Publication:
MaximumRockNRoll

Author:
Felix Von Havoc

MRR #226
People sometimes ask me what I think the next trend in hardcore will be. I have done extensive research into this subject and I have a prediction. The next big wave of hardcore will be the crossing of crusty d-beat hardcore with straight edge youth crew. What the fuck is Felix talking about? Check out the prototype for this new style, Bonds of Trust from Sweden. OK, Bonds of Trust was a side project and only did one side of one split 7" and one comp track but they are like the rosetta stone of SE Crustcore. The totally hammering hardcore power of this band is rarely equaled. The sound can only be described as a perfect 50/50 mix of Chain of Strength and Totalitar. Tuned down and heavy, with brutal mosh parts, savage breakdowns, and pure HC power riffs. How can you lose. Unfortunately this was a short-lived project and my plans for an LP and US tour were soon dashed. Right now the two kinds of DIY hardcore that are really cranked are D-Beat crust and fast hardcore. So suppose members of say Tear It Up and Severed Head of State started jamming? Or a Lifes Halt/Skistsystem side project? I heard Carry On broke up, so now they just need to teem up with ex members of Acursed and off we go. The crust scene could benefit greatly from influence of SE living emphasizing the poison free anti-corporate lifestyle and physical fitness and hygiene. Likewise the SE scene could use some help with getting rid of things like khaki pants, tennis shoes, and designer sportswear not to mention back packs in the pit. A few SE bands that come close to this ideal musical style are Sairaat Mielaat, RAMBO and Think I Care.

OK one of my favorite bands right now is Think I Care from Boston. Their second 7" is just about the perfect cross between Infest/Crossed Out style violent brutality and early 80's Boston HC bands like DYS and Last Rights. They had an earlier 7" that was crucial but not quite as brutal, but I wrote about that one before. Anyway, both 7"s reviewed in this magazine took a shot at the bands lyrics. So Think I Care chooses to sing about people who stabbed the scene in back instead of deep and meaningful political treatises. So fucking what! People losing the edge and stabbing the scene in the back, or stabbing their crew in the back are very real topics to real people. One of the things I like about crucial hardcore bands like RAMBO, Think I Care, DS 13, or Spitting Teeth is they are willing to address scene politics in an up front sincere and personal fashion without using veiled references or abstractions. In fact I'd rather hear a band sing about something that they feel strongly about and have some passion for than shallow bumper sticker politics that are poorly thought out. Sure I'd like to see more bands with informed political lyrics but to me what comes through in the best bands is their conviction for what they are singing about. Whether it's changing the world or saving the whales or putting the backstabbers in their place it's better to sing about what comes from the heart than what's likely to sell more records.

2001 in review. This year will long be remembered as one of the greatest years for DIY hardcore. Different genres of punk have come and gone over the years. Each has a glorious period, falls into obscurity and is perhaps later revived. I guess you could say that about most forms of popular culture. Regardless, 2000 and 2001 have been the years of manic raw fast thrash. I guess I was waiting for a revival of this sort of music for the last 15 years so I have been really in my element lately. I've invested a small fortune and thousands of hours into putting out records, booking shows, being a radio DJ, booking tours, and working the counter at the record store because in 2001 I wanted to be as close to the music as possible. I got to go on two tours this year, one with Vitamin X and another with DS 13. I also got to attend some cool festivals such as Chicago Fest and Posi Fest and set up a fest of my own Thrash Fest 2. I was arrested and jailed at Chicago Fest for trying to incite a riot, which turned to be Felix the one-man riot. The only real down side to this year was the tragic and unforeseen event in New York City. I'm talking of course about the death of Joey Ramone.

For what it's worth here are my top ten 7"S of 2001:

<ol>
<li>Gatecrashers-Loud At Any Volume</li>
<li>Think I Care- 2d 7"</li>
<li>Vitamin X-People who bleed</li>
<li>Down in Flames-Start the Fucking Fire</li>
<li>Cops and Robbers-Execution Style</li>
<li>Tear It Up-One Sided 7"</li>
<li>Shark Attack-Blood in the Water</li>
<li>No Parade-s/t</li>
<li>No Time Left-Zero Effort Solution</li>
<li>Amdi Pedersen's Armee-S/T</li>
</ol>

For what it's worth here are my top ten LPs of 2001

<ol>
<li>DS 13-Killed By the Kids</li>
<li>From Ashes Rise-Silence</li>
<li>Tragedy-S/T</li>
<li>Holding On-Just Another Day</li>
<li>Limp Wrist S/T</li>
<li>RAMBO-Wall of Death the System</li>
<li>Victims-Never Ending Lasting</li>
<li>Spzam 151-s/t</li>
<li>Gordon Solie Motherfuckers-Power Bomb Anthems</li>
<li>V/A Tomorrow will be worse vol 2</li>
</ol>

OK, Now I'm going to go out on a limb and depart from the party line in the punk scene on a popular issue. Axiom has a t shirt that reads "stop US sanctions on Iraq" and similar stickers, posters, and lyrics are quite common throughout the punk scene. I think a lot of people forget is that sanctions are the primary means of political pressure outside of armed conflict. The people who argued against military intervention in 91 argued in favor of sanctions instead of war. Now the same people condemn the sanctions they once advocated. Iraq has the resources and educated population to provide a reasonable standard of living for its people. Instead those resources are devoted entirely toward keeping a dictatorship in power and preserving the privilege of an elite through a brutal police state. Sound familiar? The same leftists who protest against US support for CIA corporate backed dictatorships like those of Marcos and Pinochet are strangely silent when it comes to the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein. In the 60's a lot of people criticized student protesters as "dupes of the Russians" in this case I think they are dupes of the Iraqi elite. The people of Iraq are being starved and denied medicines not by the UN but by the elite of Iraq. This cynical destruction of a nation's own population serves Hussein's propaganda ends. And I must note with some effect on college campuses and the punk scene. Iraq continues to use resources that could be used to feed, house and care for it's people to develop weapons of mass destruction, arm a massive police state, oppress the Kurds and other dissident minorities and otherwise behave in the fashion of military dictatorships from Stalin to Bokassa. Iraq is one of the only nations to use chemical weapons on it's own people, oppresses the Kurds, waged costly and futile wars against Iran, Israel and Kuwait/the US led coalition. Why would punk kids want to support such a brutal and bloody a regime? I refuse to believe that just because Hussein poses himself as an opponent of US imperialism that his regime should somehow be let off the hook. Short of armed force, sanctions are the best tool of diplomacy to coerce oppressive regimes into granting basic human rights. Sanctions did a lot to help weaken the Aparthied regime in South Africa that we all protested against in the 80's.

Which brings me to this, in the Cold War people used to talk about the "captive nations," These were the countries absorbed into the Soviet Empire such as Armenia, Poland, Latvia etc. Now that the Soviet Empire has collapsed, East Timor has gained Autonomy and Eritrea has broken from Ethiopia the two great captive nations I can think of are Kurdistan and Tibet. (unless you count Palestine, which many would argue isn't a nation or ethnic group but a political construct) Now I'm very dubious of nationalism. In fact I think that nationalism is responsible for the majority of the problems in the world today, racism, oppression, war, hatred and discrimination. If you look at the violence unleashed on the world by it's close rival religion in the previous two thousand years and compare it with the destruction of nationalism in the last two hundred, I think nationalism still comes out as more lethal. That said, many feel that oppressed ethnic groups have a basic right to self-determination. Most such groups have one their independence in the last century. Two that haven't are the Kurds and the Tibetans. It was the Kurds aspirations for an independent state that kept the US led forces from overthrowing Saddam Hussein in 91. Turkey a powerful US ally and member of NATO has a large Kurdish minority which as taken up arms against it. The Kurdish lands also extend across Iraq and part of Iran. Had Hussein been overthrown and a more moderate regime come to power under UN occupation, the UN would have had no choice but to recognize a Kurdish bid for independence. To oppose this would violate the basic tenets of the UN charter. However, Turkey feared a Kurdish independence movement that would destabilize it's eastern border areas and embolden it's own Kurdish minority and in exchange for rallying "moderate" Muslim support and providing air bases the US led forces stopped short of destroying the Iraqi republican guard and overthrowing Saddam Hussein. This is like invading Nazi Germany but leaving Hitler in power and not disbanding the SS and expecting fascism to go away. If I had been in charge I would have stormed with Norman right into Bagdad set up a UN peacekeeping force destroyed the republican guards, held a plebiscite to determine Kurdish independence and held elections etc. But since I'm in charge of selling 7"s and not international affairs the interests of realpoltik won out over those of the Iraqi people. It was considered better to leave a tyrant like Hussein in power than overthrow him, in the interest of stability. So, if sanctions were to be lifted would the lot of life of the average Iraqi be better. I doubt it. They would still be oppressed and see their nations resources squandered on weapons and repression. The way things are the sanctions give Hussein something to direct the anger of his people and the international left at instead of his own brutality, and they give the Turks a stable if oppressive neighbor and the US someone to bomb when the president's ratings go down. I find it ironic that Hussein poses as a leader of the Muslim world against the west when he is responsible for the death of more Muslims than anyone in the last two centuries. (remember the Armenian victims of genocide weren't Muslims) The point I'm trying to make here is that if you look beyond the slogans and leftist propaganda handed out on campuses you might see that it's all fucked up. There isn't a black and white reality where the US is bad and all who oppose them are champions of freedom. Both sides are fucked up and compete for power just like in a Discharge song. So before you buy the bumper sticker or sew on the patch think a little bit about every side to the issue, chances are you are unwittingly serving the interests of people you don't agree with any more than those you are protesting.

Which brings me to Tibet. A friend of mine who lives in the hippie college town Boulder, Colorado did a scientific survey of the most popular bumper sticker in town. The winner: "Free Tibet." Now I talked a little bit about this in a column with a very similar point a few months ago. Well here it is again. Tibet is an isolated nation in the Himalayas that shunned contact with the outside world well into the 20th century. China and England competed for rights to exploit it commercially in the early 20th century. But it was not until the Chinese Communists defeated their rivals in the Chinese Civil war that Tibet was invaded by China and incorporated in the Peoples Republic of China. Tibet, essentially still a medieval kingdom was brought into the 20th century at gunpoint like many weak nations before it. The Chinese followed the classic imperialist techniques perfected by Europeans earlier on. They systematically destroyed Tibetan culture, killed or jailed those who resisted and have spent decades trying to assimilate Tibet while exploiting its resources. The Tibetans with their reclusive medieval society and mystical Buddhism have become the darlings of the new age liberal elite. The people who protested in the 60's now have a pet cause they can support, rock bands play Free Tibet concerts and release free Tibet CDs. The Dalai Lama is an international celebrity and those damn bumper stickers are everywhere. How then do these high-minded liberal plan to liberate Tibet? Through meditation and good deeds? I think not. One way to expel a colonial power is armed force. Remember that US led UN forces fought the Communist Chinese in Korea for three years and achieved only a standstill. A full-scale war with China is probably in the future, but it won't be over Tibet, although that might be a powerful propaganda tool in such a conflict. Either way I doubt this is what the new age types have in mind. A war between the US and China would pretty much be World War Three and a total bloodbath that will provide fuel for generations of Dis bands. This leaves economic sanctions as the most powerful tool to pressure the Chinese to at least respect human rights in Tibet if not abandon it. Fat chance of this you might say, but remember, South Africa voluntarily withdrew from Namibia/Soutwest Africa under international pressure. I'm sure though that the same liberals driving their cars with the Free Tibet stickers on them snatch up bargain goods at discount stores that are made in China possibly by child laborers and political prisoners. Meanwhile, the global elite has granted China entrance into the World Trade Organization, which continues to prove that this organization exists only to further the interests of a narrow elite with no concern for the rights of ordinary working people. The WTO is so fucked up ordinary national governments are starting to look good. The global economy is so dependent on cheap Chinese made goods and corporations are so hot to exploit the Chinese market that all concerns for human rights are forgotten. OK, I don't want anyone to think I've gone off the deep end and turned into some right winger here, I just despise the hypocrisy of the liberal left and I hate the way it infects the punk scene where people should have more critical thinking skills.

Publication Date:
January 1, 1988

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