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| HARDCORE CALIFORNIA: A History Of Punk And New Wave by Peter Belsito and Bob Davis (1984) THIS IS the kind of book every rock crit who's been at it long enough to watch musical history rewritten, misrepresented and perverted for gain loves to see published. Because it's 130 album-size pages are a straightforwardly FACTUAL (which is hardly to say un-Fascinating) trip through the evolution of LA and San Francisco's hardcore/punk/ new wave scene. Reading from here I could be mistaken, but there's not much indication of vested interests and plunging into this docu-artefact is the next best thing to having real hangouts and cause celebres of one's own (partly because the vast enthusiasm compressed into these pages makes you wanna shift right off your ass and Do It Yourself) - Authors Peter Belsito-of EGO mag-and Bob Davis (now Laurie Andersen's sound engineer) have stuck to a just-the-facts-ma'am approach which would please even Jack Webb's Sgt Friday (and the LA Police do indeed play a part in this book). But what a wealth of visuals: full-size colour LP sleeves (Black Flag, Chrome, Blasters, CHS, Rodney On The Roq); posters (Circle Jerks poster and 'Wild Gift' cover designs by X), Slash covers and art... not to mention graffiti, posters, pix of venues and hundreds of photos of every band you've read about since in NMEas well as many now long gone. Meet Claude Bessey (Slash's Kickboy Face) when he was a humble dishwasher- well, a dishwasher anyway -and hear the Dils (later to become Rank & File) rabbiting on about communism, as the scene struggles to find venues, identities, costumes, and ways to survive suicides and internecine warfare. It's all here, in chronological order. If only someone had done this for New York 75-79 and London 76-79 we wouldn't be faced with Melvyn Bragg telling us how the Sex Pistols brought Kathy Acker to punk while pictures of Richard Hell pop up onscreen! Cynthia Rose (New Musical Express May 1984) http://www.akpress.org/mainpage/21 |
| HATE RATES.... ***** BIBLE **** TABLOID *** COMIC ** CHIP PAPER * PULP |
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