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COPYRIGHT AND USE OF THIS THESIS This thesis must be used in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. Reproduction of material protected by copyright may be an infringement of copyright and copyright owners may be entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. Section 51 (2) of the Copyright Act permits an authorized officer of a university library or archives to provide a copy (by communication or otherwise) of an unpublished thesis kept in the library or archives, to a person who satisfies the authorized officer that he or she requires the reproduction for the purposes of research or study. The Copyright Act grants the creator of a work a number of moral rights, specifically the right of attribution, the right against false attribution and the right of integrity. You may infringe the author’s moral rights if you: - fail to acknowledge the author of this thesis if you quote sections from the work - attribute this thesis to another author - subject this thesis to derogatory treatment which may prejudice the author’s reputation For further information contact the University’s Director of Copyright Services sydney.edu.au/copyright “Hardcore Makes Me Sick” Truth, Youth and Unity in Australian Hardcore Punk Subculture J.E. Donovan M. Phil (Arts and Social Sciences) 2014 Department of Performance Studies University of Sydney Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirement of the degree of Master of Philosophy. “Hardcore Makes Me Sick” Truth, Youth and Unity in Australian Hardcore Punk Subculture J.E. Donovan M. Phil (Arts and Social Sciences) University of Sydney CONTENTS Chapter 1 PAGES Introduction 1 – 14 Chapter 2 A History of Subcultural Studies 15 – 55 Chapter 3 Methodology 56 – 73 Chapter 4 Unity 74 – 127 Chapter 5 Youth 128 – 155 Chapter 6 Truth 156 – 198 Chapter 7 Conclusion 199 – 204 Bibliography 205 – 217 CHAPTER ONE Introduction We are in a quiet industrial area in Sydney’s inner west. The street is unlit and only the silhouettes of loitering kids, male and female, mingling on the concrete pavement, spilling onto the street. Sleeve-tattooed arms clutch at longneck beers, others at tatty guitar cases or cymbals. The backs of some hands bear a prominent, black-tattooed cross. These are straightedgers, hard core kids committed to a lifestyle of discipline and abstinence. Amongst the shadowy outlines, too, one can just make out a group of hessian punks, in their characteristic ripped jeans, studded jackets and back band patches: these are heshes, or as they are sometimes known, herbs or hippy punks, advocates of “autonomous living” such as DIY,1 squatting, dumpster-diving and veganism. Standing next to them are some clean-cut jocks in new sneakers and band hoodies. Some hair flows free and unkempt, in dreads or in ponytails; others sport undercuts, crew-cuts or are shaved to the scalp. All are hardcore kids — “kids” the term used throughout the scene to denote a hardcore devotee, whatever their particular identification within the scene: hesh, straightedger, jock or otherwise. My close mates in tow, with a few nods of acknowledgement, we pass by them, and on to the warehouse entrance. A single dark light bulb is the only illumination in the 1 narrow staircase. We enter the warehouse, paying our few bucks, our hands marked with a marker pen. The concrete floor is sticky and unforgiving. The room is wide and high. Various adornments punctuate the dark room: a doll’s head on a spike; hanging nooses; a large painted x-ray of a human ribcage, all shabbily set. At one end, a stage, behind which is a huge poster of a dreadlocked protester holding a gun to the head of a policeman. We mingle, making small talk: awesome new bands, upcoming tours. As usual, the conversation quickly falls to scene gossip, grumbling about overpriced shows, recently exposed sell-outs or annoying scenesters who do not really care about the music. The background music rattles like a motorbike, reverberating with my heartbeat. Despite the calming influence of mundane chatter, I realise that I am in something of a heightened state of expectation. Anticipation for the forthcoming show grabs at my chest, shaking me, raising my level of anxiety to an almost unbearable pitch. The band gathers to the tattered stage, raised only a foot above the floor. They tune their instruments nonchalantly whilst conversing with friends over their shoulders. The atmosphere is deceptively laid-back: relaxed and non-performative until . The band starts to play, abruptly cutting short any remnants of chitchat. A wave of sound—a concrete wall of solid noise—hits the assembled crowd, smashing like a rock in the face. My breathing syncopates with the noise of the pulsating blast beats 2 from the drums. The vocalist’s screaming tears at my brain. The fuzzy guitars resonate in my chest and constrict the muscles my neck. It is intolerable. It is terrible. It is beautiful. So fast. Fast and so loud. The passion. The pure desperation. The adrenaline. I am consumed, monstered by the sound. My hands shake. My knees vibrate. I can’t breathe. Bile rises in my throat. I run to the bathroom. This is my hardcore. It makes me fucking sick. Introduction: “Hardcore Makes Me Sick”2 This dissertation is at once an ethnography of some Australian hardcore punk scenes, and an assessment of the relevance and value of dominant theoretical models with reference to this subculture at the beginning of the twenty-first century. As an ethnography it will understand hardcore as contested and fragmentary; a subculture that is embraced by its followers as being “full of contradictions. It’s contradictory by nature” (LM 2005).3 In the spirit of Clifford Geertz, this ethnographic work makes no claims to generalisability, but rather aspires to contribute to better conversations about the ways in which cultures understand themselves, and the worlds in which they are formed and maintained (Geertz 1973). My ethnography will proceed from my own participant-observation, through performance analysis, readings of various texts 3 and, of course, my exchanges with hardcore insiders, whose voices will pervade my writing. At the same time, this work is framed by the call to reflexivity made by Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992). By means of a systematic attention to my own cultural situation—in particular my own involvement and investment in the scene about which I am writing, my intellectual background, and the over- arching bias of the scholarly gaze—I will tease out and explicate my own interests in both the scene and my academic project (Swartz 1997, 273-283). Hardcore Music Hardcore music is a derivative of punk music, albeit louder, faster and more aggressive than its cultural predecessor. It has a “hostile, aggressive meatiness” that is “full of Grrrr” (AB 2005). Its attraction lies in “the energy, the rawness and the aggression” (LM 2005). It is often, (though not always) Short. Fast. Loud.4 It is also abrasive. Neil from the Brisbane band Draft Dodger explained that: I’ve always been of the opinion that punk rock [or hardcore] was meant to be an ugly thing. It’s not something that you sit around and clap your hands to. (Daniel, Interview with Neil from Draft Dodger 2004). From yelled vocals to thrashing guitars, blast-beating drums and offensive or confronting lyrics, hardcore is anything but beautiful or easy listening. This ugliness, Neil argues, is central to the aesthetic of hardcore music. It often looks, and occasionally is, performatively violent. And yet a precise definition of hardcore remains elusive, as Christian from the band Blood of Others explains: “[a]s for explaining exactly what it is, I think it isn’t possible. It’s just something I know when I 4 see, hear or otherwise experience it” (Daniel, Interview with Christian from Blood of Others C 2003). A brief Hardcore History It feels good to say what I want. It feels good to knock things down. It feels good to see the disgust in their eyes. It feels good and I’m gonna go wild. “Spray Paint the Walls” (Black Flag 1981) Before setting out the contents of this thesis, a short historical contextualisation is required: when and where hardcore originated, and a sense of how it was taken up in Australia. There is, however, no singular, unified or definitive history of hardcore. Much of its history is oral, and that which is written is dispersed, diffuse, contradictory and embedded in subjective experience and perspectives. However, it is generally accepted that the first published usage of the word “hardcore” in reference to punk culture was as the title of the Vancouver band DOA's album Hardcore 81 (DOA 1981), a reasonable indication as to the year hardcore consolidated into a subculture and a related musical genre. The term “hardcore” was originally an adjective to describe those who were the most extreme punks in the late 1970s Los Angeles punk scene (Spitz and Mullen 2001, 192-193). Hardcore punk became a breakaway scene in Los Angeles with bands like the Germs, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys and Fear in the late 1970s.5 Early hardcore kids have described it as an attempt to push the limits of punk; “Hardcore”, wrote Blush, “expressed an extreme: the absolute most punk” (Blush 2001, 16). 5 James Ward quotes Jeff Goldthorpe in defining it as a “fundamentalist interpretation of punk,” deliberately intended “to ensure a threatening unsellable style” (Goldthorpe, 1992, cited in Ward 1996, 163) The origin stories vary slightly, but there is a common theme, paralleling the heritage of many new punk scenes and movements: some of the younger Los Angeles punks, becoming disillusioned with the Hollywood punk scene, distanced themselves from this scene, creating a new socio-musical hub in Orange County, in the suburban, middle class outskirts of the city (Spitz and Mullen 2001, 194; Macleod 2010, 94-95).