http://www.cultpunk.com/?p=143
The release of the documentary American Hardcore onto DVD gives the film a chance to correct some of the mistakes fans had cited in the theatrical release; by way of extras and deleted scenes movie producers could ensure fans would see more footage of bands they felt were underrepresented in the movie. The DVD does, in fact, do just this, much to its credit. American Hardcore is a movie that is definitely improved upon in its DVD form.
I’ll be honest, however: American Hardcore was from the beginning a movie I wanted to hate. I don’t know if it was the Sony Classics logo attached to the picture or the fact that trailers for the movie featured folks like Flea and Moby, folks who were a part of the American hardcore movement to some degree but whose participation was very marginal compared to many other folks’. The trailers made it seem as if it would be a documentary that pandered to the Top 40 masses. But I was wrong.
The documentary will not please everyone but it does manage to cover quite a broad swath of what was really a very large, nebulous, and diffuse movement, and it does so in two hours. Like I said, not everyone will be pleased. The absence of bands like the Dead Kennedys, The Misfits, and Government Issue is glaring. On the other hand, the DVD makes up for this by including extra scenes that strongly hint at these bands’ role in the phenomenon, even though they’re not addressed directly (due to licensing issues or something?). A lot of folks have very strong passions about punk rock, hardcore, and the various bands associated with it. Someone is bound to get pissed off no matter how this thing was made. Even so, the documentary does a surprisingly good job, featuring clips of bands like Really Red, Die Kreuzen, YDI, DYS, 7 Seconds, Void, and many, many, many more. It is a noble, solid effort.
The three bands that form the nexus of the documentary are Bad Brains, Black Flag, and Minor Threat, with Boston’s SSD (Society System Decontrol) in an important supporting role.
First of all, American Hardcore does a good job in pin-pointing the possible origins of hardcore punk in Orange County’s Middle Class; hardcore enthusiasts often argue that their “Out of Vogue” EP from 1978 kick-started the movement. There is a perennial debate as to whether Middle Class, Bad Brains, DOA (who are dealt with as well), or UK bands like the The Synix began hardcore. Never-ending debates always include bands like this, and American Hardcore — again, to its credit — does so as well (well, except for The Synix, who are not American, and thus not American hardcore, technically).
If Middle Class started hardcore, that means the amped up, speed-obsessed, adrenaline-fueled rock n’ roll movement that pushed punk rock forwards began in the heavily conservative, Republican district of Orange County. (Remember, Ronald Reagan was from there.) The documentary makes no judgment on this, though it does take a geographic approach in tackling the subject — which makes sense, given that local scenes tended to divide based on territoriality and geography, as evidenced by early hardcore compilations like This is Boston, Not L.A., or Washington, DC’s hometown Flex Your Head sampler.
>From Los Angeles’s Middle Class and its influence on bands like Black Flag, TSOL and other early L.A. hardcore bands, we leapfrog across the U.S. to the very liberal Washington, DC, where some folks hold hardcore punk began in the form of the all-African-American Bad Brains, a band consistently and rightfully spoken of in reverent tones throughout the documentary. So, depending on your mood, you could claim hardcore began in a heavily conservative, mostly-white district that produced Ronald Reagan and was thus a kind of “white boy” thing — or you could say it began in a mostly-black and liberal city in the form of the unarguably mind-blowing Bad Brains, a band that did take rivals to the cleaners and did kick-start hardcore punk on the East Coast. Take your pick.
American Hardcore situates Black Flag, Bad Brains, and Minor Threat at its fulcrum, which is fine. SSD is given a major supporting role, which is also good. Much to my pleasant surprise, Austin, Texas’s own MDC are also given a major role. This could be because San Francisco’s Dead Kennedys do not appear in the film — a MAJOR absence — and so MDC were enlisted to fill their shoes. No matter: MDC were and are an important hardcore band and interviews with MDC singer/frontman Dave Dictor pad out the more radical aspects of hardcore from this period. What is not really touched upon is the intriguing fact that many of the top hardcore bands from Austin, Texas — MDC, The Big Boys, The Dicks (all of whom are shown) — were fronted by gay lead singers. The Dicks and MDC both moved to San Francisco while the Big Boys toughed it out in homophobic Texas. Another Texas hardcore band, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles aka DRI (from Houston) are also shown and spoken of. Good job. Like The Dicks and MDC, DRI moved to San Fran.
[...]
http://www.cultpunk.com/?p=143