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- Black Flag. Damaged. “We. Are. Tired. Of. Your. Abuse!” The chorus of Damaged's opening song “Rise Above” immediately declares a vicious contempt for America's social and political environment, circa 1981.
- X. Los Angeles. Released in 1980, and produced by Ray Manzarek, X's Los Angeles is a searing critique of a city under economic siege and engaged in changing racial demographics.
- Germs. GI. In the classic documentary The Decline of Western Civilization, Germs frontman Darby Crash has an infamous scene where he makes a hot mess of the stage, demanding beer from the audience while stumbling violently.
- Descendents. Milo Goes to College. You're in high school. You're angsty because girls don't like you. Your parents don't get it. You're really smart but your teachers don't realize it; they are dickheads.
Jul 1, 2016 · We're going to take a look back at the LA punk scene with three people who helped define it - John Doe and Exene Cervenka, co-founders of the band X and Dave Alvin, who co-founded The Blasters...
- Black Flag
- The Go-Go’s
- Fear
- Circle Jerks
- Redd Kross
- The Blasters
- Adolescents
- T.S.O.L.
- The Dream Syndicate
- Agent Orange
If inchoate anger and unfocussed rebellion have a soundtrack, it’s Black Flag. Primarily the brainchild of songwriter/guitarist Greg Ginnand bassist/theoretician Chuck Dukowski, these Hermosa Beach intellectual bruisers welded the heaviest metalto avant-jazz’s noisy atonality. The full-tilt rhythms of the highest energy punk powered this mongrel ch...
If darker impulses drove L.A. punk, at least on the surface the five-woman Go-Go’s were the musical embodiment of the year-long sunshine that made their hometown famous. Singer Belinda Carlisle was an embryonic Germ, while the entire band grew out of the grotty petri dish that was the Masque in 1978. By the time their major-label debut, Beauty and ...
Blue-collar avant-punk ruffians FEAR might have the oddest story of any of these bands. Shades of blues and jazz wove into a high-energy metal assault, alongside a gonzo stage act that elevated audience baiting into a frenzied wrestling match. Singer/guitarist Lee Vingplayed the heel to startling effect, as seemingly multi-limbed drummer Spit Stix,...
Alongside Washington, D.C.’s Bad Brains, Circle Jerksmay be the definitive American hardcore band. Essentially Class Of 1977 punk sped up to superhuman specs, the CJs were a party band with the skill to elevate gut-basic thrash to an art form. Keith Morrishad been the sole Black Flag vocalist who could actually sing, while Lucky Lehrer essentially ...
From Hawthorne, California, hometown of the Beach Boys, Redd Krossalso centered around brothers, this time teenage singer/guitarist Jeff McDonald and then-middle-school-aged bassist Steven McDonald. Many famed local musicians have passed through Redd Kross’ boot camp, including future Circle Jerk Hetson and two Black Flag singers — Ron Reyes on dru...
As a trio of Long Islanders called the Stray Catsbegan making noise in the U.K. pumping classic rockabilly full of punk locomotion, word leaked of a similarly minded quintet leaving a lot more blood on L.A. stages. From Downey, the Blasterswere led by brothers Phil Alvinon lead vocals and rhythm guitar and Dave Alvin on sidewinder lead guitar. They...
From Fullerton, the home of Fender Guitars, Adolescentsused Leo Fender’s inventions in ways he would have surely found blasphemous and abusive. Featuring the wayward six-string genius of Rikk Agnewand singer Tony Reflex’s wounded, vulnerable charisma, they created a brutal, turbo-charged pop attack with a generous helping of metal’s Marshall bombas...
If Webster’s Dictionary required a definition for the term “intelligent thugs,” it could do worse than run a photo of Long Beach’s T.S.O.L. Since 1980, the band have channeled the evolutionary-yet-brutarian spirit of the Damned into an American noise attack that changed seemingly every time lead singer Jack Grisham swapped out his stage name. (For ...
Two or three years into the ‘80s, a group of Angeleno punk veterans began excavating the long-buried ghosts of psychedelia, returning it to a series of short sharp shocks. The Dream Syndicatewere the best of the bunch, with their Velvet Underground-esque drone rock. The hardass rhythm section of doggedly swinging drummer Dennis Duck and bassist Ken...
Had Placentia, California’s Agent Orangenever recorded a note beyond youth-gone-wild classic “Bloodstains,”they’d still be referenced in hushed tones. Featuring singer/guitarist Mike Palm and initially featuring future Adolescents bassist Steve Soto, they’re a prime example of all the good done by spending your teens listening to respected local DJ...
- Tim Stegall
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- Tim Stegall
- The Runaways. Best heard on: The Runaways – The Mercury Albums Anthology. The Joan Jett-led quintet predates The Masque generation by two years. But they were essentially Hollywood’s answer to the Ramones—an example of How It’s Done to many burgeoning young punks, including future Germs Darby Crash and Pat Smear.
- The Weirdos. Best heard on: Weird World Volume 1. Next out the gate have to be these CalArts students, centered around singer John Denney and brother Dix on blasting lead guitar.
- Germs. Best heard on: (GI) They began as a joke, an excuse for clever teenage miscreant Jan Paul Beahm to smear peanut butter all over himself as his buddy Pat Ruthenberg learned guitar onstage, alongside novice bassist Terry Ryan and non-drummer Becky Barton.
- Screamers. Best heard on: YouTube video Every Recorded Song by the Screamers (until the upcoming first official release of their tapes emerges) Seattle transplants who pioneered techno-punk, alongside Devo, Paris’ Metal Urbain and Cleveland’s own Pere Ubu.
Since the mid-1970s, California has had thriving regional punk rock movements. It primarily consists of bands from the Los Angeles, Orange County, Ventura County, San Diego, San Fernando Valley, San Francisco, Fresno, Bakersfield, Alameda County, Sacramento, Lake Tahoe, Oakland and Berkeley areas.
For these purposes, though, L.A. punk refers to the original, pre-hardcore punks, who played a generally lean and mean brand of punk already. Most L.A. punk was fast and thrashy, with an overall tougher vibe than the often arty New York scene or the young and impassioned amateurs in London.
Sep 29, 2016 · When it comes to getting credit for nurturing the rise of punk music, L.A. is typically overshadowed by such cities as New York and London, which are known for giving birth to seminal punk...
