Old Time Hardcore X Straight Edge

State of Alert (or S.O.A.) was a hardcore punk group from Washington, D.C. fronted by Henry Garfield, who would later rise to fame as Henry Rollins. They formed in October 1980, and disbanded in July 1981 and released No Policy on Dischord Records. They are sometimes regarded as one of the earliest groups playing what would be dubbed hardcore punk. They released a ten song 7" EP titled No Policy and contributed three songs to the compilation Flex Your Head, both on Dischord. The EP was financed by Henry since Dischord wanted to afford releasing the first Minor Threat 7" as well.

S.O.A. played a total of 12 gigs in and around the eastern US, their first on December 6, 1980, in Washington, D.C., and their last on July 10, 1981, in Philadelphia. Henry Rollins later described their performances: "All of them were eleven to fourteen minutes in duration because the songs were all like forty seconds... and the rest of the time we were going, 'Are you ready? Are you ready?' Those gigs were poorly played songs in between 'Are you readys?"

Today, S.O.A. is remembered primarily as Rollins' first band - before he joined Black Flag and then founded Rollins Band - but also as an example of early "DC Hardcore" and an influence to other bands such as Detroit's Negative Approach and New York City's Agnostic Front.

Out of what was left of the band guitarist Michael Hampton went on to form The Faith in 1981 with Alec MacKaye (brother of Ian MacKaye, later in Ignition) who joined on vocals and Ivor Hansen, S.O.A.'s final drummer. Later Hampton went on to Embrace with Ian MacKaye in 1985, and One Last Wish with Guy Picciotto (Fugazi, Rites of Spring) and Brendan Canty (Fugazi, Rites of Spring).

Bass player Wendel Blow went on to play in Iron Cross and Lethal Intent.

State of Alert's recorded material has been re-released by Dischord on the 20 Years of Dischord compilation and the Dischord 1981: The Year in 7"s compilation which includes the entire 'No Policy' EP.

Members

• Henry Rollins − vocals (October 1980 — July 1981)
• Michael Hampton − guitar (October 1980 — July 1981)
• Wendel Blow − bass (October 1980 — July 1981)
• Simon Jacobsen − drums (October 1980 — March 1981)
• Ivor Hansen − drums (March 1981 — July 1981)

7 Seconds is a hardcore punk band from Reno, Nevada. Formed in 1980 by brothers Kevin Seconds and Steve Youth, they played their first show on March 2, 1980. They continue to write, record, and tour to this day. Their most recent album is Take It Back, Take It On, Take It Over!.

Biography

7 Seconds is well known for bringing positive ideals into hardcore punk and are considered "living legends" by many people in the underground punk scene. They helped along the Straight Edge Youth Crew movement in the 80's Hardcore scene.

They have released numerous albums since 1981, including The Crew; Walk Together, Rock Together; New Wind; Good to Go and the recently released Take It Back, Take It On, Take It Over.

They also appeared on the 1985 hardcore compilation Cleanse the Bacteria, in addition to numerous other compilations, such as "Not So Quiet On the Western Front," "Something to Believe In," and "Another Shot from Bracken."

In the late 1980s, the band began to grow musically as they explored other sounds. Critics of this switch to more complex and slower music often compared the band to U2. Albums from this period include the Praise EP, Ourselves, and Soulforce Revolution. However, the band has since returned to their hardcore punk roots, where they can claim more of a following.

Origins of name

In the February, 2005 issue of AMP magazine, in an article titled, "7 Seconds: 25 Years of Our Core," Kevin Seconds explained how the band's name originated:

“We were big fans of The Dils, they had this EP, 198 Seconds of The Dils and I was so in love with punk rock that I would just write album titles on my clothes. This was still when Steve and I lived with my mom. We had this desk in this room we shared and I wrote ‘197 seconds of The Dils’, I miswrote the title. Over time, everything else faded, but the 7 Seconds part was there, and I circled it, I thought it looked cool.”

The Minutemen were an American punk rock band formed in San Pedro, California in 1980. Comprising guitarist D. Boon, bassist Mike Watt and drummer George Hurley, the Minutemen recorded five albums and six extended plays before Boon's unexpected death in 1985. They were noted in the Californian punk community for a philosophy of "jamming econo"; a sense of thriftiness reflected in their touring and presentation.

History

Roots

The band's roots can be traced back to 1971, when Boon and Watt met at age 13. Watt was walking through a park in their hometown of San Pedro, when Boon, playing army with other boys, fell out of a tree right next to him. Both boys shared a passion for music and eventually started playing music together, albeit mostly cover songs. Boon's mother taught D. to play the guitar and suggested that Watt learn to play bass, even though, at the time, Watt did not even know exactly what a bass was. In the summer of 1973, Watt and Boon formed the Bright Orange Band with D's brother Joe on drums. 1976 would be a mixed blessing for the two; that year they discovered punk, however Boon's mother died and the Bright Orange Band disbanded shortly thereafter. The next year, the two joined a band called Starstruck, which had been started by their friend Marc Weiswasser who played drums. Neither of those bands played original songs. After Starstruck broke up, Boon and Watt met George Hurley and formed The Reactionaries with vocalist Martin Tamburovich. According to Watt, the name came from a Mao Tse-Tung quote about how all reactionaries are actually "paper tigers".

Formation

After the Reactionaries disbanded, Boon and Watt formed the Minutemen in January of 1980. Watt has said that, contrary to common belief, their name had nothing at all to do with the brevity of their songs; rather, it was derived partly from the fabled minutemen militia of colonial times and partly to lampoon a right-wing reactionary group of the 1960s that went by that name. In the documentary We Jam Econo, Watt also states that the name was a play on minute (pronounced mahy-nyoot, -noot), meaning trivial, insignificant or unimportant. After a month with no drummer — during which Boon and Watt wrote their first batch of tunes, the band rehearsed and played a couple of early gigs with local welder Frank Tonche on drums. The group had originally wanted George Hurley to join, but he had joined a new wave band called Hey Taxi after the Reactionaries disbanded. Tonche quit the group, citing a dislike of the audience the band initially drew, and Hurley took over the drum seat in June of 1980. (Rehearsal recordings with Tonche on drums later appeared as the posthumous EP Georgeless in 1987.) Their first live gig was as an opening band for Black Flag.

Early Days

Greg Ginn of Black Flag and SST Records produced the Minutemen's first 7" EP, Paranoid Time, which solidified their eclectic style. Like most Punk bands at the time, the band sold the EP at their shows, and at a few local record stores. It became a minor hit with the Hardcore scene. By their first LP—1981’s The Punch Line—they had found their voice and began touring nonstop around the country. They released their second EP and third overall release entitled Bean-Spill. By this time they were becoming one of the more popular bands in the Underground Scene around the country.

Mid Years

At first, they completely avoided guitar solos, choruses, and fade-outs. But by the time of their second LP What Makes a Man Start Fires?, which gained considerable attention from the Alternative and Underground press, they were a part of the band's sound, despite maintaining their Experimental and Punk Roots. They continued their hectic touring schedule, which included their longest tour yet; a double bill with Black Flag in Europe. The long tour strengthened their place as one of most well known acts in the hardcore scene. Later in 1983, they released their third LP, Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat. It was one of the first Hardcore albums to include a Horn (trumpet on "The Product").

Later Years

The Minutemen's eclectic influences were perhaps the best exemplified on 1984's double-album, Double Nickels on the Dime. Though still somewhat obscure to mainstream audiences, Double Nickels has been cited as one of the more innovative and enduring albums of the 1980s American rock underground. On Double Nickels, they co-wrote some songs with other musicians, notably Henry Rollins, Chuck Dukowski and Joe Baiza. In 1985, they released their most commercial-sounding recording, Project:Mersh ("Mersh" being the Minutemen's slang for "commercial"). Though the album sounded more mainstream, it sold poorly compared to "Double Nickels," due largely to the negative reaction to such a commercial album from within the underground community. They continued touring and by the time of their final album, 3-Way Tie (For Last), they decided to take a small break. They played their last tour with another emerging band, REM. Their final concert was in Charlotte, North Carolina on December 13, 1985.

Planned recordings

The coming year (1986) seemed promising, the band had planned to record a half studio/half-live triple album with the working title 3 Dudes 6 Sides 3 Studio 3 Live. The live tracks were to be based on the ballots that they handed out, and as a way to counteract bootlegging especially following an incident with an Arizona DJ. Though, a year later Watt and Hurley compiled various live recordings, based on the ballots, which was released as Ballot Result. In addition, Richard Meltzer had sent Watt lyrics for ten songs for an album on which he was going to collaborate. Due to Boon's death, none of these projects were realized.

Boon's Death

On December 22, 1985, Boon was killed in a van accident, putting an end to the Minutemen. Watt fell into a deep depression, but was convinced to continue performing by Sonic Youth. Every form of media that Watt makes or takes part in is dedicated to Boon.

SSD (Society System Decontrol) were a straight edge hardcore punk and heavy metal band from Boston. They released two records as SS Decontrol and then formally changed their name to SSD. As SSD they released two more records, these with a very heavy metal influenced sound. However the group is often simply referred to, including all its periods, as SSD.

History

Formed by songwriter/guitarist Al Barile (then a machinist at the General Electric plant in Lynn, Massachusetts and a student at Northeastern University), SSD started performing at smaller venues throughout the greater Boston metropolitan area in the summer of 1981. The band quickly gained notoriety within the local music scene for intense, charged performances and the provocative antics of their core group of followers, the Boston Crew.

The original lineup was Al Barile on guitar, Springa (David Spring) on vocals, Jaime Sciarappa on bass and Chris Foley on drums. They released their debut LP The Kids Will Have Their Say on their own X-Claim label in 1982. Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat was a friend and supporter and his Dischord label's logo appeared on the back cover.

In 1983 they added second guitarist Francois Levesque and released the EP Get It Away. It is widely regarded to be their best record. The X-Claim pressings of it and The Kids Will Have Their Say are both highly collectable.

Like many hardcore bands - particularly those in the Boston area - SSD, as they were now officially called, were heading in a heavy metal direction. In 1984 they signed to the Boston label Modern Method and released the How We Rock EP which was rooted in the hardcore sound but exhibited overt heavy metal characteristics, such as a relatively high number of lengthy guitar solos. After signing to Homestead they released the Break It Up LP in 1985. It had both feet planted in the metal genre, leaving behind all trappings of punk and hardcore.

SSD broke up in 1985.

Jaime Sciarappa went on to play bass with the Boston hardcore band Slapshot for a short time.

After the breakup Springa went on to front the short lived band Razorcaine and the comedy rock projects Die Blitzkinder (with The Slaves) and Springa as Tom Jones. His flamboyant persona and lounge lizard lifestyle during this time stood in marked contrast to the straight edge rhetoric of SS Decontrol. In the early 1990s he would move to Chicago to pursue comedy further with The Second City.

In 1991 Al Barile compiled Power for Taang! Records. It spans SSD's entire career and is the only official release in print today. In the early 1990s he took up the bass guitar and he and Levesque formed the hardcore band Gage.

Chris Foley went on to play drums for Bulkhead, Jennifer Trynin and Star Ghost Dog. Today he plays with Heavy Stud.

In the summer of 2004 Springa was seriously injured in a car accident outside of Boston. A gala benefit featuring Evan Dando and reunions of The Outlets and Jerry's Kids raised money for his medical expenses. SSD did not perform.

Springa has since experienced a full recovery and is working on a rock opera.

Hailing from Boston in the early eighties, Negative FX is remembered primarily as Choke's first band. But besides holding claim to this dubious honor, however, the band has also musically left its mark. They pushed hardcore closer to its logical conclusion, playing as fast as possible while leaving traditional song structure in the dust. Their short bursts of barely contained aggression, complete with furious, indecipherable vocals from Choke, epitomized a style that would later be built upon by those experimenting with other styles of "extreme hardcore" (like grindcore, "power-violence," etc. etc.).

Negative FX was one of the bands associated with the "Boston Crew" - a tight-knit group of young, sometimes violent, straightedge skinheads. They played a total of six times, the most famous being one of the final Mission of Burma shows where the crowd beat up the soundman for trying to pull the plug on Negative FX. The band recorded 18 songs in 1982, and released them on fledgling Boston label Taang! in 1984.

After Negative FX's demise, Choke (aka Jack Kelly) formed the short-lived Last Rights. Musically Last Rights took a more measured approach, as opposed to Negative FX's all-out rush to start and finish a song as quickly as possible. And you could actually understand what Choke was screaming. The band lasted one show, and managed to put out a two song 7". This record featured several different covers, the most controversial being a photo of Adolf Hitler. Taang! eventually rereleased the Last Rights 7", along with four other songs, and the entire Negative FX LP, on one CD.

By the mid-eighties, all of Boston's original hardcore bands had either changed their sound or broken up (usually both). It was with this in mind that Choke assembled his next band, Slapshot. In its first years, Slapshot included former members of DYS, SSD, and Deathwish, and purposely went for an "old-school" hardcore sound (their first record was titled Back On The Map). Despite numerous lineup changes, Slapshot continues on, in one form or another, to this day. Choke has always been a controversial figure in the hardcore scene. Since starting Slapshot, his lyrics have become increasingly conservative (culminating in his ridiculously right-wing Oi side-project, Stars and Stripes). If you've lived in Boston (like I did for many years), you've probably heard any number of rumors (disavowed by at least one member of the band who wrote to me), from his alleged use of a hockey stick to swing at the audience at early shows, to his stint as a hairdresser in a salon on Boston's Newbury Street.

DYS was a straight edge, hardcore punk and heavy metal band from Boston, Massachusetts, and part of the notorious "Boston Crew" along with contemporaries such as SSD and Negative FX. They released two LPs: Brotherhood, an album still held in high regard by fans of hardcore music (with original copies selling for in-excess of $150 on ebay), and DYS (i.e., self-titled), an album that is more a hard rock or heavy metal album than a hardcore album. In fact, "DYS" is considered by many to be (for better or worse) one of the first crossover thrash albums released and features what might be punk rock's first Power Ballad.

Both albums have been re-issued together on a CD by Taang! Records (titled Fire and Ice), and Brotherhood has also been reissued on CD in early 2005 by Taang! Records in its original format with the addition of the Wolfpack demo tape with Husker Du singing back-up vocals.

DYS took its name from the Department of Youth Services, a Massachusetts governmental organization where deliquent youth were housed as well as the Alice Cooper song "Department of Youth."

Guitarist Andy Strachan later co-founded the more rock-focused band Slaughter Shack. Slaughter Shack went on to win the Boston musical contest the "Rumble." After leaving the business, Strachan has since converted to Sikhism. His new name is Mahan Atma Singh Khalsa, and he is active as an influential Kundalini Yoga teacher in Amritsar, India. Added lead guitarist Ross Luongo is now playing in the re-formed line-up of Jerry's Kids.

Co-founder and singer Dave Smalley went on to sing for Dag Nasty, ALL and Down By Law before founding the the Jam-influenced band the Sharpshooters. Dave is a noted Newspaper Editor and conservative punk columnist.

Co-founder and bassist Jonathan Anastas became a founding member of Slapshot, writing, recording and touring behind their debut album "Back on the Map." Prior to starting DYS, he had also founded the short-lived band Decadence. Their song "Slam" was documented on the "This Is Boston, Not L.A." compilation, and later adopted for an M.T.V. advertising campaign. Anastas left the music business for a career in advertising and marketing.


Discography

* 1983 - DYS "Brotherhood"
* 1985 - DYS "DYS"* 1993 - Various Artists "Faster and Louder, Volume Two" (Contributed the track "Wolfpack" which was the band's unreleased first demo tape and a live favorite)
* 1993 - DYS "Fire and Ice" (first two albums combined on CD)
* 2005 - DYS "Wolfpack" - "Brotherhood" re-released with the band's original Wolfpack radio demo featuring Husker Du added

The Zero Boys were a hardcore punk quartet from Indianapolis, Indiana fronted by Paul Mahern . Other members included bassist David "Tufty" Clough, drummer Mark Cutsinger and guitarist Terry Hollywood.

Their first release, Livin' in the '80s, was a 7" EP released by the band on their home-brew Z-Disc label. Their debut full length album, Vicious Circle, was released in 1982 with its distinctive bright yellow cover on the local label Nimrod Records. Many punk fans nationwide expressed surprise that a band like the Zero Boys originated in the Midwest; their polished intensity suggested the larger and more established scenes in Los Angeles, Washington DC, New York City and elsewhere.

Vicious Circle's intelligent, ambitious lyrics tackled such themes as social stratification, teen angst, and political corruption. Mahern's clear tenor voice emerged like a rapid-fire war cry, well-suited to the message and material. These themes, set into a blazing, sonic buzzsaw with huge choruses and intricate changeups, set an influential stylistic precedent for hardcore punk which still resonates today.

Vicious Circle was reissued on Toxic Shock later in the 1980s, with added bonus tracks taken from the Affirmation Records compilations LPs The Master Tape and The Master Tapes 2. It was reissued again in 2000 by Lookout! Records, without the Master Tape tracks, but with two additional songs from the original album sessions, "She Said Goodbye" and "Slam and Worm", which had been given limited release on a 7" single.

It has occasionally been reported that the band never recorded further material after this. This is true only in the sense that the lineup of the band that made Vicious Circle never recorded new material. After David Clough left the band to join Toxic Reasons, the Zero Boys did manage to record a handful of tracks intended for a second LP, but broke up before the album could be finished. These tracks were released on the History of the Zero Boys cassette on Affirmation, along with the above mentioned compilation tracks and other demo tracks and outtakes.

Around 1990, Selfless released a 7" single featuring the Zero Boys on one side and Toxic Reasons on the other. The Zero Boys then reformed with guitarist Vess Ruhtenberg and recorded two further albums, Make It Stop (released on Germany's Bitzcore label in 1992) and The Heimlich Maneuver (released on Skyclad in 1993.)

In the last couple of years, the band has reunited for the occasional gig, including a series of shows at CBGB's designed to raise money to help keep the club open, and a series of shows in 2006 where they performed the entire Vicious Circle album. Paul Mahern went on to form the power pop band the Datura Seeds and has since become a producer in Bloomington, Indiana, where he also teaches yoga and owns the Affirmation Records label. Clough owns a punk clothing store in Indianapolis called Future Shock as well as a progressive music bar named Radio Radio.