by JOHNSON CUMMINS

I was finally able to check out the newly-launched Katacombes showbar, smack dab in the heart of little Hamilton (St-Laurent and Ste-Catherine), and I’ve got to admit, Janick and company have really outdone themselves. Taking over the famously sketchy dive the Alouette, they’ve built a great stage in the back and left ample room to squeeze in about 150 people. The best part about the place is that it’s built, owned and maintained by fierce live-music supporters, and the massive effort and determination they put in really shows. So here’s a hoist of a pint in their direction, in hopes that the club stays there for a long time.

My reason for going down to Katacombes last week was to see the second Swedish band in Montreal in a week, Regulations, with openers Born Dead Icons. Unfortunately I missed Montreal’s kings of thrash …And the Saga Continues, but Born Dead Icons, finally back after an almost year-long hiatus, more than delivered the goods. Their Discharge/Motörhead pounding was relentless, with great crusty-style vocals that just barely made it over the din. Instead of just delivering speed, which they do very well, they preferred to let notes pulsate, with quirky time changes rescuing songs from familiarity. On the other hand, Sweden’s Regulations hardly reinvented the wheel, using Black Flag and Circle Jerks as their template—though I’m hardly complaining. If you’re digging the latest sounds from Career Suicide and Brutal Knights, Regulations will be your new favourite band. Set highlights included “In 1945,” “My Life My Problems” and their set-ender, “Police Siren.” Pick up their latest, Electric Guitar, in finer punk-rock stores right now.

I also made it down to the old Forum to see the documentary film American Hardcore last weekend on its opening night. The film covers the halcyon days of hardcore between 1980 and 1986, and does a pretty accurate job of setting rock ’n’ roll’s history books straight within the 90-minute time constraint. Oddly enough, there is no inclusion of major movers and shakers of the time like the Misfits, Big Boys and the Dead Kennedys, but directors Paul Rachman and Steven Blush definitely prove to be the right men for the Herculean job of documenting one of rock ’n’ roll’s least acknowledged genres.

Articles of Faith’s Vic Bondi, Black Flag’s Greg Ginn and Minor Threat’s Ian MacKaye bring levity to the film, but it’s the rare-as-hen’s-teeth footage of Negative Approach, Bad Brains in their prime, Minor Threat and Black Flag that really makes this a treasure worthy of repeated viewings. For those of you who would like to dig a little deeper, Blush’s 2001 book American Hardcore, from Feral House Press, is essential. n

I’VE GOT MY PMA… jonathan.cummins@gmail.com

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