by telephone and since long distance telephone rates were expensive in the early 1980s, punk bands quickly figured a way around the problem. As described by Ian MacKaye:

At that time long-distance was extremely expensive. It would have been like a dollar a minute. Aside from the contact sheet, the other thing being traded around at the time were credit card numbers, actually they were phone numbers of major corporations – the KKK, Coca-Cola, Exxon, all these kinds of companies like that. You’d make all your long distance calls and charge them to those numbers. You’d do it at night because then the operator would call them and there’d be no answer and they’d say, “There’s no answer, I can’t confirm it’s your number,” and we’d say, “I’m calling you from the road, I’m on a payphone.” So you’d circulate these photocopied lists of the phone numbers of big companies you could charge the calls to. If the numbers got busted you’d draw a line through it and add some new ones – then we’d trade these lists around. You always had to book everything from a payphone though, you never could do it from your own phone because they could trace it to your phone and you’d get in a lot of trouble.26

24 Adam Small and Peter Stuart, Another State of Mind, DVD (New York: Time Bomb Recordings, 2004).

25 Seconds, interview.

26 MacKaye, interview.

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Kevin Seconds continues:

The sheet was essentially a list of the key people to contact across the country but it was also a list of phone numbers you used, quite illegally, which were stolen calling card numbers you could use to book tours. Everybody had their own way of doing it. I had my own bullshit rationale – I will only use these major corporation’s calling card numbers, I will never ’s private account number. You’d basically set up your tour doing this – using those numbers. You could call key people – probably four or five throughout the country – who always had new numbers. You could call them and get twenty new numbers to use each time. The key was to keep changing them up and not calling from the same place – especially your house or a number that could be traced. It was all just underground shady bullshit. It was basically a necessity because no one had any money or resources. It was the sole way that everyone was able to accomplish what they did.27

Just as interesting as the methods used by punk bands to book their tours were the ways in which those tours were undertaken. Unlike bands on major labels who receive significant tour support, usually including large tour busses and professional drivers, punk bands were on their own. The modes of travel used by punk bands in the early 1980s ran the spectrum between the Greyhound bus, the family car, a borrowed van, or a purchased or rented vehicle. In describing the Teen Idles first tour, a trip from

Washington, D.C. to California and back, for example, Ian MacKaye remembers, “We took a Greyhound bus for four days—we had no idea what we were doing…We played at the Hong Kong Café in Los Angeles and the Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco…We grossed $26 dollars on that tour. It was amazing.”28 Minor Threat’s first tour of the East

Coast and Midwest, with D.C.’s Youth Brigade, was better organized but haphazardly undertaken as fourteen guys traveled “in a van, a Volvo station wagon, and a 1970

27 Seconds, interview.

28 MacKaye, interview.

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Plymouth Duster.”29 Youth Brigade’s first tour from Los Angeles through Canada and along the East Coast, which included eleven people and two bands (Youth Brigade and

Social Distortion), was accomplished in a dilapidated school bus.30 Another example is the Big Boys, from Austin, Texas, who traveled in an old bakery van.31

While the touring network was being developed and tours were being booked and undertaken, the venues open to American punk bands were marginal at best. Touring punk bands in the early 1980s had to settle for whatever venue they could get. For most this meant only the occasional show in a traditional club or concert venue. More often than not, shows happened wherever they could be held. In the liner notes to the 1993 re- issue of the Dischord Records compilation LP, 1981: The Year in Seven Inches, for example, Jeff Nelson included a recounting of all the shows played by his band the Teen

Idles. Venues included Fred’s Inn, Brian’s garage, and multiple shows in Nathan’s basement.32 These could be added to the numerous instances of performing in high school gyms, gas stations, bowling alleys, and pizza places, as well as V.F.W. and Grange Halls, and community cultural centers. As noted by Vic Bondi, “We played many, many basements, frat houses – in college towns you could always manage to hit some frat, like a lesser hippy frat or something.”33 Yet, regardless of the venue, the good shows usually outweighed the often peculiar venue. As Jeff Nelson noted, “It was incredible when

29 MacKaye, interview.

30 Small and Stuart, Another State of Mind.

31 Tim Kerr, telephone interview by author, March 2, 2009.

32 Dischord 1981: The Year in Seven Inches, Dischord Records DIS14CD, CD, 1993.

33 Bondi, interview.

124 people are going completely apeshit and they are all excited to see you. That made it all worthwhile.”34

The occasional great crowd response was not the only positive experience for

American punk bands who toured in the early 1980s. As noted by Dan Kubinski, for example, it was the travel: “We did full blown tours of the South, Southwest, and both coasts. Later we were even able to make it to Europe a few times – highly enjoyable.”35

Jeff Nelson adds:

Perhaps I’m being nostalgic but I have, overall, very fond memories of touring…Aside from experiencing the distinct characteristics – in dance, fashion, speech, etc. – of each scene, because I’ve always been into graphic design, typography, and junk food, seeing the different kinds of signage, restaurants, stores, chips, and soda was fun for me. Seeing and trying different regional things was fun.36

Nelson’s band mate, Ian MacKaye, concurs:

Part of my deep desire to tour was because I wanted to see all of these bands. I wanted to see their scenes. I wanted to see how they did their thing – how they did the thing. I was fascinated by regionalism. There was a period of time where I could identify where somebody was from they dressed, by the way their music sounded, and, in some cases even, by he way they danced. There were all these really specific regional touches that I was always fascinated by…from a sociological point of view it was fascinating to me.37

Kevin Seconds makes a similar assertion:

Every band was representing where they were from, in some way. Back then it was very unique. The kids in Chicago had their own style, kids in D.C. had their own style, even in Reno we had our own thing, our own look. When you went to Texas or Florida or whatever and played a great show you just connected in some way. It

34 Nelson, interview.

35 Kubinski, interview.

36 Nelson, interview.

37 MacKaye, interview.

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was a unifying thing that brought everything closer together. It definitely united everybody.38

Vic Bondi has another opinion: “As far as positives, you’d have the camaraderie with the other guys in the band...If you ask military veterans what was great or enjoyable about the campaign they would say, ‘The other guys.’ That was probably it – I mean those are friendships I’ll have the rest of my life.”39 Ian MacKaye makes a similar point, “I’d say that making those connections was immensely important. I think about the very dear friends that I have and I’ve known them for many years.”40 Kevin Seconds agrees,

“Touring was more than just a network to get gigs—it was a way to develop friendships, many that exist to this day.”41

Of course, negatives always accompany positives and American punk bands on tour experienced perhaps more hardships than successes. Mike Watt’s recollection, for example, is quite succinct: “Illness was an issue on the road because of the strain you put on yourself and sometimes promoters would rip you off. You just had to swing with the bad and keep working the rooms.”42 Kevin Seconds, on the other hand, is more detailed:

I would never say that touring was the most positive thing in the world. It was grueling. You had to be a slightly, ridiculously fit person to do it on a regular basis. No one could get sick – because no one had health care – we couldn’t even worry about that shit. You couldn’t cancel shows – you just had to do it…We loved it because of what we got to experience and who we got to meet and play with…This isn’t even counting when the van would blow up in the middle of nowhere and you had to hitchhike to the next off ramp to find a payphone to call somebody – if you

38 Seconds, interview.

39 Bondi, interview.

40 MacKaye, interview.

41 Seconds, interview.

42 Watt, interview.

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had somebody to call. It wasn’t like today where you can get on your cell phone and call AAA. Or maybe when you came into a town and you were not someone that they wanted in their town or in their faces; they didn’t understand it, they didn’t want to understand it and they could be very hostile toward you. We had guns pulled on us…And, of course, you received very little money. If you got $75 bucks or $100 bucks, that was a big deal. Everything back then was much more intense and much more scary, but it was a part of what you did and it did develop character.43

Vic Bondi had similar memories:

Touring was more than a little rough. We didn’t have anything. You are talking about guys who had absolutely no money taking two hundred dollars and getting in a van…People had no food. You would make a decision on the road between eating and driving. It was more than hard, it was existentially hard. It’s amazing more people didn’t die on the road from auto accidents. It was seriously hard to pull this stuff together when you were living hand-to-mouth. It was not a pleasant experience. It was great from the standpoint of camaraderie and it was great from the point of being young enough to sustain that kind of abuse, but it was ridiculously hard. There were many, many shows where you would show up, I mean we played in once – I forget where the club was that we were supposed to play, and the show had been busted by the cops, the show was closed. So we played this guy’s gas station. That was the compensation.44

Chuck Dukowski disagrees with the notion of friendship and camaraderie as absolute positive outcomes of touring and sums up the negatives thusly, “The interpersonal relationships within the group and between the artist and the various players – retail, print and broadcast media, and the audience – is intensified when on tour. This cuts both ways as familiarity develops bonds and chafing points.”45

Yet regardless of all the negatives associated with touring, American punk bands in the early 1980s persevered. As noted by Ian MacKaye:

43 Seconds, interview.

44 Bondi, interview.

45 Dukowski, interview.

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The first time we toured, there were five or six places that we could call. The second time we toured there were thirty places and the third time we toured there was fifty places. If you visualize a map of the United States, you could visualize little spots appearing—there’s a scene in L.A., Washington, San Francisco, Detroit, Boston, New York, things started to appear. Reno, Madison, Seattle, , Austin, Gainsville. Then you could go there—your people existed.46

Shawn Stern has a similar memory:

If touring was all negative we wouldn’t have kept going back out. Keep in mind the film Another State of Mind documents our first tour and even though it sort of fell apart, I considered it a success because we were able to pull it off and there were people interested and that just grew. When we went out the it was better. I mean, we didn’t play Boston on the Another State of Mind tour, but when we went out there the next time and played this matinee show—figured there would be a couple hundred kids – and a thousand people came to the show—it was insane. Every time we’d go out the shows got better and better.47

This simple fact cannot be overlooked. As journalist and writer aptly concluded in his book Rock and the Pop Narcotic, “In an age of big entertainment conglomerates, big management, and big media, touring the lowest-rent rock clubs of

America in an Econoline van was the equivalent of fighting a ground war strategy in an age of nuclear forces” and at the forefront of this ground war were the punk bands that manned the trenches. Countless American punk bands hit the road and crisscrossed the

United States and Canada during this time—some even making it to Europe. Most participants agree that touring was beneficial for one reason more than any other: It nurtured and facilitated the larger regional and national scenes. Ian MacKaye, for example, concludes, “Touring was important in cultivating the larger scenes because making those connections was immensely important…When you tour it’s like you’re

46 Michael Azerrad, Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 (New York: Little Brown & Company, 2001), 147-8.

47 Stern, interview.

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Johnny Appleseed planting seeds everywhere you go.”48 Vic Bondi concurs, “I think the fact that you had bands coming through fairly regularly and you had shows all the time kept the scenes going. When bands came through, these shows would definitely create the glue for the scenes.”49 Mike Watt agrees, “Touring helped build the scene big time because it was actually people meeting people. It didn’t have many layers of people telling about it or explaining to people what it was…and a lot more people came to shows than read fanzines.”50 Also worth mentioning is the fact that these touring networks have survived. As Mike Watt so poignantly concludes, “We built the circuit we still tour on to this day.”51 Jeff Nelson agrees, “It was a lot of work to put together a tour, but for each successive generation of bands the network became more firmly in place.”52 Perhaps Ian

MacKaye sums it up best:

Despite the continuing attempts to commercialize music, kids always take it back to the basement. There are still house shows and underground touring going on all the time. I would say that this is a direct descendant of those original early ’80s punk tours. It’s a part of that continuum. Every year there’s a new generation of kids who are trying to go out who can’t get the attention of the bookers, who can’t or don’t want to get in the door of the rock clubs who claim to own the scene – but they’ll fucking play music somewhere if they can find someone to put on a show for them.53

48 MacKaye, interview.

49 Bondi, interview.

50 Watt, interview.

51 Watt, interview.

52 Nelson, interview.

53 MacKaye, interview.

CHAPTER VI

CONCLUSION

The recent swath of books dedicated to preserving the history of punk’s various eras or phases makes clear that the history of punk is both long and influential.

Whether documenting the formative years of American punk during the mid-1960s, the

New York scene of the early 1970s, the British interpretation of American punk in the late 1970s, or the explosion of American punk in the early 1980s, journalists, critics, participants, and fans are busy writing histories. Unfortunately, the era that repeatedly receives short shrift is the American punk rock scene of the early 1980s. It’s almost as if this period that fell squarely between the British experiment with punk and the mainstream ascendance of punk in the mid-1990s never even happened.

Of course, this imbalance is currently being righted through such works as

Michael Azzerad’s 2001 book, Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American

Indie Underground, 1981-1991; Steven Blush’s 2006 documentary film, American

Hardcore: The History of American Punk Rock 1980-1986; and most recently, George

Hurchalla’s 2007 book, Going Underground: American Punk, 1979-1992. Unfortunately, even these current sources are flawed and wrought with serious omissions that do the history of the early 1980s a huge disservice. Almost across the board, the new scholarship on American punk rock in the 1980s neglects three key factors— fanzine culture, independent release and distribution of sound recordings, and touring. While discussions

129 130 of significant and influential bands, participants, scenes, and labels are common, more often than not the roles which fanzines, indie labels, and touring played in nurturing and facilitating local, regional, and national scenes are rarely covered in any detail. This alone is a tragedy. Not only does it oversimplify a complex network of independent yet interrelated individuals, journalistic organs, record labels, and live experiences, it also fails to paint a complete and accurate picture of the era. The fact that American punk of the early 1980s was both self-contained and self-sustaining is a story that has yet to be told.

The fanzine tradition which flourished in the early 1980s is legendary and bore not only historical, but cultural relevance as well. Strangely though, fanzines are often only mentioned as source material or in reference to their popular visibility within the larger scene. As a matter of fact, it is rare to read of the fanzines’ cultural or historical significance at all. This is odd considering the almost unanimous belief by fanzine publishers that their work had significant meaning. In 1987 for example, Al Flipside, cofounder of Los Angeles’ Flipside fanzine was quick to note that, “Punk seemed like a revolution. It was so new and so different. Punk was exciting because it was a pioneering thing and there was a strong need to keep it going…we did a fanzine and we wrote about it.”1 Tesco Vee, founder of Michigan’s Touch & Go, maintains that fanzines were:

…a window into these individual locales – these different scenes and what was happening at the time. Each zine had its own regional focus—you could look at all these small scenes that were somehow united by a common thread. When you look

1 Martin Sprouse, Threat by Example: A Documentation of Inspiration (San Francisco: Pressure Drop Press, 1990), 118.

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at fanzines you get a snapshot of what it was like back then—of what kind of bands were coming through. It was a cultural thing not just a musical thing.2

Jack Rabid, founder of New York’s Big Takeover continues in a similar vein:

The actual vested interest of those who compile or compose the histories of anything is always going to be commercial. The brilliant thing about the punk scene is that it wasn’t about commerciality. That’s why everybody romanticizes it now, but it is actually one of those cases where everybody romanticizes something that was true. The people who did it were not motivated by money. We couldn’t have been because there was nothing to be made. What we were motivated by was the pure excitement of something culturally interesting. Much like how starving artists paint or how starving film makers scrounge up a little money to make a cheap film. It’s not about how much money you can make and how many people can kiss your ass and tell you how brilliant you are. It’s about a community of like-minded individuals who are inspiring each other. Doing something for the pure excitement of doing it and because it really is worth doing.3

Peter Davis, cofounder of Minneapolis’ Your Flesh succinctly concludes, “From a historical perspective I think fanzines will stand the test of time. These zines are a time capsule of an era that once was – an era that wasn’t being covered in the mainstream media and people are, I hope, always going to be interested in history. It’s important to know where shit came from.”4 Given the similar notions held by fanzine publishers as to the cultural and historical significance of their endeavors, surely a more accurate accounting in the current popular literature on punk rock is necessary.

Fanzines were not the only organs documenting what would become a significant primary source stream on American punk rock in the 1980s. Independent record labels were key facilitators of the local, regional, and national scenes as well, yet they are often the first to be overlooked or relegated to a peripheral status in current

2 Tesco Vee, telephone interview by author, December 17, 2008.

3 Jack Rabid, telephone interview by author, December 12, 2008.

4 Peter Davis, telephone interview by author, January 11, 2009.

132 histories of American punk rock. Punk indie labels in the early 1980s took on many shapes and forms. Regardless of their individual peculiarities, these labels bore significance similar to their fanzine compatriots. As noted by Jeff Nelson, cofounder of

Washington, D.C.’s Dischord Records, recalls:

Keep in mind, for us there was no cell phone, computer, or internet. An independent label, certainly one in the early ’80s, and certainly before the computer and internet, had to be willing to labor in obscurity – not desiring it. In other words, accepting of the fact that major labels, and radio, and magazines don’t care, they don’t get it, they think you suck. We think we’re great. We’ve heard of these bands we think are great and we can’t believe that everybody doesn’t know these great bands. We thought if everybody could hear this great band from our city we think they’d be huge.5

One must also keep in mind the fact that the mainstream record industry wanted nothing to do with this younger, angrier form of punk rock. Shawn Stern, of the Los Angeles based Better Youth Organization, maintains:

I’m not saying that we invented anything, but we were creating things on the fly. A lot of the stuff we were doing wasn’t being done the way we were doing it. We had to figure it out on our own. There were little bits and pieces of information that we could get on how to run a label, but not on the level that we did it. Even the independents, like Motown and labels like that, still got hooked up to Top 40 radio – we never used the industry standards that people were using…it was all underground – it was a unique way of doing things.6

Mike Watt, cofounder of Los Angeles’ New Alliance Records, saw it this way:

We found out that punk was not just a band. It was fanzines, putting on gigs, putting out records – using all different kinds of things for expression. We put out a compilation first, but we wanted to make as many records with as many bands as we could—so yeah it was all mixed up like that, trying to get stuff out there that we thought people should hear. We didn’t have a regular record company, like in a professional business sense, it was more important to us to get these sounds out.7

5 Jeff Nelson, telephone interview by author, January 12, 2009.

6 Shawn Stern, telephone interview by author, January 30, 2009.

7 Mike Watt, telephone interview by author, January 26, 2009.

133

This simple notion of helping out another band, of getting the music out there, drove most indie labels. The fact that each of the labels discussed in Chapter IV (Frontier,

Dischord, Touch & Go, New Alliance, and B.Y.O.) still release music independently to this day is a testament to several things. First and foremost is their unwavering commitment to independent release of punk music. Secondly, given punk rock’s spike in popularity following the successes of Nirvana and Green Day in the early 1990s and the current sales of each of these labels’ 1980-1985 catalog, is the fact that punk music has become a significant and relevant cultural force in American society. It seems almost inconceivable, then, that current histories on punk rock so often gloss over this important contribution.

While the official organs of the early 1980s American punk scene were the bands, fanzines, and indie labels, there is yet another important element that figures prominently into the larger narrative yet often goes without significant mention—touring.

It seems impossible that punk bands were able to mount multi-date extended tours, but they did. Most gigging began locally. As described by Dan Kubinski, vocalist and founding member of Milwaukee’s Die Kreuzen, “We toured regularly, that’s how we gained a fan base. We did nonstop gigs in Milwaukee, Madison, , Detroit, and Chicago in the early days.”8 With time and the development of the larger network, bands began to venture out regionally. As described by Kevin Seconds, vocalist for Reno,

Nevada’s 7Seconds, “Touring was a unifying thing that brought everything closer together. It assured that the band that hosted you this time around would be hosted by you

8 Dan Kubinski, telephone interview by author, January 19, 2009.

134 the next time they came around. It definitely united everybody.”9 Vic Bondi, vocalist for

Chicago’s Articles of Faith, agrees, “I think that the fact that you had bands coming through fairly regularly and you had shows all the time, kept the scene going…when bands came through, these shows definitely created the glue for he scene.”10 Mike Watt, bass player for Los Angeles’ Minutemen, concurs, “Well, fuck, the gigs were everything about punk. That’s how you knew about the bands. There was no radio – I mean mersh radio, fuck, no way. Maybe there was some college radio later on, but the only way people would know about you was to read the fanzine, buy the record, or see the gig. The gigs were the most profound thing about the whole movement.”11 Ian MacKaye, co founder of Washinton, D.C.’s Dischord Records and vocalist for Minor Threat, concludes, “Touring was enormously huge for the crosspollination, cultural exchange, and sharing what was going on in other scenes.”12 Strangely, if you read current histories on American punk rock of the early 1980s or books specifically written on touring during this period, the overriding themes are centered on the violent, negative, or salacious aspects. Surely, given the recollections presented here, a more balanced account is not only possible, but necessary as well.

Without question, histories can be tainted by assumptions, biases, faulty memories, or the availability, or lack thereof, of primary source material, yet this alone cannot excuse the fact that the majority of general and specific literature on American

9 Kevin Seconds, telephone interview by author, December 21, 2008.

10 Vic Bondi, telephone interview by author, November 25, 2008.

11 Watt, interview.

12 Ian MacKaye, telephone interview by author, December 4, 2008.

135 punk rock of the early 1980s is lacking in three key areas. The failure of multiple authors to adequately demonstrate the significant contributions of fanzines, indie labels, and touring is troubling. Perhaps the significance of punk labels, fanzines, and touring is most succinctly noted by Jeff Nelson, drummer for Washington, D.C.’s Minor Threat and cofounder of Dischord Records:

This might sound like a strange comparison, maybe it’s because my dad worked in the Foreign Service and the UN, but to me it record labels and fanzines were similar to the importance of having embassies and consulates and what used to be the U.S.I.S. – the United States Information Service. It was a way of spreading your message – of getting the word out. The bands going out on tour were like ambassadors from their respective cities and from their record labels. They are going out and having a cultural exchange – this is who we are, this is how we sound, this is what we’ve come up with. Hopefully they’d like it and sometimes you yourself would be totally bowled over by this incredibly different or cool strain of punk that bands in other towns were doing.13

Nelson’s partner at Dischord, Ian MacKaye, sums it up thusly:

Most importantly the scene was thriving. All this time, bands are forming, records are being put out, fanzines are being written and distributed, letter writing is going on, shows are being put on, touring is happening—people are driving all over and staying in people’s houses. This huge hive of activity was occurring completely under the radar of the people who claimed to own music, the major label industry. They had no idea about it. They were completely clueless and that was alright by us. It was amazing. I tell people it was the most incredible thing that it even occurred.14

As has been proven here, the published record is lacking. The overriding purpose of this thesis was to prove that there is an abundant variety of primary source material available on the topic of early 1980s American punk rock—enough to right many of the historical inaccuracies present in the current literature. Aside from the often difficult to locate fanzine collections, the most abundant of these are the living

13 Nelson, interview.

14 MacKaye, interview.

136 participants and numerous audio recordings still in print. This simple fact alone is enough to, hopefully, spur more vigorous research.

The first of three areas needing more intensive analysis are the smaller circulation fanzines. Numerically inferior to the large circulation zines discussed in

Chapter III, small circulation fanzines tended to emphasize only local or regional scenes, rather than the national scene. Yet, while their focus was limited and their reach less extensive, they can still provide a valuable window into the early 1980s .

Similarly, another area in need of more investigation is the significant number of less prominent indie punk labels. Those, for instance, started by bands and intended to only release their own recordings. While more obscure than the indie labels addressed in

Chapter IV, smaller labels gave voice to countless punk bands and often acted as a springboard to the larger labels. Finally, and likely most difficult due to the lack of an easily traceable primary source stream, would be some investigation into the role played by college radio stations in supporting the early 1980s American punk scene. Due to universal disinterest on the part of corporate radio, numerous college radio stations provided airplay for punk bands, and this contribution has yet to be documented in any meaningful manner. Given these deficiencies, more research and accurate accounting is necessary because, as succinctly noted by Lisa Fancher the founder of Los Angeles’

Frontier Records, “People need to know that many, many people, bands, fanzines and labels have been left out of the story.”15

15 Lisa Fancher, telephone interview by author, December 28, 2008.

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