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| D-beat and crossover pioneers Discharge playing an early gig in Los Angeles |
Punk rock was not inherently political at its outset. Particularly in New York, the music that came to be called punk was much more about art and freedom of expression. And with the obvious exception of the MC5, even protopunk wasn’t particularly political; while making noisy music a la the Stooges or dressing up in drag like the New York Dolls sends a message (political and otherwise), it isn’t affiliated with any particular political ideology. Even the MC5 quickly distanced themselves after the arrest of their manager and political Svengali John Sinclair.
At the start there was nothing inherently political about English punk either. The Pistols flirted with anarchy on their first single and artists like Sid Vicious and Siouxsie Sioux adopted swastikas and fascist iconography, but in both cases there was no real commitment to either ideology and they were used predominantly for their shock value. Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren had famously dressed the Dolls up in communist imagery in his brief stint as their manager before their dissolution in 1975, so the Pistols’ “Anarchy in the U.K.” was nothing more than an attempt to rile up conservative England.
Of all the English punk bands, only the Clash hewed to a stronger political stance, mostly an anti-racism, anti-war, pro-left stance. Songs like “White Riot”, “What Man in Hammersmith Palais”, “Clampdown”, “Police on my Back” and their cover of Bobby Fuller’s “I Fought the Law” had no firm ideological connection to any established political party but nevertheless espoused more completely than other punk bands these stances.
Within a very short time, however, other bands arose that DID take their politics seriously, very seriously. Starting as early as 1977, several bands arose that would eventually go on to spearhead what was called the anarcho-punk movement. Musically these bands often had little in common but thematically much if not all of their lyrical content and other published literature espoused a true anarchist or at the very least an anti-establishment stance. In this regard they were very much the metaphorical (and occasionally literal) children of the hippie and yippie movements of the 60’s. Other common causes of these bands include pro-squatting, feminism, anti-racism, anti-war, pro-equality, and environmentalism.
The grandfather (and grandmother) of all anarcho-punk bands is the Essex musical collective Crass. They formed out of Dial House, a squat housing members of two avant garde performance groups by singer Steve Ignorant and drummer Penny Rimbaud, along with other members such as Joy De Vivre and Eve Libertine. Their first performance was a live gig at a squatted festival (the plug was reportedly pulled after just 3 songs) and they quickly evolved from shambolic beginnings to a more musically, lyrically, and politically focused unit.
Crass became leaders in this nascent musical/political sphere, protesting everything from skinhead racism and other forms of fascism, hard right Thatcherite English governmental policies, and the Falklands war and other forms of military and cultural imperialism.
Crass released five amazing albums in the late 70’s and early 80’s: 1978’s The Feeding of the 5000, 1979’s Stations of the Crass, 1980’s Penis Envy, 1982’s Christ, The Album, and 1983’s Yes Sir, I Will. On each of these they produced songs that were short, loud, sloppy, angry blasts against hypocrisy, violence, greed, discrimination, and materialism. Standout tracks include “Do They Owe Us a Living?”, “Punk Is Dead”, and “Asylum” off Feeding; “Mother Earth” and “White Punks on Hope” off Stations; “Bata Motel” and “Where Next Columbus” off Penis Envy; “Mother Love” and “Have a Nice Day” from Christ; and “Track 3” “Track 4” from Yes Sir.
Scotland’s The Exploited, while never fully affiliated with anarcho-punk, were not too far away, being at the forefront of heavily politicized hardcore. I was a big fan of the Exploited by about ’85 or ’86, and “I Believe in Anarchy”, “Punks Not Dead” (an answer song to “Punk is Dead” by Crass), “Let’s Start a War”, and my all-time favorite “God Saved the Queen” from their 1983 album Let’s Start a War.
The Subhumans were another anarcho-punk first wave band. Formed in 1980, their early work hewed closely to the sound and form of Crass and other such bands. The vocals of singer Dick Lucas are snotty and very Johnny Rotten influenced. iTunes has several of their albums, including 1982’s The Day the Country Died, 1983’s From the Cradle To the Grave and 1986’s EP-LP. The best songs are traditional punk anthems like “Animal” and “Society”. I only recently downloaded some Subhumans from these albums; my favorites are “All Gone Dead”, “Minority” (which thematically edges very close to “White Minority” by Black Flag) and the catchy guitar chug and rumbling bass of “Killing” from Day and “Reality is Waiting for a Bus” and “Waste of Breath” from Cradle, both of which highlight the musical growth of the band from their fast, sloppy beginnings into a band with considerable musical complexity. The almost twangy guitar on “Waste of Breath” is particularly catchy.
Another early pioneer of the anarcho-punk sound and lyrical bent that was never officially a part of the movement proper was Discharge. Discharge were, however, true pioneers in punk music; their late 70’s singles were the first glimmers of what would become hardcore, and later they were one of the first to infuse metal sounds and stylings into hardcore punk. Their early songs had a bludgeoning, sound in which centered on rumbling bass and the heavily distorted guitar sound of guitarist Tony Bones. “The End” is triphammer fast, and is likely one of the songs that gave rise to D-beat (see below). “Protest and Survive” and my favorite song by Discharge, “Free Speech for the Dumb” both also off their 1982 album Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing are absolute classics; the latter consists of a rumbling wall of guitar and bass with Cal Morris shouting the song title over and over again, and was covered quite capably by Metallica on their 1999 covers album Garage, Inc. The noodling guitar on “Free Speech” is one of the first metal flourishes to grace any punk song that I know of. I also like “A Look At Tomorrow”, “Society’s Victim”, “Fight Back”, and “Does This System Work” from their debut album Why? Even on this early album Discharge was starting to move their lyrics away from rebellion and rage and toward much darker and violent subject matter, particularly on songs like “Massacre of Innocents” and “Maimed and Slaughtered”.
Discharge’s music represented a branch point for English hardcore in general and anarcho-punk in particular. Their evolution towards a more metallic sound was pioneering; former guitarist Tony Bones eventually went on to form the hardcore/metal group Broken Bones with his brother Tezz on bass after Discharge broke up in 1983; Broken Bones’ music veered even closer to heavy metal, particularly speed metal, and has been cited as a key influence on the development of crossover/thrash. I can still remember buying the Broken Bones album Bonecrusher in 1986 shortly after it came out; I bought it at some small record store on Hollywood Blvd. and listening to it at this time, when I was just starting to get into metallic hardcore and crossover/thrash (it was around this time that I bought Metallica’s Ride the Lightning too) it was almost too much for my innocent punk ears. The leadoff song, “Seeing Thru My Eyes” starts with a rumbling bass that sounds like a Panzer tank rolling by before breaking into the sourest, most awful and despairing metal guitar/feedback wail of all time, then launching into a speed-of-light hardcore assault. “Decapitated, Pt. 2” is similarly hyperkinetic, starting with a chugging guitar riff before blasting into a tachycardic drum beat. Broken Bones still occasionally had song titles and lyrics that reflected their former members’ glory days in Discharge (“Wealth Rules” from 1984’s Dem Bones and “Program Control” from Bonecrusher) but they also started flirting with themes that would find full fruition in the death metal and grindcore movement, as demonstrated by songs like “Point of Agony”, “Liquidated Brains”, “Death Is imminent” and “Decapitated”. The English Dogs took this even further, evolving from a hardcore band to a full-blown metal band in the vein of Iron Maiden, with pure metal riffage and solos and songs obsessed with the mystical such as “The Eye of Shamahn”, “A Tomb of Travellers Past” and “He Who is Bound Shall Be Freed” on their album Where Legend Began, which sounds like a missing Metallica album between Kill ‘Em All and Ride the Lightning.
Other English bands were also evolving toward a hardcore/metal fusion at this time, including one of my all-time favorites, G.B.H. (sometimes also called Charged GBH or GBH). G.B.H. (the initials stand for grievous bodily harm, a legal term for assault in the U.K.). G.B.H. started in 1978 and by the early 80’s was a major standard bearer for traditional hardcore, most notable on songs like “Slut”, “Sick Boy”, and “City Baby Attacked by Rats” (all off the album of this last name). Their look was succinctly encapsulated by the title of their first EP, 1981’s Leather, Bristles, Studs, and Acne: G.B.H. were leather and studs clad, Mohawked young punks and their iconic look became massively influential in American hardcore circles during the early 80’s.
My first G.B.H. album was 1986’s Midnight Madness and Beyond, which I bought shortly after it came out and which showcased their evolution towards crossover/thrash. G.B.H. was never quite as metallic as some of their compatriots but this sound was definitely an evolution away from their more straightforward hardcore past. Songs like “Limpwristed” (which sneers at how weak punk has gotten since their 1983 album City Baby’s Revenge), “Future Fugitives”, “Iroquois”, and the title track were amazing punk metal anthems. “Limpwristed” was my favorite, building up majestically with a stirring guitar riff in a way that reminds me of “Running with the Boss Sound” by Generation X; I also love the line “wake up, the whole world’s gone limpwristed”.
As Broken Bones and G.B.H. veered toward crossover/thrash and death metal, anarcho-punk also split further into D-beat, which is a term describing bands that continued to follow the rumbling, bludgeoning sound of Discharge (for whom its named; the “beat” in D-beat refers to the speed-of-light drum tempo that Discharge took from bands like Motorhead), and crust punk, a term that described an even heavier hardcore sound with a “dirty” or “crusty” bass sound, hence its name. One of the main D-beat bands was the Varukers, who formed in 1979 and who’s lyrics were often extremely political. Early singles like “Die For Your Government” and “All Systems Fail” were heavily influenced by Discharge and the Exploited’s bass-heavy sonic attack but also have sing-along choruses ripped from the Oi! textbook.
Meanwhile, crust punk was evolving toward a more metallic sound too. Amebix was an early standard bearer of crust punk, with early songs like “Arise!” and “Spoils of Victory” off 1985’s Arise). “Arise!” lurches forward on a chugging rhythm that almost reminds of “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Metallica before picking up the tempo. The growled vocals would not sound out of place in the black metal genre either, but the song itself definitely comes from a punk approach and not a metal one. This is a really great, stirring punk anthem. The interestingly named Flux of Pink Indians were another crust punk pioneer. My favorite song by them is “Tube Disaster” off the 1997 compilation Not So Brave. The sound of this is so raw, so unpolished.
Hellbastard formed around 1985; unfortunately iTunes and Amazon.com don’t have any of their early singles, but “Interrogate Them” and Justly Executed” off 1992’s Natural Order show that they were still keeping the flame alive into the early 90’s. “Justly Executed” has a very metal beginning that reminds me of the Dogtown punk metal of bands like Beowulf and Excel. It was Hellbastard’s 1985 song “Rippercrust” that gave crust punk its name.
The Electro Hippies also had a heavily metallicized hardcore sound like Hellbastard. “Unity” off their 1988 album The Only Good Punk draws heavily from Discharge and Metallica (who by this time had become much more renowned). Other songs off this album like “Run Ronald” and “Scum” are closer to grindcore, with growled, incoherent vocals and a wall of guitar noise.
D-beat became very popular in Sweden. Several Swedish punk/hardcore bands took up the D-beat banner, including the Rude Boys (their song “Raggare is a Bunch of Motherfuckers” is on YouTube) , KSMB (ditto their song “Slemmig Torsk”), and Anti-Cimex (their song “Raped Ass” is one of the noisiest, most insane punk songs I’ve ever heard; it reminds me of “White Minority” or “Six Pack” by Black Flag mashed together, covered by Discharge, with Bobby Ebz of Genocide singing vocals).
In America, crust punk never really caught on as a major movement, but three bands in three geographically distinct locales took some of the sound and leftist political stance into their own sound. One of the earliest and most committed was San Francisco’s Crucifix. Actually formed in Berkeley in 1980 by Cambodian refugee Sothira Pheng, Crucifix rapidly adopted the leather, bristles, and studs look of their UK82 brothers. In 1983 they released an album heavily influenced by the sound of classic anarcho-punk and English hardcore bands like Crass, the Subhumans and G.B.H. entitled Dehumanization. Pheng’s vocals displayed a heavy Darby Crash influence, particularly on songs like “Annihilation” and “Skinned Alive”. Amazingly, iTunes has this album available and its regarded as a bona fide anarcho-punk classic. Most of their song titles and lyrics reflect a mix of political topics (“Prejudice”, “Indo China”, “Seeing Through Their Lies”, and “Stop Torture”) and a less political and more thematically dark content more in line with the ideals of Broken Bones and G.B.H. (“Skinned Alive”, “Death Toll”).
Austin, Texas band the Stains formed in 1979 alongside such other first-wave Texas punk bands as the Big Boys and the Dicks. In 1982 they relocated to Frisco and renamed themselves MDC, for Millions of Dead Cops. Their songs tended to be heavily political and reflected the anti-establishment, anti-corporate beliefs of classic anarcho-punk: “Death Burger”, “Business On Parade”, and one of their most legendary songs, “John Wayne Was a Nazi”.
Raleigh, North Carolina might seem like an odd place for the third major American anarcho-punk band to form, but Corrosion of Conformity both sonically and lyrically were often very much in line with first-wave English anarcho-punk and crossover/thrash. My favorite songs by this band are “Mine Are the Eyes of God” and “Vote with a Bullet” off 1991’s Blind. “Mine” is big and chugging with staccato drums and sounds like something off Master of Puppets. Formed in 1982, CoC evolved from a heavily Black Flag-influenced sound (which itself wasn’t too far from the sound of Discharge in the Damaged days) into a much more speed metal-influenced sound. Unfortunately, iTunes does not yet have their pre-metal hardcore debut Eye For An Eye, but Blind and 1985’s Animosity (“Intervention” is a good track, apocalyptic and ominous) and 1987’s Technocracy all capture the band in their crossover/thrash prime. I, uh, obtained an MP3 of “Minds Are Controlled” off Eye many years ago, it’s a song that lurches between a slow chugging rhythm and superfast tempos interspersed and sounds like a cross between Black Flag and the Germs.
In retrospect its incredible how popular anarcho-punk, crossover/thrash, and the like were in Southern California when I was growing up there in the early and mid-80’s. On leather jackets throughout the Southland you saw the logos and names of many of the bands featured in this post, most notably G.B.H., Crass, the Subhumans, and Corrosion of Conformity. Eventually these bands started strongly influencing the first generation of speed metal bands, including most obviously Metallica, Megadeth, and Slayer. These bands and their followers built upon the bridges between punk and metal established by these bands (as well as the hyperfast metal of bands like black metal pioneers Venom) to create speed metal. Speed metal continued to grow underground throughout the 80’s and eventually created death metal and other genres. Punk and metal had truly crossed over.
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