Publication:
HeartttaCk

Author:
Felix Von Havoc

HeartAttack #27
Top Ten:

DS 13 One sided 7"
Australian Hardcore
Japanese Hardcore
Calloused/Shitlist split LP
Skitzo ep
Severed Head of State ep
The novels of Joseph Conrad
Rose Tattoo-first two LPs
Turbonegro Ass Cobra
Spazm 151 live

First the good news. After calling it quits a while back the Profane Existence collective has decided to re-form for the purpose of publishing Profane Existence magazine again. I started writing for Heart Attack after leaving PE a few years ago. Now the new PE is up and running I've been invited to contribute and I’m stoked about it. Despite my writing for MRR and Heart Attack the anarcho punk scene covered in PE is where I always preferred to hang my hat so as long as the reborn PE lasts I'm going to be a part of it. The bad news is that this will be my last regular contribution to Heart Attack, you can still read my columns in MRR, PE and on the Havoc Records web site. In the last two years Code 13 has played gigs in 23 different countries with some awesome bands and met some incredible people. All this because the DIY punk scene is growing stronger all the time. As the commercial scum rises to the top the underground is left more intact and cohesive than it ever has been. Those of us who are in it for the long haul have sat out the sell outs and now that the 90's commercial punk trend has blown over we are back to where we were in 89-90 but with a stronger, more organized scene than ever before. Until the next round of trend mongering and major label feeding frenzy we are in the clear to build our movement and make it stronger. See you in the pit. Felix Havoc.

I guess I got a little mixed up last issue and talked about drag racing when we were actually supposed to talk about the other kind of race issues. I actually was really interested to read the views of a lot of the contributors. There are a few things I want to bring up. One is Class. There is as much discrimination and inequality in America by class as by race. We poor white trash are hated and feared and most people only care about us when they need their car fixed, their roof is leaking or there is a war to be fought. A lot of people talk about how punk is a white middle class form of rebellion, explain to me then why punk is so popular in Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Israel, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, China, Mexico, Brazil, Columbia, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, etc etc etc. White people don't exactly have a monopoly on musical expression of angst and rebellion. Furthermore, America is well on the way to being a majority Latino country, and the big political battle of the mid 21st century will probably be over making America bi-lingual. A lot of places in America (like almost every neighborhood I've ever lived in) whites have been the minority for a long time. I think a lot of this stuff goes a lot deeper than many people are willing to admit on the surface. And altogether Americans allow themselves to be divided up by race time and time again instead of uniting by class against the system.

This month I want to talk about a powerhouse of a record that belongs in your collection. B'last Power of Expression. I get the feeling B'last were always big in Cali but outside of California they were frequently written off as "Black Flag wannabes." However, I think if you give this record a few more listens you will see that it owes almost as much to Corrosion of Conformity as it does to Black Flag. Indeed, I could no better describe B'last's sound that to say it’s the perfect blend of COC and Black Flag. How can I get so riled up over an album so derivative? Give it a spin and you'll see. This album rages non stop, pure power start to finish and not one weak track. Indeed, as far as raging power goes I think these guys had more energy than all but a few of the best Black Flag releases. The riffage is pretty Flag inspired with these crazy guitar leads that alternately sound like the work of Greg Ginn or Woody Weatherman. The Power of Expression LP came out in 86 or 87 on SST, back when that label occasionally still released hardcore. Some of the songs on this album are painfully slow by today's standards of hardcore but with a raw power that makes them super powerful and driving. "The Future" and "Time Waits" are especially full on assaults of concentrated mayhem, and you can hear the passion behind the music and the lyrics. Looking for some corroboration on my love of B'last I wrote Kent and asked him if he'd ever seen B'last. He replied:

<blockquote>
Yeah, I saw Blast a LOT. I have probably seen them over 25 times. They were one of the best live bands I ever saw. I also saw them once when they were a five piece with the original guitarist from COC playing second guitar (this was in September of 1986). I fucking loved them and still listen to them a LOT. I used to think that they were better than Black Flag, but at the very end Blast got really shitty. I did a few shows with them in the end and they were complete losers; not just as people but as a band. They simply lost the crazy edge that made their live shows insane and they became sort of a parody of themselves.

Blast was never a SE band. They had to write those SE songs in order to release a record on Wishing Well. Pat wouldn't let them do it otherwise.
</blockquote>

So I'm not alone. Like I said I don't think Bl'ast was so well known outside of Cali. And I think a lot of people thougth they were an SE band in period when it wasn't very cool to be SE. Remember this is before Youth of Today got popular and spearheaded the whole new school of SEHC. But, as Kent has pointed out they were not an SE band at all. And here we always thought this was one of the lost records between old and new school SE. I mean come on, who was claiming SE in 1986? I sure wasn't. There was maybe Justice League, and maybe a few kids thought Seven Seconds were still SE. On too Bl'ast's lyrics. These are somewhat deep and personal while still very thoughtful, relevant and inspiring. When I first got this LP I was mostly listening to bands like Crucifix, Discharge, Conflict and the Subhumans. I didn't have a whole lot of time for bands that didn't directly comment on nuclear war, police oppression and multinational corporations. But now, over ten years later I realize that these are some of the better introspective lyrics I've read in the hardcore scene. The feeling of alienation so commonly expressed in hardcore lyrics is most apparent, the whole idea of the world being doomed, turning your back on society and the rat race to skate and play music. However, there is also the call to action, the plea to make a change such as in "The Future".

"Must we live our lives in fear
Are we helpless-are we slaves
I will not accept the fact
That we can't hold this nightmare back
I won't stand silently by
I know I at least have to
Try to spark some incentive and
Try to keep and open minds and
Try to think towards the future
Because I will not live a lie

Youth must now stand up and say
No one can take our future away"

I doubt this is still in print on vinyl but I saw a CD version not too many years ago. I know some of the ex members are involved in new projects like Black Out and Spaceboy but I can't imagine any of them can do justice to the monumental piece of Hardcore that is the Power of Expression LP.

Lastly I'd like to comment on a few things Bryan Alft said last issue about being ruled by debt. You don't have to be ruled by debt. I see lots of young people taking out insane loans to go to school, buy cars, travel etc. Not to mention the crazy trouble people get themselves into with credit cards these days. They give away credit cards on college campuses the way they used to give out rubbers at discos. The number one reason for kids dropping out of college today is credit card debt. I am proud of my White Trash heritage and one of the things I inherited from a long line of farmers and soldiers was the Protestant Work Ethic. This sounds totally square but hard work, thrift, and perseverance, are some of my core values. I never borrowed money to attend college. Sure I went to a boring Land Grant University. Since my paerents were low income I qualified for the maximum Pell Grant which was pretty good in the mid to late 80's but I got cut off in 1990. After that I just worked my way through school working in a screenprinting shop. I graduated debt free, which freed me to be a drunk and fuck up for several years before settling down to a career in construction and punk records. OK, my life is not glamorous, I drive an old pickup truck, I live in a seedy neighborhood that is totally unhip, I wear second hand work clothes and eat lots of rice and ramen. However, I bought the building I call home (a run down commercial building that used to be an upholstery shop) and renovated both as living space and work space for my label and construction business. I bought on a contract for deed and paid it off in five years. I bought 20 acres in northern Minnesota for my secret survivalist retreat and that too is almost paid off. I contrast this to most of the people I went to college with who by now are probably hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and have their life tied up and planned for the next thirty years. I have a credit card, but I pay it off every month like clockwork a few days before the due date. I think I've only carried a balance month to month two or three times, and those were emergencies. The point here is that just because America is cramming its debt oriented consumer culture down your throat you don't have to buy it. You don't need all the garbage they want you to buy. No one benefits from getting you in debt except corporations and big business. You don't have to be a slave to the system.

Publication Date:
January 1, 1988

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