Publication:
MaximumRockNRoll

Author:
Felix Von Havoc

MRR #183
Perhaps I should take up writing fiction because a fair number of people actually believed my satirical article about the Minneapolis vs. Chicago "Hardcore Wars." How anyone could seriously believe that the members of Charles Bronson dressed up in Ninja Suits and took out the entire Twin Cities Hardcore Scene with nunchucks and throwing stars is beyond me. Letters and phone calls of support came pouring in. Please, it was all a joke. There is no need to choose sides, gird your loins and march out to battle. As far as I'm concerned the Minneapolis-Chicago rivalry is a moot point; the real issue is Midwest vs. East and West Coasts. New York and Los Angeles were very important in the history and development of hardcore punk rock but the Midwest is where hardcore is happening right now.

With the sentencing of The Unabomber and the death of Eldridge Cleaver two more nails are sunk into the coffin of 1960's radicalism. I take most of the revolutionary rhetoric I hear these days with a dose of skepticism because to me hopes for revolution are pretty bleak. Demographically the tide has turned against those who seek change. The majority of America's population now lives in the suburbs. The majority of the population grows older and the once radical baby boomers are now more conservative than any generation since the new deal. The economy is booming and the distribution of wealth continues to concentrate more and more economic power in the hands of the elite. This elite has so effectively marshaled the forces of coercive state power and consumerist brainwashing that the majority of the oppressed classes have little clue that they are oppressed. Class-consciousness and radical left politics have lost the appeal to the working class they may have had in the heroic days of labor radicalism. Left politics are pretty well marginalized and discredited in the mainstream media. With the exception of a few outspoken intellectuals like Noam Chomsky most of the leading American radicals are either dead, in prison, or still fighting the battles of the 60's. The typical political radical these days is an upper middle class college student who is so full of shit no-one but their class mates will take them seriously. In my mind the struggle for freedom for the working people has been going downhill since we lost the Spanish Civil War in 1939. The 60's radical movement was very important and a pretty monumental but ultimately crushed by a combination of armed force and pacification. Armed force and repression was used against Black, Native American and Latino radicals as well as the most militant white groups. Drugs and corporate rock music pacified the rest. (I talked about this process at length in Heart Attack a while ago).

As I mentioned before the economy right now is booming beyond most people's expectations. If you are one the elite with the most to gain you are reaping profits at a brisk clip. Even if you are one of the millions of ordinary working stiffs you are probably not doing that bad. You will be told that prosperity is good for everyone and that the rising tide lifts all boats trickles down etc. Of course this is bullshit and we are getting paid just enough to keep us from complaining while the rich get enormously richer at everyone else's expense. Capitalism is an imperfect system. This country suffered serious depressions in 1876, 1893 and of course the 1930's. The stock market cannot keep breaking records forever without eventually crashing. We have built up a mountain of debt that could eventually collapse and take the whole financial system with it. At the turn of the last century we left the agricultural age and entered the machine age. Now at the turn of this century we are told that we are leaving the machine age and entering the information age. Unlike the products of the machine age that you can generally put your hands on, the products of the information age exist only in the ether. When the bottom falls out of this market what do you have? Millions of disenfranchised middle class people who will watch their life's work become worthless. Does this sound familiar? It should sound a lot like Germany in the 1920's. If the economy were to take a serious downturn and people began to question the status quo it would not be pushed by the radical left but the radical right. Far right politics have slowly drifted into the mainstream so far it would not be inconceivable to have an elected Fascist government a la David Duke

Drive or take a bus out into an upper middle class suburb. Get out and walk around. Everything is clean, new, White, upper middle class and family oriented. Schools, churches and of course shopping are located nearby with plenty of parking. Poverty, inequality and racial minorities are far away. The roads stretch for miles in every direction leading to similar communities. Do you feel the discontent boiling beneath the surface? The urge to shake off the oppressor and stick it to the man? Of course you don't, because it isn't there. This is the majority who is happy with the status quo. If they were all out of work tomorrow and the paychecks stopped coming while the mortgage and car payment bills kept piling up would they turn to the left? To one of the half baked Marxist parties or the anarchists and punks? I doubt it. Right away it would be God, duty, family, country and all that right wing shit. Fascism needs scapegoats, would it be corporate America? I doubt it; rather the targets would be immigrants, minorities and the "decadent" liberal establishment. Of course it wouldn't be swastikas and the Horst Wessel song but slick, hi-tech, user-friendly corporate fascism. Dismiss me as a paranoid crank if you will but this Orwellian future may not be further away than you think. Far Right political parties have enjoyed electoral success in Germany, Austria and Italy of late. As Dave Emory points out monthly in his column Fascism was not dealt a death blow in 1945 only a major setback. It adapts and re-emerges to suit the age. . While most of us are used to seeing fascism come from the far right should not discount the idea that much of the middle of the road liberal establishment is so devoid of core values it could easily jump into bed with any regime which promised law and order and security in times of uncertainty. It is no secret that since the turn of the century law enforcement has made it a priority to crack down on leftist radicalism while largely ignoring the radical right and organized crime. As a result we now have only a ghost of a workers movement while the far right is well armed and organized.

One of the things that sticks out in when you read about the great depression of the 1930's is that people who were suffering stuck together, helped each other and persevered through sacrifice and mutual aid. If you read the oral histories like Studs Terkel's Hard Times or William Hull's The Dirty Thirties its full of reminisces by ordinary working people hit by hard times who felt that the hardships actually strengthened their families and communities. The rhetoric of the new deal was all about shared hardship, self-sacrifice and working together to beat the odds. That sense of optimism carried America through the World War and into the expansion of the 1950's and early 60's to be shattered by Vietnam and Watergate. Now we sit in a period of prosperity similar to that of the roaring 20's or the Eisenhower era. If the prosperity of those days was viewed to be only for the benefit of the rich than today's prosperity is even more so. The average wages of most working people have stagnated or declined since the early 70's. The optimistic figures we read in the papers are only of concern to a small percentage of the population. Like it or not most of us are only a few paychecks away from the soup kitchen. If there were another depression I think the body politic would act quite differently from the way it did in the 1930's. I cannot see today's self centered Yuppie generation embracing the kind of self-sacrifice and mutual aid that pulled our grandparents generation through hard times. Nor can I see the corporate establishment sharing in any blame for an economic downturn. This time around it will be more of the "every man for himself" attitudes that were made popular in the 80's.

Two months back I talked about war as the raison d'etre of the nation state. I hope no one gained from this the misguided impression that I am a pacifist or against war. I'm against governments and nationalism and all that bullshit but not war. War is a part of human existence since time immemorial indeed; a look at history could provide a basis for the idea that war is the reason for human society. It would seem the urge to conquer and destroy is as much a part of human nature as the urge to eat and fuck. It is not my place to alter human nature and war is a universal part of human existence period. I object to most wars because they are waged for the benefit of a ruling elite which does not itself participate in the bloodletting. At least in the Middle Ages you could see the ruling classes battling each other hand to hand with cold steel, rather than sitting comfortably in offices while the common man slaughters his comrades thousands of miles away. Regardless, there are often in history quarrels that can only be settled by violence, and the most pertinent of these is the struggle between the rulers and the ruled. The economic and coercive violence of state power has from time to time been met with real violence from an insurgent population. How can we condemn such fighters for freedom as Nat Turner's rebel slaves, the People's Armies who emerged victorious at Valmy, the Communards of Paris, the Makhnovist Partisans or Antonov's Green Movement, and of course the heroic militias of the Spanish Civil War etc. I don't necessarily advocate an armed struggle against the state today, but perhaps tomorrow. In any event I have no objection morally or ideologically. My main misgiving is this, most armed struggle, like most warfare is waged for the benefit of an elite. Millions of people who aspired to freedom died in revolutionary and national liberation struggles only to place in power a regime very much like the one they overthrew. Like I said last month I'm not exactly lining up for a uniform and a rifle to be a pawn in someone else's rise to power.

A few months back I stood on this soapbox and proclaimed to all that would listen some erroneous information about Dutch hardcore from back in the day. To be honest in several years of writing about the forgotten hardcore of the past I've received almost no feedback; indeed, most of it has been from Rev. Norb. But when I took on Jesus and the Gospelfuckers and Agent Orange my mailbox was filled with letters from Holland setting me straight. For the record, Jesus and the Gospelfuckers and Agent Orange were totally different bands with only a few of the same members. The two bands were friends and hung out together but were not the same. According to Ed at Wicked Witch records Jesus and the Gospelfuckers became Genocide Express (of Cleanse the Bacteria fame) not Agent Orange. One man who knows the story from the inside is Henk from Kangaroo records who released one of the Agent Orange 7"s. The way he tells it Jesus and Gospelfuckers had become notorious due to fights with the Nazis and their bad reputation with the scene's PC establishment. Some members left and Agent Orange formed as a new band. So I received an F in hardcore history for my Dutch segment, and I didn't even start on Pandemonium, Larm or BGK. So this month I'm staying here in the USA and talking about....

Tough Guy Hardcore. I'll say straight out I'm no big fan of tough guy hardcore. Mostly it strikes me as a bunch of suburban jocks playing gangster or skinhead dress up. Of course the macho attitudes and frequent right wing views of this genre often turn me off. I will say though that the first Cro-Mags and Sheer Terror albums are longtime favorites of mine despite any political disagreements I may have with them lyrically. One cannot argue with the two fisted power of the first Cro Mags lp and the bonecrushing pummeling of Sheer Terror's Just Can't Hate Enough. The cynical views and hopeless desperation expressed in the lyrics I often find easier to identify with than the idealistic ravings of self-righteous suburban punks. There is a certain hardcore reality that you can only live on the streets. It cannot be experienced vicariously through "virtual down out and homeless simulator" and those who can't identify have probably never been there. What I like the most about Sheer Terror especially is the brutal honesty that comes straight from the streets. This street level honesty to me seems closer to the roots of rock n roll as a form of expression than any art-rock "experimentation." Despite the fact that I enjoy these two bands I've been pretty uninterested in the majority of their progeny. This genre has been going for a good ten years and now I've found that only Blood For Blood can fill the big shoes vacated by Sheer Terror or the Cro Mags. This Boston band is the most brutal, tough street level hardcore band I've heard in a long time. Totally hate filled and alienated violent tough guy hardcore. Listening to their new LP Revenge on Society makes me want to take on society in a one-man war. As I've said before the best punk music is the product of anger and alienation and comes straight from the streets, a garage or a basement somewhere. Since there are so many alienated and pissed off kids around these bands tap into the feeling of these kids and become quite popular since many identify with them. This results in the band being picked up by a label that hopes to capitalize on the bands popularity. All too often the result is that the band is divorced from the reality of the environment which spawned them and their original fan base. This is why a band like Cro Mags have one good album and a couple of cheesball speed metal albums.

I will admit to being the guy who only likes most bands first 7". Especially with the punk of the late 70's and early 80's most bands were only truly great for one or two records before they wimped out or went metal. Time after time bands turn their backs on the old school and decide to "progress musically." I have no time for the "musicians" who want to expand their horizons beyond "simplistic" three-chord thrash. Please, change your band name and play metal or prog-rock quick. Nothing is more depressing than going to see a band you really liked when they were raw and aggressive only to sit through forty minutes of flaccid noodling to hear one old song. And please when I say in print how much I'm into a band like DRI or AOF or MDC or Discharge etc. remember I'm probably only talking about the first 7"! Until next month remember Hardcore Rules!

Publication Date:
January 1, 1988

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