Hardcore
DRI live in 1984, doing more hardcore tunes in 4 minutes than I can keep track of.
When people wonder why I didn’t really care about Nirvana and Pearl Jam, DRI is a pretty good explanation. These guys are kind of emblematic of early 80s hardcore: out of control speed, lyrics boiling over with spitting fury at the very notion of “authority”, and almost deliberately ugly chord progressions. A number of the songs from this video are on 1984’s “Dealing With It” album, which borrowed forever from Stu in… well when it was new in 1984. I used to listen to the anti-war anthem I Don’t Need Society before school when I wanted to be in a bad mood. The song-ending “FUCK YOU!!!” never failed to get me where I wanted to be before I slouched out the door to wait in the goddamn snow for the goddamn bus and hope goddamn Steve Dougherty didn’t decide to kick my ass that day.
Bad Brains, “Right Brigade”
I can’t even begin to count how many times I saw these guys live in Providence, how many nights in the old Living Room parking lot hanging out with other punks and hardcore kids. There were tons of us in Rhode Island, from all over the state. The Black Wensday kids from Newport. Jeff Dupree and Kelly Bray and the whole crowd from Middletown and Little Compton. The Narragansett kids, like Rob Phelps, Justine Demetrick, Chrissy Cherms, Danny Dyer, Maggie Whose Name I Forget. The Providence crowd. Rhode Island was lousy with hardcore kids, the home of Verbal Assault (who I went to high school with), and the more well-known Throwing Muses (whose younger brothers and sisters I went to high school with, and whose original 45s I think Tim still has).
The Rhode Island hardcore scene is kind of an untold story.
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August 17th, 2007 at 1:14 am
[...] Contact the Webmaster Link to Article youtube Hardcore » Posted at Brendan Calling - I hear the voices, and I read the [...]
August 18th, 2007 at 12:06 am
how do you feel about RATM? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m0pad7a3qg
August 18th, 2007 at 5:07 am
Vicious Circle and Positive Outlook were probably the most criminally undocumented out of all those Newport hardcore bands. I think Boofish might have a copy of the WRIU session Positive Outlook did. “Dyin’ For Bevs,” “Johnny St. John,” and those crazy instrumentals that they’d concoct … just classic. My oldest tapes from those days are long gone. Verbal Assault recently reissued most of their early recordings on CD, including The Masses, which was the demo tape they made out of their own WRIU session when Nicky Barbato was still drumming for them.
I was at work tonight talking with some co-workers about the upcoming Sam Black Church reunion. They’re doing it at The Roxy with Darkbuster, Unearth, and Madball. Talk about the makings of a bloodbath. At any rate, it got me thinking about Madball, and by extension, Agnostic Front. What is nuts is that your dad took us to see AF and the Adolescents just shy of 20 YEARS AGO. TWENTY. Christ. Roger Miret, who had dealt with his own drug-related battles and incarceration, announced “Bomber Zee” as “(their) straight edge song.” Do you remember helping scrape Tony Cadena from the Adolescents off the stage at Lupo’s? (I think he was hamming it up for effect, but it was a great image of total punk abandon that sticks with me to this day) I’ve got some photos somewhere from that night. You, me, Mr. Bray, Justine, Kelly Burlingame, Sean Green… Kinsellas had to be in attendance. I remember watching Rushia Wiggins (RIP) interview Miret that night after the bands were done. Your dad was patient and observant (hanging in back under the basketball hoop, I think) and I still recall how pissed off he was after that illegal drunk driving trap the cops had going in Barrington.