Hard to Forget

American Hardcore is a hallmark moment of blood, sweat and piss.
by Eric Otto
Rating: 4 out of 5

It’s not your father’s punk rock—wait, actually it is. Hardcore is getting up there in years and so are those hardcore guys. The tattoos may sag a bit, hairlines are receding and bellies may show more, but bless their huge hearts, they’ve still got the ‘fuck you’ spirit. The new documentary retrospective American Hardcore finds its soul in the SoCal mosh pits, when the punk DIY spirit fueled testosterone body slams. Fists went from arena rock power gestures to literally in your face. While Don Letts’ Punk: Attitude was a grander attempt to encompass punk history both here and in the UK, here, director Paul Rachman’s documentary sticks stateside. With cues from writer Steven Blush’s book American Hardcore: A Tribal History, the film opens with Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in 1980. L.A. punk icons Henry Rollins and Keith Morris—both of whom have been pontificating on punkdom ad nauseum lately—line up with punk personalities from coast to coast, demonstrating how the music linked disgruntled dudes throughout the country by word of mouth, zines and crash pad gigs. In our digital etherized post-Web world, it’s pretty great to remember how shit got done.

It’s true that a lot of the lyrics are lost in the performance histrionics and general mayhem; American Hardcore uses subtitles to give selective validation to lyrical depth—more of an afterthought, because, as the performance tapes demonstrate, it was performance as unpredictable event. It’s revisionist to think a punk show was a coming together of anti-social intellectuals. However, jewels like San Pedro’s own Minutemen did seek to articulate social commentary, while much energy was certainly culled from the Reagan administration’s politicized morality. But generally, hardcore’s energy had a lot in common with a bar fight, and as a musically sped-up spontaneous event it could only burn so long and so bright.

Here, the history is verbalized by men, as women—just like at the show—remained in the periphery. Midway through the film, TSOL lead singer Jack Grisham puts the kibosh to the civility with a nasty remark that pretty much nips any respect for the fairer sex in the bud. It’s a tipping point that American Hardcore recognizes but doesn’t fully embrace. The film goes out of its way to include minorities (admirably, American Hardcore gives much deserved attention to Bad Brains—in case anyone didn’t know that one of the best hardcore bands was black) but it can’t entirely get a grip on women’s relationship to the scene. With the second inauguration of Reagan, the movement starts to lose a sense of purpose as the violence goes from youthful exuberance to something undirected and self-destructive. Straightedge—clean & sober hardcore—begins to splinter the purpose of the scene, while bands like Boston’s SS Decontrol were numbed down to hard rockers—one story has a fan, tears streaming down his face, begging the band to “please play fast.” Even Bad Brains went from chord changes stopping on a dime to Rasta and reggae. Talk about identity crisis.

It’s strange to mix hardcore punk with the saccharine strings of nostalgia, and American Hardcore tries to acknowledges as much by ending on Circle Jerk member Zander Schloss’ sentiment, “It’s finished, get over it.” Films like American Hardcore run the risk of culturally quantifying a movement whose whole intention was to sock, mock and muck-up pop culture. On the other hand, we may be advised to just turn it up—it’s a great ride. LAA

Rated R; opens September 29 in select theaters.