A good friend of mine is currently working on a strenuously exciting archival project, although I can’t really go into any detail about it at this early stage of the proceedings. In any event, while he was generously walking me through some of it today, he showed me this other clip he’d unearthed on YouTube, and I thought it was worth sharing here.
I’m not going to lie — I really don’t know who the Misguided are (or, more likely, were). They weren’t “one of my bands,” so to speak. In fact, the only instance wherein I’ve read their name in association with the annals of hardcore punk was via a flyer that was taped up to my dormitory wall in college (one of many … see some more of them here). That flyer was this one below….which I liked more because of Jerry’s Kids and the F.U.’s (and the fact that the cartoony punk pictured is wearing a Heart Attack shirt).
In any case, according to an organization called the “Independent Network News” (where are they today, one wonders), a performance by the Misguided at CBGB during some point in 1983 seemed like the perfect opportunity to do an investigative report — of a sort — on hardcore punk, although, if truth be told, the Misguided don’t really seem especially hardcore.
Essentially, the clip is just yet another anaemic attempt by the then-mainstream media to wrap their heads around the concept of hardcore, invariably concentrating on the sartorial/tonsorial trappings and, of course, the brow-furrowing (if you were over twenty years of age at the time) practice of slam-dancing. It’s not quite as hysterical as CBS News’ coverage of Missing Foundation, but it’s not far from it —also harkening back to that fabled “Quincy” episode and setting the table for that after-school cautionary epic, 1987’s “The Day My Kid Went Punk.”
Regardless, enjoy the grainy, vintage footage of CBGB and the Bowery.
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