Punk History:
American Hardcore: A Tribal History
352 pages
Pretty much covers all US hardcore from 1980-1986 You know… Black Flag, Misfits, etc… Some of the lesser known bands are not covered, but this is a good starting place to learn more about the music. There was just so much going on that the history of punk would have to be more like a set of encyclopedias. Now THAT would be cool! This book covers all the usual ‘scenes’ like: The LA scene, Texas Punk, DC scene, NY scene, etc…
George Hurchalla tells us we need to mention his book:
Going Underground: American Punk, 1979-1992
300 pages, with lots of cool pix.
“Just wanted to see if you wanted to mention my book “Going Underground” on your site, the distributor is AK Press, the website for direct sales of the book is www.zuopress.com. Just trying to get the word out . It’s widely considered a great improvement on “American Hardcore” for documenting the era.”
Best,
George Hurchalla
There you go George! We mentioned it!
At the bottom of the page we have listed some really unusual records that came out between 1976 – 1986 that we are sure have gone undocumented in the assorted punk history books. Many of these are bands that many people really didn’t know about. The kind of bands that were unusual, obnoxious and offensive before the word punk was being used.
We Got The Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk
320 pages
Massive book on the history of the L.A. Scene starting from the late 70′s. A not as good book on the same scene is: Make The Music Go Bang! – The Early L.A. Scene 192 pages
Our Band Could Be Your Life – Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991
528 pages
The title is from a song by the band (er.., if you don’t know the song, you need to do some serious searching). Bands mentioned in this book include: Black Flag, Minutemen, Mission of Burma, Minor Threat, and Hüsker Dü.
I guess you just HAD to be there…
The History of Punk – Unusual Records
Early punk records that get overlooked in the punk history books:
1976:
PS – A band called PS released a 2 track record….
This page is in the works.. We will have sound samples and some record covers here soon.
