Going Underground: American Punk 1979-1989

by George Hurchalla

Despite the misguided mainstream press declarations that 'punk died with Sid Vicious' or that 'punk was reborn with Nirvana', author Hurchalla followed the DIY spirit of punk underground, where it not only survived, but thrived as a self-sustaining grassroots movement rooted in seedy clubs, xeroxed zines and indie record shops. Going Underground features over 100 unique from Marie Kanger-Born of Chicago, Dixon Coulbourn of Austin, Brian Trudell of LA, Malcolm Riviera of DC, Justina Davies of New York, Ed Arnaud of Arizona and many others.

417 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 19, 2016

Reviews

[Armand Rosamilia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tons of useful and fun information about the punk scene in America, and I liked the personal stories from the author as well. The territories and scenes are represented as microcosms of what was going on but the influence of touring bands shaping the American punk music as a whole was cool to read about.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the better punk music histories out there. Author George Hurchalla's goal was to try and document the various scenes in the US during the `80s and he gets pretty close. The book doesn't detail much about the LA scene which could be either the fact that it has been written up in other books or it really wasn't that monumental or both. The big benefit was the amount of detail written about scenes that I knew very little about but was familiar with the bands - Texas and Chicago specifically. It was also entertaining to read about some of the places in the Midwest and Florida which I knew nothing about.

One criticism is that I had some difficulty in discerning whether some of the quotes used in the book were from first person interviews or from `zines. A small quibble in what was a very entertaining and informative book.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half stars. Hampered a little by an occasionally bro-y tone from the author (guy, I don’t care about the first time you had sex, I’m just here for the punk rock), this exhaustively researched time nonetheless tells the stories of bands like the Dicks and Naked Raygun and FOD and JFA who are usually left out of the history of punk. Author’s choice to rely on zine interviews is an interesting, successful one. Only for punk nerds, but if you are one (and we are many) you’ll probably want to check this out, even in spite of its flaws. Not often do we see a book about punk and early hardcore this wide ranging and inclusive of even the bands who never made it beyond their regional scene.