You got it while it was hot

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

Now that Reagan-era hardcore has earned a newfound respect, there has of course been a parade of literature hitting the bookshelves. The book that probably best captures this brief blip on rock ’n’ roll’s radar (along with Steven Blush’s amazing American Hardcore, Marc Spitz’s We Got the Neutron Bomb and Henry Rollins’s Get In the Van) would be Chris Walter’s 2008 biography, Personality Crisis: Warm Beer & Wild Times, from Gofuckyerself Press. Walter’s exhaustively researched 217 pages chronicle hardcore’s crucial and heady times between 1981 and 1984, when one of hardcore’s fiercest bands, Personality Crisis, burst out of the frosty burg of Winnipeg and played for beers, lived in their van, booked tours on payphones, survived on mustard sandwiches, nursed hangovers, battled mismanagement and chased the dream in damp rehearsal spaces and down highways all over the U.S. and Canada.

Leaving only one record and a handful of compilation tracks in their wake, Personality Crisis may have not broken into the hardcore elite alongside Black Flag, Bad Brains and Circle Jerks but, with any luck, Walter’s enthralling book will finally bring them the admiration they always deserved. Like any rock biography worth its salt, Walter’s paints the picture with crystal clear, honest and vivid depictions, and although it’s sadly unlikely that the band’s name is going to ring bells with a lot of people, this is an absolutely mandatory read for anybody who is a fan of the history of independent music, hardcore or otherwise.

For those of us who aren’t satiated by merely curling up with a good book, the following three nights should be filled with pure punk rock fury when the third installment of the punk rock festival A Varning From Montreal sets down stakes at Katacombes. This year’s fest boasts its most impressive bill yet, starting tonight, Nov. 5, with Burning Love, the Omegas, Urban Blight, Castevets,

Ilegal, Vile Intent and one of my favourite local bands, Complications, fresh off of their U.S. West Coast tour. Friday doesn’t let up on the gas pedal, with the reunion of early-’80s MTLHC stalwarts Unruled (with two members of Inepsy), DSB, Warcry, Abandon, Brutal Knights, Broken, Aversions and Diskonected, while things cap off on Saturday with Moderat Likvidation, Lebenden Toten, Detonate and many more.

In more punk news, don’t miss the raucous rock ’n’ roll of Tonitix with the early-’80s hardcore of Slobs at Green Room, tonight, while down in the heart of Griffintown at Friendship Cove, you can check out New York City’s PC Worship, Holy Cobras, Tonsstartsbandht and Omon Ra.

Fans of raw, blues-based rock can check out White Denim with Brazos at Il Motore on Tuesday, but if you were looking forward to seeing Satan’s favourite lounge band, Slayer, on Wednesday night at the Bell Centre, you are shit out of luck. Bassist/singer Tom Araya has been sidelined by back surgery, so the show has been postponed to January. Bummer!

COUNTDOWN TO JESUS LIZARD IN EFFECT…
JONATHAN.CUMMINS@GMAIL.COM