heather wrote:"If you are here, you know who I am, or are guessing. I was playing hardcore before you were born."- Vic Bondi's website

Duke get a cat or something. It's not that serious.

Ahahahah.

I want to get this on a mug.

Another concept I found quite interesting was the sheer hatred most folks had for the New Wave bands of the era. I knew that they weren't huge fans musically but perhaps I just falsely assumed since they often played some of the same venues and went to the same clubs that there was a bit of community there.

I also may be a ignorant to which bands were considered New Wave and which weren't since I've barely heard any of them. Were Skafish and Bohemia considered part of the New Wave?

Gantry wrote:Another concept I found quite interesting was the sheer hatred most folks had for the New Wave bands of the era. I knew that they weren't huge fans musically but perhaps I just falsely assumed since they often played some of the same venues and went to the same clubs that there was a bit of community there.

I also may be a ignorant to which bands were considered New Wave and which weren't since I've barely heard any of them. Were Skafish and Bohemia considered part of the New Wave?

It depends on what you considered "New Wave".

At least for me, there was some crossover between "punk" bands and "new wave" bands that I liked.

For instance, Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe would be what I considered "new wave" bands that I liked.

Skafish was sort of punk with a new wavish edge I guess. Bohemia never really made much of an impression on me. There were a few local jangly arty pop bands I liked that I guess would have been considered "new wave" but not punk.

The real hatred was for the "new romantic" type bands like Duran Duran, Adam Ant, etc.

Also, anyone who looked the look but in reality had no clue about the music or who played what song, pretty much were recipients for people's hatred and derision.

I know some people gave those who looked like they didn't fit in a hard time, but for me, if someone had a genuine interest in the music and what people were trying to accomplish, and wasn't just scoping out the scene because they thought they might get lucky with the women involved, or for other vicarious reasons, then they were ok with me. I definitely liked the variety of opinions and ideas that were out there.

steve wrote:The first thing that struck me when I started coming to shows here was that the shows had freaks of all kinds; hustlers, dope fiends, petty criminals, queers, disaffected rockers, unstable loners, immigrants and other castoffs. The only thing they had in common was that they were unwelcome elsewhere and lived as utter misfits.

I can endorse a scene like that much easier than the solidly middle-class, solidly straight, mostly white, conformist hardcore scene that came about later. The early punk scene must have been like that in some other places, but I know it was like that here, and that's why I gravitated to it.

This is what I try to convey to kids in Minneapolis, it was the same type of scene when I moved here in 1981 and I rapidly became uninterested in the Hardcore scene for the same aforementioned reasons.

Sorry, I will drop it. I am a spazz sometimes.

I loved the film (especially the live footage and the soundtrack) but was disappointed that the ending towed the same ill-educated conclusion that the American Hardcore film wheeled out with all the playmakers from back in the day claiming that ‘punk today is dead – look at shit like Blink 182 and Green Day for fucks sake”. I actually winced seeing how little people knew about “punk rock today”. I was embarrassed for them. The film would have been stronger had they finished with the “fashion punks and jocks messed it all up with their bullshit” line.

Ironically, a fight broke out right behind me in the cinema at the end of the film between Rob from the Chicago band I Attack – who jeered a little (as did quite a few others) during the end part of the movie - and a guy that looked like an ex-1980’s skinhead who took offence and actually tried to bite his thumb off.

The show was great. I can die happy knowing that I saw the Mentally Ill play live and the Strike Under cover band set (with Pezatti at the end) was one of the better moments of Chicago punk I’ve witnessed since I’ve lived here (91) and I’m thankful they didn’t save it for that stupid Riot Fest bullshit. I didn’t know anything at all about Negative Element until this film and show and they were great and had some really great songs.

Gantry wrote:Another concept I found quite interesting was the sheer hatred most folks had for the New Wave bands of the era. I knew that they weren't huge fans musically but perhaps I just falsely assumed since they often played some of the same venues and went to the same clubs that there was a bit of community there.

I also may be a ignorant to which bands were considered New Wave and which weren't since I've barely heard any of them. Were Skafish and Bohemia considered part of the New Wave?

I think you have to keep in mind not only the utter disdain with which punk rock was held, by the public at large, but also (crucially) the existence of a lively punk rock community to which one could establish membership.

I grew up in Montana, playing music that was generally thought of as submusical by large segments of the populace, and we had our own crosses to bear. Indifference, hostility, etc.

But we also had NO (zero) support structure--no Oz or La Mere Vipere, for sure--and an added element of isolation.

That worked entirely in our favor, in a musical sense. I never wrote off _anything_ on fashion grounds or based on the fact that it wasn't in 'my camp.' I didn't HAVE a camp. There WERE no camps. Any intraband hostilities that existed were there for purely personal reasons, not philosophical or whatever.

The stuff that got played on the radio had no built-in negative connotations to me--I never expected anything I was doing to compete with that. We never even had the opportunity to rub up against the main audience for that stuff.

It was different here.

I agree with one theme of the better-back-in-the-day comments--that the capacity to shock seems to have been lost, in the particular form that many of the bands in the film were shocking.

But then again, I was shocked to my core when I first heard and understood Bedhead or Nina Nastasia or Destroyer or the very first Built to Spill record or whatever. I have no idea if any of that is punk, but it's shocking music. It's on me 100% that I haven't felt that way more in the last several years.

Sister_Ray wrote:

tmidgett wrote:Every time I hear the Mentally Ill, it makes me laugh. It's some of the funniest, most ridiculous music ever. I was so taken with the Jax-driven guitar sound when I first heard it, I dug up the schematic for the pedal and built one.

I would very much appreciate directions towards this schematic.

This is the place I got the schematic.

Everything they say about it is true. It is an incredibly destructive fuzztone.

General Guitar Gadgets has a kit. I can't vouch for it...yet. But I just ordered one.

as somebody who was born in 1976 and didn't live in chicago until 2002, i thought this was very, very interesting. bittersweet. reminded me of growing up, all the strange little shows i went to from 1987 -1993 down in springfield, in parks and all ages skate shops and vfw halls. getting called a faggot and chased and shit down in champaign -- and this was like in 96!

alternately made me wish i could have been there 'back in the day' and made me really glad that i showed up after all of the really heavy lifting had been taken care of.

it's very, very difficult for me to imagine a city of this size not being host to anything other than a bunch of cover bands. that's nuts.

i also can't picture halsted & armitage as being anything other than a rich area w/fashionable boutiques and trotter's around the corner. nor can i picture the 600 block of north clark as being a skid row den of gay s&m (though that's at least a little more plausible as there's still a couple dirty bookstores and old man dives hanging on for dear life down there).

when did these neighborhoods change?

also -- been hearing a lot about harold washington due to the 20th anniversary of his death... was there any sort of noticeable change - specific to the scene, i mean - when he took over and byrne was out, or just more business as usual?

ok. going to go back to playing 'elephant's graveyard' over and over and over again and being amazed that i can rock the mohawk and black jeans express and not get thrown out of my job/the grocery store/the back of the green line... thanks, oldtimers.

Okay...I mentioned this in the other thread I tried to start in C/NC, but really...how about that photo of Pezzati as spandex/ big hair rock dude?

Worth the price of admission...