Firstly, from the 'American Hardcore' documentary, Keith
Morris and Vic Bondi “go off”...
...leads
us neatly into this gloriously grainy footage of Black Flag tearing
through 'Rise Above'. With, as was the way of
things, ample audience participation...
Next
up, a hardcore anthem if ever there was, 'Drink Deep'
by the short-lived but perpetually influential Rites of Spring.(And
source of our title quote.)
...and
last, but by no means least, an inexplicably suited-up Minutemen
playing 'History Lesson – Part II'...
Keith
Morris is right of course, that was what it was.
The stuff Mark E Smith called “R+R as primal scream”. But let's
focus on that last clip for a second, what about the Minutemen?
“Punk
rock changed our lives.” Such heady words, can they actually be
backed up by anything? After all, detractors commonly claim the
politics in punk songs was crude, naïve and sloganistic. Which it
normally was. But, really, they're missing the point! I've often
laughed out loud at the earnest imbecility of punk lyrics, yet loved
the very same song.
These
were songs, not political treatises. Perhaps the
most classic hardcore lyric of all was by Ignition, “I know what my
anger means.” Punk was a means to articulate something inside you.
Punk songs did for you what spinach did for Popeye. Ther archetypal
hardcore band Bad Brains formed after the singer read a self-help
tract 'Positive Mental Attitude.' Like most punk
stories, that's absurd – but fittingly absurd.
Since
the blues days, singers and musicians had tended to change their
names – McKinley Morganfield becoming Muddy Waters and all the rest
of it. Those were something more than stage names, I can't imagine
anyone other than his mother still called Muddy 'McKinley'. But with
punk the audiences often changed their names too. Punk was a step
towards self-transformation. The first step towards not accepting the
world as it was - that was not accepting you as you were. From that
point on the watch-words were “question everything” and “be
self-reliant.” The hardcore resource guide everybody was expected
to read was called 'Book Your Own Fucking Life'.
And
that's what it's all about. We didn't come out of that the people who
went in. It did what it said on the lid. Punk rock changed our lives.
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