I had some friends who were punk fans (rich, white, suburban fans, but fans nonetheless), back in the day, and they hipped me to some of the big dogs of punk:  7 Seconds, Minor Threat, The Circle Jerks…

My punk choices leaned more toward Anthrax, Bad Brains and Nuclear Assault.  (NA does a great cover of Zeppelin’s “Good Times Bad Times”.) 

When I was working in radio, I saw Rollins live and was thoroughly unimpressed.  Corrosion of Conformity and Helmet opened - now, that fucking rocked!

I like some of Black Flag, but I saw Rollins beat up a guy in a club one time who had done nothing to him, so I really don’t like him. And his “poetry” is godawful. Talk about a self-parody.

But I liked some thrash bands. Jodie Foster’s Army, anyone? And Meat Puppets aren’t exactly hardcore, but I do love them.

I saw the Minutemen play in a club about a month before D. Boon died. I’m glad I did that. Makes up for the times I passed on seeing bands for some stupid reason or another and then somebody died or they broke up. (Yeah, like studying for a trig final was more important than seeing the Jam!)

You sure do spend a lot of time over at Joe’s Pizzeria and Gym, Kevin.

Couldn’t stand punk, though knew a lot of folks growing up in NYC who couldn’t get enough of the stuff (and are probably deaf now). Was more of a Techno girl (Thomas Dolby, Thompson Twins, Depeche Mode, the Cure, P-Furs, the list goes on and on).

Damn, I never did see the Minutemen.  One of the great musical regrets of my life. fIREHOSE did an acoustic performance on my college radio show right after Ragin’, Full-On came out, so I guess that kinda makes up for it. They were really nice guys.

JFA, hell yeah, I remember them. Regarding the Meat Puppets, their debut and Meat Puppets II definitely qualify as hardcore, though II veers off a lot into other terrain. I love the hell outta that record. “Split Myself in Two” is one of my favorite loud n’ fast songs ever.

kevin, my sympathies, but hey - awesome video!!!

I will always love black flag, and henry too

J., my musical tastes run all over the place, but I could never get into new wave.  My college radio station was steeped in it when I first came on board, but the next musical director started introducing hardcore and indie stuff which worked for me (out of high school I was heavily into the Stones, Neil Young, etc.). I have, however, developed a fondness for the Psychedelic Furs later in life, though.  I was just listening to them a few days ago. Really like Butler’s voice.

I will always love black flag, and henry too

Yeppers, lovely missmira.  I’ll always love the Flag.  They were my “first.”

Any Replacements fans here?  I can’t get enough of those Rhino Twin/Tone reissues. Like the Meat Puppets they mellowed out after a few releases, but Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash is not only one of my favorite hardcore albums, but one of my favorite albums of all-time. Very few albums are as fast and fun as that one. Stink tears it up real nice, too.

I love me some Dead Kennedys, which perplexes the jazz-loving Mr. Cracker, so I can only listen to my beloved Holiday in Cambodia when he’s not home. Once when young Miss Cracker was a toddler, she greeted her father at the door by dancing around and shrieking “Pol Pot! Pol Pot! Pol Pot!” I had some ‘splainin’ to do.

Well, my take on punk comes down to me asking betty who Johnny rotten was. That’s about it.

betty - I love you

Dead Kennedy - Any of them.
Descendents - Milo Goes to College
Husker Du - Zen Arcade
Naked Raygun - All Rise

I’ve been meaning to buy those Replacements reissues….

Yeah, I meant more that the Meat Puppets didn’t stay exclusively hardcore.

I only saw the ‘Mats once, but it was a great show—not one where they were all too fucked up to play. And I think “Bastards of Young” is the best rock song ever written.

I’ve been meaning to buy those Replacements reissues

Germ, you should definitely pick ‘em up.  I already had a few of ‘em on CD and all of them on vinyl, but they’re so worth getting. The only one w/ less than stellar extra tracks is Hootenanny but the remastering is worth it for all of them. And the packaging. Just a great job overall by Rhino.

I only saw the ‘Mats once, but it was a great show—not one where they were all too fucked up to play.

I saw them once where they were somewhere in between and it was a great show. I remember Bob Stinson was outside after it wasted and wearing a dress and an overly-aggressive woman was visibly trying to pick him up and I heard him chirp something like “...but I’m married.”

I’m living in a city where punk and hardcore bands never swing by to play shows, so I’ve tried sedating the need with Youtube.  It’s really not the same.

I saw a Patti Smith concert once, and she vomited on stage, whether from drugs, booze or just the flu, I don’t know. But the next day, some enterprising soul made a small fortune selling “I SAW PATTI PUKE” t-shirts.

I saw them twice and was disappointed both times. One was with Bob in New Haven on the Tim(?) tour and the other was with Slim Dunlap.  I remember being bored to tears that second show. It was on the Don’t Tell A Soul tour. All I could think was don’t worry, I won’t.

My sister took me to see the ‘Mats (post Tim) like three times at the old Ritz in NYC. Some really, really great shows. Ah, guzzling jugs of cheap wine in Astor Place to avoid the overpriced beers, good times.

I was visiting a friend in Berkeley the night the Pogues kicked off their tour with Dylan. About two songs in (we were up pretty high in the Coliseum, so it took us a while), we turned to each other and said “Um, that’s not Shane singing.” Yup. Shane was “sick” and missed his flight. Actually, the funniest part was watching the Berkeley Dylan hippies snake-dancing to the Pogues. And the next-funniest part was when one of said hippies pointed to the t-shirt my friend had on (the cover image of “If I Should Fall From Grace With God”), right at the picture of James Joyce in the middle of the band, and asked “What instrument does he play?”

“The English language,” my friend replied.

I did see them the next month in Chicago and he was there and semi-coherent. Shane, I mean—not Joyce!

I saw Patti on the Gone Again tour—first time I ever saw her. She was fabulous. Her son Jackson, who was probably 13 at the time, came out and played “Smoke on the Water” on guitar while she sang. Somebody started screaming “I love you!” over and over at her. She just smiled, leaned into the back, and breathily replied “Too bad.”

Leaned into the “mike,” not the “back.” Yeesh.

X baby. Which is to say the band X, not some made up group named X baby, which I suppose could actually exist but I don’t know nothin’ about it if they do.

Anyway, my vote for bestest band of that era.

X

Also loved Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and the punkier edition of The Clash. This could go on for days, couldn’t it?

But the next day, some enterprising soul made a small fortune selling “I SAW PATTI PUKE” t-shirts.

How much money did you make? :-)

It’s tough being me.

I will never forget the first time I heard Holiday in Cambodia.

And neither will my mom.

(“Turn that down!!”)

Hee.

This stuff I’ll name might not be considered strictly hardcore by everyone, but anyway: Two ‘80’s favorites of mine, both on the Touch & Go label, are Scratch Acid and Die Kreuzen. Haven’t heard the latter’s records in years, I wonder if anything’s available these days (I just checked Amazon, yes, a couple old albums are.) I have a Scratch Acid compilation titled THE GREATEST GIFT that includes all their recordings, and still sounds real good to me. A couple members, folks here will know, were later in Jesus Lizard, so that might be considered a version of the same band.
Another favorite ‘80’s band, on SST, is Saccharine Trust. I don’t think these guys ever got their due. The singer, you’ll recall maybe, had a kind of ‘beat poet crossed with crazed hellfire evangelist’ routine, not really a parody and a bit scary. Best album is probably SURVIVING YOU ALWAYS, though the later WE BECAME SNAKES is also a contender. I also used to like another band on SST called Wurm, pretty close to metal as I recall, but that may have been a Black Flag spinoff project or something.

Also very much liked the album PUSSY GALORE RIGHT NOW! back in the old days. I must admit, though, I’ve never heard much by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion or whatever that band was called. Are they good? Used to have a couple records by the other PG spinoff, Boss Hogg, but those were mostly memorable for the girl singer’s pictures on the covers.

Betty, I think you’ve come up with a great new product idea for toddlers: The Pol Pottie!

Also very much liked the album PUSSY GALORE RIGHT NOW! back in the old days. I must admit, though, I’ve never heard much by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion or whatever that band was called. Are they good? Used to have a couple records by the other PG spinoff, Boss Hogg, but those were mostly memorable for the girl singer’s pictures on the covers.

Some of the earlier JSBE stuff is really good.  I went to a show of his a few years ago and it was packed with fratboy meathead types, so I’ve had a hard time listening to him since then. I’d recommend either Orange or Extra Width.

One of the best shows I’ve ever seen was a Pussy Galore opening for Big Black in Providence, CT.  Drove through a blizzard from CT in my beatup Plymouth ‘64 Fury convertible (w/ taped up back window) to get to it. Totally worth it.

I’d tell you my great story about Scratch Acid’s David Yow, but I really have to get some lunch in me.

Thanks for the recommendation. Your description of fratboys at a JSBE show reminds me of a little anecdote from probably about 1987. I was hanging around a record store near the campus area of Ohio State, talking with the record store owner and some other people, and he mentioned that a local club had mistakenly scheduled Wang Chung and the Butthole Surfers for the same night. Someone said, facetiously, “Why not just have a double bill?”

I kind of lost track of some bands I had liked in the transition from vinyl to CDs, which for me didn’t happen until the early ‘90’s (or was it mid-‘90’s?) I think for a while there, I just didn’t hear a lot of new records. If I remember right, this coincided with the period of time in which a lot of bands on independent labels had gotten major label contracts. As I think you’ll recall, fair or not, an assumption developed among some listeners that getting on a major label usually brought a steep drop in inspiration for the lucky band. Sometimes I think I’d like to check out some of those later records by certain bands that I just never got around to hearing, fIREHOSE, Sonic Youth, Babes in Toyland, Replacements, Husker Du, who else…

This isn’t about hardcore, but I’ll mention that I enjoy the CHILDREN OF NUGGETS set of ‘60’s garage-psychedelia influenced ‘80’s bands more than I had expected to when I got it (others have differed with me on this score, however.) Sure, some of it’s cheese whiz, but there’s also some decent stuff on there by old bands I often knew about back in the day but didn’t follow.

Anyway, if you feel like relating it, I’d like to hear your David Yow story.

Yes, the David Yow story!  I have a full belly now, so I can spill the beans.

my friend Alisa and I were worried because the Hudson isn’t something you want to get thrown into

not only are you super cool, but also a sweety! this not news of course.

ps. Big Black: songs about fucking - shit yeah! just don’t sprain yourself listening to that at the gym!

pps. I hate you for being so cool

Do you hate the gym, Kevin?  Do you hate it with a cold, precise, impotent fury?

And while we’re reminiscing about the Minutemen, sort of, I missed seeing them, but I did see Mike Watt’s super-secret all-star tour in the early nineties.  Five dollars in a five hundred seat club and his backing band was Pat Smear, Dave Grohl, and Eddie Vedder.  I’m not normally a fan of the Vedder, but one of the opening acts was he and his wife and Pat Smear playing droney intrumental Velvet Underground stuff.  He wore a Beatle wig and played drums.  Bizarre, but fun.  And Mike Watt just absolutely blew me away.  Good show.

Oh also, I know this is true for half of you commenting on here, but the drummer for Alice Donut sells me my wine.  One more reason to love Brooklyn.

Do you hate the gym, Kevin?  Do you hate it with a cold, precise, impotent fury?

Yes.  All of that.