Publication:
HeartttaCk

Author:
Felix Von Havoc

HeartAttack #19
Top 10
Tight Bros. From Way Back When 7"
Bonds of Trust/ Accursed 7"
Snifter 7"
DS 13 7"
Nashville Pussy LP
Rubber City Rebels
AC/DC TNT/ Powerage
Murderers/Jerkoffs split
EBS LP
Old Barn Punk Fest '98 - Jim Falls Wisconsin

Continuing with last month's theme of education I'd like to move from the public high school experience, which was for me totally negative, to the higher education system. Higher education has more to recommend itself to one who is seeking knowledge. The learning process is less encumbered by a social agenda than in high school. That's not to say that the University isn't a big business or a bureaucracy, it just allows its students a little more freedom than public schools. For the most part in the 90's the universities are technical colleges for the elite of the coming information age. Prior to this century higher education was the exclusive preserve of the social elite. In the late 19th and early 20th century there was a movement to open universities to the lower classes. The postwar period saw a dramatic increase in college enrollment. Demographically the 1960's were a decade where students often dominated public life. Now as college costs continue to rise and social programs continue to be cut the pendulum would be swinging back towards higher education as an elite activity if not for the demand for high tech workers. I imagine that in the future many universities will see the humanities and liberal arts suffer as a greater emphasis is placed on cranking out qualified computer professionals.
<p>Traditionally the universities provided an educated elite to staff the civil service and bureaucracy. In the 1960's much of the student population questioned the role in which they were cast and turned instead to revolt and radicalism. Society reacted and as we all know by now the radical movement was "frozen out" by 1973. There is still an occasional student uprising, but not very often in Europe or America, and when there is it is not taken very seriously. Rather a sad occurrence given the level of radicalism of the world's students in say, 1968. As I have said before most student radicals are full of shit anyway, living out white upper class guilt fantasies that will be rapidly forgotten come graduation. Still, college has a lot to offer the individual, beyond a slot in the corporate elite. I come from a working class background where the military was the favored agent of social mobility. I was pressured to join the military when I dropped out of high school. Rather than enlist I enrolled in the local State University. Originally I only intended to "scam" as long as my Pell Grant held out then return to life on the streets. However, once immersed in the academy I became fascinated with the study of history. I decided to stay in school for what wound up being six years studying Russian history. I managed to pay my own way through with out borrowing money or asking my family for help. I took school pretty seriously and more than anything resented the middle and upper class students partying on daddy's money while the rest of us struggled to pay the bills and make the grade. (Does anyone remember the DK song "terminal preppie" = my classmates) When I graduated I worked in an office just long enough to realize that I was not welcome or happy in the white-collar world. I took the first construction laborer job that came along and I've worked in the remodeling business ever since. People always seem puzzled that I went to college and wound up working in the trades, as if I had made some sort of tragic mistake and not become a doctor or lawyer. Well, I got news for you, that white collar shit is not for everyone. The media and educational system as loyal lapdogs of corporate America keep shoving high tech careers down young people's throats. The university can be a place to expand your mind and your horizons, not just a vocational school. I went to school to exercise my mind the same way a person lifts weights or rides a bike to stay fit. The attainment of knowledge carries the same satisfaction of completing a fitness regimen. I know all about a lot of subjects that are of no use to me in the workaday world, but I did learn a lot about communication, critical thinking, problem solving and the process of learning. That is to say I learned how to learn. This said I take my place as a member of the working class, I feel better with a hammer in my hand and typing this column is all the time I'd like to spend in front of a computer.
<p>After seven years I decided to go back to school for night classes. I noticed some changes in the time since I had graduated. When I was an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota there were only a handful of punks in attendance, Joel from Profane Existence, Kim, Justin, Mary, Mark, and some dude with Accused painted on his leather who I never talked to. To the best of my knowledge I was the only punk rocker in the class of '91. Now it seems like half the student body is punk or hardcore kids. I guess that explains how trendy punk is now days or perhaps it reflects the punk scene as more of a middle and upper class thing than in the past. I've also noticed lots of beautiful girls who dress punk but wear platform shoes. What the fuck is up with that? Punk is a way of life not an outfit, put the platforms on the shelf with the fat pants or go back to dressing like a preppie. Anyway, this is all indicative of how extensively punk has been co-opted and assimilated into the establishment. These must be the "smart punks" that Livermore advocated, as they come from the Green Day crop. The one effect of having so many punk kids involved in the universities seems to be the imposition of middle class liberal values on the punk scene. Punk's rebellious spirit, radical thrust and irreverence have been smothered by polite adherence to a code of conduct that belongs in a residence hall not a punk show. I guess this has all been said before, but I'm not the guy you expect to hear it from. I resent the attempts of new comers to punk rock to impose their politically correct agenda on hardcore and censure those who do not fit into the latest party line. I frequently challenge these zealots to check in with me in ten years to see if they still keep the faith. I have both been called a PC fascist and accused people of being PC fascists. I am not willing to tolerate racist or homophobic bands in the name of "free speech" but I refuse to make punk rock follow some set of rules or have a code of conduct at a show. Punk is all about chaos and tearing down the establishment. There is still room in punk rock for the irreverent, sarcastic and retarded, provided its not taken too seriously. As I've said before I'd rather listen to a good punk band with nothing to say than some deep and meaningful band that sounds like Bananarama or Weather Report. Its always the self righteous college kids who want to ban slam dancing or boycott the Quincy Punx. I wonder where their interest in or understanding of punk rock comes from. As if we were all doing it wrong for 20 years and now some sociology undergrad is going to correct it for us. I remember the Emma Center, a local anarchist community center that also hosted punk shows. The membership was about split between political punks and "activist" type college kids, all of whom seemed to have been from upper class backgrounds. They were always making rules for shows that no one could follow and launching into ridiculous controversies. The big picture was lost completely as a group of anarchists who could have been making real change in society instead wasted their time having debates over ridiculous topics such as: whether or not to allow leather pants to be worn at EMMA or if the Civil Disobedience 7" and Assuck t shirts were racist. As if this made any difference to the people of the world at all. I have a flash back to those days every time I hear some one come up with the great idea of "not allowing" stage diving, or swearing at a show. Punk won't follow your rules.
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The Fall of DC Hardcore
<p>
I recently read Ian Mackaye's interview in Revelation's book "All Ages". I have a lot of respect for Ian and I loved Minor Threat who will live in history as one of the greatest and most influential of all hardcore bands. However, I really have to question the actions of Ian and the Dischord elite in the mid 80's. I was there as DC went from having one of the greatest hardcore scenes in the world to having the worst. DC was the birthplace of Hardcore and Straight Edge but by 1986-87 there were pretty much no bands left playing hardcore in DC. Most of us true fans started listening to Boston or foreign hardcore to get our fix. According to Ian the view of the Dischord elite was that the aggressive hardcore music had attracted a violent following, namely skinheads, who had ruined the sense of community and fun of the early hardcore scene. I would totally agree with that premise. In the early 80's DC Hardcore was like a secret society. Punk had not crossed over into the mainstream even a fraction of how it has today. I was interested in punk music for some time before I was able to find out about shows and local bands. As hardcore grew in popularity, the elite secret society feeling was lost and a ton of fresh faced suburban kids (including myself) flooded into the hardcore scene. Some of those kids brought their redneck and jock mentalities with them and in no time at all DC had a problem with violent skinheads. I might add that this same process was underway in New York, California and elsewhere in the late 80's. The DC skinheads were not Nazi skins in fact they were racially mixed and their titular leader was a Black woman. However, they were totally down with beating up punks, gays and foreigners. It always seemed to me to be pretty random whether a city had a skinhead scene that was Nazi or Pro-American Anti Racist. In most cases it was the same mentality with a different set of patches on the flight jacket and a different color shoelace. I remember going to shows and seeing twenty skinheads terrorize two hundred punk kids. Shit, after being terrorized and harassed everyday in the suburbs the last place I want to go to get pushed around by society's thugs is at a punk show. By 1985-86 the punk scene in DC was huge. If you went to a Bad Brains or Dead Kennedys show at WUST it was packed to the rafters, easily a couple of thousand kids attended those shows. And there was a lot of violence. The favorite tactics of skinheads in those days (I'm sure these have been handed down for decades) were as follows. 1. Walk around and scope out kids wearing Doc Martens or flight jackets, then a mob of skins would demand the boots or jacket. If the kid chose to fight it was always at skinhead odds, ten or fifteen to one. 2. Send skinhead girls out to pick a fight, this always resulted in a mob of skinheads stomping someone ten on one for "fucking with our women". 3. Stand in the middle of the circle pit and pick out the smallest and weakest slam dancers, then fuck with them until it was of course ten or fifteen skinheads stomping them 4. Hang out in Dupont Circle and wait for gays, or foreigners (especially guys in turbans) to walk past, then follow them and stomp them ten on one. How did the scene react? It didn't it just slowly died out.
<p>In All Ages Ian tells about how the reaction of the Dischord elite was to start a "new" improved scene that would be happy and free of violence. This was to be accomplished by turning their backs on hardcore and playing wimpy college rock music! Well I say fuck that shit! Hardcore in DC was WORTH SAVING! DC could still have a world class hardcore scene today if the leadership of the scene had chosen to set an example and take a stand against violence and bigotry in the scene. Without anything to rally around the thousands of isolated suburban punk kids drifted into crossover, mainstream society, or worse joined up with the skinheads out of fear. As I said before I went to all the Embrace, Rites of Spring, Beefeater, Gray Matter etc. shows. Those bands weren't bad I guess. Live they had some emotion and power that seemed to make up for the lack of hard driving sound. But the bands, which arose to imitate them, were all college rock schlock. Even my favorites Government Issue started playing like REM style. Black Market Baby broke, the Bad Brains started to suck, Faith, Void and Iron Cross broke up leaving us with Hyena and Ignition?! Scream continued but their hard rock influence really smothered their HC punk roots. Hardcore in DC was finished by 1987. The new school of Straight Edge that came out of New York in 1988 inspired some new bands but they of course played in the New York style, unconscious of DC's Hardcore roots. I write this over ten years after I left DC and I can't think of a single Hardcore band from that town worth a shit since 1984. If you ask me the last true DC Hardcore record is Government Issues "Joy Ride" LP. Everything after falls in to that abysmal "post hardcore" category, Rites of Spring gets like honorable mention 'cos they really did have a certain energy that could only come from the soul. Everything else sunk further and further into post punk mediocrity and artsy pretension. All of my friends from those days are long gone from punk. Some of the most talented stayed in the music scene. My best friend from second grade on wound up cutting off his mohawk ditching his studded jacket and singing for Nation of Ulysses and the Make Up. Another high school class mate from my 'hood later sang for Dag Nasty, Swiz and Sweetbelly Freakdown. My ex girlfriend books raves. The rest are gone and long forgotten, driven out of a scene that was supposed to be the rallying point for the disaffected, disenfranchised and alienated youth. I still run into ex-punks from DC (like one of the women in Delta 72) who tell me that they were totally into punk until they or their best friend got beaten up by skinheads and they had to find a different, safer scene to hang out in. All those people could have contributed a lot to hardcore. Instead, we let a few thugs ruin the best hardcore scene in the world. The message here. Don't tolerate a redneck mentality in your scene. When macho thugs try to bully kids at a show its time to TAKE A STAND. The scene is about us and it's only as good as we make it. Don't turn your back because you don't like the direction things are going in FIGHT TO MAKE A CHANGE.

Publication Date:
January 1, 1988

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