Here in 2020, watch any documentary about the golden days of hardcore punk, and you’re pretty much guaranteed a couple of things. The first is that Ian Mackaye and Dave Grohl are bound to make a couple of cameos. The second is that somewhere along the way, someone is going to allude to the furtive network of communication — decades prior to the advent of the internet — that enabled bands and punk fans to connect, evangelize the music, book gigs, share crucial touring tips, establish scenes and thrive. Purple prose aside, it was the very essence of the “do it yourself” ethos in action, and it’s part and parcel of what made the hardcore scene of the 80’s totally organic and unique.
Today, of course, all of that type of information can be gleaned in seconds via any number of online resources. As with many things in the digital age, technology has enabled us to accomplish formerly complicated tasks without even having to put our pants on.
Once again, `twas not always thus.
Back when I was a sniveling little, acne-speckled teenage schmuck looking to find out when my beloved Circle Jerks were going to play New York City, my first go-to outlet of information was The Village Voice, a storied free weekly that came appended with loads of gig ads in the back pages. My second source of intel was just to walk the downtown streets. Prior to Mayor Giuliani’s draconian re-imagining of New York City’s quality of life, the exposed walls of Greenwich Village, SoHo, the East Village and certain other areas played host to a wide array of flyer campaigns. Longtime readers might remember my fixation with the Rock Hotel flyer series. After a while, my eyes were automatically conditioned to scan the walls for those signature black posters and their block capital white letters over a cryptic skull design — now considered fine art in certain circles.
The third reliable source was simply the word of mouth. As I was a regular patron of several likely concerns like Second Coming Records on Sullivan Street, 99 Records on MacDougal Street, Rocks in Your Head on Prince Street, Freebeing Records off St. Marks Place, Bleecker Bob’s on West 4th Street and many, many others (all vanished now, of course), my contacts behind the counter would routinely inform me of pertinent happenings on the regular. I was never at a loss.
I am somewhat embarrassed to confess, however, that I was evidently entirely unaware of another crucial means of disseminating this vital information. My writer friend Mike Stahl — a couple of years my junior, an otherwise meaningless difference in age that I used to routinely lord over him when asserting that the bands of my era were superior to the bands of his era … like it’s a competition — just penned a magisterial article for MEL Magazine (don’t ask me) about the phenomenon of OPEC SID. If, like myself, you are unaware of the significance of OPEC SID, you are in for a treat.
Recent Comments