by MARK SLUTSKY

Purists still debate whether punk rock came into being in the United States in the mid-1970s, birthed by Iggy Pop, the Ramones and Punk magazine, or whether its origins more properly belong across the pond in the U.K., where the antics of the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Damned pushed it into the media spotlight.

But one thing is for certain: By the early ’80s in North America, a movement had grown out of a particular mutation of punk’s DNA. Hardcore punk, represented by groups like Bad Brains, D.O.A., Minor Threat, Circle Jerks and dozens, if not hundreds of others, was a pared-down, aggressive, cathartic variant of the music, driven by anger and intense creativity. Uniquely unconstrained by the excesses of the music biz, hardcore treasured independence and the spirit of DIY, its influence can still be felt today, not only musically, but in the “book your own fucking life” mentality of the indie underground.

Despite its clear impact on youth culture, though, the story of hardcore has yet to be really told, at least to a mainstream audience, which is where the new documentary American Hardcore comes in. Director Paul Rachman grew up in the Boston hardcore scene and went on to be a music video director and one of the founders of the Slamdance film festival; Steven Blush booked shows for bands in D.C. and eventually wrote the book American Hardcore: A Tribal History, which the film is based on. The voluble pair, still clearly in love with the subject, spoke to the Mirror at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

Mirror: How did you first get into hardcore?

Paul Rachman: I was a college kid in Boston from 1978–’82. Come 1980, there was kind of this commercial buzz about New Wave. New Wave was so big in Boston, you know? Not just record company New Wave, but local college New Wave. It was really disheartening—I didn’t dress in pink and I didn’t wear spiky hair and it just wasn’t me. And I really was totally over everything that came before that.

So I went to this little art gallery/garage kind of place called the Gallery East. We saw bands like Gang Green, the F.U.s, S.S. Decontrol—those kind of Boston bands, and it changed my life. Not only did I hear this screeching loud scream coming from the suburbs, I could feel it in my gut and feel it on my skin! That’s when I picked up a camera and started shooting Super-8—thinking about film school and wanting to participate in this and shoot film of it. So that’s where I got turned on. My roommate at the time was actually the hardcore punk promoter in Boston, so when all the bands came through town, my roommate set up the shows! That included Bad Brains, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, all those bands. And Steven did the same thing in D.C.

Steven Blush: Yeah, I was the D.C. kid who you’d call for shows. Those bands would crash on my floor, and all those kinds of things. And we knew each other because of this connection that Paul’s describing. You know, for me, it was seeing Black Flag in 1981, right before Henry Rollins joined the band. I was in college in Washington D.C., so I saw Bad Brains, but Black Flag was so life-changing to me, and I think for so many people—the idea that here was this band with a totally different kind of music.

I mean we were all huge fans of punk rock, the original bands: The Clash, the Sex Pistols and all that. But that wasn’t us. We didn’t have mohawks and we weren’t artists and we weren’t “on the dole.” We didn’t even know what that meant! We were just suburban kids who were jacked on this music. And punk was great! But it was still essentially rock ’n’ roll. The Sex Pistols were like the craziest version of Chuck Berry, you know? And seeing Black Flag was like a total deconstruction—there was no verse-chorus. There was no three-minute song.

You know, I feel like all the really life-changing moments are things you don’t understand at the time. I remember it took me like a week to process this. I couldn’t get it out of my head! And I ended up diving into this rich local scene we had happening with Minor Threat, and Bad Brains, and I ended up booking Minor Threat shows, and it was just this whole wave of stuff.

And in the meantime Paul had a similar situation. We were both college kids trying to live a normal life-path and suddenly this music comes and just throws a fucking wrench in it! And you’re never the same again. And every value—every lesson—every pathway was suddenly blown up. It was a mindfuck. You know, the scene just kind of fizzled out, because we all grew up and moved on, blah blah blah, but by the mid-’90s I realized how much this music had changed me as a person, and that’s how we get to the book and to the film.

PR: I mean, really, we became part of this youth underground movement. It was more than just a scene. It was a national movement, and we were part of it. It was about connecting to other bands, and other kids, in other towns across the country, way before the Internet, way before cell phones, way before all that shit. There was something about being part of this antagonistic, dissonant, loud non-music that spoke to us. And then, you know, everywhere and everyone that we went to were just instantly offended by it! It was fun! It was, “Wow, here I am, part of something so unique, so different, with a lot of balls, and it just feels right. I don’t know why, but it feels right.”

Fan-friendly

M: One of the things that’s so interesting about hardcore is that it seemed to be one of the first scenes, or youth movements, to really willfully blur the line between the artist, the producer and the fans.

SB: Well, you know, when we came up, rock was some genius playing a guitar solo in an arena, and you’re standing in the last row, trying to imitate him with an air guitar. Every musician was a “genius,” and untouchable, and larger-than-life. We didn’t buy into that.

I think that’s what’s so incredible about punk and particularly as it developed into hardcore. At a hardcore show there was no backstage, no security. You just went up and talked to Black Flag and Bad Brains, and they would impart knowledge to you. I remember one time hanging out with Black Flag and them talking about success in non-economic terms. And that was just so mind-boggling to me to hear. So empowering to have this band come up to you and tell you that you could be successful without being a millionaire!

That is a real life path. You talk about the ethics of hardcore: it’s do-it-yourself, cynicism toward authority, and it’s just going for it and to hell with everything else, and living your life how you want to. All those things that we learned from hardcore were in total contrast—conflict!—to what we had learned growing up. So it was really an amazing movement. I mean, the idea of independent labels, of doing it yourself, of stage-diving and slam-dancing! That’s all the legacy of hardcore. That comes out of Black Flag and Bad Brains, a few other bands and nobody else.

Less money, fewer problems

M: An interesting idea that hardcore transmitted, which you barely see any more, seems to be that the less money you had the more freedom you could have, rather than the other way around.

PR: Money wasn’t the driving force. You found a way to get to the next town. You found a place to sleep on the floor, you found a place to play and that’s what drove it: this network of people you rely on who were there to help you. You knew that if you were on the road at three in the morning between St. Louis and Chicago, and there was some gig on the way in Indianapolis, you knew that you could probably crash on someone’s floor. You show up at 4:30 in the morning and there’s a place to sleep; you didn’t even have to ask. You knew that floor was open to you and you relied on it, and you trusted it, and it’s that ethic that really sustained this camaraderie and respect, and really helped the movement sustain itself. It was like the barter system.

SB: One of our Boston friends was telling us that one time someone showed up at their house. They open their door and there’s a band there. They’re like, “Who are you?” and they’re like, “We’re SNFU.”

“Well what are you doing here?” And they’re like, “We heard when you come to Boston you can crash here!” And then it was okay! That’s the way it was. It’s really kind of hard to describe that to people today because it just sounds so alien.

Paul and I both went on tour with bands in the early and mid-’80s, and it was so—if you had enough gas money you were doing okay. If you had enough money for gas to get from one town to another, you were doing okay. Because at least you knew when you got to the next town you’d get another $50, a place to crash, maybe sell a couple singles, a couple T-shirts…

PR: And you’d steal your food! Chris Doherty [Gang Green, Jerry’s Kids] talks about how you’d stop by the supermarket, get the cheese, get the bread, get the ham, get the coke and that’s it, you know? Get in the van and get the hell out of there! That was lunch, breakfast and dinner!

M: In the film, Henry Rollins talks about how when he was actually able to afford a chocolate bar he’d have to then clean the chocolate off his teeth so the other guys wouldn’t notice.

SB: Yeah, and that’s like the height of Black Flag! That’s not like the beginning, that’s like at the height of the band! That’s like 1984–85 he’s talking about. That’s what makes these bands heroes, they fought convention and they stood strong in the face of adversity. That, to me, is what the definition of a hero is.

No support

PR: There was no support system. It wasn’t even there if you wanted it! There was no Internet, there was no MySpace, there was no kind of do-it-yourself tool that was readily available for everyone to use.

M: You couldn’t just e-mail all your friends—

PR: No, there was no way of doing that, you know? So that’s what made it so… so visceral. So people-oriented. It’s not some machine helping you, it’s actually some kid somewhere you’ve never met who actually just kinda had a thing in some fanzine that said “Hey, call me when you get to town and I’ll help you out.”

SB: My number would get in fanzines to book shows—Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll and Flipside—and it was unbelievable! You would just get calls from people you’d never heard of—I would book bands I’d never heard of! Just throw ’em on the bill—they could be the fifth band on the bill—and give ’em $50 at the end.

And some of those guys are still my friends. Corrosion of Conformity, I booked their first out-of-town show, and I’m still in touch with those guys, they’re in the film. They were from Raleigh, and D.C.’s the next town. So that’s how it worked. It sounds so naïve and so long ago that stuff like that could happen, but that’s truly the way it was.

M: It sounds like so much of it was just about taking a leap of faith.

SB: Yeah, I mean he (gesturing to Paul) did films without ever “making” films. I promoted shows without a clue how to do it! I was at a TSOL show up in New Jersey once, and I ran into their manager, and he said, “Oh by the way I also work with the Dead Kennedys and we can’t get a show in D.C.” He knew that I worked with the radio station, and he goes, “Can you sponsor a show? I’ll help walk you through it.” And that’s how I got into this. That’s unbelievable! I was in trouble with the cops, I’m an 18-19-year-old kid, and I’m like, on the edge. And it was just because you liked this music. It was amazing how much trouble you would get into, just because you liked a musical form!

PR: Without even trying!

SB: Yeah, without even trying.

American Hardcore opens Friday, Nov. 10

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