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HARDCORE CALIFORNIA
Generally acknowledged as the best study both written and photographed of the California hardcore scene. Album cover graphics in color hundreds of photos of band and good text. Over 600 bands mentioned.
128 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1983
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 21, 2022
Essential document of CA punk, new wave, and hardcore scenes that is divided into two halves: LA and SF. Although LA comes first, the book was put together by a couple of San Francisco heads: Peter Belsito and Bob Davis. Call me biased, but the writing of the first half captures what it was like to be a witness and a participant in the LA punk scene. This is probably not a surprise since it was written by Craig Lee of the Bags and Danny "Shredder" Weizmann of Flipside, whose names don't appear on the cover. The SF half, written by Belsito, reads like documentation: important, but dry. I have of the third printing of the book (I think) from 1989, so it's strange that an easy-to-fix Sex Pistols typo (guitarist Steve Cook with drummer Paul Jones) hadn't been corrected.
March 2, 2020
good fun, concise, well-written overview, nicely designed, lots of groovy pics. The amount of money it changes hands for now is ridiculous. I wonder if Punk will continue to exercise such a hold over generations to come. Already a freeze-dried woolly mammoth of a museum exhibit, with genuine sweat and spit stains, as authenticated by the high pop cultural clergy. You probably know more about the subject already if you are even half way interested. You can download complete runs of 'Slash', 'Damage', and 'No' magazines, and get it all straight from the respective horse's mouth, watch 'the scene' evolve and fragment in real time monthly installments. Play Suburbia or Decline ... on your blu ray for maximum ambience. If there was one message Punk (unconsciously?) wished to convey it was that THERE IS NO CENTRE, we are in constant, careering, motion through the illusory conditions of time and space, and it is left to all and sundry to interpret their own implications from this.
July 28, 2023
This is just the best book ever. I read it when I was like thirteen or fourteen, an was just starting to skate and listen to punk. That was like 1988 or 1989. At the time I felt like the punk scene was already over, and I'd just missed it. In a lot of ways, that was true. I was too young to catch a lot of it, but these California bands were themselves too young to catch the first wave of it, and as we all know, the 90s brought a whole new and interesting crop of punk bands. I was here in the PNW, as I still am, and a juggernaut of a music scene was about to take over this place. Grunge was king, but the local punk scene stayed relevant, if mostly in the shadows. Also, Grunge was a direct outgrowth of punk, a next evolution if you will
I hadn't see this book, or really even thought about it for about thirty years, and then I saw a copy in Amoeba Records in Hollywood when I was visiting a couple of years ago. I grabbed it off the shelf, thumbed through it, and submitted to the nostalgia that the photos and flyers dredged up. I had an armload of records, and I didn't want to carry anything else around, so I put it back. I should have kept it. I can find a used copy anytime I want, but some things you just never go out of your way to get online, and when you pass on them at the store, you just never end up getting one.
But what's the actual review? It's simply this, this book was made about the California hardcore scene(s), LA and SF are different scenes, while they were still going on. American Hardcore by Steven Blush and Going Underground by George Hurchalla give you a retrospective on American Hardcore, and they are both great reference and history pieces for our punk tribal history, but this book was like a news report. Metaphorically, it was on scene with cameras rolling in 1983. You got to hear about bands when they were young, and not mature enough to properly articulate why they were pissed off, or invent a politically correct justification for positions they may have later wanted to walk back. American Hardcore in the 80s had some rough edges that 90s bands managed to smooth down with a more specific focus on political correctness. Anyway, no revisionist history here. For good or bad, you just get unfiltered punk rock aggression.
I hadn't see this book, or really even thought about it for about thirty years, and then I saw a copy in Amoeba Records in Hollywood when I was visiting a couple of years ago. I grabbed it off the shelf, thumbed through it, and submitted to the nostalgia that the photos and flyers dredged up. I had an armload of records, and I didn't want to carry anything else around, so I put it back. I should have kept it. I can find a used copy anytime I want, but some things you just never go out of your way to get online, and when you pass on them at the store, you just never end up getting one.
But what's the actual review? It's simply this, this book was made about the California hardcore scene(s), LA and SF are different scenes, while they were still going on. American Hardcore by Steven Blush and Going Underground by George Hurchalla give you a retrospective on American Hardcore, and they are both great reference and history pieces for our punk tribal history, but this book was like a news report. Metaphorically, it was on scene with cameras rolling in 1983. You got to hear about bands when they were young, and not mature enough to properly articulate why they were pissed off, or invent a politically correct justification for positions they may have later wanted to walk back. American Hardcore in the 80s had some rough edges that 90s bands managed to smooth down with a more specific focus on political correctness. Anyway, no revisionist history here. For good or bad, you just get unfiltered punk rock aggression.
March 5, 2008
Lots of pictures of bands from the late 70's/early 80's.Dead Kennedys,Black Flag,Crucifix.These days Jimmy Crucifix looks 80.Sothira looks like he hasn't aged a day.Must be a pact with Satan.I loved the picture of the Go-go's.Damn, Jane Weidlin was hot!I think almost everyone I know in SF has a copy of this some where.The Punk Police will take away your membership card if you don't have this book.
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October 21, 2013Essential time capsule from SoCal and the birth of west coast punk.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews