HARDCORE MUSIC SCENE circa 1979 -1985

In 1980 I was a teenager living in the west end of Toronto. Bands like Styx, Fleetwood Mac and Boston were getting hi rotation on FM stations. (Ironically they still freakin do)...ten years of bell bottoms, hippies, and disco ...then out of nowhere, came this thing called punk. I was more into the British punk bands like The Clash, Pistols, Sham 69 and good ol' Iggy....but the scene flipped the table. In came the fashion too. Like ankle pants, runners, leather jackets, black eyeliner, ripped t-shirts and bad haircuts...this was real change...you could feel it. The older crowd would actually laugh and stare at the young freaks walking the streets. These days anything goes. But even deeper underground, if you so dared, was a powerful music scene called HARDCORE. I only slightly touched this scene. It was too heavy even for me. Lots of fighting, unemployment, drugs, and hardcore living in warehouses with no heat. Not my thing. But there were a few bands coming to the surface that I liked, for a snotty young punk in west Toronto. A real music vibe happening in places like Washington DC, NYC and L.A...bands like Bad Brains, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys and Vancouver's D.O.A.

Canada's D.O.A helped to popularize the term HARDCORE with their 1981 album called HARDCORE 81...

I remember owning a record from D.O.A "Live". It has a picture of Margaret Trudeau on the cover. Rumour has it, that she is signing an autograph in New York City's - Studio 54 ....without any underwear on!!!!!

IMO...these are the three first bands of Hardcore that paved the way for Grunge, Thrash, and all the other sub gengres of music that would follow. Without these bands (and the Kilmister)...we would probably be still listening to Disco and Fleetwood Mac.


BAD BRAINS

DOA HARDCORE 81

BLACK FLAG - NERVOUS BREAKDOWN - 78