Review of American Hardcore
Luckily I live in NYC so cool movies are screened here first before it hits the rest of the country. Last Saturday I saw the amazing music documentary American Hardcore, based on the Steven Blush book, and was totally blown away.
I’ve owned the book for a couple of years now and it was so hard to sit through because even though it claimed to be a oral history book Blush’s annoying commentary kept popping up throughout the chapters. Anyway, I was hoping that the movie would be much better than the book’s material and it definitely was.
The two hour movie touched on the hardcore scene, from 1980 - 1986, in different regions throughout the country - not just LA, DC, and NYC. The story is told through respected figures from the genre including everyone from Keith Morris to Dave Dictor and unseemingly Moby who still claims he was a singer for Flipper.
There was a bunch of funny and interesting commentary. The thing that sticks out the most to me, which isn’t really supposed to be funny, is when John Joseph of the Cro Mags starts talking about how tough NYC hardcore kids were. He said to him it wasn’t a game and that he slept with a pit bull on his chest and had chains around his door. He started talking about how suburban and lame native DC kids were in comparison and thats when I thought it got funny, because we are.
The film has tons and tons of great footage like the video below:
There are always going to be people that are going to complain about the lack of coverage of certain bands or scenes but its impossible to get to everyone. However, me and a couple of my friends thought it was weird that Husker Du and Dead Kennedys, just to name a few, weren’t really talked about at all. Especially since Biafra loves to talk you think he’d have a 15 minute section devoted to him just talking about DK…and then the green party.
Regardless, I can’t wait until it comes out on dvd because its definitely an essential for anyone thats into punk or hardcore.
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So glad to hear this movie kicks royal ass because the scene certainly deserves it … My faves were Bad Brains, but all the bands were great. .. Have you seen the Minutemen flick We Jam Econo? That one was pretty good, and even better was the second with about 90 minutes of live footage .. I recommend it highly
Thanks for the review. I’ve been looking forward to this documentary in hopes that it would be better than the book. The book is a great reference book, but definitely not something you can read from start to finish without getting agitated.