Wednesday, October 25, 2006

misc. stuff...



- I am working on eBay stuff today, along with getting the S8L releases ready for November.

- Isidro and I went to see the film, "American Hardcore," last night. I really enjoyed it, despite a good deal of bad press that I have read about it. I thought that it was a pretty balanced account of the various scenes that made up the early USA harcore era. No doubt, there will always be pissed-off people, because some band or city or person or something was left out, but I found it to have enough meat, along with a style of editing, and a type of animated graphics, that really suit the music. I was sort of surprised, in retrospect, by how many of the bands that I had seen. While Chicago was never a big "hardcore" city back then (1980-1986) - to me, at least - it was more of a "punk" stronghold, so many of these bands passed through either Cabaret Metro or The Cubby Bear - mostly. It was interesting that Vic Bondi of Articles of Faith had such a prominent part in the film, single-handedly representing Chicago. But it made sense. My local favorites, The Effigies, were definitely not hardcore - seeming more about a British sound (Oi meets Stranglers), and Naked Raygun, who by the mid-1980s could sell-out Metro, were far more anthemic, even "pop." I was really pleased to see Flipper featured as prominently as they were, and the inclusion of a non-traditional band like Die Kreuzen - who cross into industrial territory with their link to Boy Dirt Car - was also really cool. The Void footage has been up on YouTube, so while it was nice to see on a big screen, it was less impactful, than say, some intense D.Y.S. footage, which really hit me the right way, being a bit slower (like Flipper), and all. Some of the Bad Brains footage was undeniably mind blowing to see on a big screen, that is for sure. The film definitely gets my recommendation, and it has me wanting to pull out some records and CDs beyond Flipper and a few Black Flag things.